by Nancy Adams
The sun coming through the incredible windows of the hotel woke us, and we lay there and cuddled for a while, before calling Dad and John and Albert and making sure they were all up. Nate told them to meet us downstairs for breakfast in the restaurant, and then he called Jet Blue to order a plane for us to go home in.
We went down to breakfast and got together with everyone else, and were sitting there when a couple came in and were directed to where we were sitting. Nate and Dad looked up and smiled, and then they introduced the judge who had sat on their case, and given Nate the phone he’d used to call me and help the police. She and he husband had come to thank Nate for keeping her safe throughout the ordeal, and we ended up inviting them to the wedding.
We checked out soon after eating, and piled into the Hummer to go to the airport. The plane Nate had ordered was big enough for all of us, although I choked when someone told me it was called a Bombardier. We all climbed in and the flight attendant did her best to make us comfortable, but I had come to the conclusion that I was never going to be able to fly without worrying again!
We were in the air a few minutes later, and I kept waiting the whole way for something to go wrong, but it didn't, thank You, God! We landed at San Francisco International at a little past noon, and I realized that I'd been across the country twice in less than twenty-four hours. I sheepishly admitted to taking the Nova out of the garage, and Nate made me go and get it out of long term parking and drive it back home. John went on home and promised to send me his bill. I wondered how I was going to explain that one to Nate.
I was so glad to be home, and between my mom and Nate's parents, I thought we were all going to be hugged to death for a minute there. Armando, the Simmons' chef, insisted on making us lunch, and we all sat down to listen to Dad and Nate tell the whole story again.
The rest of the day was fairly calm, although Angelina did come in once, frantically trying to get me to choose between desserts for the reception. I closed my eyes and pointed at the card she held out that had the choices on it, and told her to use the one I'd pointed to.
Lucky for me it wasn't something I was allergic to, right?
The wedding was a week away. I didn't know what else could go wrong between then and the actual wedding day, but I felt like something was bound to try. If I'd known a good magician, I'd have been trying to arrange a miracle
Nathanael
Chapter Twelve
Get Me To The Church On Time
* * * * *
I had been ducking as much of the wedding planning as I possibly could, and all of my Marine training had come in handy in ducking Katelynn, Mom and that nutcase, Angelina! I had managed to show up for the rehearsals on time, get through them and then escape, and if Angelina had anything t do with it, I'd be chained to a tree somewhere so she could find me when she wanted to.
Unfortunately, the day had finally arrived, and there was no way to sneak around, or duck and cover, to get out of the actually wedding itself. Personally, I felt like we'd done the important parts that night out in the wilderness, when we'd said our vows before God, but society required this tradition and ceremony, so we were stuck going through with it. I sucked it up and rolled out of bed.
Our butler, Martin, was ready to dress me, something I'd tried to break him of ever since I'd gotten home from the Corps. Most days he'd let me get away with doing it myself, but he'd gone to great lengths to explain that if I did not allow him to dress me for my wedding, he would have no choice but to commit honorable Hara-Kiri in shame.
“Martin,” I had said, “you're not even Japanese!”
“Oh,” he replied, “so solly to diffah in opinion! Mother had Japanese nurse when she was a baby; makes me one quarter Japanese, and eligible for Hara-Kiri!”
“It does not! Okay, fine, you can help me get dressed, but one more stupid comment about hari-kari whatsit outa you, and I'll be the one sharpening the sword!”
As I got up, Martin stripped me of my PJ's and shorts, and I went to get a shower. When I came back, he had new shorts held out for me to step into, and then he began getting me into the tuxedo I would wear to let the whole world watch me begin my life with the woman I loved.
Katelynn was going through her own torture that morning, of course, as both of our mothers were doing all they could to get her into her wedding dress, make sure her makeup was perfect, her hair was perfect and find some way to make something else I've never even heard of perfect, I'm sure. This is simply something that mothers do, and I had no doubt that her mother and mine had been plotting something special and unexpected for her on this morning.
I had no intention of being anywhere nearby when they launched it.
Martin was bad enough. He got me into the trousers, and then began twisting me this way and yanking me that way, until I was beginning to wonder if he was trying to bolt me into them, using me as the bolt! When I finally got them on to his satisfaction, he smiled and then began stuffing me into the undershirt that he said was required for good taste. I lifted my arms over my head like a child, then snickered when Martin had to find a stool to stand on in order to reach high enough to get it on me!
He heard me snicker, and smacked me on top of my head. He'd been smacking me on top of my head since I was about ten, so I guess that was okay.
Then it was the pleated silk shirt, and once more I felt like I was being rebuilt to fit into it. Fifteen minutes of pulling here and pushing there and Martin, don't you dare do that again! and I was finally in it, but I felt like if I breathed wrong, I might pop every button on it.
Then there was the cummerbund, and by the time he got that onto me, I was singing soprano, because it was cutting me in half! If I hadn't known that this was something every man is supposed to go through once in his life, I'd have blown the whole thing off and taken Katelynn and eloped!
