Beautiful Day

THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 9

The Service

Religion is tricky. Think of Charlemagne and Martin Luther and the Spanish Inquisition and the Gaza Strip. I don’t know if you’ll marry a man who is Muslim or Jewish or a happy agnostic, and I will tell you here that I don’t care what religion your Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be practices, as long as he is good to you and loves you with the proper ardor.

I am going to proceed with this portion of the program as though you will be married at St. Paul’s Episcopal. I fell in love with St. Paul’s the first time I passed it on Fair Street, and I convinced your father to attend Evensong services one summer night in June. Who wouldn’t love Evensong in a church with that glorious pipe organ and those Tiffany windows?

I have been to weddings where the officiant didn’t know the couple getting married, and he was therefore forced to deliver a canned sermon. For this reason, I suggest you ask Reverend Marlowe to come to Nantucket to perform the service. Harvey is a sedentary being, and he won’t like the idea of traveling to an island thirty miles offshore. But ask him anyway. Beseech him. He has never been able to resist you, his little Jenna who went on the Habitat for Humanity trip to Guatemala at the tender age of fifteen. I think he believed you would grow up to be a missionary. You single-handedly changed his mind about the Carmichael family-you (nearly) made him forget that it was Nick who set off a smoke bomb in the church basement during coffee and doughnut hour.

Reverend Marlowe is fond of his creature comforts, so be sure to mention that your father will fly him to the island and pay for a harbor view room at the White Elephant, where a bottle of fifteen-year Oban will be waiting for him.

But the Scotch and the turndown service are just window dressing. Reverend Marlowe would do anything for you.