"Listen, Stacey," Paula said, taking her firmly by the shoulders, "I know how much you wanted a Christmas Eve wedding, but it’s just not going to work. The roads are impassable. Your flowers are in a ditch, your mother’s trapped at a truck stop–"
"The cello player’s in the hospital with frostbite," the viola player put in.
Paula nodded. "And you don’t want anyone else to end up there. You have to face facts. You can’t have a Christmas Eve wedding."
"You could reschedule for Valentine’s Day," the minister said brightly. "Valentine weddings are very nice. I’ve got two weddings that day, but I could move one up. Yours could still be in the evening," but Paula could tell Stacey had stopped listening at "you can’t have–"
"You did this," Stacey snapped at Paula. "You’ve always been jealous of me, and now you’re taking it out on me by ruining my wedding."
"Nobody’s ruining anything, Stacey," Jim said, stepping between them. "It’s a snowstorm."
"Oh, so I suppose it’s my fault!" Stacey said. "Just because I wanted a winter wedding with snow–"
"It’s nobody’s fault," Jim said sternly. "Listen, I don’t want to wait either, and we don’t have to. We can get married right here, right now."
"Yeah," the viola player said. "You’ve got a minister." He grinned at Paula. "You’ve got two witnesses."
"He’s right," Jim said. "We’ve got everything we need right here. You’re here, I’m here, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it, not some fancy wedding?" He took her hands in his. "Will you marry me?"
And what woman could resist an offer like that? Paula thought. Oh, well, you knew when you got on the plane that he was going to marry her.
"Marry you," Stacey repeated blankly, and the minister hurried out, saying, "I’ll get my book. And my robe."
"Marry you?" Stacey said. "Marry you?" She wrenched free of his grasp. "Why on earth would I marry a loser who won’t even do one simple thing for me? I want Kindra and David here. I want my flowers. I want my veil. What is the point of marrying you if I can’t have what I want?"
"I thought you wanted me," Jim said dangerously.
"You?" Stacey said in a tone that made both Paula and the viola player wince. "I wanted to walk down the aisle at twilight on Christmas Eve," she waved her arm in the direction of the windows, "with candlelight reflecting off the windowpanes and snow falling outside." She turned, snatching up her train, and looked at him. "Will I marry you? Are you kidding?"
There was a short silence. Jim turned and looked seriously at Paula. "How about you?" he said.
At six o’clock on the dot, Madge and Shorty, Uncle Don, Cousin Denny, and Luke’s mom all arrived. "You poor darling," she whispered to Luke, handing him the green bean casserole and the sweet potatoes, "stuck all afternoon with Aunt Lulla. Did she talk your ear off ?"
"No," he said. "We made a snowman. Why didn’t you tell me Aunt Lulla had been an actress?"
"An actress?" she said, handing him the cranberry sauce. "Is that what she told you? Don’t tip it, it’ll spill. Did you have any trouble with the goose?" She opened the oven and looked at it, sitting in its pan, brown and crispy and done to a turn. "They tend to be a little juicy."
"Not a bit," he said, looking past her out the window at the snowman in the backyard. The snow he and Aunt Lulla had packed around it and on top of it was melting. He’d have to sneak out during dinner and pile more snow on.
"Here," his mom said, handing him the mashed potatoes. "Heat these up in the microwave while I make the gravy."
"It’s made," he said, lifting the lid off the saucepan to show her the gently bubbling gravy. It had taken them four tries, but as Aunt Lulla had pointed out, they had more than enough drippings to experiment with, and, as she had also pointed out, three lardballs made a more realistic snowman.
"The top one’s too big," Luke had said, scooping up snow to cover it with.
"I may have gotten a little carried away with the flour," Aunt Lulla had admitted. "On the other hand, it looks exactly like Orson." She stuck two olives in for eyes. "And so appropriate. He always was a fathead."
"The gravy smells delicious," Luke’s mother said, looking surprised. "You didn’t make it, did you?"
"No. Aunt Lulla."
"Well, I think you’re a saint for putting up with her and her wild tales all afternoon," she said, ladling the gravy into a bowl and handing it to Luke.
"You mean she made all that stuff up?" Luke said.
"Do you have a gravy boat?" his mother asked, opening cupboards.
"No," he said. "Aunt Lulla wasn’t really an actress?"
"No." She took a bowl out of the cupboard. "Do you have a ladle?"
"No."
She got a dipper out of the silverware drawer. "Lulla was never in a single play," she said, ladling the gravy into a bowl and handing it to Luke, "where she hadn’t gotten the part by sleeping with somebody. Lionel Barrymore, Errol Flynn, Kenneth Branagh . . ." She opened the oven to look at the goose. ". . . and that’s not even counting Alfred."
"Alfred Lunt?" Luke asked.
"Hitchcock. I think this is just about done."
"But I thought you said she was the shy one."
"She was. That’s why she went out for drama in high school, to overcome her shyness. Do you have a platter?"
At 6:35 p.m., a member of the Breckenridge ski patrol, out looking for four missing cross-country skiers, spotted a taillight (the only part of Kent and Bodine’s Honda not covered by snow). He had a collapsible shovel with him, and a GPS, a satellite phone, a walkie-talkie, Mylar blankets, insta-heat packs, energy bars, a thermos of hot cocoa, and a stern lecture on winter safety, which he delivered after he had dug Kent and Bodine out and which they really resented. "Who did that fascist geek think he was, shaking his finger at us like that?" Bodine asked Kent after several tequila slammers at the Laughing Moose.
"Yeah," Kent said eloquently, and they settled down to the serious business of how to take advantage of the fresh powder that had fallen while they were in their car.
"You know what’d be totally extreme?" Bodine said. "Snowboarding at night!"
Shara was quite a girl. Warren didn’t have a chance to call Marjean again until after seven. When Shara went in the bathroom, he took the opportunity to dial home. "Where are you?" Marjean said, practically crying. "I’ve been worried sick! Are you all right?"
"I’m still in Cincinnati at the airport," he said, "and it looks like I’ll be here all night. They just closed the airport."
"Closed the airport. . . ." she echoed.
"I know," he said, his voice full of regret. "I’d really counted on being home with you for Christmas Eve, but what can you do? It’s snowing like crazy here. No flights out till tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I’m in line at the airline counter right now, rebooking, and then I’m going to try to find a place to stay, but I don’t know if I’ll have much luck." He paused to give her a chance to commiserate. "They’re supposed to put us up for the night, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up sleeping on the floor."
"At the airport," she said, "in Cincinnati."
"Yeah." He laughed. "Great place to spend Christmas Eve, huh?" He paused to give her a chance to commiserate, but all she said was, "You didn’t make it home last year either."
"Honey, you know I’d get there if I could," he said. "I tried to rent a car and drive home, but the snow’s so bad they’re not even sure they can get a shuttle out here to take us to a hotel. I don’t know how much snow they’ve had here–"