That would have been a mistake, though, especially after all the publicity over the past few weeks. The blackmail attempt had made national headlines, and I'd even been shown professing my love for Katelynn on global news programming, and when we'd been rescued from the plane crash, that had also gone viral. In fact, someone leaked the story of my fight with the bear and a picture of the bear skin that I had gotten turned into a rug; it was someone who worked in our office's receiving department, and when I found out who did it, they were fired! Video of it being unwrapped and then carefully re-wrapped had gotten onto Youtube and had more than thirty million views!
Okay, so I got a lot of publicity, lately. If I skipped out on the public spectacle of the wedding, I'd be disappointing so many people that it could possibly even affect our stock values. That being true, I couldn't do it. Stockholders deserved better from me.
That didn't mean I had to be ridiculously easy about it, though, and so I made Martin get me five different pairs of shoes before I was satisfied with how I was dressed. He smiled like he was finally in Heaven and walked out the door, and I had that monkey-suit loosened in no time flat. Whew, I could breathe again!
Katelynn and our moms were over at our house, because everyone was being sticky about the old tradition that says a bridegroom can't see his bride in her wedding dress until he's waiting at the altar. I had Dad and Jim with me, and Mike Davenport and John Tarsikes were serving as groomsmen. I knew that Katelynn had her friend Corie out to be her Maid of Honor, but I didn't know who else she might have involved.
I made my way down to the kitchen and had to eat breakfast standing up, with a bib that hung all the way to my knees to make sure I didn't get anything onto the tux. That was an acceptable price for not having to explain to Katelynn how I got pancake syrup on it, I guess.
My folks had given all of the servants time off for the wedding, so that all of them could be there, and I had told Dad and Jim that I needed some time to myself. I got into one of the golf carts that Dad kept around, and drove it out to the big creek that ran across the property and fed the lake. There was an old wooden bridge there where I liked to sit and think—and fish,
when I was younger—and I felt like this was one of those times when I needed some fresh air and solitude.
I found a blanket in the back of the golf cart and put it on the edge of the bridge, then sat on it with my feet dangling over the water. When I'd been a kid, I used to sit like that and imagine that crocodiles were leaping out of the water at my feet, and that I was using myself as bait to catch them.
This time, I was pretty sure I was the one who'd been caught, and while I was nervous about the big wedding, I had no doubts at all about me and Katelynn.
I sat there and thought about all we'd been through, how I'd known as soon as I'd seen her that she was the one I wanted, and then the thrill I felt when I realized that she felt the same about me. I thought about that terrible time when she actually thought I had done the things that awful woman had accused me of, and about how those people had put Katelynn in such danger, threatening to kill her, just for money. I felt the rage overtake me again, and shoved it down; that wasn't an emotion that should be present on this day, of all days.
I reached for my phone to see what time it was getting to be, and realized that I didn't have it with me. I groaned and got up, picked up the blanket and went to the golf cart.
The darn thing wouldn't move. I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked, and I finally came to the conclusion that I would have to get out and walk all the back to the main house. I looked up at the sun and used old Boy Scout tricks to judge the time, and almost panicked. It was getting close to noon, and I was supposed to be at the church by one thirty! Not a problem if the cart had done what it was supposed to do, but now I had a two mile hike over broken country, which would take at least a half hour, and then a forty minute drive to the church!
No help for it standing around, so I started walking, and then I regretted giving Martin static about the shoes, because this was a brand new pair that wasn't even broken in, yet. Walking cross country in untested shoes is always a mistake, and I was making it. By the time I'd gone half way, my heels and outer toes were bleeding from rubbing themselves raw on the inside of the shoes. That would slow me down even more, and make it rough to stand, but I wouldn't let anything stop me from making this the best wedding it could be.
I got to the house, and suddenly I felt like I was in another dimension, or some strange Harrison Ford movie. The stillness of the house was something I had never experienced before in all the years we'd lived there, but for once, there was not a single person on the entire estate except for me. I went into the house and looked for my phone, but it was gone from my nightstand, so I guessed that someone must have thought I forgot it and was bringing it to meat the church. No big deal, I figured, so I grabbed my wallet and went out to the garage to get a car.
Since I was all dolled up for the wedding, I decided I needed a closed car this time rather than a roadster, and so I chose the fifty nine Cadillac. I went to the key safe and punched in the code to open it—and nothing happened. I punched it in again, and still nothing, and that's when I realized that there was no power on in the garage.
Once again, this was something that had never happened before, and I stood there in absolute shock. I looked around for something I could use to break the box open, but that was an actual digitally secured safe; I should have known better. Ten minutes of beating on it with the biggest rocks I could find told me I wasn’t going to get it open that way.
I looked around to see what other cars might be available, but every one of mine had their keys locked up in the safe, and all of Dad's keys were in his pocket or Mom's purse, so those weren't going to help me. I didn't have a way to go, so I went to the phone on the wall and picked it up.
The line was dead. I hurried back to the house, but the code wouldn't work there, either, and I realized that the power must be off to the whole estate! It must have been of for a while because the backup batteries were dead, too; how in the world did this happen?
