Sitting up in the organ loft with the organist and the cantor, I can hear Elena and her mother in the sanctuary below, shouting at each other in Russian. The rehearsal is not going well. Mrs. Ostrovsky is having a conniption fit because Elena is using The Phantom of the Opera for her wedding march.
"But Mama, the wedding is tomorrow. It's too late to change this now."
"How can you think so terrible as Broadway in synagogue? Is terrible. No respect."
"It's a perfectly good piece of music. Laurel likes it."
I cringe upon hearing my name. Since our friendship began in eighth grade, I have been the trump card Elena plays against her mother.
"Well," Mrs. O says, "It may not be so bad. She know something about music."
"Hey, Laurel," Elena yells to me, "Tell Mama about the processional."
I peer over the balcony to Elena and her small but formidable mother, who is searching me for some sign of deceit.
"It's a very melodic piece on the organ. More lyric than with a big, loud orchestra." I exchange looks with the organist, who is quietly laughing behind her hand. "The organist will play it for you, of course."
"Thank you, Lurril, you are good girl. You keep my Yeleyna out of trouble. We hear music later. Now must speak with rabbi."
I sit down again and study my fingers, scratched from assembling four dried-flower head wreaths for the bridesmaids. I am a good girl.
I must be out of my mind.
Elena had never attended a wedding in her life, but she intended to pull off her own in high style. My involvement began so innocently — writing a basic timeline and to-do list worthy of Weddings for Dummies. Then I found the photographer, made centerpieces and head wreaths, organized music, got sucked in.
In reward for my pains, I get to sit next to this palsied cantor with twisted feet, clawed hands, misshapen glasses and extreme body odor. He is a professional singer, Elena had told me, an angelic singer.
He has the stage presence of a goat.
There's a lull in the ceremony run-through downstairs. The rabbi has gone to search for someone, and Elena shouts for us to run through the music again.
The cantor and I set our music on stands and wait for the cue from the organist. She plays the first few measures of "All I Ask of You," the grand love theme from Phantom of the Opera. The cantor begins in a bombastic tone, "No more talk of darkness, forget these wide-eyed fears. I'm here, nothing can harm you. My words will warm and calm you." His tone is quavery and a little flat, more appropriate for his usual genre, modal psaltery mourning lost Zion. He leers at me, the unmasked Phantom ogling his Christine.
For the last selection, I sing "A Time for Us," while Mrs. Ostrovsky looks up at me enraptured. If her English were better, she'd recognize the song from the film of star-crossed Romeo and Juliet and be livid. Oh well. She probably wouldn't have objected to Elena's first choice, either: "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, with cheerful lyrics like, "I had a dream my life would be so different from the hell I'm living, so different now from what it seemed, but life has killed the dream I dreamed."
I feel I've somehow let Mrs. Ostrovsky down. After all the years she dreamed I was molding her daughter to my conservatism, Elena would marry a Danish Catholic physicist who makes authentic reproduction chain mail, instead of a nice Jewish boy.
Poor Mrs. O. She doesn't know that Elena's gown isn't finished, that the groomsmen will wear puffy pirate shirts, that half the guests will show up in medieval garb and dance to an Irish folk band.
Someday, perhaps, she'll remember today and hear behind the shouted arguments, "Love me, Mama. Love me."
Philadelphian Laurel Garver is a writer, magazine editor and occasional church vocalist. When not furiously scribbling, she makes messy crafts with her daughter and watches obscure foreign films with her husband. She's currently revising her first novel. Her blog on writing for teens, "Laurel's Leaves," is at http://laurelgarver.blogspot.com/.