The officiate was still talking. I snapped my mind back to his questions about the exchange of rings. Rings? It had never occurred to me that Timothy might want a ring. How could a pooka change into a horse while wearing one?
Beside me, Timothy chuckled. “This is great fun,” he whispered. “Your thoughts are an absolute maze of ponderings. Of course I will wear your ring on me finger.”
I half-ignored him as I watched his pal, Andrew, hand over two gold rings, giving one to Timothy and one to me. I thanked Timothy’s best friend and gave him a big smile, then waited to see what would come next in this extremely strange ceremony we were participating in. I remembered what other nuptials were like. I’d seen lots of them in movies: the beautiful dress, the brides maids spatting with each other, the grooms in spiffy suits, looking handsome.
I’d even been to a college friend’s wedding not that many years ago, too. The bride, Jessica, and I hadn’t been close, but I think she wanted huge numbers of guests so she’d get lots of wedding gifts. I hoped she liked the #15 chafing dish with tiny blue flowers around the edges I’d purchased. It had been on her list.
Charles Piermont Montgomery III had invited me to his wedding, too. The chump! But no longer curious about wedding ceremonies, I’d sent him a curt rejection. He and his dear bride didn’t get a wedding present from me, either. I almost wrote the woman to inform her that she was making a big mistake, that she’d find herself divorcing Charles in a year (or sooner,) but it really wasn’t proper to send such a letter to a prospective bride, and she wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Sometimes I wondered if the two of them were still married or if the love-dust sprinkled in her eyes had faded away shortly after the honeymoon ended.
The officiate had started speaking again. “Repeat after me: “With this ring, I, Penelope Casey, pledge you my love for now and forever.” I said the words with a slightly shaky voice, but I think I was clear and loud. I was supposed to slip the ring on Timothy’s finger next, but that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. I suppose that was because my hands were trembling worse than California’s San Andreas fault.
My wedding had been very stressful so far. In the last half hour Jack Peters had tried to forbid our ceremony, a woman from Faerie had more or less commanded that I come see her, then she’d told me that I was going to have a bunch of sons, and, finally, the realization, after hearing someone cough, that a whole room full of people were waiting to see if I was going to accidentally drop Timothy’s ring instead of slipping it onto his finger.