Mother of the Bride

by Lynn Michaels

  “Parrish,” she said warily. “Cydney Parrish. Bebe’s aunt.”

  “Is Aldo here, by any chance?”

  “No. He and Bebe had classes this morning. He left you a note and your keys. Your car is in the parking lot.”

  She took her hand back and dipped into her bag, pulled out a folded sheet of white paper, his glasses and his keys and gave them to him.

  “Thank you.” Gus put his keys on the table, his half lenses gingerly and crookedly on the tip of his swollen nose, unfolded the note and read:

  Uncle Gus. This is a warning. You do anything—and I mean anything—to cause trouble for Bebe and me or to screw up our wedding and I’ll never talk to you again. I mean it. I’m twenty-one and I can get married if I want. If you’re so worried about my money, you keep it. It’ll be mine when I’m twenty-five. I can work for the next four years and so can Bebe. I’ll be at her Uncle Cyd’s house around five if you want to talk to me before you go back to Crooked Possum.

  —Aldo PS. You behaved like a jerk last night and you owe Miss Parrish an apology.

  Gus’ temper and the dull, sick throb in his head soared. He put his head back against the rock disguised as a pillow and shut his eyes. He wanted to crush the note in his fist and make Aldo eat it. Or eat it himself along with the codicil. He’d behaved like a jackass and he knew it. He didn’t need Aldo to remind him.

  “Mr. Munroe? Are you all right?”

  Cydney Parrish laid a hand on his shoulder, a light, gentle touch Gus felt through the thin blue hospital gown he wore. He opened his eyes and saw her leaning forward in her chair, her arm slipped through the bed rail to reach him. What lovely eyes she had, almond-shaped and almond-colored with amber-flecked irises. Peach-kissed skin and a mouth to match.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  How ‘bout a kiss? his inner voice suggested.

  “Amirror,” Gus said. “I’d like a mirror.”

  She bit her lower lip—the one he was fantasizing about nibbling—dug a gold compact out of her purse, opened it and passed it to him. Gus raised the round mirror in the lid and surveyed the damage. He looked like he’d run face first into a brick wall. Both eyes were turning black, he had scratches on his chin and his jaw and W. C. Fields’ nose.

  “The swelling should go down in a couple of days,” Cydney said. “Sooner, the doctor said, if you use ice packs.”

  Gus shut the compact and passed it back to her. “Aldo said I could see him at your place around five. D’you mind?”

  “Not at all. You’re welcome to stay for dinner if you’d like.”

  “Thank you, Miss Parrish, but Crooked Possum is a long drive. Perhaps another time. Thank you for coming this morning.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Munroe.” She rose from the chair and looped her purse over her shoulder. “I brought you some toiletries and your clothes. I washed them and put them in the closet.”

  “And the flowers, Miss Parrish? Did you bring those?”

  “No. They were here when I—” She broke off, an affronted blaze flaming across her cheeks. “I’m not trying to bribe you with flowers and a home-cooked meal, Mr. Munroe. I didn’t come here to con you. I came to talk about Bebe and Aldo. I hoped we could discuss the wedding like adults and come to an agreement.”

  “I came to Kansas City for the same reason, Miss Parrish. No offense, but I didn’t come to talk to you. I came to talk to Aldo. He thinks I’m in a twist over his trust fund, but he’s wrong. I couldn’t care less about the money, but I care a great deal about my nephew.”

  “What about Bebe?” she demanded.

  “Bebe isn’t my responsibility. Aldo is. It’s up to him to convince me that he knows what he’s doing.”

  “I see.” Cydney Parrish snatched up her shawl and stalked toward the door. She caught the handle and flung a look at him over her shoulder. “How about you, Mr. Munroe? Do you know what you’re doing?”

  chapter

  seven

  Did he know what he was doing? What kind of question was that? And who did Cydney Parrish think she was to ask it? Gus always knew what he was doing. Every minute, every second, every hour of every day.

  He sat up on the side of the bed, fuming over the cheeky question. The door opened and a nurse came in pushing a cart.

  “Doctor will be in soon. You can get up and get dressed if you feel like it. Sorry about these.” She smiled as she loaded the floral bouquets on the cart. “Delivered to the wrong room.”

  Oh swell. Another apology he owed Cydney Parrish.

