The couple at the next table has brought a three-year-old to the wedding reception. Martha sports a pinched look, but we do not speak. Words have failed us. The child’s mother pours herself a third refill from the bottle of red; the father devours a shrimp cocktail. Their eyes tick everywhere except towards their bundle of joy, Myles, who careens from table to table, tugs on table cloths, shrieks, wiggles out of embraces. He knocks over two wine glasses and a vase; his parents fail to notice. The free bar, I was pleased to discover, serves Brut and Stolichnaya vodka.
***
The men’s formal wear market is on life support. Curly, my boss, has waved goodbye to three of his fellow regional managers, reigns as a newly-minted capo dei capi. On Thursday, he called me into his office, overflowing with sale shirts and ties, for a warning.
“A layoff is coming. You’ll need to double your sales.”
His shaved head gleamed; the missing eyebrows reinforced his look of a wannabe wrestler.
***
Zen emphasizes self-restraint and insight into the mind. In The Flower Sermon, Buddha holds up a flower, wordlessly, and Mahakasyapa smiles, understanding. I practice chants, breathe ‘Om’, dismiss impatience. Large gatherings, throbbing with jollity and relatives’ disapproval, remain a challenge. I close my eyes, inhale.
***
Martha and I ended our happy union two weeks ago, eighteen months after our own exuberant wedding. On Wednesday, on the phone, she sizzled we committed, I absolutely will not go to a wedding alone, I will NOT tell Hilary, my lifelong friend, that you and I have split. You’d better suck in your gut and spend one more evening of your precious life with me. The chicken we just ate was drier than the Sahara and the carrot mush I could serve to Myles, if anyone ever catches him. He rolls on the dance floor, trips dancers, wails as a burly man snags him. Gifted with a frothy strawberry concoction, he pipes down and slurps.
***
I started out selling jackets, tuxes, cummerbunds and suspenders in my father’s store, as soon as I turned fourteen. Every weekend, I flashed smiles with a measuring tape around my neck, pins in my mouth, ready for alterations. Going home on the subway, I’d classify every man, standing or sitting: 34 short, 44 tall, 50 extra tall. I learned hemming at eighteen. When father sold his store to the chain, he told me I was set for life, that suits will never go out of style, that there’ll always be weddings. He died basking on a Florida golf course, better off not knowing about a pandemic, about weddings in polo shirts and shorts. Curly used to sell car parts, muscled his way up to management, through a connection to the conglomerates that preside over assorted retail businesses. To him a sixteen and a half and a seventeen neck is all the same.
***
The meditator, in Hongzhi’s practice, strives to be aware of the totality of phenomena, instead of focusing on a single object, learns to cultivate the empty field. In Japan, a follower can blow Zen by playing a shakuhachi bamboo flute. I have savings: once I leave behind Curly and pleated bib shirts, I will fly to Takahama.
***
The volume of the music has increased; the lights have dimmed. The woman Martha is talking to has a wandering eye, gives me a “I’ll give you my phone number” look. The DJ has put on “Wasn’t That A Party”, much too soon. Everything is happening too soon. I’m not thirty anymore. This morning, I could not zip up my black pants; instead of a session with my sensei, I rushed to the mall in search of a better fit.
We should have had a baby. We should have tried harder. We should have slowed down the merry-go-round.
I exhale, center, lead Martha to try a new dance.