WHY I’M A DIEHARD
WEST BAYER
By Ann Hood
her fiance, Vinny, were getting married. At
the Stone Bridge Inn. In Tiverton.
“Tiverton?” one of the aunts gasped. “That’s
so far away!”
For the record, it’s thirty-four miles from West
Warwick to Tiverton. But for my family, firmly rooted
in the Natick section of town for more than 100 years,
Gina might have been getting married in Timbuktu. We were
not a family that went to Tiverton. Or anywhere in that other
bay — the East Bay.
My mother grabbed my arm a little too hard. As the maid
of honor, I was somehow implicated in the scandal.
“Do we have to go over a bridge?” she hissed.
Honestly, I had no idea. I was living in New York City then,
and working as an international flight attendant. I navigated
the Underground in London, the ancient marketplace in
Cairo, the steep steps of the Agora in Athens. But
Tiverton? I wasn’t even sure it was in Rhode Island
until Gina assured me it was. “Our family is not
going to drive to Massachusetts,” she said. Appar-
ently, they weren’t too keen on driving to the East
Bay either.
“What’s wrong with the Club 400?” everybody
wondered.
The Club 400, right off Providence Street in West Warwick,
was where we got married. They had whiskey sour fountains,
ziti and baked chicken. Even better, they were right there in
town. If it weren’t for our dyed to match high heels, we could
have walked to the Club 400.
“She thinks she’s too good for the Club 400?” the nastiest
aunt said.
Not exactly. She just wanted to be different. There would
be a gazebo for photographs and turkey | | CONTINUED ON PAGE 133
VACCARO;
WARWICK
I
t was the scandal of 1984. Cousin Gina and
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY
l JANUARY 2020 45