The Third Part of Chapter 7: A Turn

The service ended, and Margaret carried Sean from the pew. While doing so, she noted with consternation a puddle on the pew; why hadn’t he told her he needed to go to the washroom? The obvious answer that he knew no better came to her immediately; she had pondered that out of frustration. Alice and Jacob should get him back into diapers, she thought; they were evidently overconfident in trusting him to have enough control over his own body functions, a skill he had not learned, unlike speech, which he had learned. She looked hurriedly for the bathroom, found it, and brought back a large amount of toilet paper for the mess.

She told Alice and Jacob later. “Why wasn’t he wearing a diaper?” she asked.

“We were out, and Sean was just starting to get potty trained,”

“Well, I think it’s a bit too early for that,” said Margaret.

After the wedding party had left the church, the reception was to follow in the Riverside Convention Centre down the street. James and Clarissa, he in his tuxedo and she having lost the veil, were walking together in the middle of the group.

“Mom was real big on virtues when I was growing up,” she was saying.

“How do you mean?”

“She was always telling me to be virtuous, especially chaste; I never understood it, especially as Mary and Jacob didn’t get that sort of treatment.”

“Perhaps she was trying to protect her youngest child.”

“She’s also much more religious than Mary or Jacob; she tried to instil a sense of religion into us––she’s a strong catholic, much more so than dad––and always made us go to church until we were eleven; after that, she told us to make our minds up.”

“And?”

“I found Mass and all that rather onerous, so I stopped going. I was constantly chaste, though; I wonder why she was so concerned about chastity; I never had any boyfriends before you,”

“That’s interesting. I had several girlfriends; there was Ellen, Jane, Wilma, Olivia, and a parade of girls through my university days.”

“Do you call them?”

“No; I heard from most of them that they’re married, and Wilma turned out to have a preference for women,”

They continued to the convention centre, where there was a large dinner all the guests waiting, and an elaborate wedding cake. The food had not arrived, but he could see the cake was there; it was something of a disappointment. What he had seen in the photograph was a cake with several layers, elaborately decorated with graceful whorls, red and white roses, all with butter cream frosting, as noted on the photograph’s caption. It was sitting under a bright light, and that accounted for some of the disappointment: the butter had softened and the icing was starting to run; he could see a yellow pool like a moat surrounding the cake, and that could only be melted butter, and hopefully was, barring some disaster related to another yellow liquid. That was not the worst of it, though; the cake looked like someone who on their first day on the job with no prior training, artistic flair, or the fine motor skills needed to reproduce what was in the photo, had decorated it. The bride and groom figures perched on the top of the cake were also awry; the bride figure was leaning as if drunk and the groom had toppled, and was now horizontal in the rich cream icing. There had also been something of a mix-up; there was supposed to be a date written in icing on the side of the second tier, August 15th; it read October 15th instead. James thought it was some possible mistake of the evidently air headed decorator thinking of their own birthday or anniversary rather than the wedding.

Clarissa had ordered enough roast duck for dinner to feed all fifty guests, in addition to salad, James’s favourite bread, chocolate mousse, and plenty of champagne for dessert, in addition to the non-alcoholic punches, club soda, and sprite. The guests sat at seven round tables, with seven to some tables, and eight to others. Clarissa and James were beside each other, while Ryan and Patricia were together, opposite beside Margaret and Hyram; also at that table were Katherine and Karim. The dinner had not yet arrived, so James was talking about what he knew best to Ryan.

Ryan said, “So, I heard people talking about how the labour market was inefficient at work on Friday,”

“They would be right: it is inefficient,”

“I’m no economist myself, I took political science,”

“You’ve told me many times, dad,”

“Anyways, what is meant by efficiency?”

“It means an efficient market,”

“And?” asked Margaret.

“It’s essentially the economist’s version of utopia,”

“That explains quite a lot,” said Hyram. “I hear it all the time from Clarie, Jacob and Alice.”

“Efficient markets means there’s perfect competition, meaning there are many buyers and sellers in the market,”

“But that’s the case for the labour market: there are many employers, and many workers,”

“The thing is, though,” said Karim, “that wages are sticky, and there are unions setting price floors and minimum wages, and all that sort of thing; there are also externalities, and there are just so many things that the labour market doesn’t take into account, such as, for instance, each time an employer hires someone, they must pay for training, while they won’t reap all the benefits,”

“Sticky wages also mean that more people will be unemployed,”

“I take it that this is a situation that is much desired, though never achieved,”

“Oh yeah, there’s always something,”

Katherine paid perfunctory attention to the conversation about the labour market, and idly listened to the people at the next table over. She heard a very masculine voice behind her. “I jog once a week, Tuesdays and Fridays are core days, while on Mondays and Wednesdays I work my chest,”

She glanced backwards and saw a broad-shouldered man talking to the woman seated beside him while drinking champagne. She also saw that Sean, Jacob and Alice were at the same table, and they seemed to be feigning interest about the man’s monologue about his workout routine. She had seen this same man in the ceremony, and thought he looked handsome. After ten minutes, food arrived, and talk died down as people ate the duck, which was on the buffet table already sliced, with the organs off to one side, and the stuffing, composed of celery, carrots and beans piled in a separate bowl.

The man then asked, “So, your name is Sandra? How is it being so close to power?”

The question was directed at a slightly plump woman who looked to be about Clarissa’s age. “Not so good,” came the reply. “They’re not so nice up close; Meach is an asshole,”

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