"Because of everybody's schedule. We can't rehearse without the best man, and he's arriving about..." Troy looked at his watch. "Ten minutes ago." His cell phone growled at him. "Right on time. Sorta," he muttered as he dug in his pocket.
"What's next?" Diane asked, hooking her arm through Holly's, and they set off down the hall to the large storage room that Gina had let them use to store all their supplies over the last two weeks of preparations.
"Got it!" Lanie called, wheeling out of the storage room with a plastic bin full of tablecloths precariously balanced on her lap, and her two brothers pushing the carts that held the tables.
"I swear, you read my mind lately," Holly said on a sigh.
"Nope, you're just such a good organizer, we can predict down to the minute when you'll be ready for the next wave." Lanie glanced at her shoulder, and for a moment Holly glimpsed a flicker of some kind, a sparkle, like an errant ray of sunshine had glanced off chandelier crystals. She definitely needed to get home and lie down in that hot tub of herb-scented water from Jane's spa. Holly could have sworn she heard a tiny voice laughing and telling Lanie to "Mush!"
The glimpses of sparkles got worse as the evening progressed, and she wondered if she had pushed herself too hard. Three times, Holly dropped the container of poster putty she was using to attach the plastic tablecloths to the walls. Three times, she started down the ladder to get it, because no one was close enough to just ask them to pick it up for her. And three times she saw the container sitting on the shelf of the ladder as soon as she got eye-level with it.
"Who's Maurice?" she asked, when the entire gym was draped in blue and green up to the ceiling. Nothing could be done about the speckled linoleum without creating a safety hazard, but at least it was a shade of green, even if in her personal opinion it looked more like dark puke than grass.
"Maurice?" Diane and Lanie looked up at her with wide eyes that nearly--but not quite--looked innocent and confused. "What are you talking about?"
"I know I heard both of you talking with someone named Maurice, but I don't see any strangers here at all." Holly arched her back as she crossed over to where they sorted through the golden crackle-glass vases Angela had donated from some deep dark corner of her cellar.
"No, we were talking about Maurice. You remember him, don't you?" Diane said slowly, glancing sideways at Lanie. "Angela's distant cousin, who was here in September?"
"Oh. Yeah." Holly rubbed the back of her neck, positive she needed to lie down right now. How could she have forgotten Maurice? It was a little frightening how he had seemed to know so much about her, how intent he had been on spending time with her, just showing up at the library when she got off work early that afternoon. Scary, but nice. He'd walked her home and said he was dying to go to that art movie she wanted to see at the Cedar Lee. Holly was only going to the art theater because a friend from college had a small part in it.
"That Maurice. That's right." She remembered how insistent he had been that she had to take the entire day off from work, Christmas Eve, so they could spend time together when he came back to town. "Is he here already? I thought he wasn't coming for another week or two."
"That's right," Lanie said. "We were just talking about that time he was..." She glanced at Diane.
"When he was walking Meggie around town and the Keystone Kops attacked him, thinking he was trying to kidnap her or something," Diane filled in, her words stopping and starting as if she read them off a page, or someone was feeding her the words.
"Angela said Maurice contacted her a few days ago, to remind her to remind you that you and he have a date for Christmas Eve," Lanie said. Again, she glanced at her shoulder, and there was that flash of light-on-crystal.
"A date?" Holly snorted. She knew she shouldn't be so cynical, but she was tired and her head hurt and she was having delusions. "I don't date. I'm the incredible invisible woman, when it comes to dates."
"That's just because the right guy hasn't shown up yet. Or often enough," Diane added. A flash of light bounced off her nose and she flinched, then muffled laughter.
"Okay, I definitely need to see a doctor or get my eyes checked or something," Holly said, rubbing her eyes. "I am seeing things and hearing things and... Sorry." She offered an apologetic grin when Diane and Lanie looked at her, wide-eyed, and then exchanged concerned looks. "I'm just tired, that's all. I think I'm more nervous about your wedding than you are."
"That's because the half of my family that would try to turn my wedding into the event of the century is the half that isn't talking to me," Diane said with a sigh of laughter. "My fun relatives, the ones who like me just the way I am, are the ones coming into town. They're sensible enough to get into their hotel rooms tonight and leave me alone until after the ceremony."
