by Meg Benjamin
Janie closed her eyes. Docia’s perfect wedding to her prince. Happily every after. Somebody has to make it happen.
“It’s all right.” She thought her own voice sounded rusty, as if she hadn’t used it in a long while. “She can wear it. It’s okay. I’ll be a bridesmaid.”
Reba’s forehead furrowed. “Janie, no. Don’t do this. You don’t have to.”
Janie found herself nodding. Her head felt as if it were suspended from strings. “Yes, I do. It’s okay. Really.”
“Fine, then!” Mrs. Toleffson smiled triumphantly. “Everything will work out. Sherice will be the matron of honor. Lars can be best man. Let’s go find that seamstress.” She walked purposefully toward the dining room.
Sherice draped the lavender dress over her arm and strolled after her mother-in-law.
Janie stood staring at the other bridesmaid’s dresses, trying to control her breathing so that her eyes wouldn’t overflow. A hollow pain blossomed somewhere in the general vicinity of her heart.
Reba stepped up behind her, wrapping her arms around her and pulling her close, so that Janie’s head rested on Reba’s ample bosom. She patted Janie gently on the back.
“Janie Dupree,” she murmured, “you are too nice to live. But sooner or later, that woman is going to get her comeuppance.”
Janie took a deep breath. Just a dress. It’s just a dress. “Which woman?”
“Take your pick.” Reba smiled wryly. “And now, missy, which one of us gets to tell Docia she’s got a new matron of honor?”
“No,” Docia snapped. “Absolutely not. You can forget this, Janie. I’ll call this whole dog and pony show off before I let that woman be my matron of honor. That’s final!”
Janie sighed. She felt like a small ice-pick was boring into the base of her skull. “It’s not my idea, Docia, it’s Mrs. Toleffson’s.”
Docia’s mouth turned down as she pressed her lips together. “She’s not running this wedding.”
“No, but she’s going to be your mother-in-law.”
Brenner’s restaurant glowed with golden light from the candles on the tables. The chairs were full of couples who were drinking wine and smiling. Happy people everywhere Janie looked.
She really wanted to lean back and close her eyes, so that she could pretend she was happy too. Instead, she had to explain the facts of life to Docia.
Lee Contreras leaned over the table smiling. “Docia, my treasure, how goes the wedding?”
“Like the Battle of Antietam,” Docia said through gritted teeth, “only with fewer laughs.”
Lee winced and placed a bowl of olive oil and a bread basket within reach. “Here, eat this. I’ll send Ken over with some alcohol.”
Janie put her hand on Docia’s arm. “Listen, Docia, we’ve been friends for a long time and we’ll go on being friends, knock wood.” She rapped her knuckles on the tabletop. “But Mrs. Toleffson is Cal’s mother and she’ll be your mother-in-law. In the great scheme of things, she’s more important in your life than I am.”
Docia stared up at Ken Crowder as he poured wine at the next table, her lips still tight. “This sucks, Janie.”
She sighed. “What do you want me to say, Docia? Sure it does. But I can’t see any other way around this one. Unless you want to start some battle that will put you on one side and your mother-in-law and Sherice on the other. Then Cal and Pete and Lars would all have to decide how to line up and it could get very messy.”
“What’s messy?” Cal slid into a chair beside Docia, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
Pete dropped into a chair across from Janie. His orange T-shirt said “You can’t handle the truth!” At least it looked clean.
Docia gave them a short and very profane summary of the day’s activities.
Cal stared at Janie. “Holy crap!”
Pete sighed, tearing a slice of bread into pieces on his plate. “You mean just when I found out what a best man is supposed to do, I’m not best man anymore? Shoot!” He winked at Janie, his lips quirking into a grin.
She managed to push her lips into a flat smile.
“Cal, you’ve got to talk to your mother.” Docia grabbed a piece of bread and jabbed it viciously into the bowl of olive oil. “I’m sorry, but I don’t even know Sherice. How can she be my matron of honor? It’s nutsy.”