I looked around and wondered what to do. I thought about hot wiring one of my older cars, but I'd had every one of them upgraded with a security device that would disable it completely if it didn't have the proper key in the ignition, so that wouldn't work. There wasn't a single vehicle on the entire estate that I could possibly get started at that moment, except for one of the big zero-turn lawn mowers.
Mower? I went to the barn where the lawn equipment was kept, and sure enough, Big Bertha was there!
Okay, I'd better explain Big Bertha.
Big Bertha is a lawn mower, a Husqvarna industrial zero turn that I had sort of modified when I was in high school. The original thirty one horsepower engine had given out, and instead of replacing it with a similar motor, I'd asked Dad if I could use it for a project, and he'd said yes. A week later, after hauling it to the high school auto shop and bribing friends to help me, I brought it home with a two hundred and forty horsepower Pontiac V6 mounted on it, and from then on I could mow the lawn at our house at more than eighty miles an hour!
Bertha didn't see a lot of use anymore, but when I'd gotten home from the corps, I'd dug her out and tuned her up, and even mowed with her a times. I walked into the barn and climbed on, and sure enough, the key was right there in the ignition switch.
I took a deep breath, sure that whatever force was messing with me would stop this from working, too, and turned the key, and Big Bertha growled to life. I pushed the throttle a couple of times, and I'd swear she said, “Let's do this!”
I jumped off quickly and let her idle while I looked into the workshop. I found a big piece of cardboard, a roll of duct tape and a can of red spray paint, and was ready! Ten minutes later, I climbed back up on Bertha.
I shoved the steering levers forward and Bertha laid rubber on the barn floor as she headed out. I guided her across the yard to the estate road, and she skidded onto it, then gained speed until I was doing at least sixty along the curvy roadway. I tried to speed up, knowing I'd wasted at least an hour already, but she just couldn't handle the curves any faster.
When I got to the frontage road, I knew it was pretty straight, so I opened Bertha's throttle up and let her have her head. Suddenly I was running down the road that parallels the interstate, and though I was on a mower, I was passing everything down there on the six lane! I guessed that, since everyone knows that the average speed is around eighty, I must be doing at least ninety-five. The wind in my face made that believable, too, because it was very hard to catch my breath if I was looking right into it.
I got to the intersection and ramp, and the light was with me, so I kept the throttle open and sailed right down onto the highway. Yes, I knew I was going to get one dickens of a ticket, but I didn't care! I had to get to that wedding.
Cars were honking at me all over the place, and some of them were swerving as they realized what a strange contraption was sharing the super slab with them, driven by some dude in a tuxedo! I had people flipping me off, I had people telling me I rocked, I had people cheering me on like mad.
A dozen cars got in behind me, all honking their horns and waving, but I kept going without looking back. Keeping that machine going straight with the steering levers wasn't easy, and didn't allow for any lack of concentration.
That is, until the TV news helicopter started flying low alongside me, camera aimed for all it was worth. If anyone realized who I was, I was never going to be able to live this down! I kept going, but I did manage to give the camera one good wave, just in the hopes that a good sense of humor about it would help when I got to court.
I was guessing that it was almost one thirty, and I was late, but I didn't want to slow down and try to find a phone. I figured it would be better to show up late and with bugs in my hair than to call and say I wasn't gonna make it.
Bertha flew past a dozen more cars, and I suddenly realized that one of them was a CHiP! The state trooper threw his lights on and caught up to me within a mile, and got right in behind me—and then he moved out to pass me on my right, pulling alongside me and rolling down his window.
“Are you Simmons?” he yelled, and I nodded. “Congregational Baptist?” he asked, and I nodded again, and the man smiled from ear to ear. “Follow me,” he shouted, and then moved out in front of me and began clearing the way ahead, and I sent up a prayer of thanks to God!
Bertha showed me what she could do, then, as the trooper made it up to almost a hundred and twenty, as he told me later. The TV chopper stayed with us all the way to the Pemberton Avenue exit, and I had to slow Bertha down to fifty or so to maneuver it through the city. The trooper was still trying to help, but I couldn't keep up with him, so I finally took a shortcut from the way he was going and shot down an alleyway.
Bertha crashed through a few dozen trash cans and piles of refuse, but didn't slow down, so I didn't worry about it. I narrowly missed being flattened by a fire truck that was on its way back from a fire, when I shot out of the alley right in front of it. Luckily the driver saw me coming and managed to swerve around me. I made a note to donate something nice to that engine company!
There it was! The church was just a couple of blocks ahead, so I began slowing down and finally got Bertha stopped right on the street out front. I shut her down and snatched out the key, then jumped down and ran into the church, and there was all those people.
The church was bigger than most theaters. It seated more than three thousand people, and I think all of them were there that afternoon. I looked around and saw Mike Davenport, and then Jim and My Dad were rushing toward me, and I was shuffled into a side room.
“Where on earth have you been?” my Dad asked me, and I shook my head.
“Twilight zone, but I'll tell you later! Am I late?”
Jim shook his head. “I'm not trying to kill you, so no, you're not late! Jeez, your hair is a mess, and you smell like fresh cut hay!” He was trying to use a comb to get my hair back down, and it wasn't working. I saw a sink and shoved my head under the spigot, then came up and took the comb.
