Just as I was about to stand up to go check on Alice, the doorbell rang. Glancing at her watch, Betty frowned. She’d probably been hoping to have us all gone in time to sit down with her feet up, a plate of leftovers on her lap, and American Idol on the tube.
“Rosalee, were you expecting another guest?” Betty asked.
Slipping off the blindfold, Mama did a quick survey of the room. “I invited my nephew Henry so Sal wouldn’t be the only man. He said he couldn’t make it until later, though.”
Sal cleared his throat. “It … it … might be C’ndee.”
Mama’s brows shot up.
“She called this morning to say she’d taken a little trip to the coast. She said she was really sorry she missed dinner with you and her nephew at the Speckled Perch. I told her to stop by tonight so she could tell you in person.”
“Well, isn’t that nice.” Mama gave Sal one of her looks. Translation: She’d like to hand him that blindfold and stand him up at the wall of a firing range.
He tugged at his collar. “Sorry I forgot to mention it.”
“I’m sure you are.”
The bell ding-donged again, an impatient sound. As Betty hurried to get the door, every other pair of eyes in the room watched Mama and Sal to see what would happen next. Even Alice seemed to shake off her sleepwalking state to attend to the pre-wedding drama.
Maddie started humming the theme from Jaws.
“Oh, my Gawd! That cake is absolutely GORGEOUS!” C’ndee’s big voice blasted from the dining room. “I have to visit the little girl’s room, but be sure to save me a slice.”
“Cake,” Maddie and I chorused.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Marty called out, in a voice brimming with artificial cheer. “Mama, why don’t we go into the other room and cut the cake?”
A murmur of assent went around the room. Mama cast one more withering glance at Sal, who seemed to shrink a little under the glare.
“Poor guy,” I whispered to Maddie. “He better man up if he wants to go mano a mano with Mama.”
“You know it. She likes a challenge. If she can walk all over him, he won’t last long enough to board the Maid of the Mist on their honeymoon.”
“They’re not going to Vegas?”
“Nope, Niagara,” Maddie said. “She has bad associations to Vegas, what with Husband No. 2. Then again she’s been to Niagara Falls, too. Was that with No. 3 or 4?”
Marty hissed under her breath, “Hush, the both of you! You’ll jinx the wedding.”
The party relocated to the dining room, where all of us attempted to stay on our best behavior. Mama’s snit was quickly forgotten, and she was already laughing and kidding again with Sal. She dabbed her finger in a bit of stray icing, and got on her tiptoes to put a dollop on his lips. Then she kissed it off.
Sal beamed as the two of them shared the process of cutting, plating, and passing pieces of cake. The thick white frosting was decorated with dark purple roses, no surprise. Best Wishes, Sal and Rosalee, was written in cursive, in a lighter shade of purple.
I was working on an exit strategy that would allow me to eat cake, and still get out the door before that shower game where guests squeeze a nickel between their knees and try to walk. Whoever drops her nickel first is definitely not a virgin. Considering the afternoon I’d spent, I doubted if I could squeeze my legs around a basketball, let alone a nickel.
Our plates full, my sisters and I returned to our positions in the living room. As Maddie savored a jumbo-sized icing rose, Marty said, “Are you going to talk to C’ndee, Mace?”
“You bet I am. If she ever makes it out of the ‘little girls’ room.’ What in the world is taking her so long in there, I wonder?”
Maddie shuddered. “Maybe she got some bad seafood over there on the coast.”
My older sister had once eaten some bad raw clams in Vero Beach. She’d been convinced ever since that the only good seafood was frozen, deep-fried, and served with a side of hush puppies.
Knowing Maddie’s taste for retelling the Revenge of the Clam story, in detail, Marty changed the subject. “I called the park today, Mace. Rhonda said you’d left with Carlos.” Her eyes sparkled with curiosity.
I ignored Maddie’s tongue clucking. “He asked me to go with him to question that lowlife, Darryl. We took a boat from the fish camp, but we never made it to Osprey Bay Island.”
“That’s because they took a little detour.” Maddie was wearing her know-it-all look.
