Page 19 of My Stepbrother's Wedding
“I thought they were getting married in two days.”
“Apparently, weddings can last all week here.”
Great. An entire week of foreign, weird stuff celebrating my stepbrother.
“I’m so nervous.” Elizabeth jittered like a child who needed to pee. “What if they don’t like us?”
“What’s not to like?” Dad readjusted his fanny pack.
“I don’t know, Ralphy Bear, but we’ve never met these people, and now they’ll be our family.”
Family? I bit my tongue not to say anything. These people would never be family. This was just a primitive mating ritualorganized by people who hadn’t discovered how much of a loser Will was yet.
The waiter reappeared with my breakfast, which looked appetizing even if it was nothing like the picture. I ate as Dad and Elizabeth went on about how excited they were to meet the in-laws. I didn’t voice my opinion, but I suspected something was wrong with Irena’s parents if they’d actually met Will and agreed to let him marry their daughter. Of course, plenty of women marry for money or status. Will didn’t have a dime to his name, but he did have an American passport. The economy was in the dumps in Malegonia, and half the people were trying to emigrate, I suspected. That would give the doofus a shot, at least until Irena got her documents and kicked him to the curb.
Mark and Kyle came down and sat at our table. They both looked well rested, as they’d been in Europe for a week already. They rambled on about how great their time had been traveling across the continent. The conversation reinforced my desire to get ahold of Karen and iron out our plans. I’d already wasted enough time with the family.
After breakfast Will showed up at the villa, dressed in a suit and tie. It looked weird on him, even if it fit him well.The only time I remembered seeing him in anything close to formal was when he’d put on his Clown Burger uniform.
He announced it was time to go, and we followed him along the lakeside until we turned down a dusty side street. The waterfront had been luxurious, but this part of the town looked like something from an adopt-a-child commercial. Graffiti and trash littered the muddy pathway, and a pack of stray dogs rooted through a dumpster. A revolting stench emanated from a sewage canal on the side of the road. Charming.
Fortunately, our alleyway shortcut only lasted a few blocks, and we emerged onto a main street. We passed a soccer stadium, a dozen apartment buildings, and a few mom-and-pop stores. We turned at an Orthodox church onto a wide boulevard flanked by flower gardens and a long row of offices and boutiques. Older-model cars clogged the streets, and pedestrians roamed the town like zombies from a George Romero film. They stared at us as if they’d never seen a foreigner before. Being gawked at annoyed me, but everything about the trip was annoying, so I was used to it.
We passed the town center and navigated another winding side street, passing more apartment buildings free of color or variety, until we came to a crowded bazaar. Half the stalls sold fruits and vegetables. The other half displayed clothes, shoes,or women’s accessories. I recognized several brands, but on closer inspection, I could tell they were imitations. Kyle and Mark stopped and looked at a kiosk filled with electronics, and Dad eyed a disorderly pile of men’s clothing on a wooden table.
“Look at how cheap this stuff is.” Dad held up a Hawaiian shirt with a one-euro price tag.
“It’s used,” Will said. “They ship it in from overseas and sell it dirt cheap.”
I raised an eyebrow at the low price and rooted through a pile of women’s clothing myself. All the real name-brand stuff was old but looked good enough to wear. I found a Victoria’s Secret leopard-spotted bra and thong set with a two-euro price tag. I’d seen these in Chicago for ninety dollars. I considered buying it, but the thought of used underwear made me itchy. I dropped it back on the pile.
After we’d scrounged through the marketplace, we followed Will down another alley. We passed a mountain of rotting produce before coming to a red brick building that looked ready to fall over at any moment. I heard music coming from the inside, with the same Middle Eastern vibe I’d heard everywhere else but without the annoying pop beat or rap lyrics.
“This is Irena’s house.” Will pointed toward the shambles.
She lives there?I thought, amazed that anyone would live in such a dump. We walked around the corner to an old wooden doorway with green paint chipping off. Two large dogs growled at us from inside. I started back, but Will talked to them like old friends and petted one on the head. The dogs stopped snarling and wagged their tails.
“Don’t mind them,” he said. “Come on in.”
A well-worn concrete hallway waited inside, leading to a flight of stairs. The only light trickled in from the open doorway. We climbed to the second floor. Water stains marked the ceiling, and wide holes punctured the walls.Why would anyone live in a place like this?
“This was a warehouse during communism,” my stepbrother said. “Irena’s dad worked here, and they let him move in after the old system ended.”
I nodded at the explanation. At the top of the stairs stood another door with more peeling green paint. Will pulled it open, and music flooded the corridor. I looked in at a room full of well-dressed locals, holding hands and dancing in a circle.
We entered, and the dancers turned to us with wide grins and excited laughs. Irena stood in the center of the room,wearing an extravagant peach-colored gown. Before I could say hello, a strange man in his fifties shouted “opa” and pulled me into the round. I tried to resist, but the dancers dragged me along in a peculiar rhythm that matched the exotic music. I gave Dad a terrified glance but saw he’d also been yanked onto the floor and looked as confused as me.
“It’s all right,” Will shouted over the music. “They want to welcome you with a dance.”
I nodded apprehensively and tried to steady my knees enough to follow along. A heavyset woman in a kitchen apron led the circle, shifting her feet back and forth in a pattern that looked like something from a National Geographic documentary. The dance seemed simple until I tried to imitate it. The other Americans seemed equally perplexed. Will, however, slid into the circle next to Irena, kicking his feet in perfect sync with the others. I was sure we’d just landed on another planet.
When the music ended, the dancers clapped and shouted something I couldn’t understand. Then they swarmed us like adoring fans meeting their favorite rock stars. I shook hands with everyone in the room, some of them twice, I think, and exchanged at least a dozen two-cheek kisses with people I’d never seen before. Yuck.
Will introduced the heavyset woman in the apron as Irena’s mother, Miranda. She had curly gray hair and a round, jovial face. Beneath her apron, she wore a silver gown. Her high heels made her taller than Dad, and I wondered how she’d managed to dance. She was smiling and crying simultaneously, speaking to Elizabeth in a funny mixture of broken English and German. Elizabeth blabbered something back, teary eyed herself, and the two women hugged. More Yuck.
Next, Will introduced a tall, thin man, who resembled Robert DeNiro, as Irena’s father, Petrush. At least, I thought he said Petrush. I’d never heard the name before and didn’t want to ask him to repeat it. Petrush didn’t understand a word of English and hardly said anything in Malegonian either. His wife, however, spoke more than anyone else in the room, and I quickly assessed she was the family’s matriarch.
A blur of aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, old neighbors, and best friends introduced themselves. They all tried to speak to us, but the language barrier meant we mostly just smiled awkwardly and shook hands. After we met the twenty-five people in the room, my family settled in at a table while most of the others went back to dancing. Miranda continued to lead the circle but disappeared into the kitchen every few minutes.
