Tightening the Knot (18 page)

           
“People… people!
 
It’s already
5:04
.
 
We must get started.
 
Take your seats, please.”

           
Seats were taken and heads turned to face the front.
 
Meredith had grabbed a chair on the end because it was nearest to her.
 
Her mother was on Greg’s other side.
 
One man remained standing and had moved to the front.
 
The lead woman gave him an impatient gesture and he began passing out the cans of Play-
Doh
.
 
He hobbled.
 
There was no other way to describe it.
 
He had a limp, and though pain did not register on his face, he held the cans in one hand and hunched over to grip the table edges as he passed.
 
There was a mound of what must have been five or six cans of dough mixed together on the front desk.
 
The woman waved her hands over this mound as though considering how best to approach it and Meredith wondered if she might be trying to animate it.

           
The woman became very lively herself as she pushed and mangled and forced her mass into a sloping mass.
 
She grabbed a hunk from the top and vigorously worked it into a ball between her hands.
 
Then she added this ball near the bottom of the slope and stepped back.

           
“This,” she said with gusto, “is anticipation.”

           
 
There was a pause, during which she appeared to be allowing this revelation to sink in.
 
Meredith and the other students stared back in wordless awe.

           
“More specifically, it represents my anticipation of the beautiful sculptures you are about to create.
 
You will have the opportunity to display your own emotions in this form.
 
You may now open your materials.”

           
“Materials?”
Greg murmured.
 
Meredith rolled her eyes in agreement and then turned her attention back to the front.

           
“Now, what I want you to do
is
pick a time, with your spouse, that you both felt particularly strong emotions.
 
This can be a happy event or an argument, or any situation you experienced together… just as long as you both remember your feelings at the time.
 
Then… mold that emotion and show it to your spouse.
 
You may do as many as time permits.
 
This is an excellent activity to connect with each other.
 
Don’t worry if it is very powerful your first time.
 
There is a box of tissues here if anyone needs one.”

           
The man had taken his place in one of the two chairs up front, where he sat looking rather bored as the woman sank down next to him, clearly drained by the expression.

           
Meredith turned to Greg.

           
“Is that all the help we’re going to get?” he asked.

           
“Was that helpful to you?”

           
“Well, I mean, I get that we’re supposed to try to make an emotion with this stuff, but how do you do that?”

           
Meredith shook her head doubtfully.
 
“I’d probably say the point is just to get us talking about our shared experiences, except that she was really getting into it.
 
I think if we don’t look like we’re trying it’s going to hurt her feelings.”

           
“You mean she might be molding melancholy after we leave?”
 
He was biting his lip to keep from laughing.

           
Meredith smiled back; her mother had overheard and poked Greg gently.
 
“You two
be
nice.”
 
The commandment was more from a sense of what was polite than a sense of her appreciating the experience.
 
She would probably be joking with them about it next week.

           
Greg tried to look more serious.
 
He may have actually been a little more so given the reminder that his mother-in-law was close enough to hear a conversation about his emotions.
 
Meredith decided to go first.
 
She took the still cylindrical dough and twisted it in the middle.
 
“This is…um, I’m not sure what emotion that would be, but this is what I felt like when that dog coughed up the batteries… and all that other yucky stuff.”

           
“Hey!
 
You’re actually pretty good at this.”
 
Greg looked genuinely impressed.
 
He looked at his “materials.”
 
After a few moments of thought, he began shaking his head.
 
“I just really don’t get this.”

           
“I’m pretty sure there’s no wrong way to do it.
 
Would you like to try molding grossed out, too?”

           
He laughed.
 
“Um, no, I don’t think I can.
 
I mean, not without copying you.
 
That’s clearly grossed out so if I do anything else it will just look wrong.”

           
“Well, what emotion do you want to do?”

           
Jeanette poked back into the conversation.
 
“I started with love.
 
I’m sure you can remember strong emotions from your wedding day.
 
Try that.”

           
This suggestion made Greg squirm a bit.
 
What would Jeanette say if marrying her daughter was not enough of a muse?
 
Then again, he was a guy; he wasn’t wired to mold mushy emotions out of squishy dough.
 
He reluctantly began rolling the dough into a ball and then flattening it out a bit, which Meredith recognized as the way most of her students worked with it.
 
And was theirs not a labor of love?
 
Greg was working slowly though, still waiting for an idea to come to him.
 