“Well, we started taking on water. Carlos went overboard, and nearly drowned. And we barely escaped being eaten by a giant gator. So, I guess you could say we were detoured.”
“What!??” My sisters gasped.
Mama walked up with Sal, hands entwined like teenagers. “Did I miss something?” she asked.
As they sat, I launched into the tale of the Missing Drain Plug and How I Saved the Day. I was savoring the contrite look on Maddie’s face, when a hubbub arose and interrupted me.
“Get your hands off me, you hick!” The voice was loud, angry, and pure Joisey.
“Don’t call me a hick, you hussy!” That one was rural and shrill. Alice.
The voices were coming from the hallway, near the powder room. We all looked at one another. Then we leaped off the purple couch, plates of cake forgotten. We heard a loud thump, like a body getting shoved into the wall. Then slap, the sound of an open hand hitting skin. Just as we rounded the corner into the dining room, Alice and C’ndee came staggering out of the hallway. Each had a handful of the other’s hair.
“Let go!” Alice screeched.
“You first!” C’ndee countered.
Betty started clearing her souvenir shot glasses and Princess Diana plates off an accent table. Sal roared, “C’ndee! Stop it right now.” The two women circled, round and round.
“She started it.” C’ndee landed a kick with her red stiletto on Alice’s shin. “Bitch!”
Alice hopped on one foot. “Whore!” she yelled, connecting with a solid punch to C’ndee’s left breast.
“Ouch!” C’ndee cried, as everyone but Sal cringed.
He bulled his way through the moving mass of shower guests turned fight fans. He almost made it to the battering duo, even had one beefy arm stretched out to separate them, when C’ndee gave Alice a mighty shove. Alice grabbed at her opponent’s left shoulder and held on as she fell backward.
The two of them toppled together onto the dining room table. The punch bowl tipped, spilling a juice mixture of cranberry and pineapple, with lemon-lime soda. A fruity smell rose in the room. Globs of lime sherbet dotted Betty’s carpet, like green islands in a lilac sea. Then the cake slid from the table, splat onto the wet carpet. The two women went next, coming off the table only to lose their footing in frosting, sherbet, and bridal shower punch.
Mama clutched her hand to her throat. “Make them stop, Sal!” she wailed. “They’re ruining my shower.”
As I watched Alice and C’ndee tumbling across the floor in white frosting and pink punch, I had to disagree with Mama. This was the best bridal fete ever.
Mama aimed a disposable camera at me and clicked. Little red dots from the flash danced in front of my eyes.
“My stars and garters, Mace. You look like the governor just signed your death warrant. Would it kill you to crack a smile? You’re supposed to be playing a beaming bride.”
I hadn’t been able to escape the shower games. I slapped down my “bouquet,” a paper plate adorned with ribbons from the shower gifts, on Betty’s coffee table.
“I’m wearing a veil made out of toilet paper, and y’all have me wrapped like a mummy with at least three rolls. I look more like an explosion in an outhouse than I do a bride, Mama.”
The excitement had died down. Betty brought out store-bought cookies to replace the ruined cake. My cousin Henry had arrived. And with Mama and him fixing the votes, guess who got roped into portraying Himmarshee’s next bride?
Sal had finally managed to pull apart C�
�ndee and Alice. D’Vora took the widow Hodges into Betty’s bedroom to help her clean up. C’ndee, cursing, stormed out the front door with Sal right behind her. I started to make my exit right behind them, but Marty and Mama stopped me.
“We’ve got to stay and help Betty,” Marty said.
“My shower is a disaster.” Mama’s lower lip quivered.
Maddie clapped her hands like the teacher she’d once been. “Why don’t all of us pitch in to help Betty pick up, and then we’ll all play the wedding gown game?”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Marty immediately chimed in.
I wasn’t the only one to roll my eyes and start for the door. But Maddie shot the dissenters her principal glare, and we all fell into line.
Now, I was the make-believe bride, and Mama was snapping pictures, probably figuring a TP wedding dress might be the only kind I’d ever get. Meanwhile, Henry was taking advantage of the fact I’d been toilet-papered into paralysis to steal a cookie off my plate.