  Gus wobbled into the bathroom with the disposable razors and shaving cream she’d brought him, leaned one hand on the sink, probed the back of his head with the other and found the lump in his skull. Just grazing it with his fingertips made him gasp and spots dance before his eyes. What the hell had he landed on when Aldo dropped him?

  “Grazed the edge of a concrete birdbath,” the doctor told him. “Lucky you’ve got a hard head.”

  Oh, the tales I could tell, his inner voice said wearily.

  The doctor, a crusty old coot in a rumpled white lab coat, came in just as Gus was getting out of the shower, feeling steadier and a whole lot better. He checked Gus’ reflexes, shined a penlight in his eyes that damn near blinded him and gave him a flash of memory—a dazzling overhead light and fingers poking the back of his head. Last night in the emergency room, Gus guessed, and asked the doctor why he couldn’t remember more.

  “‘Cause you’ve got a concussion. Mild, thanks to that rock you’ve got for a noggin. Memory gaps are normal. Nothing to worry about. We kept you overnight just as a precaution.”

  The doctor wrote him a prescription for the headache, told him to take it easy for a couple days, lay off booze for a while, and said he could get dressed and leave. Gus did, in the clothes he’d worn the day before, freshly laundered by Cydney Parrish.

  He sniffed the sleeve of his gray sweater on his way to the elevator and smelled fabric softener. Liquid or dryer sheet? he wondered, and decided Cydney Parrish was the liquid type. She’d ironed his jeans, too, and brushed his gray suede hiking boots.

  It’s nice to have a woman around the bouse, Munroe, his inner voice said, but Gus pretended not to hear.

  After he signed his release forms, Gus filled the prescription at the pharmacy in the hospital lobby, bought one of those blue chemical ice bags already frozen and went in search of his Jaguar. Aldo hadn’t set the alarm, but he’d parked the sleek, British racing green coupe diagonally across three spaces in the back of the lot. Well. Maybe he’d only make Aldo eat half of his smart-aleck note.

  Gus headed for the Country Club Plaza, the swankiest chunk of real estate in Kansas City. One of the first shopping areas in the country, dotted with fountains and statuary, its architecture modeled after Seville, Spain, with towers and grillwork and names like Gucci scrolled over shop doors. Gus hated city traffic and took the back streets, confident that he could find his way.

  An hour later he was lost, wandering like a rat in the maze of one-way streets on the north side of the Plaza, the chemical ice bag turning to blue goo on the tan leather seat beside him. The streets that refused to go where he wanted them to were lined with stately homes and soaring trees that had been shedding leaves here, vivid gold and blazing red, since the pioneers headed west in their ox-drawn wagons.

  The fourth time he passed the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Gus pulled into the parking lot to check his road map. He didn’t always leave home with his American Express card, but he always left home with a road map. Except this time. He could’ve sworn—but he couldn’t remember—having a road map last night. It wasn’t in the glove compartment, between the seats, under the seats or in the trunk.

  He decided to hell with it, locked the car and set the alarm and walked the mile or so to the Plaza. Slowly, taking his time since it was barely one o’clock and he had four hours to kill until he met Aldo at Cydney Parrish’s house. He hoped he could find the place. He couldn’t remember how he
’d found it last night without a road map.

  He ate lunch and took a pain pill, then strolled into Barnes & Noble. His heart in his mouth, his hands sweaty in his jacket pockets, but no one recognized him. With his bruised eyes hidden behind his Ray-Bans—he had to spread the nose pads to get them on—and a navy wool ball cap tugged over his forehead, he figured even the sharpest-eyed clerk would need his dental records to identify him.

  What a joy it was to wander the stacks unmolested. Online bookstores were the best invention since unlisted phone numbers for a confirmed recluse, but there was no smell on earth as sweet as the smell of books. How about Cydney Parrish’s perfume? his inner voice asked, but again Gus played deaf.

  His ego, which felt damn near as beat up as his face, got the best of him in Mass-Market Fiction. While the clerk talked to his girlfriend on the phone, Gus turned his backlist titles face out, spined Fletcher Parrish’s, and stood back grinning at his handiwork. Served the old bugger right for cutting him dead. All he’d wanted was Parrish’s autograph, a chance to tell him how much his books meant to him. Well, said his inner voice. This is a nice way to show your appreciation.