Then his hands worked faster and he formed the dough into a heart.

           
“How about this?”
He looked up at Meredith feeling reasonably satisfied with his efforts.
 
The female instructor had given up her seat to survey the work of her class.
 
She arrived in front of Greg before Meredith had a chance to answer.
 

           
She looked disappointed.
 
“Emotions are abstract by nature, and unique to the individual.
 
A heart is an object, the same to everyone.
 
You need to
feel
the sculpture, not form it.”
 
She walked away with the look of someone who had been wounded.
 

           
Meredith was shocked at the lecture and raised her eyebrows at Greg, who only shrugged.
 
“I guess there is a wrong way.”

╣ Chapter 24 ╠

           
Greg and Meredith arrived in the hotel dining room at
6:25
to discover they were one of the last couples to arrive.
 
There seemed to be about fifty people in the room and Meredith guessed most of the other participants had figured out there was no point to going back to their rooms to stand around for twenty minutes without actually going back to their rooms for those twenty minutes.
 

           
Hotel staff members were setting out a buffet and Meredith recognized the instructors from the weaving class running like sheepdogs to herd the men and women into separate groups.
 
They had taped pink and blue streamers to the floor to mark out the pens.
 
Meredith gave Greg a look of surrender as they moved apart to join their respective genders.
 
She had just about given up on finding her mom in the group when she spotted her parents entering the room.
 
Jeanette quickly smoothed down her hair as she entered and Meredith had to squash from her mind the horrifying idea that her parents might not have been standing around since the last session.

           
Mother and daughter found each other and stood together trying to decide what was on the menu.
 
Meredith was about to comment on how good the cheesecake looked when the room was filled with the ear-splitting squeal of sound equipment used poorly.
 
When the pain subsided, the crowd looked up to see an apologetic-looking man standing before a microphone.
 
He had black hair dotted with gray and the woman next to him had red hair, very red hair.
 
They wore overly large, matching T-shirts sporting the words “I’m not complete without” and arrows pointing at each other.

           
The man leaned timidly into the
mic
before he began.
 
“I’d like to first take a minute to welcome everyone here.
 
I hope you’re all having fun and that those knots are tighter already.”
 
He received many polite smiles for his words.
 
Then he led the group in a heartfelt prayer of thanks for the food they were to receive and for God’s work in bringing all the couples together.
 
He said he was proud to have the opportunity to witness so many couples gathered to further the will of God in their holy unions.
 
Meredith was stunned by the depth and eloquence of his speech and felt a slight pang for having judged him so harshly on his wardrobe.
 

           
He moved to the side so that his wife could have a turn at the
mic
.
 
She also looked as though it might bite her.

           
“Hi.”
 
She pulled some note cards from her pocket and began reading.
 
“So is anyone hungry?”
 
A few hands went up on the men’s side, but she didn’t look up for a response.
 
“I’m sure you’d all like to get to this splendid meal, but we have a little activity for you first.”
 
She forced a smile.
 
“I need all the women to organize in order of wedding date.
 
The most recently married should be first in line behind Sue.
 
Raise your hand, Sue, so they know where to go.

           
Apparently, Sue was the tall woman of pink yarn fame.
 
Meredith had a feeling she would be near the front of the line so she left her mom’s side to find her way to Sue.
 
The women were able to assemble themselves fairly quickly.
 
When the line was formed, Meredith was second only to a 70-year-old newlywed.

           
Sue gave a thumbs-up sign and the redhead flipped to her next card.
 
“Now is where the fun begins.
 
Each of you ladies will grab a blue plate.
 
You’ll be dishing food for your husbands to prove how well you know what he likes.
 
Then find your couple number on these tables and wait for him to bring you your dinner.”
 
She stepped quickly back from the
mic
, and Sue stepped aside to let the women through the line.

           
Meredith picked up a blue plate.
 
Greg was not a picky eater.
 
He liked pretty much anything except coconut, which he felt was a little too much like eating plastic.
 
Meredith had never asked when he had eaten plastic.
 
She went through the line and dished a little of this and that, leaving room for dessert.
 
As she was about to slide a slice of pumpkin pie onto the plate, she saw that the woman in front of her was hurriedly eating a slice of the cheesecake right out of the pan!
 
It didn’t look as though anyone else had noticed the offense.
 
She skipped the cheesecake for Greg and hoped he wouldn’t ask why.