"Lucky," Holly sighed.
"Double that," Lanie offered with a smirk. "My Mum is the last person I'd expect to care about all the fussy details, but she's been getting this look in her eye when she's been helping Di with things. If I ever get married, I'm eloping. But Mum would probably kill me for depriving her of a big, fussy, white wedding."
Lanie's adopted parents were only slightly reformed Hippies. Holly tried to imagine Charlie Zephyr in a tux and his trademark battered sandals, with his long gray ponytail halfway down his back, or Rainbow Zephyr, her hair dyed neon green, wearing a demure mother-of-the-bride dress.
At least Lanie had parents to drive her crazy, and a man-friend who certainly seemed to show all the signs of wanting to get a lot more serious. All Holly had were friends who were as close as family could get. Wait a minute, how could she say that was all she had?
And Maurice, Angela's distant cousin who showed up a couple times in the year, for just a day at a time, and seemed to know all about her.
"Everybody ready?" Meggie scurried into the gym, dragging a tall East Indian stranger by the hand. "The best man and the maid of honor are here, so let's get this party started!"
"Thank goodness Meggie is thrilled to have you as a sister," Troy said, coming over to the table to join them. He wrapped an arm around Diane's waist. "Imagine how impossible she'd be if she didn't like you."
"Yeah, she's a good kid, our Meggie," that tiny voice said, off to Holly's left. From the corner of her eye, Holly could have sworn she saw a tiny man, surrounded by a corona of sparkling light, but when she turned her head, he was gone.
She excused herself and ran to the pop machine in the lobby. A dose of caffeine and sugar and a double dose of ibuprofen would get her through the evening.
Saturday, December 15
Diane and Troy's wedding was to begin at one that afternoon. Maurice rode over to Eden II on Angela's shoulder, rather than flying or using magic to pop over from Divine's. He wanted to save all his magic and strength to ward off any unforeseen disasters. Diane had admitted, in a rare spurt of nerves, that some of her nastier relatives might just show up and try to sabotage the wedding. It would either be in retaliation for the trouble Troy had caused a family-owned company when he worked with the EPA, or to punish Diane for not letting them use her in their dynastic plans. She had taken warning from centuries of faerie tales and political disasters, and invited every member of her family, no matter how distantly related they were, along with their various hangers-on and sycophants. If everyone was invited, no one could claim offense. Evil sorceresses who were invited to the baby princess's christening didn't show up--the ones who weren't invited showed up with curses.
Chances were very good most of her relatives were too busy or wouldn't even remember who she was. A best case scenario had an avalanche of presents--mostly in the form of money, from people who saw her last name and decided they would pay tribute to the Rittenhouse family megalith of power, even if they had no idea who she was in the family tree--and lots of RSVPs with regrets. A worst case scenario had people showing up for the wedding who hadn't spoken to or seen each other in decades, and the wedding would become an armed camp of backbiting and murderous looks.
So far, more
than half the people who had been sent invitations had sent regrets and money, and Diane had calculated that half of those who hadn't responded at all just wouldn't show up or send anything. Those who she wanted to come had responded. But there was still that quarter of the invited guests who were still in limbo. That was where the problem would come from.
"Look at it this way, kid," Maurice had offered. "They'll all figure you're on the other guy's side, and write you off their lists forever. You won't have to invite them to baby showers or birthday parties or graduation parties or Christmas, for the rest of your life."
He had decided it was better to take precautions and be prepared for the worst thing to happen. So he hoarded all the energy and magic he could. He stayed on Angela's shoulder until it was time for her to go into the dressing room set aside for the bride and her attendants. Maurice was too nervous about ensuring against sabotage to make any smart remarks about being a peeping tom. He hovered near the doorway until he made sure Holly had arrived all right. For just a moment, he feasted his eyes on her, relieved to see she looked well rested, with a flush of excitement in her cheeks, her eyes sparkling with happiness.
