Kathleen grimaced. “Men! He couldn’t even describe what the woman he ate a meal with just this morning had worn! Not even the color of her dress. And I thought Jerry was bad.”
Susan nodded. She remembered the time she had asked Jed why he hadn’t commented on her new dress, and he had answered that he had been afraid to say anything since he was never absolutely sure if he had seen it before. “I know what you mean. And she might have changed, of course. Did you ask about anything else, like hair color?”
“Actually, I did, because he mentioned the fact that the Archangel had been the first person he’d known to dye her hair purple. So it was easy to ask about her hair now.”
“And what did he say?”
“Sort of light blond—or maybe brunette, was his accurate description!”
Susan thought about the woman in the box. “I suppose you could call her a dirty blonde.”
“Maybe.”
“No one seems particularly worried about the Archangel.”
“Why should we be worried about her?”
Susan and Kathleen turned around and discovered they had been joined by Blues.
“We were just wondering why she didn’t show up at the rehearsal …” Susan said.
“If something might have happened to her,” Kathleen added.
“You know, we were hoping nothing had happened to her—not that there’s any reason to think anything is wrong—”
“She probably just got lost,” Kathleen said very quickly.
But Blues had a serious expression on her face. “I’m worried about her, too.”
Susan and Kathleen exchanged looks. “Why?” Susan asked gently.
“She’s the type of person everyone worries about. The Archangel just won’t grow up!”
Well, it was one of the strangest statements Susan had ever heard.
“Here the rest of us have gone on with our lives, gotten married, gotten divorced, had children, built careers. All the normal things. And she’s still planning demonstrations, organizing petitions, worrying about politicians—she still acts like she’s living in the Sixties, for heaven’s sakes!”
“But …”
“I know. I know. She’s dedicated. Hardworking. Caring. An inspiration to us all. And she is—but she makes such a big deal of it. I mean, I take care of my inner self. I do yoga. I meditate. But I don’t brag about it. The Archangel is always telling stories about how she meditates so much that she no longer needs to sleep.… Silliness, sheer silliness. Bragging about having insomnia—”
They were interrupted by the entrance of three of Chrissy’s bridesmaids—all giggling.
“I couldn’t believe … Talk about a rude pass.”
“Did you hear what he said about—”
“Hi, Mrs. Henshaw! Hey, Mrs. Henshaw is here.” It was said in the nature of a warning, and they all shut up immediately.
“Oh, your husband was wondering what had happened to you, Mrs. Henshaw.”
Susan assumed the young woman’s helpfulness was at least partially the result of a desire to talk without being overheard by an adult. “Thanks. I was just getting ready to go back to the table.” Actually, she was getting hungry, she realized.
Blues hurried into an available stall. “Yes, we don’t want to be late for the main course. The appetizer was so wonderful. And the salad was as good as what we get out in California. Such lovely fresh greens.”
Not hungry, starving. Susan left the room and hurried back to her place at the table.
“Susan? I was wondering where you’d gone. Are you feeling well? Is there a problem … with the meal or anything?” Jed asked brightly.
Susan knew he was worried about the body. “Everything’s fine. Kathleen and I got to talking in the ladies’ room—about her kids. Alex and Alice are Kathleen Gordon’s children—they’re very excited about being members of the wedding party.”
“Charming children,” Rhythm boomed. “The little boy reminds me of Stephen when he was that age. He was a real spunky little kid—always up to some sort of devilment.”
“Stephen?” Susan looked around for any sign of her appetizer or salad, but apparently both had been cleared away. She reached out for the basket of hot rolls in front of her. The Inn was known for its breads, going so far as to suggest to diners which dishes went with which grains and flavors, and its baskets were piled high with a generous selection. She flipped back the Irish linen napkin and found a small mixed-seed dinner roll lying next to half a square of cornbread with red peppers. She chose the cornbread and buttered it, as Rhythm told stories from Stephen’s childhood.
“… home schooling was the only answer after he was suspended for the third time, I’m afraid …” he was saying, as a fresh basket of rolls appeared.
“How interesting …” Then she realized what she had just heard. “Stephen was expelled from elementary school? Your son, Stephen? The one who is marrying my daughter tomorrow afternoon?” she asked, so surprised she forgot her hunger. “What did he do?”
“What didn’t he do? He refused to salute the flag and then, when he was asked why, he told his second-grade teacher that the United States was soft on fascism. And that was the same year the gym teacher—a failed junior high football coach—decided that the kids must live up to physical standards. You know, the fifty-sit-ups, fifty-push-ups type of guy. Stephen threatened to stage a sit-in protesting the conformity of the educational system.”
Susan glanced at Stephen. Twenty years seemed to have made a huge difference in his life. From his rep tie to his cordovan loafers, Stephen was the image of a young man trying to conform to the most conservative of standards.
“But I think the system could have accepted all that. If it just hadn’t been for those dead bodies,” Rhythm said.
Across the table, Blues nodded at her husband. “You’re right, dear. Public education is simply not ready for corpses.”
SIXTEEN
“So I gather my parents have been bragging about my misspent youth. Did they tell you about the decapitated Barbie dolls that were part of my third grade civics project?” Stephen leaned over Susan’s shoulder as the waiter placed an artistically arranged plate before her.
