Fatally Flaky gbcm-15

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Thanks for the bread.” Jack took the proffered loaf from my hand. “I’ll see you at Ceci’s wedding. When does it start?”

  “You’re coming?” I asked, surprised.

  “She adores Doc Finn, and he’s an honored guest. I’m riding Finn’s coattails to the party.”

  “Great.”

  I waved to Lucas and hightailed it out of there, unwilling to deal with Lucas’s complaining or desperate-rodent appearance. The old anxiety about Lucas’s competitive feelings toward me bloomed as I scampered back across the street. For it wasn’t just the puzzles, games, toys, books, and fantastic birthday presents Jack had always given me that made me worry. In a moment of too-much-booze weakness, Jack had confessed to Lucas that I was in a terrible marriage—the one to my first husband, aka the Jerk—and that he, Jack, wanted to help me. Without warning, Jack had given me a large sum of money to get away from the Jerk. When Jack told his son about this, hoping to be congratulated for his generosity, Three Mile Island hadn’t had a meltdown to match Lucas’s.

  Since then, Jack had told me not to tell Lucas about any gifts that came my way. I promised not to, but I still felt uncomfortable.

  I ducked through the rain and into our house. In the kitchen, I was surprised to see Tom consulting my printed schedule for Cecelia O’Neal’s wedding. Cecelia was due to get married at my conference center at noon.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Tom raised an eyebrow in my direction, then shuffled to the walk-in, pulled out a box, and brought it to the counter.

  “Helping you,” he supplied. Tom was ever the master of laconic communication.

  “Don’t you have to go to work?”

  “Got somebody filling in for me.”

  “Tom, what is going on?”

  “Ceci’s mother just called.” Tom cocked an eyebrow at me. “Her name’s Dodie O’Neal?” When I nodded, Tom went on, “It seems her ex-husband is threatening to show up at the wedding. Dodie’s hired some security guards. And so I’m going to help you and Julian in the kitchen. When we get over there, I’ll explain the situation.”

  Great, I thought, as Tom and I loaded my van. Two days before the twice-delayed wedding of Bridezilla Billie, and I had been doing all in my power to put everything dealing with those worrisome nuptials out of my mind. What was it about nature, something about it abhorring a vacuum? Now we had a threatened disruption to what had promised to be a fairly straightforward wedding.

  “Stay calm.” I found myself whispering my new mantra to myself as I piloted my van through the downpour to my event center. Tom, behind me, was driving his own vehicle, in case he was called away by the department. “Stay calm, stay calm,” I said again. “See?” I said to no one but myself, since I was alone in the van. “Talking aloud with no one there? I am going nuts.”

  Okay, well, security guards or no, I needed to concentrate on Ceci O’Neal’s wedding. Cecelia, unlike Billie, had been easy to deal with. A tall, twenty-five-year-old woman who had a cap of short, black curls, Cecelia was unfailingly kind and gracious. She was also a selfless single mother. When she’d heard about an orphanage in Romania that needed adoptive parents, off she went on a discount flight to Eastern Europe, which was more than I would have done, and brought home little bawling Lissa, then an infant. Ceci doted on Lissa.

  More than once, I’d thought of sending Ceci over to where Billie Attenborough lived with her mother in Flicker Ridge, an upscale development not far from Aspen Meadow Country Club. My idea was that Ceci would give Billie a class in Basic Civility.

  But I frowned at the thought of security guards. I already knew that Cecelia’s biological father, Norman O’Neal, had decamped soon after Cecelia was born. This was right after Dodie had finished putting Norman through law school, which established good old Norm in the Jerk category. After a brief internship at a large firm, Norman had established a flourishing practice right here in Aspen Meadow. When we were doing the contracts, Dodie had related how Norman had wangled his way out of paying much in the way of child support. Still, for twenty years Dodie had proudly worked as a secretary—no euphemistic “administrative assistant” for her—down at the University of Denver.

  My cell rang, interrupting my reverie. It was Dodie O’Neal.

  “Sorry about the security guards,” Dodie apologized.

  “Tom told me. Don’t worry about it.”