“I saw that! It’s not my problem you got here late and missed both the catfight and the cake, Henry.”
“Mace, please,” Mama said. “A bride is supposed to be gracious and giving, not surly and snide.”
“You must not have ever watched that Bridezilla show on TV,” I told her.
Henry gulped down the stolen cookie and then reached for the last one on my plate. “Aunt Rosalee, you can’t expect Mace to play along. She’s extremely literal. She was never blessed with a good imagination. Mace sees only toilet tissue where we might see a lovely white gown.”
“That must be the problem. It’s a white gown!” Dab’s stage whisper was followed by a burst of laughter.
Henry popped my cookie into his mouth.
“Thanks for the analysis, you overeducated weasel. I forgot about your legendary imagination: Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Henry Bauer, Himmarshee’s Courtroom King of the Slip-and-Fall.”
Henry and I might have gone a round if Betty’s doorbell hadn’t rung just then. Our exhausted hostess yelled from her reclining chair, “It’s open.”
A few moments later, Sal trudged into the living room. Head hanging, shoulders slumped, C’ndee limped in his wake.
“C’ndee has something she wants to say.” He nudged her to center stage.
The room was so quiet, I could hear the remainder of my punch gliding down Henry’s gullet.
“Start tawking,” Sal said.
“I’m sorry, Rosalee, to have acted the way I did at what should have been a happy day for you.” C’ndee looked down as she twisted her hands. “And, Betty, I’ll pay for the cake, and whatever we broke. I’ll also take care of getting your carpet cleaned.”
She lifted her eyes, scanned the crowd, and then stepped backward as if to leave.
“You’re not done yet, George Foreman.” Sal gripped C’ndee’s wrist. “Where’s Alice?”
“Let her through,” came a muffled voice from the back.
Arm around Alice’s shoulders, D’Vora led her into the living room. She wore a loaner running suit from Betty, purple of course. She’d had a shower, but I noticed punch-colored pink splotches on her white canvas shoes.
C’ndee looked worse than Alice, though. She’d repaired her makeup, but her mass of curls was flat and sticky in the back. A clump of purple-and-white frosting showed clearly. A rip gaped at the left shoulder of her leopard-print blouse, and the spike heel of her right shoe had snapped off. That explained the limp.
Sal elbowed her in the ribs. “Well?” he prodded.
“I’m sorry, Alice.”
C’ndee’s voice was more like a breath than a whisper. Her dark lashes were wet against her cheeks.
For a long moment, Alice said nothing. Then, letting loose a sigh that shook her whole body, she began to cry.
C’ndee’s eyes flickered up for an instant to Alice’s contorted face. Looking horrified, she quickly returned her gaze to the floor.
I felt awful. The fight had been entertaining, like a white trash pileup on Jerry Springer. But this raw emotion wasn’t funny. Marty and Mama moved quickly to comfort Alice. She waved them away.
“I’m okay,” she stuttered between sobs. “It’s … it’s not C’ndee’s … fault. I hit her first. I’m not crying over the fight.”
At that, C’ndee lifted her face. She dug in her pocket, pulled out a pack of tissues, and peeled off a couple for Alice.
“Thanks.” Alice blew her nose. “It’s Ronnie … it’s everything, you know?” she looked at several of us in turn.
“We know.” Mama patted her shoulder.
“Of course,” another guest echoed.
“I knew he was cheating.” She dabbed her eyes, took a step toward C’ndee.
“You weren’t the first,” the widow told the mistress. “You wouldn’t have been the last.”
As a dozen pairs of eyes focused on C’ndee, her face turned as pink as the spilled punch. I was surprised. I wouldn’t have imagined she was capable of feeling shame.
“Ronnie told me your marriage was all but over.” She raised her face to Alice’s. “He said you were getting a divorce. I’ve been cheated on myself. I know how it feels. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Surprisingly, Alice smiled. “You mean with Ronnie, or with that hard kick you landed on my shin?”
A chorus of giggles rounded the room. Relief flashed across C’ndee’s face.
“If it makes you feel any better, these were three-hundred-dollar shoes.” C’ndee raised a foot to display the broken designer creation. “And I can’t find the heel anywhere. I even searched Betty’s front yard on hands and knees.”
