GRACE WARREN-PAGE

Creative Nonfiction | South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville, SC

Katie and Kenny Leave for Miami on Their Wedding Night, 1969: A Photograph

1. They sit in a car with velvet red interior, slouching in the backseat like teenagers, so close together their shoulders overlap, Illinois stars overhead.

2. My grandmother’s name is Katie and she marries a man named Kenny. They meet in a mall in Illinois.

3. He works at a piano shop. She works at the Belks next door.

4. They fall in love and marry in the spring of 1969.

5. The window of the car is cracked just enough for a camera to capture their smiles, the velvet, their silky black hair, Kenny’s suit, Katie’s dress, everything highlighted by the bright flash.

6. You can see the twinkle in their eyes.

7. Right before they slide into the back of the car, they wrap a piece of vanilla cake in plastic wrap, trying not to destroy the flower fondant and white buttercream icing.

8. She probably has cake under her nails.

9. I wonder if she is uncomfortable when her friends and family watch Kenny lick the cake off her fingers in the middle of the church.

10. I would be uncomfortable.

11. My grandmother’s hair is long and black and thick, frizzy from the humidity and lace wedding dress; Kenny’s moptop has grown since the engagement but his goatee is groomed.

12. Kenny’s hand is frozen in mid-wave, saying goodbye to everything he knew, leaving for Miami to become a singer at the Holiday Inn, to become a star.

13. Katie doesn’t wave goodbye. She just smiles. She doesn’t look afraid to leave.

14. (I would be afraid to leave everything behind, to get into a car and leave my hometown and my sisters and the little church on the top of the hill and my father’s homemade peach ice cream.)

15. But she knows in Miami she will dance on the ballroom carpet until she slips off her favorite black heels and ties her hair up, watches Kenny sing every night in the HUNTERS LOUNGE, Tuesday through Saturday, 9 PM till 1 AM.

16. Every night, a cigarette balances between her two fingers (the wives of the jazz singers always smoke). She likes the way the smoke leaves her mouth and fills the room while she dances barefoot and sings along to The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Elvis.

17. Her smile is perfect.

18. Kenny dies a couple years after the wedding.

19. In the car she isn’t prepared for death.

20. She is thinking about Kenny and leaving the Illinois stars she has become so familiar with.

21. She never marries again. She quits smoking. She can’t taste another piece of vanilla cake.

22. I wonder if she ever watches the video tapes of him singing after the funeral. Maybe she hides them in a box in the attic. Maybe she shows her daughters. Of course they don’t remember him.

23. I find the picture, the newlyweds sitting in the red seats in the middle of the clear Illinois night, in a box tucked in the garage.

24. Kenny waves, his mouth is open, almost like he is saying “goodbye.” It is my favorite part of the picture because it seems alive and moving. I can hear the voice I never heard.

25. I imagine after the picture is taken, someone starts the car and drives them away to a cheap hotel room somewhere. Kenny probably sings, Katie probably points at different stars, gives them random, mysterious names.