“I can talk to Mom—so can Pete. But chances are we won’t be able to get the dress back.” Cal rubbed the back of his neck, frowning. “We need to figure out what’s going on here. I don’t remember Mom ever being all that big on Sherice before. In fact, I’ve heard her say some fairly caustic things about her over the past couple of years.” He turned to Pete. “Have I missed something?”
Pete shook his head. “Nope. Sherice has definitely not improved with time. And Mom has never been one of her fans. But I’ve got a theory about this, though.”
“And that would be…” Cal raised his eyebrows.
Ken reached over his shoulder to plunk down a bottle of Super Texan. “Lee said y’all needed a rapid infusion of booze.” He placed four glasses in the center of the table. “Let me know when it runs out. We’ll start a tab.”
When they’d each been supplied with a full glass of wine, Pete began again. “Okay, as you may have noticed yesterday, Lars and Sherice are having some big problems, as in heading for a crack-up. I think Mom’s decided that putting them together in this wedding will help out. And before you ask—” he shook his head, looking at Docia, “—no, I have no idea how it’s supposed to help out. Maybe remind them of the wonders of marriage or something. Make them think it’s worth another try. Anyway, if Sherice has to have that dress to be in The Wedding, Mom’s going to get her that dress. And remember, it’s Sherice who’s decided she needs the dress, not Mom.”
Docia exhaled an irritated breath. “I don’t think Sherice is all that hot to even be part of the wedding, to tell the truth. She certainly doesn’t act like it.”
Pete shrugged. “Nope. I’d guess weddings aren’t Sherice’s thing.”
Janie took a sip of wine, trying not to gulp it down. It had a certain numbing effect. “So the bridesmaid obsession is all your mom’s idea? Sherice had nothing to do with it? I guess that goes along with the way she acted at the barbecue.”
“Oh Lord, it sounds like Mom.” Cal pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “Once she gets her teeth into something like this, it’s really hard to get her to change her mind.”
“That assumes you could get her to admit that the changes in the wedding were her idea to begin with.” Pete gave them a dry smile, sipping his wine. “By now, Mom has undoubtedly convinced herself that Sherice is really invested in being part of this wedding and removing her would not only be an insult to the Toleffson family honor but a heartbreaking assault on Sherice’s psyche.”
“An assault on Sherice has a lot of appeal right now, heartbreaking or otherwise.” Cal grimaced.
Lee appeared beside their table again. “You people need some food.” He motioned to a waitress with a tray. “I grabbed one of every tapa we’ve got in the kitchen right now. Eat them. Then you can plot.”
The next ten minutes were taken up with passing small bowls of baked goat cheese and hummus and something made out of eggplant that tasted really good spread on crostini. Amazingly, Janie felt her headache begin to recede slightly. Maybe she’d been more hungry than heartbroken.
Docia bit the end off a barbecued shrimp, dipping it into the lime butter sauce. “Okay, I’m less inclined to decapitate people now, but what are we going to do about this, Cal? I’m still not willing to have Sherice take over for Janie. I don’t even know Sherice.”
Pete shrugged. “Believe me, if you knew her, you still wouldn’t want her to be your maid of honor.”
“Matron,” Janie corrected. “She’s married. She can’t be a maid.”
Cal and Pete glanced at each other, smirking.
“I can’t do it,” Pete grumbled. “It’s too easy.”
“What?”
�
��The punch line.” Cal reached for a marinated mushroom. “It could go in so many ways. We could make fun of Sherice’s housekeeping skills, which are nonexistent, or we could talk about her sex life prior to her meeting Lars, which was the extreme opposite of nonexistent.”
Pete grimaced. “Making fun of Sherice doesn’t take any skill. I refuse to stoop.”
“So why did Lars marry her?” Janie was briefly amazed at herself for asking. She must have had more wine than she realized.
“She was a trophy wife. Of course, trying to imagine a contest where Sherice could actually be the prize boggles the mind.” Pete waggled his eyebrows at her.
Cal snickered and Pete shook his head. “See what I mean? Much too easy.”
“Enough. Back to the problem at hand.” Docia sighed. “How do we get out of this?”