Alice said, “Yes, I think that does make me feel a little better.” She lifted her shoe with its pink stains. “At least these were just from the markdown bin at the Sebring dollar store.”
Everybody laughed, including C’ndee. Then the levity quickly left her face. “I mean it, Alice. I really am sorry. About everything.”
She reached out a hand. The widow took it. They shook, and kept their fingers entwined.
“Ronnie wasn’t completely lying, you know? He and I had stopped living as man and wife. I took my marriage vows seriously, but I was so angry after he strayed.”
She looked out Betty’s front windows to the dark street outside. I thought of that wedding picture at Alice’s house, with the groom razored out.
“But now that he’s gone, I realize I still loved him.” She gave a sad shrug. “Too late.”
Alice’s words and a sense of loss hung in the air. Maddie whispered, “It’s a good time to question C’ndee, Mace. Everybody’s being so honest.”
At my other shoulder, Marty warned, “Don’t you dare! Mama can’t take another title bout.”
Heeding Marty’s advice, I held my tongue. Maddie plowed into the silence, voice carrying like she was yelling at kids in a cafeteria food fight.
“There’s something we’ve been wondering, C’ndee.”
“What’s that?”
“Have you heard you’re a suspect in Ronnie’s murder?”
The color drained from C’ndee’s face. Alice dropped her hand like she’d been scorched. Sal, who’d been edging away during the emotional apologies, stopped dead.
“No, Maddie, I hadn’t heard that.” C’ndee’s voice was icy. “Where’d you get your information?”
“Yeah, who told you dat?” Sal’s accent got stronger under stress.
Maddie gestured vaguely. “People gossip.”
I was grateful she didn’t give me up. But when I looked at Sal, his penetrating gaze was burning me two new eyeholes. I immediately felt guilty.
C’ndee recovered her confidence, brushing off Maddie’s question. “Gossip? That’s all? That’s something I’m used to.”
She turned and put both her hands on Alice’s shoulders. I noticed the two of them were about the same size, but C’ndee had muscles in the places where Alice had flab. She was at least fifteen years younger than the widow, and in much better
shape.
“I swear to you, Alice, I had nothing to do with your husband’s death.”
Alice returned her gaze, seeming to seek—and find—something in C’ndee’s eyes. “I know they’re going to find the person who really did kill Ronnie,” she finally said. “I don’t believe it was you.”
C’ndee exhaled. “Thank you. And if anybody tries to prove otherwise, I have access to some very sharp lawyers.”
It wasn’t long after the two women’s heart-to-heart that Betty got up from her easy chair and announced she was tuckered out. “Anybody who wants to stay, feel free to lock up.”
Seeing the hostess don her bathrobe is a sure-fire party ender.
After Mama made the three of us promise to clean up for Betty, she left with Sal. C’ndee and Alice had caused the entire ruckus, so it seemed fair that they pitch in. But, given Alice’s loss, and the fact none of us were crazy about C’ndee, my sisters and I didn’t press when they both wanted to leave with the rest of the guests. Henry, of course, couldn’t be bothered to help with what he considered women’s work.
We were standing at the sink, doing as Mama told us to do.
“Henry never did have to lift a finger!” Marty washed a plate, and then handed it to me to dry.
“Aunt Ida ruined that boy, if you ask me.” Maddie took the plate from my hand and stacked it on the clean kitchen table.
“Then again, he did grow up having to eat Ida’s cooking.” Marty handed me another plate.
“Speaking of Ida, remember when Uncle Teddy got drunk and tossed his wife’s brother into that vat of Ida’s potato salad at one of Mama’s receptions?” I dried, passing off to Maddie.
“How about when Ida took a barbecued rib and smacked that woman Henry was dating?” Marty giggled.
“Yep, that was Wedding No. 2. Beef rib. It was a big one.” Maddie squirted more soap into the sink.
“She deserved it,” I said. “Ida walked in on her in the bathroom with the groom. He claimed he drank too much. Mama should have known right then that No. 2 was a scoundrel.”
Mama Gets Hitched Page 17