"Next year, Holly Berry." Maurice flew off in search of Troy. He wasn't a groomsman, but he could still attend to the groom and offer some advice, or at the very least tell a few jokes to help Troy get through any last-minute attacks of nerves and cold feet.
"Don't tell me how she looked, whatever you do," Troy said, when Maurice caught up with him. He was checking the silvery blue runner that led from the doorway of the small gym to the raised platform in the middle of the room.
"Ahh, it's not bad luck to hear about the bride before the wedding," Maurice offered.
"No, but I might just break down and try to sneak a peek." He grinned and gave a testing kick to the platform, which had been covered in green outdoor carpet, to simulate a hillside.
Maurice felt particularly proud of the decorations, because he and Holly had worked on them in her dreams for what felt like months. He had looked into Diane and Troy's memories of that fateful night when they had fallen through a painting in Divine's Emporium and had an adventure in another world. Then he had shared those memories with Holly, repeatedly, hoping that somehow something would sneak through from her dreams to her waking mind, to help her recreate the setting Diane and Troy remembered with such fondness.
"I swear, I haven't peeked. She could be wearing a blue dress for all I know. Do you mind? Wanna save my strength." He gestured at Troy's tuxedo-clad shoulder.
"Be my guest." Troy grinned and turned his shoulder toward Maurice, and waited until he came in for a landing before striding out of the room.
They couldn't talk anymore after that, because Troy was surrounded by people until it was time for him and his two attendants to take their place on the platform with Mayor Wellington.
Maurice folded his wings back and played with the idea of giving himself antennae and changing the colors of his wings, to look like a psychedelic butterfly. Troy wouldn't see him, but Diane would, coming down the aisle. He liked the idea of making her burst out laughing as she approached the platform. Angela might even laugh, although Maurice suspected she would consider it her duty to frown and scold him for the wrong type of levity.
He dropped the idea after playing with it for a few minutes--there was nothing else to do but listen to Troy talk to guests and watch out for Diane's relatives, just in case the nose-in-the-air troublemakers decided to show up after all. Even if they were invited, thereby neutralizing the evil-fairy-who-didn't-get-an-invitation danger, they could always find something else to give them an excuse to make trouble.
Maurice had one mission today, and that was to make sure Diane and Troy's wedding went off perfectly. That meant heading the troublemaker off at the pass. And that meant he couldn't be a troublemaker, even if it was innocent, fun trouble. Still, he saved the butterfly disguise idea for later, when it would be safe to generate some hysterical laughter. Maybe he could talk Angela into having a costume party the next time he was full-size and magic-less, and he could make a big, goofy butterfly his costume. Diane, Troy, Lanie and Meggie would get a kick out of it, at the very least.
Then again, what would Holly think, seeing him in a goofy costume like that? She hardly knew him--when she was awake, at least. He didn't want to generate the wrong impression.
Wow, he thought, stunned, and was glad he was sitting down. I guess maybe I'm finally growing up!
As if his thoughts conjured her, Holly appeared in the doorway of the little gym. Maurice felt his heart jerk to a stop, and then take a couple hops and skips in his chest before settling back into place and its proper rhythm. Her eyes glowed and a happy flush put roses in her cheeks. She and Meggie and Angela wore white wreaths of daisies and baby carnations, and simple, calf-length dresses of pale green and yellow.
He remembered how pleased Holly had been with the style of the dresses, and the fact that she could wear it again. She especially liked how it flattered her figure without looking like a sack on Meggie and Angela. Maurice had been confused for a few minutes, wondering what was wrong with her figure. Then he had flashed back to his first sight of her, and how he had groaned and begged Angela not to make Holly his first assignment, because he didn't think he could find anyone who would want her.
"I'm an idiot." He promised himself and anyone who might be listening that when he got back to Divine's, he would beat his head against the wall in recompense for being such a stereotyped testosterone-driven guy, judging Holly by how well she fit into a bikini.
"All guys are idiots," Troy murmured. "That's why we need women to help us figure things out. Thank God I found Diane when I did."
"You tripped over her, pal," Maurice offered, earning a snort of laughter from him.