Cal grimaced, settling back in his chair. “All right, how’s this for a compromise? I don’t think we can pry that dress out of Sherice’s hot little hands, and Janie’s already made the sacrifice.” He lifted his wine glass in her direction. “For which I thank you. Anyway, that’s a wash. But I’d say we’re on solid ground in refusing to allow Sherice to become maid—matron—of honor since you just met her two days ago.”
“Damn straight,” Docia muttered.
“Right.” Pete leaned forward. “Here’s how we play it. Go for Mom’s cheap gene. Tell her the programs have already been printed with Janie’s name as maid of honor and mine as best man, and that it would cost too much money to change it.”
“But…” Janie stopped, trying to pull her thoughts together. Definitely too much wine. “Sherice’s name isn’t in the program either. Won’t your mother get upset about that?”
“An addendum.” Pete nodded decisively. “Print up a little slip of paper. Insert it in the program. ‘The part of third and least bridesmaid will be taken for this performance only by Sherice Toleffson.’”
“An addendum?” Docia raised an eyebrow. “In a wedding program?”
“Sure. Suits the occasion, don’t you think?” Pete grinned widely.
“Oh, Lord, yes,” Docia moaned. “The way this is going, it certainly does.”
Pete wasn’t sure exactly why he and Cal had wandered over to the Dew Drop after dinner. Cal should have been with Docia. As a matter of fact, he also wasn’t sure what had become of Docia and Janie—they’d ambled off in the other direction, muttering something about calling Allie.
Now he stood in the dimness of the Dew Drop’s back room, studying the dart board on the rear wall. He wasn’t really drunk, just slightly happy. He raised his arm and sent a dart flying toward the target in a smooth arc.
It hit the floor in front of the board.
Cal shook his head. “Your problem has always been consistency. One minute tournament quality, the next a menace to life and limb. So tell me about Lars and Sherice.”
Pete leaned over and picked up his dart. “Come on, Calthorpe, you don’t need me to tell you anything. You already know what the problem is.”
“Woke up, didn’t he?” Cal stared at the bottle of beer in his hand. “I wondered how long it would take him to realize what he’d done when he married her. Has she been cheating on him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It would be in character. On the other hand, if Lars knew she was cheating, I don’t think he’d hesitate to get a divorce. Except for Daisy.”
Cal groaned, closing his eyes. “Oh, yeah. Our one and only niece. So this is why Lars is suddenly drinking margaritas?”
“Yep.” Pete let fly with another dart. This time it landed in the outer circle at least.
Cal shook his head. “This wedding is rapidly turning into a train wreck.”
“All weddings are train wrecks, Calthorpe.” Pete pulled the dart out of the target and took his stance again. “This one is just a more interesting train wreck than most.” The dart made a beautiful arc, landing just shy of the target center.
“It took me a year to get Docia to set a wedding date, after the weeks it took me to get her to move in.” Cal’s voice was soft. “A year, bro. She was scared to death of the whole thing. I had to convince her that it wouldn’t go bad, that we were going to be good together.”
Pete turned to stare at him. Of his three brothers, Cal had always been the one women flocked to. “What did you do to scare her off?”
“Nothing. I fell for her five minutes after I saw her. But she’d had some lousy experiences with men. All in all, she was very anti-wedding.”
Pete braced one shoulder against the wall. He’d always been able to tell when Cal’s Mr. Nice Guy exterior concealed major anxiety. “She’s not going to back out, Calthorpe. The lady’s in love. Anybody can see that.”
Cal shook his head. “I don’t know, bro. Everything’s going south right now. I’m afraid she’s going to hit a point where it goes one screw-up over the line.”
“No she won’t.” Pete slid into a chair across from Cal, spreading his darts on the table in front of him. “I’m your hired gun, remember? Say the word and I’ll do a little breaking and entering at the motel. Once we get that dress back, Sherice is history.”
“Hold the thought.” At least Cal was smiling again, although the smile itself was pretty thin. “You won’t have to dance with her, anyway, once Janie’s back as maid of honor.”
“Dance?” The hairs on the back of Pete’s neck began to rise. “I’m not dancing with anybody, Calthorpe. You know I don’t dance. None of us does.” Except, now that he remembered, Lars and Sherice had done a few turns around the dance floor at Billy Kent’s—so had Cal and Docia.
