Dreams Are Not Enough Read Free Page B

Paolo Dominick, visualizing him as a Medici duke clad in velvet and satin. Beth knew her love was hopeless—she was irrevocably Jewish, PD a devout Catholic, and besides they were blood relations, first cousins. Being sensible as well as pretty, she dated many boys, thus becoming the most popular senior in USC’s Alpha Epsilon Phi house.
    She and PD waited while the justice of the peace with painful slowness readied the license for them to sign. Afterward PD linked his moist-jacketed arm companionably in hers and they went outside.
    The others were waiting in a clump to take advantage of the sliver of noontime shade cast by the parody of a church steeple that topped the wedding chapel.
    “Where’ll we go for the wedding breakfast?” Hap asked. He was Our Own Gang’s unofficial leader, originally because he was the largest, later because they respected his unerring instinct for fairness.
    “This is a no-frills elopement,” Barry replied stiffly.
    “My treat,” Hap said.
    “Ours,” Maxim added.
    Hap and Maxim took it as a given that, as the ones with trust-fund incomes, they would foot the bill for group extravagances. PD was able to accept the largesse because his father was well known as a director, Beth because as a female she was accustomed to checks being picked up. Only Barry felt a poor relation with his manhood threatened each time he was treated.
    “Not that I don’t appreciate it” -he started.
    “Come on, Barry,” Hap said.
    “Alicia deserves some little celebration.”
    “It’s not necessary,” Barry said awkwardly.
    “We’ll” — “Jesus Christ, will you guys quit arguing in this oven?” PD interrupted, “I’ll sign Dad’s name at the Fabulador. He has privileges there.”
    The Fabulador, with its top-rank entertainers, opulently appointed rooms and five gourmet restaurants, was considered the best hotel on the strip. Dapper Uncle Frank must have dropped considerably more in the Fabulador’s colossal casino than the family suspected. PD led the way to the Champs-Elysees, the most expensive of the eateries, and when he explained whose son he was, the beaming captain escorted them to a large booth. Flipping open stiff white napkins for Alicia and Beth, he suggested that they start with the blue points.
    While the others tipped on horseradish, tabasco, red sauce, Alicia gripped the damask of her napkin. Noticing, Hap picked up the tiny pitchfork to pry the fleshy mollusk free, eating it without any doctoring. She watched, and followed suit. Swallowing the first oyster with a gulp, she hastily covered her mouth with her napkin. She played with the rest, twisting her fork.
    At first the cousins were a little stiff, as if Barry’s marriage had somehow elevated them all to another generation and they weren’t yet certain of the ground rules. Even Maxim’s sarcastic humor was blunted.
    But the champagne—a vintage Mumm’s—did its work, and by the time the eggs benedict arrived, the five cousins were back to their usual bickering jests and digs.
    “So tell me, Barry-boy,” Maxim asked, “how do you intend breaking the news to your parents.”
    “Quite simply. I’ll point out that they eloped, too,” Barry said.
    “Alas, that’s not the type of logic Cordiner parents accept,” Maxim retorted.
    Beth turned to her new sisterin-law.
    “And what about you, Alicia?”
    she inquired with the attentive smile she employed at rush teas.
    “How will your family feel?”
    Alicia looked down at the table.
    “They’re in El Paso.” She spoke too rapidly.
    At this non sequitur there was a silence.
    Then PD asked, “You’re a Catholic?”
    After a fractional hesitation, Alicia nodded.
    “Uhhuh.”
    “That makes two of us, then, and we both know there’ll be repercussions. You’ve married out of the Church.”
    Her soft, full mouth quivered, her eyes looked a yet darker blue.
    “Hey, they’ll get over it,” Hap said.
    PD asked, “Barry, where’ll you guys live?”
    Currently,