Right before I walked out to meet my dad and walk down the aisle to get married, my friend B insisted that I needed one more coat of mascara. I'm not very adept with makeup in the best of circumstances, and she had steadier hands than me, so I sat as still as I could and she gave me gentle orders. I could hear the music starting up, and could imagine my father pacing, the crowd quietly looking over their shoulders, waiting. B pulled back, then dabbed at my eye, clucked, and came back at me with the mascara wand. My stomach was turning over. The music lifted its way to us. "They'll wait," she told me, and surveyed her work. Not quite right. She gave the edge of my right eye a couple of light strokes and looked again. I could hardly stand it, and wanted to get up and get out there, where everyone was waiting. But I trusted her, and she was squinting now at my left eye, appraising, even while the photographer looked over her shoulder at my father, jingling his hands in his pockets on the porch.
Lots of the rest of my wedding is a blur to me, but I will always remember those few minutes: the swelling anticipation, the beginning strains of music, my anxious heart jangling and jumping and the perfect composure of B's hands as she held the mascara wand and took her time.