'til death do us part

Ch. 1 - Blue skies and pink suits

Myra wanted a simple wedding. A large event, with over a hundred guests who partied until the early hours wouldn't be their style, she said. "You're too delicate for shenanigans like that, Eddie-bear."

Eddie let it slide; he didn't see himself partying deep into the night either. Last time he did that, he was in college, if playing DnD with some people from his dorm counted as partying. He stayed away from the frat house parties, basically from any party that involved red plastic cups and a keg. The older he got, the more sophisticated - or domesticated - the parties got. He wouldn't even call them parties. It was just a gathering of their friends over dinner, followed by the women drinking wine in the kitchen, while the men gathered in the living room to drink wine or something stronger. Eddie never drank more than three glasses of red wine; any more and his cheeks and nose would get flushed and that would set off a worried Myra, thinking he might have rosacea.

She wanted a small wedding at city hall, followed by a lunch at that restaurant by the park that had a big reception room in an old greenhouse. "Don't worry about your allergies, Eddie. I will have them remove all plants in bloom."
The girl that showed them around the place assured them that succulents were all the hype nowadays and that they could decorate the room with paper garlands. She didn't know if the decorations they stocked were made from recycled materials, but she would certainly look into it.

While Myra made a fuss about the possible use of glitter - "It scratches my Eddie's delicate skin" -, Eddie wandered idly around the room. It really was a nice space, the large windows encased in green, metal window frames with floral ornaments in the corners. The old green paint flaked a bit at some points, yet Eddie found that added to the charm of the room and he pushed down the thoughts about health hazards like lead poisoning. He liked the deep green; it was an old-fashioned colour, fitted for metal fences with decorative curls, or art deco windows like this. His gaze was drawn upwards, where the roof was made of glass panels. It was a clear day, the sky unusually blue for New York standards. Eddie happily noted that from this angle he couldn't see all the high rises that surrounded the park. The blue, open sky distantly reminded him of his years in the small town of Derry, Maine. He barely remembered a thing from his years there, even though they didn't move away before he was almost nineteen. He didn't have any connections with the small town anymore; he vaguely remembered most of his friends moved away too, there was nothing left for him there. Still, Eddie couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness, almost like longing, when looking at those blue skies above him.

He stood still, his head tilted up towards the vast blue. There was something there, a feeling, a memory, too fleeting to grasp. Unconsciously he spread his arms a bit, palms open, as if he wanted to soak up the view. The sun wasn't strong enough yet this early in the year to truly warm him through the glass panels, though he knew it wouldn't be long before her rays would reach him. The thought of soaking up the warm sun made the flimsy memory a little firmer and he spread his arms more, like he did in the memory. He was lying down on a green hill, scrawny kid limbs spread out wide, his jacket propped up underneath his head and shoulders so bugs couldn't crawl up in his neck. He was looking up at the sky, feeling... 'free' seemed to be the correct term for it. That strong sense of freedom you only experience in your childhood. "Must have been the first day of summer break," Eddie mumbled to himself, closing his eyes to savour the memory.

"Eddie? What are you doing?" Myra's sharp voice punctured his thoughts like a balloon. "Come take a look. Do we want white or green chair covers? I'm thinking white, the green -"

Even though Myra insisted their wedding should be a small affair, there were still tons of things to discuss and to arrange. Not that Eddie had a big say in that; it's mostly Myra and his mom that did the planning. His mother also took him shopping for a wedding suit. Eddie suggested getting a tailored suit, but his mother said something off the rack would fit him just fine. He bought his suits for work at Macy's, so he figured she was right.

They went to one of the bigger department stores, where his mother bullied a sales employee to get them suit after suit after suit. Sonia Kaspbrak turned most of them down; either they made his skin look sickly pale, or the weave of the fabric was wrong and don't let her get started on the horror that was synthetic fabric.
Eddie tried to drown out her voice with white noise, something he had gotten quite good at over the years. He remembered doing the same with music when he was in his teens. If he turned up the collar of his polo shirt it would hide the headset low in his neck, if he took care to keep his head turned away from his mother. He can't remember the exact music he listened to, but he knows it was from playlists and tapes he didn't put together himself. A friend must have given them to him.

The search for the perfect suit was a hard one. If his mother didn't shoot down the suit, he did it himself because of the ill fit. However, after almost two hours of fitting almost every suit in the store, he finally found something promising. He looked at himself in the mirror, smoothing his hands down the jacket of the suit he was currently wearing. It was a light shade of salmon pink, a very daring choice of the sales girl, one she brought out when his mother was off to use the restroom. Eddie made sure to hide it in his dressing room before she returned. The colour reminded him of the pastel coloured polo shirts he used to wear in high school and college. He'd always favoured the pink ones, for as long as he could remember. Myra's influence drove the pink out of his wardrobe, leaving only the blues and greens. But the colour of this suit spoke to him, it felt right.

The suit had an Italian fit, which worked well on his smaller frame. He turned from side to side in front of the narrow mirror, admiring himself. He looked good. He wore a white dress shirt that came with one of the other suits, one that had a woven in pattern of small diamonds. It worked well with the pink suit. He tried to imagine a tie that would go with the outfit, but his mind came up short.
"Excuse me, miss?" he said, pulling the curtain of his dressing room to the side so he could step out. "Do you have a tie that goes with this suit?"

"I'm sure we do, sir. Let me take a look -"

"Eddie, no! What are you thinking?" his mother called out from the chair she was sitting in. She put her handbag down from her lap and got up, shaking her head as she walked up to him. "That is no suit fitted for a wedding! It looks like you are visiting a Miami beach party!"

He doubted his mother knew what people wore to beach parties in Miami. Probably not a full suit in wool and linen mix.
"It's from the wedding line of the store, mom," he said. "So it's fitted for a wedding alright." He straightened out the lapels of his jacket. "Besides, I like it. It looks good on me."

The girl that froze when his mother aired her disapproval of the suit, nodded her agreement from behind Sonia Kaspraks back. Eddie gestured for her to get a tie and she turned on her heels, hurrying off to find him a suitable necktie, while his mother kept on verbally disapproving the suit.

Eddie didn't often put his foot down with his mother, or his future wife, but on this he did. The sales girl got him a tie that complimented the suit and the shirt perfectly and Eddie really, really liked what he saw in the mirror. He went home with the suit in a wardrobe bag, feeling very pleased about something for the first time during this whole wedding planning business.

Word count: 2053