Smashing China

"Children," echoed Alice. There were several
children on the dance floor, even though it must be close
to midnight. The little boys had their shirts flapping
out of their pants, their shoes and ties abandoned
across the floor. The girls looked better, their frilled
and sequined little dresses still in place. "Diapers.
Cleaning up drool and vomit. A baby sucking on your
nipple." She shuddered.
"They're not for everybody," Grandma agreed.
It was funny, though. Alice never had liked
children, never enjoyed playing with the little ones
like Ash always had, yet she was starting to think that
she might want one. She didn't understand the logic
of this desire, unless it was simply that she felt that,
having achieved her law degree and a high paying job,
something ought to come next. Or maybe it was a purely
biological impulse, the way salmon were impelled to
swim upstream, though they would probably be better
off staying in the ocean enjoying themselves and not
battering themselves over rocks and rusting out their
fins just so they could lay eggs and then die.
She watched the little cousins run over and hurl
themselves on Ash, who pretended to fall and roll
over and over while they climbed on him. He took his
Sharpee pen out of his pocket, brought probably with
this purpose in mind, and began drawing on them,
great handlebar mustaches and unibrows and tattoos
of skulls and snakes.
"Is Ash working?" she asked.
Smashing China


"Apparently," Grandma sounded dry. "He has a job
as a nanny for a military family in France, of all things.
He's going back in a week."
"That's a good job for him," mused Alice. "He's so
good with kids." Privately she thought it was a waste
of his education. Any fifteen year old could mind kids.
Tyler came over, clowning, and Ash stood up and
drew a mustache on him, then on Amin, and then
on Tom.
"Come on, Nell! Come on Emily! Everybody needs
a mustache!" Ash called.
"Mustache! Mustache!" chanted Tyler. Alice winced
at the volume of his voice.
"He's always been a loud one," said Grandma. "You
always knew when Tyler was in the house. At least he
didn't talk as much as Tom, though. That one never
shut up."
Nelleke, in her emerald green dress, drew back
from the Sharpee at first, but gave in when the entire
bridal party was wearing Ash's artwork on their upper
lips. She was no cold fish.
"Ash's ‘staches," he crowed, drawing a large
handlebar mustache over her pink mouth. She was
elegant, Tom's girlfriend, with her high knot of hair,
and tall. In her high heels, she was barely shorter than
he was. Jimmy Choo shoes, Alice noticed. She thought
that her cousin was way out of his league. She looked
at him doubtfully, wondering what could have drawn
this sophisticated medical student to him. He and Tyler
had taken a tablecloth off of a table and were dancing
with it pulled between them like a canopy, while the
mustached bridal party danced underneath it.
Matthew Toffin


"Come on Alice!" called Tom. Ash had given him a
small, up-and-down mustache that made him look like
Charlie Chaplin or Hitler. Alice considered it. What if
she let Ash put a silly Captain Hook mustache over
her careful make-up and danced wildly under the
tablecloth? That would certainly be the wrong answer
to the question "how do you behave at a wedding?"
She should. She should give a wrong answer and see
if she would be rewarded. She couldn't, though. She
literally couldn't make her head nod up and down.
Ash didn't expect her to, and was already moving on.
"Grandma!" he cried, holding up his marker.
"No thanks," said Grandma, through the laughter.
"Into the pool!" somebody yelled, and Sam was
borne up by his friends out the French doors to the
swimming pool. The pool area was all lit up and they
could be easily seen from inside, where the lights were
low. A great cheer went up as Sam splashed into the
pool in his tuxedo. The cheering continued as Tyler
jumped in, and then the pool was full of young people
all jumping into the water dressed in their wedding
finery. Alice's brother Aaron leaped in a cannonball
that splashed water up to the stars.
"Girls, too!" Ash lifted the maid of honor and
tossed her, giggling, into the pool.
A cry from Chloe was heard above the yelling.
The young men were holding her high over the aqua
water and she was struggling in earnest, though she
was laughing.
"My dress!" she screamed. "I have to save it for my
sister!"
"Well, take it off," called Sam from the water, and
while Alice and Grandma watched from inside, Chloe
Smashing China


squirmed out of her wedding dress and stood in her
bra and panties on the side of the pool. The small
group left on the deck lifted her up and tossed her
in, and then jumped after her. Nelleke hesitated for a
moment, in her green mermaid gown.
"Will she or won't she?" murmured Alice.
"Nelleke! Nelleke!" chanted the swimmers, and
she jumped into the melee and was swallowed up
immediately in the splashing and yelling and laughing.
Peoples' mustaches were melting all over their faces.
"Go in with them," Grandma suggested.
But Alice didn't want to be dripping wet and
uncomfortable for the rest of the night, and her dress
was Alaia. She was certain that it had cost more than
the bride's. She didn't really like playing in pools
anyway, or any kind of roughhousing. She watched
Tom, on his friend Tyler's back, trying to knock Sam off
of Ash's. They were laughing, but to Alice it looked like
it would hurt. They would have bruises the next day.
"Those boys," said Grandma, "have never been
well behaved."
"I always have," said Alice.
"You've always done everything right," said
Grandma. Alice knew that Grandma would never tell
her cousins so. Such praise belonged to her and her
alone. It seemed a paltry reward for a lifetime of good
behavior.