“They did,” she answered, picking up her fork. “They seem very proud of you.”
He smiled and managed to include both his mother and father in one affectionate glance. “They have always been proud of the strangest things. When I was younger it bothered me, but now I just accept the way they are.” His attention was drawn back to the head of the table. “I think Chrissy’s calling me.”
“So go to her, young man. Go to her,” his father urged.
Stephen gave the impression that he had no intention of doing anything else. He smiled at Susan and headed off.
“Have they discussed the evening’s activities, I wonder?” his mother mused, watching her son and his fiancée chatting.
“You mean Chrissy and Stephen? What activities?” Susan asked, grimacing as she realized she might be being indiscreet.
“Stephen’s bachelor party,” his father answered. “The celebration of his last night of freedom.”
“Yeah, man, the bachelor party,” a male voice yelled from another table. Susan guessed it was the best man, who, she had noticed, had been getting louder and louder as the evening continued.
“There is not going to be a bachelor party,” Stephen said, not even bothering to turn his head and address the speaker.
“Excellent decision,” a loud female voice stated to the room at large. “There is nothing more male-chauvinistic than the traditional bachelor party. An archaic custom. Disgraceful. A crime before the goddesses.”
“Thank goodness! She’s here!”
“Archangel!”
“My dear, we’re so glad …”
“Where have you been?”
“I can’t tell you how …”
The Archangel had arrived.
Then who, Susan wondered, was the murdered woman? But her duty as a
hostess was obvious. Not even taking a last reluctant glance at her cooling entrée, she hopped up from her seat and headed over to greet her guest.
She was one of many. Almost all the adults rushed to the Archangel as well.
The Archangel, for today at least, was blond. Her hair, in fact, was bright yellow. It was also long, thick, and apparently difficult to control. From where Susan stood, she could count three combs and a tie-dyed silk scrunchie, yet locks flew into the air and were tucked behind both ears. The Archangel was busy embracing her friends, so Susan decided not to interrupt. She stood back and watched, thinking that if the minister had come to the party straight from testifying before a congressional committee, she must have made some impression on that particular assembly. The Archangel was wearing a dress that seemed to have been fashioned from overlapping triangles of vividly colored silk. Beads were draped around her neck, hung from her ears, and wrapped around both wrists. Like her hair, her clothing seemed to be in constant motion, as she greeted one old acquaintance after another, with cries and hugs all around.
Finally Susan felt everyone had been given time enough and moved in to greet her guest. “You must be …” she began, and then changed tacks. She simply could not say, “You must be the Archangel” to someone she had just met. “I’m Susan Henshaw, Chrissy’s mother. We heard you were stuck in …” She didn’t know whether to say Washington or Chicago and decided to change tack again. “We’re so glad you made it. Let me introduce you around and then find you a seat and a waiter so you can order your meal.”
“Susan Henshaw, I have been thinking about you all afternoon. I’m psychic, you know and … and there are some things we should get together over. Changes are in the air.…” She looked at Susan and seemed to think twice about what she had been about to say. “And, of course, an empty nest can be a devastating thing for a domestic woman.… But you don’t have to worry about the wedding. This is going to be the most beautiful wedding of two of the most beautiful young people in the world. Now tell me, where is your angelic daughter whom everyone has been talking about? And her lucky fiancé? I don’t know if I’ll recognize him after all these years.”
“I think my hair was a bit longer the last time I saw you,” Stephen said, coming up to stand beside his future mother-in-law.
“You’re Little Spirit?”
Susan, thrilled at his commune name, got the impression that the Archangel was almost at a loss for words.
“Well, I’m not so little anymore, and these days most people call me Stephen.” He had taken both her hands in his and was smiling sincerely, Susan noticed, and the Archangel didn’t seem to take offense at this transformation of her old friend.
“Well, you’ve certainly grown up, Stephen,” she admitted, grinning proudly at the young man as though she were somehow responsible for this fact. “I remember when you were just a little thing, always taking off your diaper and running around the halls completely naked.… Is this your lovely bride?”
Chrissy admitted the fact and allowed herself to be wrapped in a long embrace.
“If you can spare a moment or two in the next few hours, we should get together. The tales I can tell you about this young man you’re going to marry …”
“I’ll have a place for you set at our table,” Chrissy said graciously. “Reverend Price is sitting there and you two should meet.”
“Wonderful. The other religious … And dinner … I don’t suppose …” She looked at Susan.
“There are three different vegetarian selections,” Susan said. She didn’t claim to be psychic, but she could guess what concerned the Archangel.
“Lovely. I want to speak to the good reverend to plead for an opportunity to spend some quiet time alone in the sanctuary where the service will be held tomorrow.”
“Reverend Price can handle all that.”
“And then we can get together about the question of that male-chauvinistic tradition known as the bachelor party, young man, and, of course, then I want to spend a few moments with the young angel you are going to marry tomorrow afternoon.” The Archangel put one arm around Stephen’s waist and the other around Chrissy’s and led them off.
“The woman is absolutely amazing, she hasn’t changed one bit,” Rhythm said.