  Gus frowned, put the shelves back the way he’d found them and headed for the car. His legs felt like Jell-O, the top of his head like it was going to blow off by the time he reached the museum. He cut through the outdoor sculpture garden, found a bench that gave him a view of the south lawn and sat down. On the still summer-green grass lay two sculptures of giant shuttlecocks.

  “Hey, little bro,” he could almost hear Artie say with a wink and an elbow in the ribs. “Let’s see you hit one of those over the net.”

  Gus smiled in spite of the ache in his throat. Artie had written his will expecting Gus would be a lot older if something happened to him and Beth. He hadn’t planned on Gus being nineteen and left with a four-year-old to raise, but that’s what had happened.

  Of course he knew what he was doing. What a stupid question. You couldn’t raise a child on a wing and a prayer. You had to have a plan and Gus had written one—a plan for his life and one for Aldo’s—the day after Artie and Beth’s funeral. He’d set goals and he’d achieved them. He’d worked full time while he finished college and Aunt Phoebe, his father’s sister—dead now, bless her heart—took care of Aldo, fed him and read to him and taught him his letters and numbers. Gus earned a degree in English and got a job teaching to support the three of them.

  He taught for three years, broke his leg in two places showing Aldo how to slide into second and wrote the first Max Stone while he was in the cast. He sold it, got an agent and a contract for two more books and sent Aunt Phoebe on a cruise. He thought he’d written a pretty good little detective story. So did his publisher until Dead Soup hit number three on The New York Times List. He still had nightmares about the thrown-together book tour, the print and radio interviews, the photographers and the readers—mostly women who drooled over him and Max Stone—lined up for his autograph and his phone number at book signings.

  He’d been an unmarried, twenty-five-year-old English teacher who lived in Joplin, Missouri, with his orphaned nephew and his maiden aunt. A great publicity angle. The press agent assigned to him by his publisher played it for all it was worth. Gus handled it—he hadn’t liked it but he’d handled it—until the day Aunt Phoebe came home with one hand clutching her heart and the other a supermarket tabloid.

  The headline and supposedly the actress cast to play Max Stone’s faithful secretary, Thelma, in the movie version of Dead Soup claimed GORGEOUS GUS ASKED ME TO BE ALDO’S MOMMY. The accompanying photo showed Aldo riding his bike on the street in front of Aunt Phoebe’s house in Joplin.

  Within an hour, the house was up for sale and Gus and Aunt Phoebe were on the road with Aldo, looking for a place to keep the bright and happy towheaded ten-year-old safe from prying reporters and photographers. They’d gotten lost in the Ozarks—even with a road map—found Crooked Possum purely by accident and stayed there.

  Becoming a mega-best-selling author hadn’t been in the Life Plan Gus had written for himself. Bebe Parrish wasn’t part of the plan he’d written for Aldo, either, and that was the problem. It was Aldo’s life to plan, Aldo’s life to live and Aldo’s life to screw up. It didn’t matter that Aldo was all he had left of Artie, all he had left of Aunt Phoebe and his family. It was time for Uncle Gus to butt out.

  And do what? he wondered with a heavy sigh. Get a dog?

  Gus glanced at his watch, saw that it was almost four and rose from the bench. He stretched, felt his stiff neck muscles grind and took a last, long look at the giant shuttlecocks on the grass.

  “Damn it,” he said unhappily. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  He didn’t have a plan or a road map. No outline to follow, no idea which way to turn, and Cydney Parrish knew it. She might be a nut, but she was a perceptive nut.

  Time to write a new Life Plan. He should have when Dead Soup hit it big. That’s when his life went off track, when he’d let himself get sucked into the euphoria of fame and money. He’d written himself into bigger dead ends and written his way out, but this was his life, not Max Stone’s, and there was no delete key if he screwed up. This would take some thought, Gus decided, and turned toward the car.

  He headed south with his half lenses perched on the tip of his swollen nose and the scrap of paper where he’d jotted Cydney Parrish’s address clutched in his right hand on the wheel. He drove through a quaint little shopping area with striped awnings over the storefronts, spied a florist and went in. He bought Bebe a bunch of daisies and a bouquet of chrysanthemums for Cydney.