  Dodie said, “Last week, Norman announced to his firm that he would be giving his daughter away. And not only that, but he boasted that he’d been asked to give the first toast at the reception.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  When I’d gently asked Dodie and Cecelia if there was a father in the picture, they had firmly replied that Norman O’Neal was having exactly no part in the wedding. Dodie would be giving her daughter away. And Doc Finn was doing the first toast. Period.

  “Problem is,” Dodie said now, “Norman has a terrible temper. I’ve always wondered how lawyers could get away with being bullies. Now I know.”

  I sighed, thinking of various scenarios, all of which ended in catastrophe. Before signing off, Dodie said she was confident everything would work out. She’d given an old photo of Norm to the security agency, and she believed the agency’s claim that all would be well.

  After ten minutes of carefully driving through the rain, I pulled into my gravel parking lot. Tom was right behind me. I could hear his argument now: if armed guards were needed, so was he.

  It was just before nine, three hours before the wedding was set to begin. The two guards, who were helping the valets, were already on duty. I told them we were the caterer and the caterer’s husband, and they let us right through, no identification requested. Some security.

  My cell phone buzzed and I glanced at the caller ID. Oh, I should have expected it: Billie Attenborough. Sometimes I wished I were a lawyer, and could charge for calls. With the way Billie was always phoning, phoning, phoning—why, I could have retired.

  I could just imagine Billie tossing her blond mane and complaining, bitterly and loudly, that I was refusing to talk to her. I knew that losing weight could make people grouchy, but in Billie’s case, it was making her certifiable.

  I ignored the cell and parked as near the event center’s side entrance as I could get. Tom was still behind me. Then I flipped up the hood on my rain jacket and hopped out of the van.

  “Forget it,” Tom called through the downpour. “You’re not unloading the van in this weather. I’ll do it.”

  “Oh no you won’t!” I replied.

  I’d been single for a long time before marrying Tom, and he’d been unattached even longer. This had made us, as the saying goes, set in our ways, which is French for stubborn.

  As Tom was sliding open the van’s side door, my cell phone beeped again. Could it be Arch? My son was enjoying the last of his summer vacation by spending night after night either at the home of his half brother, Gus—the product of one of the Jerk’s flings, whom I had embraced after his mother died—or at Arch’s best friend Todd Druckman’s house. Sometimes the three of them stayed at Todd’s before decamping back to Gus’s, or vice versa. There was no way Arch and his pals would be up this early, but I always worried. As I checked the caller ID again, I thought if it was Billie, I would disconnect the phone. Arch could call Tom if he was in a real jam.

  It was not Arch. It was Julian. Even if most twenty-two-year-olds had trouble rousing themselves from bed to get to work, Julian’s ambition of becoming a vegetarian chef meant he was always up early, scouring Boulder’s farmers’ markets, and then taking off to help me, or showing up to toil long hours in a vegetarian bistro near the University of Colorado.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he began, and I thought if his inherited Range Rover had broken down on the way over from Boulder, I would throw myself into the lake.

  “Is what ever you’re about to tell me going to upset me?” I asked as Tom heaved up a stack of plastic-wrapped trays.

  “Hi,
Billie!” Tom yelled into the cell phone before schlepping his load toward the kitchen door.

  “What is Billie Attenborough doing at Ceci’s wedding?” Julian asked in disbelief. “Was that Tom talking to her?”

  “No, Julian, that was Tom trying to be funny. He thought I was on the phone with Bridezilla. Now, what am I not going to believe?”

  “Billie just called me.”

  “What?”

  “She’s very pissed off that you’re not answering your phone. She says she needs to talk to you, and if you don’t start answering, she’s going to come find you. She sounded as if she meant it.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell her where I was going to be.”

  “Nope. But you know how she is.”

  I did indeed. Once when I’d refused to answer our home phone or my cell, Billie had driven over to our house and started knocking on the front door. I was busy cooking for a party, so instead of answering, I’d nipped into the bathroom. Billie traipsed around back and started tapping on the windows that Tom had installed to face our backyard. Still getting no response, Billie returned to her Mercedes convertible and leaned on the horn. I came out of the bathroom and watched through our partially closed blinds as Billie continued to honk. Finally, Jack came out of his house and yelled that he was calling the cops. His pal Doc Finn, who had preceded Jack out the front door to watch the action, had shaken his head.