“Damn right. She’s the same bossy bitch she always was.”
Susan turned around quickly enough to discover the identity of the speaker: the best man, who, having said his piece, lurched off in the direction of the bar for, presumably, another drink that he certainly did not need. Susan, more worried about the wedding party than the food cooling on her plate, hurried after him.
“Susan? Is there a problem? Anything I can do?” Charles appeared at her side.
“I …” She looked around and then pulled him aside where they wouldn’t be overheard by any of the guests. “There’s this young man—he’s supposed to be the best man tomorrow—and I think he’s been drinking …” She realized that could be said about everyone else in the room and amended her statement. “Well, drinking more than is good for him. He just headed into the bar.”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Charles said, turning to leave. “I’ll alert the bartender and he’ll warn him off—and if that doesn’t work, we can always water down anything he orders.”
“Thanks.”
Susan returned to her guests and was relieved to find the meal still in progress. She sat down, picked up her fork, and then realized someone was proposing a toast. She put her fork back beside her plate and picked up her full wineglass.
“… and, of course, to the Henshaws, who tomorrow will give their lovely daughter to the first son of our commune family. To Susan and Jed, everyone.” The Archangel had missed the original toasts and appeared to have decided to do something about it.
She knew Jed couldn’t do anything but reciprocate, but then Blues decided to join in and stood up. And next, Susan, realizing the wine was going to her head faster than usual, stood and tried hard not to mispronounce any words in her short (well, maybe not so short, she realized, noticing the expression on Jed’s face) tribute to the young couple.
And it took off from there. The next half hour looked like a scene from a toastmaster’s club meeting attended by the Marx Brothers. Person after person popped up from their seats and raised their glasses high. Susan smiled, drank too much wine, watched her food get cold, and tried desperately to put names on faces. Beside Stephen’s parents there were (she thought) six other couples who had been members of the commune and they all had unusual names.
The best man’s parents were Wind Song and High Hopes. (They both had ponytails and rather horsey faces, and Susan decided she would remember their names, as they seemed more appropriate for racehorses than people.)
Then there was a couple who stood out from the crowd because it was difficult to imagine that either had ever been involved in liberal politics or an alternative life style. Dot and Brad Morris were suburban from their loafers up their chinos, around their Polo shirts and Brooks Brothers blazers, and culminating in almost identical short regulation hairstyles. She heard more than one person call Dot something like Peace, only to be firmly corrected, as Dot insisted that she had given up that name.
In complete contrast to Dot and Brad was the couple sitting with them. Freedom and Hubris were middle-aged gay men who had introduced themselves to Susan as the owners of a summer theater up on Cape Cod. They were apparently still involved in political causes as well. The business card Freedom had passed to Susan bore a sketch of a barnlike structure (presumably the theater) and the slogan theater that widens the mind. Hubris and Chrissy were involved in a conversation about set design throughout much of the dinner while Freedom caught the group up on the activities of the couple since the commune had broken up.
The next pair, sitting on the other side of the room, were the parents of the only bridesmaid from the groom’s family. The young woman’s name was Wendy, and as the person who had ordered her dress, Susan was intimatel
y familiar with Wendy’s measurements and coloring. (The bridesmaids were wearing various shades of spring colors, and Wendy’s gown of mignonette silk had been selected to contrast with her coppery hair and pale skin. She was, Susan knew before she met her, thin as that proverbial rail.) Susan would have had no trouble picking out her parents in this crowd. Their daughter’s coloring had been come by legitimately: Though her father’s hair was almost nonexistent and her mother’s almost certainly augmented by Clairol, the three of them had fallen from the same tree—probably a Japanese red maple, Susan decided. She remembered Wendy’s parents’ names from their earlier meeting: Her father was known as Red Man and her mother as Havana Rose.
Wendy herself spent most of the meal flirting with best man David. But that young man was either too drunk or too hungry to notice. He had returned from the bar with a surprisingly sanguine expression on his face and proceeded to wolf down his dinner, accompanied only by the Pellegrino water an obliging waiter poured into his wineglass.
There were four more people from the commune, but Susan couldn’t decide whether they were combined into couples or if they were independent.
Rivermist and Moonbeam were women. The men were called the Magician and, strangely enough in this gathering, Ben.
“Ben was always the most sensible of us all,” Blues whispered across the table, when Susan’s raised eyebrows convinced her an explanation was necessary. “We tried out lots of names. I remember Flame and Moonglow … Oh, there were lots. But he called himself Ben the day he appeared at our door and nothing else seemed to stick.”
Susan stopped trying to make up her mind about the relationships between Rivermist, Moonbeam, the Magician, and Ben (Ben had embraced Moonbeam warmly but was now sitting with a proprietary arm around Rivermist’s shoulders), and asked Blues a question.
“How did you get your names? Did you choose them yourselves or were they given to each person?”
Blues shrugged. “I suppose a little of each—and some other things. We all felt that we were starting over, giving up our old identities and creating new selves, new families. And taking new names seemed to go with that—like Chrissy giving up Henshaw and becoming a Canfield, I suppose.”
Weddings Are Murder Page 12
