Down the Lane

Once the spasms had subsided, Nick took a breath and then sneezed into the clean shirt that he held in his hand and was just about to put on. “Jesus Christ, Nick, not into the shirt. You imbecile.” Margie threw down the lily of the valley bouquet onto the small kitchen table. She had just been holding it, admiring it, arranging the stems and making sure all of the pretty white bells were visible in her arrangement. Now they lay there on the table, all undone.

Nick blew his nose into the shirt and tossed it into the corner of the room onto a small pile of other soiled clothing, and went to look for another shirt in his suitcase. The motel room was pretty small, so all he had to do was turn around to the luggage rack behind him. “Imbecile?” he snarled. “I just sneezed. You don’t want me to sneeze all over them flowers, do you?”

Margie went into the bathroom and looked for some lipstick. She looked at herself in the mirror while Nick fished out a new shirt, wrinkled as hell. “Who else is going to be at this wedding?” he said loudly towards the bathroom, but got no response. He grunted and tried to smooth the wrinkles out of the striped polo shirt. He laid it on the bed and tried to stretch it out, running his arm over the top. His nose was running due to his allergies. That bouquet must have set him off. He resisted the urge to throw it into the garbage. He didn’t want to get called an imbecile again, and he did like the look of the plant, the shimmery green leaves and the soft lacy white bells that hung upside down from little tendrils that grew out of each leaf. He sneezed into his suitcase as Margie came out of the bathroom, looking like a clown, he thought, with all the extra makeup on her face.

“Let’s go.” she said. “Put your damn shirt on and comb your hair and let’s get moving.”

“What about them flowers?” he asked. He started to gather them up, but she swatted his arms out of the way and picked them up herself, rearranging the leaves into a symmetrical nice-looking presentation, which she snapped together with a rubber band. “Oh yeah, you used to work at the florist a while back. I guess that’s where you learned to do that.” Nick said, trying to sound nice and get things between them into a zone that consisted of a lot less animosity. “Anyone with a half a brain can arrange a bouquet, honey.” She replied as Nick grimaced. Well, at least she said honey, he thought, maybe she’ll get into a better mood once we get out of this dump.

Something about the scent was pleasant to Nick, who usually was not very aware of things like that. Even though it was causing his nose to run, he liked looking at the plant as Margie arranged the bouquet. He didn’t realize it, but the plant was making him feel better about the day. He put on his wrinkled shirt and they exited out of the motel room and let the door slam behind them. The sun was blazing down and there was a haziness to the air due to some wildfires out west of there. They got into the car Nick had rented with a fake credit card, Margie behind the wheel, and they headed to Margie’s daughter Hanna’s wedding. It was to be held at a farm somewhere not far from where they were staying at the Falls Motel.

“Don’t anybody get married in a church anymore?” Nick asked the universe, as they pulled out of the parking lot. He pulled out some directions that he had scribbled onto a page that he had ripped out of the Bible he had found in the motel room nightstand. “All right, just keep going on this road for a while.” he said, trying to figure out the directions he himself had written just the night before. “Just put it into your phone, you numbskull. Who writes down directions anymore? On a page ripped out of the Bible, no less. You’re for sure going to Hell for that.” Margie said and snorted a big laugh, the kind that always made Nick tense up every time he heard it. They’d been together for 13 years and that laugh always made him cringe, but it was better than her yelling at him, so he did his best to not let it bother him.

“I am not looking at the phone. You know that.” He replied. “I got the directions right here.”

They motored down the two-lane county road as the buildings of the town turned into cornfields and empty meadows. Margie’s daughter Hanna was not a big fan of Nick, he knew that. And Hanna’s father would be there, and that made Nick nervous, for he knew Margie would either be flirting with him or else treating him like shit. Or perhaps, a combination of those two things, sequentially. He wanted to make a good impression, be a good guy, make people laugh, make Hanna like him. He didn’t want to be blowing his nose all day with little wrinkled tissues that he pulled out of his pocket, but apparently that’s what was going to happen. 

The lily of the valley bouquet filled the car with an aroma that recalled a stroll down the lane back home where Nick grew up in a small town in Maryland. It made him think of his childhood, which immediately called to mind two distinct memories. One was his Dad yelling at him for not wanting to play baseball with the other kids, and the other memory was of his sister Suzie as she smiled at him once while they joked around while walking home after school. He didn’t know why, but these two scenes seemed to pop into his head whenever a certain sound or smell took him back to his childhood and walking down the lane.

After a wrong turn or two, they finally found the farm and pulled onto the lawn where all the other cars were parked. Nick popped in a piece of nicotine gum and Margie reapplied some lipstick. Then, they got out of the car and headed towards where all the people were gathered outside an old barn that seemed to have been recently renovated and made to look a bit fancy while still maintaining it’s old rustic appeal.

“When are we going to get married, babe?” Nick asked as he put his arm around his girlfriend. “Oh, you know I love you too much for that, silly. Why ruin a good thing?” They got to the clearing where everyone was seated as a small chamber ensemble played under the shade of a blooming dogwood tree. The ceremony had begun and Hanna turned to look at her mom and gave her a look that said, “You can’t even be on time to your daughter’s wedding?”  Margie, nonplussed, smiled and waved. Nick sneezed into his coat sleeve. Everyone turned to look. “Jesus Christ.” muttered Nick. “It was just a sneeze.”

The music transitioned into the wedding march and Hanna took her father’s arm and stepped slowly down the shortly-mown grass of the aisle, which had been adorned with daisies and daffodils. Hanna’s wife-to-be waited by the altar, which was really just a table with a beautiful bowl and some floral arrangements on it. No sign of a priest anywhere. The wedding official was wearing what looked to be a Hawaiian shirt. Everyone was smiling. The air smelled wonderfully fragrant and some bees buzzed around the flowers. Margie suddenly remembered the lily of the valley bouquet that she was carrying and looked for a place to set it down. She admired the beautiful white bell-shaped blossoms and smelled them one more time. She thought of her mother, long since passed away. She remembered her mom giving her a hug and a kiss one day when she was just about seven years old, after having fallen down and scraped her knee. She smiled and placed the bouquet in a spare vase that she located on the gift table and looked up just as her daughter said, “I do.”