  Jack hollered, “They’ll throw you in jail for disturbing the peace, Billie!”

  Of course, Jack would never have reported Billie. But his years as a practicing lawyer always made him sound convincing. Billie had roared away in her convertible, but not before proffering an obscene gesture in my godfather’s direction.

  Yes, I said to Julian, as my call-waiting began to beep, I did indeed know how Billie was. I ignored the beeping.

  Julian said he didn’t want to worry me, just give me a heads-up. Then he asked how things were going. I told him about the security guards, and he wanted to know if there was anything he should say to them so he could be let into the parking lot.

  “Just tell them you’re with the caterer. They seem pretty bored.”

  Before signing off, Julian said that the rain was making everyone on the highway slow down, but he should be at our event center in less than an hour. I stepped into the chilly deluge, heaved up the last box of food, and splashed through the mud to the kitchen door.

  There, Tom was already unpacking.

  “Father Pete just called,” Tom informed me. Father Pete was our parish priest at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and was doing the O’Neal ceremony. “He couldn’t get through to you. Anyway, he’ll be here early.”

  “Great. I was on the phone with Julian. Billie called him, looking for me.”

  Tom shook his head. I thanked him for bringing in the lion’s share of the boxes and said I would be right back, just after I checked on the dining room.

  There, all was lovely. Rows of chairs had been custom fit by Dodie in a luscious pink sateen; she’d sewn the slipcovers, and made Cecelia’s wedding dress, herself. For the twelve-top tables, now pushed to one side and hidden behind a curtain, Aspen Meadow Florist had done a phenomenal job. Centerpieces of pale pink carnations, baby’s breath, and ivy had been Dodie O’Neal’s low-cost choice. Pink faux-linen napkins, also sewn by Dodie, looked exquisite next to the snowy white tablecloths.

  As if to reassure myself, I said aloud, “Everything’s going to be great.”

  If only.

  3

  Swathed in an apron, my handsome husband was refrigerating the trays of hors d’oeuvres that we would start to heat once the bridal procession began. Together, Tom and I finished unpacking and setting things in order. From time to time we consulted the printed schedule I had taped on the kitchen island. Julian arrived with the cake, a frothy pink and white three-layer confection that he had triple wrapped in plastic. Tom and I ooh’d and aah’d appropriately. Blushing with pride, Julian thanked us. With his wavy brown hair, clean-cut face, and compact swimmer’s body, Julian would be sure to attract a few ooh’s and aah’s himself, especially from the unattached twenty-something females who would be in attendance.

  The three of us worked for the next hour and a half finishing our setup. Julian set the cake on its own special table behind the curtain with the twelve tops. Tom laid out row upon row of martini glasses. When the guests began to filter into the main dining room, Tom methodically filled each glass with shredded lettuce, then moved on to arranging poached shrimp on top. Just the sight of Tom bent so intently over his work warmed my heart. My good mood lasted until my cell phone tooted and I checked the caller ID again: Billie Attenborough. Aw, gee, why should I have been surprised?

  Tom saw me make a face. “Now what?”

  “Bridezilla Billie has some new demand.”

  “Remind me when her wedding is.”

  “Day after tomorrow.” I set the phone to Vibrate and put it in my apron pocket. “I’m still not taking her call.”

  “Good idea,” Julian interjected.

  “She’s nervous.” Tom’s tone was sympathetic. “Maybe she’ll find somebody else to bother. Don’t be too hard on her, Miss G.”

  I shook my head. What ever reservoir of compassion I’d had for Billie Attenborough had dried up long ago.

  When I was checking the temperature of the champagne Doc Finn would use for his toast, my cell phone buzzed against my skin. If it was Billie Attenborough again, I was going to turn it off. But it wasn’t Billie. It was Jack Carmichael. I checked my watch: 11:30. He and Doc Finn couldn’t have already started drinking, could they?

  “Uncle Jack,” I said, glad for the break. “I thought you were coming to Cecelia’s wedding.”

  “Gertie Girl.” He sounded a bit worried. “Is Finn there?”

