Anita Shreve brings former high school classmates together to witness the union of two of their own in “A Wedding in December.” The bride of this wedding is no blushing 20-year-old in a long white gown. Bridget reunited with Bill, her high school love, at their 25th class reunion.
The weekend is another reunion of sorts for the seven, once good friends, who can’t come together without remembering Stephen, the high school star at their private academy who died during what was for most of them their senior year.
Harrison, now married with two sons in Toronto, was Stephen’s roommate. Nora, the owner of the inn where the wedding takes place, was his girlfriend. Jerry, a New York businessman, Rob, a concert pianist, and Bill were Stephen’s baseball teammates. Agnes, who still teaches at the school they all attended, was Nora’s roommate. And Bridget, Bill’s once and current flame, was a part of this group of friends although she was a year younger.
None of the group has warm feelings about marriage. Nora’s much older poet husband cheated on her flagrantly and treated her poorly. She has come into her own as a businesswoman since his death. Harrison, who regrets not pursuing Nora in high school when he first knew her, admits he sometimes finds his wife repulsive. Jerry and his wife have an obviously strained relationship. Bill left his wife when he reunited with Bridget, who was long divorced. Bill’s daughter is decidedly not reconciled to the situation. The exception is Rob, who has been with his partner, Josh, for years.
As for Agnes, she has never been married and worries what her friends will think of her spinster, history-teacher existence. She’s been in a clandestine relationship with her former high school English teacher for years. “Why was a marriage the only happy ending?” she wonders, intending to ask her former classmates to consider that possibility if they ask her why she’s single. Well, perhaps not, she reconsiders. After all, they are all together for a wedding.
It’s Bill who badly wants this wedding, for Bridget. She has breast cancer, and it has spread. She will likely live two, maybe three more years at the most. Bill thought it would be romantic to bring their old friends together, the crowd who might have witnessed the wedding they would have had if Bill had not ditched Bridget in college. But Stephen’s absence renders the atmosphere more tense than romantic, and although they try, the seven can’t avoid the topic of his death.
Shreve tells her story through several characters’ viewpoints, but it’s Harrison, Agnes and Bridget we come to know best. Agnes prefers to retreat into history and fiction. She’s writing a story of the Halifax explosion of 1917, a tragedy forgotten by many. Shreve weaves Agnes’ work through the story of the reunion, a technique she also used well in “The Weight of Water.” The saga of medical student Innes Finch and the Halifax family he boards with is equally as entertaining as the main story of Bill and Bridget’s wedding.
Bridget is trying to weave together disparate identities – mother, cancer patient, bride. She brings a wardrobe of foundation garments to the inn with her so she can camouflage the 12 extra pounds she’s put on. She worries that she won’t live to see her teenage son graduate from high school. She worries she dumps too much on Bill. She rages that they have only just found each other again, and now they might not have that many years together.
Harrison still feels guilt for not preventing Stephen’s death. He considers having an affair with Nora at the same time as he misses his sons in Toronto. It’s through Harrison that we meet Stephen. Seeing Nora and the rest of the gang stirs up memories of Stephen’s death, which Harrison especially has never gotten over.
Shreve has woven a tale of what happens when old friendships are unearthed and people find that those who were once true confidants now make polite dinner conversation.
“We were once all best friends,” says one character. “Now we’re as good as strangers to each other.”
Staff writer Janna Fischer can be reached at 303-820-1270 or jfischer@denverpost.com.
