Best Man

The wedding had already been canceled once, and now the bride and bride, or bride and bridegroom, whatever, were late coming down the stairs, and everyone in the house was worried. It was tight, that word, bridegroom, plus totally handy here in western Mass., the land of gay weddings, it felt very hip and very old-timey at once. (In school Vee had learned Massachusetts was an Indian word that meant hilly place; he liked learning about words, where they came from; back in ninth grade, his hippie teacher, Mrs. Josephson, had made them look up everything, even words they knew.) Obviously bridegroom was an excellent word because it did double duty, both boy and girl, you didn’t have to decide or make any suggestion that the actual bridegroom didn’t like. Which was perfect for Vee because he happened to be videotaping the wedding, that was his job, his business, he’d already shot, like, five lesbo weddings since they’d become legal, his business was booming, was entirely word of mouth in the small, heavily lesbo town in which he lived. Besides, Vee didn’t like to offend anyone, especially on the boy/girl question, online they called it your gender expression, whatever, Vee had his own sensitivities in that particular area, he’d get to that later; but also, you can’t build a business if you run around insulting people left and right, so he was grateful for that word, he was grateful for bridegroom.