Manufactured Goods
On Christmas Eve, Rob and Isaac were married in an evening ceremony in Rob’s lifelong trustfund friend’s glass-walled condo on an upper floor in a high-rise in Williamsburgh just south of the Greenpoint Piers.
Looking out at the East River and lower Manhattan skyline, their hostess said, “It’s a shame it’s not summertime. We could’ve used the roof terrace.”
She was dressed in white mink-collared and cuffed red velvet like Rosemary Clooney in WHITE CHRISTMAS, and some of the guests were similarly camped up in seasonal costumes, as gifts or sugar plums/candycanes or elves.
“You couldn’t have hired two Rockettes and four Wooden Soldiers in June,” Rob thanked, hugging her. “Here is the perfect space and time.”
Although wintry months lay ahead, the wedding ceremony was an expression of the hopeful solstice as in the northern hemisphere its holidays are. The couple’s vows, an amalgam of tradition and novelty, were applauded heartily by everyone there and by an avuncular one wherever.
L. Shapley Bassen’s grandmother was a telegrapher on Wall Street a century ago who taught her to read and tapped messages to her in Morse Code. A New Yorker living in Rhode Island, she is a multi-published & prize-winning author of fiction, poetry, & drama. L. Shapley recommends the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research.