  “Doc Finn?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Doc Finn, the old coot. He was supposed to pick me up, and he never came. Maybe he forgot. He does do that sometimes.”

  “Let me check.”

  I ducked into the dining room. About fifty guests had already taken their seats. They looked at me expectantly: Food already?

  “I don’t see him, Jack. Did you try his cell?”

  “He’s not answering. I’ll just drive over to your center. Maybe he’s in the parking lot visiting with somebody.”

  “Okeydoke. When you get here, come and say hi to us. We’ll be in the kitchen.”

  He hung up, but before I could return to the kitchen, I saw a weaving figure duck into the dressing room, which was right next to the dining area. He was not a member of the wedding party. I was guessing it was Norman O’Neal, the difficult father of the bride. So much for the security guards.

  Tom was ferrying the shrimp cocktails to the small refrigerator in the curtained-off dining area.

  “It looks as if Norman O’Neal is here,” I warned. “There could be trouble. He just walked in a very unsteady fashion right into the dressing area, where Ceci is supposed to be.”

  Tom bobbed swiftly behind the curtain to the dining area, and I followed, unsure of what to do. But Tom showed no signs of uncertainty. He slid his tray into the small refrigerator that we’d set up next to the cake stand, and headed to his left, right into the makeshift dressing room.

  Behind him, I murmured, “Maybe you should be careful. This guy’s an attorney.”

  “All the better,” Tom replied without breaking stride.

  There was no way I was going to stand by while my husband, who lifted weights and was in spectacular shape, flattened the father of the bride.

  “You’re my ex-dad,” the bride was whispering angrily at the tottering male figure in a rumpled suit. The loveliness of Cecelia O’Neal, whose white dress fit her stunningly, was ruined by the flaming spots on her cheeks and her furious expression. “Please leave,” Cecelia hissed when Norman O’Neal didn’t move. “I don’t want to see you.”

  “Where’s your mother?” Norman demanded, pulling himself up straight. He was under six
feet tall, and had a gray bottlebrush mustache and a puff of gray hair just above his forehead. He positively reeked of alcohol.

  “Sir,” Tom said calmly, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m asking you nicely. And I want you to leave nicely.”

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Norman O’Neal.

  “I’m police,” announced Tom, one eyebrow raised.

  Norman O’Neal’s rheumy blue eyes took in Tom, who was still wearing his apron. “I don’t think so.”

  Lissa O’Neal, who was now an adorable eighteen-month-old with wisps of blond hair framing her face, clung to her mother’s dress and began to whimper. In the main dining room, the hum of voices from more waves of arriving guests rose. I couldn’t imagine that this little conflict—between Tom and an inebriated attorney, no less—was going to end well.

  “Where’s Harold Finn?” Norman O’Neal demanded querulously. With his index finger, he scratched his mustache. “If Doc Finn’s in this wedding, then I’m going to be, too.”

  “Sir—,” Tom began again, still patient.

  The curtain swished open, and everyone except Tom jumped. It was not the first time I’d thought he had better hearing than I did, not to mention a sixth sense as to who was approaching.

  “Dear me,” said Father Pete, our short, corpulent priest. He cleared his throat and took in the anxious faces of our little tableau. All anxious, that is, except for Tom, whose eyes had never left Norman O’Neal.

  “Who’re you?” demanded Norman O’Neal, reeling unsteadily toward Father Pete.

  Father Pete was as kind and pastoral as the midsummer days were long, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly. “Where is your mother?” Father Pete asked Ceci, who had picked up the now-crying Lissa. Father Pete looked around the small makeshift room. “Cecelia? Where is Doc Finn? I thought he and your mother were walking you down the aisle.”

  “I don’t know where any of them are,” Cecelia wailed suddenly. She began to cry, too, which brought a fresh onslaught of tears from Lissa. As mother and daughter clung to each other, I thought, There go the hair and makeup. Two bridesmaids, both clothed in their floaty pink dresses, appeared at the curtain, widened their eyes at the scene, and whisked themselves away. “This is my ex-dad,” Cecelia said, sobbing, to Father Pete. “He’s insisting he’s going to be part of the ceremony! Plus, he’s wasted! He’s going to ruin everything!”