Another piece about Aria's wedding

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

So, this was a wedding.

Rosie had studied ‘weddings’ for several days prior to Carin and Aria’s but she felt she had missed on something.

First of all, no one had warned her that being a bridemaid involved being painted. Rosie did not object to be painted, normally. It was, after all, her function. She was meant to be pretty. However, in the aftermath of the events at London it felt very inappropriate to be painted up like a doll. It left her fidgety and uncomfortable. She wanted to cling to someone, but everyone else was busy being poked about by strange women in blue overalls.

Then they had to get Aria into a dress, lifting the great red concoction that she had found over her head. Rosie shivered slightly. He liked red. She knew that he would approve of this dress.

She shook her head rapidly, pushing away those thoughts. It wasn’t good to think about this kind of thing. Not today. She didn’t want to think those thoughts.

The ceremony itself was both oddly short, and depressingly uneventful. Some of Aria’s strange little friends from work got tearful, which confused Rosie entirely. Two of Carin’s bar staff cried and another simply glared daggers at Aria throughout. That made more sense to Rosie, and she waited expectantly for one of them to make their speech at the ‘any just cause or impediment’ bit. No one said a word, however, leaving Rosie with a faint sense of disappointment. She wondered if maybe she should say something, just so the wedding was able to follow its normal form and function. However, she had been seated in the middle of the pew, between Drago and Rosalba and neither of them looked at if they intended on letting Rosie out.

Then there was the reception.

The reception made more sense to Rosie. It was mostly like a Ball, with a variety of people in grand dresses dancing with other people in smart suits. There was also alcohol of a variety of forms, which made her feel warm and soft inside.

Drago abandoned her part way through, to talk to peculiar grey people who worked in ‘human resources’, and shot her a warning look when she asked them if they dealt in slaves or just body parts. Rosie recognised that look. It meant that someone was about to ask if she was retarded and people were about to get annoyed and so she made her way across the room to where Kieran, from Edinburgh was sitting. He was sweet and had a gentle voice. Rosie liked him, and was quite happy to sit and chatter at him for a while.

Across the room, a man and a woman were making the rounds. They were beautiful – she in blue and he in gold and red. Each man received an invitation to dance, save Carin. Each woman received an invitation to dance, save Rosie and Aria, which made Rosie flinch a little inside. Still, it wasn’t right to make a fuss. Instead she smiled and looked at Kieran and talked about bonsai trees. He seemed a little happier than he had done when she had seen him last, and that made her happy.

The bar man asked Rosie if her father was OK with her drinking. She tilted her head to one side and said that she was nearly 80 years old and was allowed to drink. He shook his head firmly and refused to serve her any more. She quietly retreated to the corner where she had stashed a bottle of Smirnoff earlier.

By the end of the evening Drago had finished trying to be polite to guests, and was instead drinking himself into a stupor. By midnight, he was swaying slightly on his feet, and when he talked he was now lurching between heavily accented English and Croatian. Through a drunken haze this seemed appropriate to Rosie, and she appreciated the fact that he didn’t object to her crawling into his lap to curl up against him in public.

Across the room, Aria and Carin were dancing together. Neither of them seemed aware of anyone else in the room.

Rosie smiled a little. She supposed that at least Aria and Carin had got the most important part of the wedding right. They had each other.