Tyner cleared his throat, a noise as dry and scratchy as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, then placed a small velvet box on the table. It was an old one, judging by the greenish cast and worn spots. He popped the box open, displaying a band of silver-well, probably white gold or platinum-with a single diamond at its heart.
"My mother's," he said.
"You had a mother?" Inane, but Tess was not prepared for where this was heading.
"Of course I had a mother," Tyner snapped, sounding like himself for the first time today. "Do you think I was suckled by a wolf? She gave this to me years ago, decades ago. I never thought I would have any use for it, but, well… I'm going to marry your Aunt Kitty."
Tess was still too overwhelmed to make sense. "Does she know?"
"Of course she knows!" Tyner's voice was so loud this time that even the blase waitstaff of Petit Louis twitched in their crisp white shirts. "I asked her last weekend. For God's sake, we've been living together for almost two years now."
"I guess I thought you were asking my permission or something like that. Although I suppose you should really ask Dad, or one of his brothers, since Pop-Pop Monaghan is no longer around-"
"Your aunt is in her forties-she hardly needs permission from her brothers to marry. I just wanted to show you the ring and see if you think Kitty would ever wear anything like this. It's awfully old-fashioned."
"She likes old-fashioned things." Tess balanced the box warily on her fingertips, as if it held a poisonous insect given to impulsive attacks. "She'd prefer this to a big old solitaire on a gold band or one of those encrusted things you see on some ladies."
"It's not… well, insulting, to present her a ring rather than give her the option of picking it out?"
"Not at all. It's a romantic gesture. Or would have been if you had given it to her during the proposal instead of waiting for a second opinion, you doofus. Hey, how does a guy in a wheelchair propose? You can't go down on one knee, so you do you go down on one elbow?"
"Don't be tacky," Tyner said, hugely pleased. He enjoyed Tess's company because she was one of the few people who didn't treat his wheelchair like a bad smell, something to be politely ignored under any and all circumstances. "There is one thing I do want to ask you, however."
"Yes?"
"Given that Kitty's and my combined ages top one hundred, we don't want to get too silly, even though this is a first wedding for both of us."
"Good plan. Vegas? Elkton?"
"So instead of having bridesmaids and best men and all that folderol, we want only one attendant-you."
Tess, who had managed at this point in her life to avoid any and all manner of responsibility in the nuptial process, was not thrilled. Tyner, misunderstanding her silence, plowed ahead.
"I know you're probably wondering why we didn't ask you and Crow to do it as a couple."
"No, that's not it. That's not it at all-"
"But the fact is, I'm not close to him, and he couldn't very well be Kitty's attendant. And you told Kitty the other day you're not sure when he's going to be back from Charlottesville, so he can't really be involved in the planning, right?"
"Right." Crow had moved home to care for his mother, who was undergoing chemo for breast cancer, and Tess didn't know when he would be back.
"Besides, you're the one who brought Kitty and me together."
"Don't remind me."
"Anyway, it will be simpler. How carried away can she get if there's only one attendant?"
Tess began to see some advantages in the situation. "Okay, sure. Crow won't mind, given that he's been staying with his parents in Charlottesville. And if I'm standing up for the bride and the groom, I could wear, like, a really sharp Armani pantsuit, or at least a skirt-and-jacket thing, instead of some god-awful bridesmaid's dress."
"Well, actually, I'm not so sure about that." Tyner was suddenly manifesting all the nervous confusion of a young groom. "Kitty seems to have… a lot of ideas. I mean, she keeps saying it's just going to be a party where two people get married, but she's been making a lot of phone calls and appointments. I think she even has a color scheme."
"What is it?"
"It changes almost hourly."
"Uh-oh."
"But she's leaning toward black for your dress. At least, as of yesterday, she said she liked the idea of you in black."
"Well, I can pick out a black dress on my own," Tess said with glad relief.
"Of course you can. Except Kitty wants to… um, help." He pushed a card across the table. "She has an appointment for the both of you at this boutique in Towson. To start. She also mentioned some other places, like Vassari and Octavia and maybe the Neiman Marcus in the Washington suburbs if she can't find the right dress in Baltimore."
The card for the Towson dress shop was white with discreet silver letters in a curvy font, a whisper of pink blossoms scattered across its face. Just touching it made Tess's palms itch.
"So this lunch is really a bribe, right? You lured me here not to get my approval of the marriage, or even to ask my opinion of the ring, but to break the news that I have to go buy a dress in a bridal store. I can just see it. You know it's going to have some huge bow over the ass."
"I was hoping you'd think of this lunch as a celebration. I thought we might even splurge, have a good bottle of wine with lunch. On me, of course. This is all on me."
"Wine for lunch is fine, but I'm going to need a g-pack of crack to survive dress shopping. Be straight with me-is Kitty losing her mind? Is she getting all giddy and nuts? Just how bad is this going to be?"
Tyner just smiled ruefully and summoned the waitress, ordering a $150 bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
Chapter Six
A HALF BOTTLE OF CHATEAUNEUF-DU-PAPE TURNED out to be excellent preparation for Tess's appointment with Lana Wishnia at Adrian's.
The spa had done much to obscure the bookstore Tess had so loved before it sank beneath the weight of one of the more curious bankruptcy cases in Baltimore history. From the outside it was now just another door in another suburban strip center. But that frosted glass door opened into a foreign world, a butterscotch-colored anteroom with fabric-swathed walls and two more frosted-glass doors marked salon and spa. Tess felt as if she had fallen into the bottom of a caramel sundae, or one of the more perverse compartments in Alice's rabbit hole. Come to think of it, Adrian's was probably full of potions that commanded "Drink Me" and "Eat Me," although with less immediate results than their Wonderland counterparts.
"You are Lana's four o'clock?"
The voice was unmistakably the Velvet Frost, but its owner was far from the style maven that Tess had envisioned. She was dumpy and middle-aged, with a large part between her front teeth. She did, however, sport acrylic nails, winged eyebrows, and fiercely streaked hair.
"Yes."
"She is running late." Was Tess paranoid, or was the woman blaming her for Lana's tardiness? "I would have called you, but you did not leave a contact number. May I get you anything while you wait?"
Tess looked at the magazines arrayed fan style on a low, maple-and-glass table in front of a chenille sofa in the same maple hue. They were not real magazines, just handbooks designed to create impossible dreams in the women who were forced to wait here because Lana-or Tatiana or Esme or Jean-Paul or Horatio Hornblower-was running late. Tess wanted to ask for a magazine with articles, or even a newspaper, but she felt as if she had already acquired too many demerits.