“Dancing’s not so bad.” Cal studied his beer bottle again. “It’s definitely got its points. With the right person, of course.”
“Fine.” Pete’s shoulders tensed. “You guys dance. I’ll watch.”
Cal grinned at him. “Nope. Best man dances at least once with the maid of honor. Another reason to make sure Sherice doesn’t fill that particular role.”
“So I’m supposed to dance with Janie?” Janie who could light up a dance floor with a quick flip of her hips? Lord have mercy!
Cal raised an eyebrow. “You have a problem with Janie?”
“No, not really.” Pete gulped. “But…well…she’s pretty small, you know?”
“Don’t worry, bro, she’s a lot tougher than she looks.” Cal pushed himself up from the table. “Besides, I have a feeling this wedding is going to require lots of alcohol. At the point in the reception when you take to the floor we may all be so blitzed it won’t matter. I’m heading home. See you tomorrow.”
Chapter Nine
Olive had spent the evening on her own in the apartment, her first evening by herself. A chance for her to try out her solo skills since Pete wasn’t going to be gone that long.
Or originally, he wasn’t. As it turned out, he’d been gone a bit longer than he’d planned.
Olive gave him a slightly resentful look, as if to say she’d expected better of him, then shot out the street door to take advantage of her favorite oak tree. Pete wandered into the back yard and sank into a lawn chair.
Dancing. The family joke was that the three of them could send a dance partner to the emergency room with one careless misstep. The punch line was that Pete had actually done it.
It hadn’t exactly been a misstep, of course. A couple of middle school idiots had been playing keep-away with some girl’s scrunchie, and one of them had gone barreling into Pete’s back. He’d already been off-balance, trying to count steps as he slow danced with Bernice Keener. The keep-away game had shoved him down on top of her, knocking her flat—to the great hilarity of all the boys within twenty feet. Until they’d discovered she was unconscious.
Waiting to find out whether he’d given Bernice a concussion was the most embarrassing, excruciating memory of Pete’s early teenage years. He’d never been much interested in dancing after that, and the entire incident had established the Toleffson brothers as the Dance Partners from Hell.
But now Cal and Lars had both deserted him. Pete was left the sole remaining Toleffson lummox.
Crap.
Olive wandered over to his chair and dropped at his feet, pushing her nose against his hand. Reflexively, Pete reached down to rub her ears. His alternatives were clear—he could hide or he could try to get through a dance with Janie Dupree. Given his size and build, hiding wasn’t a viable option.
But if he danced with Janie—sexy, sylphlike Janie—he had to do it right. He couldn’t embarrass them both.
Of course, Pete figured he was going to be embarrassed regardless, given the lummox factor. But all of a sudden he didn’t want to embarrass Janie Dupree.
“Okay, Olive, let’s see what we can do.”
He climbed back up to the kitchen and grabbed Docia’s boom box off the counter. He wasn’t sure what stations he could get in Konigsburg, but at least he’d get a chance to practice without anybody watching.
Back in the yard, he set the radio on the table next to his lawn chair and turned it on. Thank heaven for batteries. After a moment, he found a station playing oldies. Patsy Cline was singing softly about faded love. Pete stood straight and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he began to waltz through the darkened backyard.
Janie was trying to walk off the effects of the wine she’d had at dinner and the margarita she’d had at Allie’s. She didn’t drink much as a rule, and her head still felt a little loopy.
She turned up Spicewood, heading for home. Soft music was playing on someone’s radio—a woman singing “Making Believe”. It almost sounded as if the music was coming from the bookstore.
Janie stopped. It was coming from the bookstore. From the backyard behind it anyway.
She began to walk again, as quietly as she could. At the gate, she stopped and peered into the yard.
Pete Toleffson was dancing. Sort of.
Janie loved to dance. She even loved dancing in Docia’s chorus line, although she could only do it now and then, when she felt particularly raucous. She’d been known to waltz around her backyard on a summer night to the sound of her own humming, reveling in the feeling of the grass beneath her toes and the warm night air on her face.