  By sheer dumb luck he found her street. By the birdbath in the front yard he found her brown brick and stucco house. The lawn was zoysia grass just beginning to turn winter beige in spots. A clutch of sparrows hopped on the lip of the birdbath— damned dangerous things, birdbaths—and a squirrel ran up one of the two shaggy pin oaks still clinging to their sharp-pointed gold leaves.

  Gus followed the driveway past the house into a small hurricane of leaves. Not dull as they’d looked last night in the dark, but vivid, neon red maple leaves, swirling around a blue Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the open garage doors. The truck Cydney Parrish said she drove, Gus guessed, and glanced toward the backyard.

  Cydney stood in the eye of the storm with a leaf blower in her hands. Gus could see enough of her through the funnel cloud of bright leaves to see that she had on jeans and a green sweatshirt, a pair of tan work gloves and clear plastic safety goggles.

  She didn’t see him or hear the Jag over the dull roar of the leaf blower. Gus parked next to her truck and sat watching her. With leaves dancing and swirling around her, she looked like a high-tech wood nymph. He smiled, changed his glasses for his Ray-Bans and picked up the bouquets he’d bought. He reached for the door handle, glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a Jag, a vivid, cranberry-red XJ8 coupe pull up the drive and stop a few feet behind his.

  Aldo got out from behind the wheel. Gus raised a hand to him in the rearview mirror, but his nephew didn’t wave back. He came around the nose of the car and leaned against the hood, crossed his arms and thrust out his chin in a scowl so belligerent it made Gus’ head thud. He sighed and opened his door.

  “This is my car,” Aldo said when Gus got out of his, between his teeth, his voice tight, before Gus could open his mouth. “I paid cash for it. Paid the taxes, a year’s worth of insurance and bought the license. It’s mine free and clear, unless you plan to stop payment on the checks.”

  He uncrossed his arms, spread his palms on the hood and scooted an inch or two to the left so Gus could see the license plate. A vanity plate that said ILOVEBB.

  “Hello to you, too. And I feel fine, thanks for asking.” Gus walked around his Jag, laid the bouquets on the trunk lid and leaned against it facing Aldo. “What makes you think I’ll stop payment on the checks?”

  “Beats me, Uncle Gus. Maybe you storming in here last night and shoving my dad’s will in Miss P
arrish’s face.” Aldo jammed his arms together again and glared. “I’m a grown man and you made me look like a kid who can’t wipe his nose without your permission.”

  Oops. Gus hadn’t thought about Aldo when he’d jumped in his car and set a new land speed record between Crooked Possum and Kansas City. He’d only thought of Fletcher Parrish and his own ego.

  “I’m sorry, Aldo. I went off half-cocked. I was trying to apologize for it when Bebe punched me and knocked me cold.”

  “You asked for it.”

  “I was speaking figuratively.”

  “I don’t care if you were speaking Greek.” Aldo raised his voice above the roar of the leaf blower. Leaves skipped over the chain-link fence and fluttered onto the driveway between them. “You scared Bebe half to death. She thought she’d killed you.”

  “Well. How rude of me to pass out.” Gus picked up the daisies in their green tissue paper and thrust them at Aldo. “Give her these.”

  A tiny smile cracked the grim line of his nephew’s mouth. “You brought some for Miss Parrish, too?”

  “Yes.” Gus laid the flowers back on the trunk. “And you can keep the car.”

  “You aren’t gonna make me take it back?”

  “No. Sunday was your twenty-first birthday. Seems like a great present to me. Happy birthday.”

  Aldo tilted his head to one side. Just enough to catch one of the long beams of late afternoon sun slanting through the maple tree. The light glowed on his mane of palomino hair and made Gus’ chest ache. He looked so much like Artie it hurt, and Beth had worn her long, pale hair the same way, in a drawn-back ponytail with a wave of bangs.

  “You know how much I paid for this car,” Aldo said.

  “Not to the penny, but I can guess.”

  “And you don’t care?”

  “I don’t give a damn about the money, Aldo. I know that’s how it looked last night, but I told you—I misunderstood.”

  “You thought Bebe was after my money?”

  “The possibility occurred to me,” Gus hedged. He hadn’t thought that at all, but it was safer ground than what he did think.