Then he wisely shut up, because Angela had started up the runner behind Holly and Meggie was right behind her, and Diane stood in the doorway, a vision in flowing white, with a cascade of ivy and daisies clutched in her hands.
"Showtime," Maurice murmured. He patted Troy's shoulder and launched himself into the air. "Good luck, pal. I got your back." He would have preferred to keep his ringside seat on Troy's shoulder, but Maurice decided a bird's eye view would let him spot potential problems before they struck.
* * * *
No disasters of any size attacked Diane and Troy's wedding. Maurice claimed a dance with the bride and groom, then settled on Meggie's shoulder for the remainder of the reception. She had grown sensitive enough that she could feel the breeze generated by his wings, and the weight of him, so they worked out a Morse Code system that let them communicate. Meggie had a future in espionage with her talent for sub-vocalization, being able to speak clearly to Maurice so only he could hear her, without actually moving her lips. It was laborious to tap out letters on her neck, and sometimes it tickled, which led to embarrassing moments. Still Maurice felt like he could participate a little more in the festivities, with someone to talk to. Meggie confessed she liked having a secret and being in on something that hardly anyone else in the room knew about.
"Maurice, what are you doing to that poor girl?" Lanie demanded, using her telekinesis to yank him off Meggie's shoulder and hold him in front of her in mid-air.
"It's cool. She knows about me--she just can't see me. Just ask her." Maurice felt a moment of panic, even as he wanted to burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
"Meggie--do you know Maurice?" She wheeled closer to the teenager, who gingerly patted her shoulder and looked like she was about to slip into panic mode.
"Yeah, but he's--" Meggie blinked twice, then turned to look at Lanie. "Can you see him? Do you know where he is?"
"I thought he was pestering you. Sorry." Lanie released the telekinesis field and held out her hand to catch Maurice before his wings opened up. "I just met him two weeks ago, and... Well, I guess I'm just paranoid about some things, since I know exactly what I'd do with magic and wings and being invisible to most of
the people in this town. Sorry, Maurice."
"Eh, it's okay." He tested his wings with a few flaps to make sure they were in working order, and glided over to Meggie's shoulder.
"There you are. I was scared I'd turned too fast or did something to lose you, and you were unconscious on the floor and about to get trampled," Meggie said, grinning. "How come it seems like everybody can see Maurice but me?"
"Diane, Troy, Jane, Angela and I hardly count as 'everybody,'" Lanie said. "I have a few gifts of my own. Of course, I always thought of them as proof I was a mutant or from another planet, not as magic." She shrugged.
"Does Pete--" Meggie blushed.
"Nope. Pete's an ordinary Earthling, as far as I know. We're both adopted, so there's no chance of anything latent, if that's what you mean. He'd be bright green if he knew about Maurice--especially if he knew you could at least feel him, even if you can't hear him." Lanie's mouth quirked up in a smirk. "From that look on your face, I'm guessing you really do care what Pete thinks, huh?"
"Your brother's cute. He's nice. Not like some of the guys in my class. Do you think he'd be..." She blushed even darker.
"Go on over and ask him to dance. I know he's dying to ask you, but he's paranoid there's some sort of protocol that you can only dance with the groomsmen or something." Lanie gestured across the gym at the cluster of young men who seemed to have gathered in a self-defense maneuver against the cluster of high school girls in another corner of the gym.
"Okay." She waved vaguely and scurried through the knots of guests gathered around the refreshment tables or standing on the sidelines of the dancing floor, watching the dozen or so couples. Maurice lifted off, positive she wouldn't even notice he was gone, and came back over to join Lanie.
"Mission accomplished," she said, as Maurice settled down on her knee and sat, crossing his legs.
"Mission?" He grinned. "Are you playing matchmaker?"
"It's like a disease. I spend so much time offering advice to people who can't find their own noses, no way am I going to let my brother mope and whine about not knowing how to find out if a girl likes him or not. I figure, if she didn't take the hint--which she did--then I'd ask a few more questions and find out if she even knew Pete was alive. I think we can let nature take its course from here." She turned her wheelchair in the direction of the tables full of picnic fare. "Hungry?"
Have Yourself a Faerie Little Christmas Page 12
