Dab was snake-dancing around Sal, using the donkey tail like a stripper’s scarf.
“My goodness, Mace! I tried to give you girls a good example growing up. I wouldn’t have exposed you to a woman as bad as Dab.”
Maddie said, “Dab beat out Mama for Miss Swamp Cabbage in 1965. They never spoke again, until Mama decided to make amends by inviting her to the shower.”
“The vote was rigged.” Mama fluffed her hair. “I suspect she did a special favor for one of the judges. Plus, she was too old, according to the rules. She lied about her age!”
“Imagine that,” Maddie said.
“How’d she come by that unusual name?” Marty asked.
“Her daddy called her that because she was so tiny; just a little dab,” Mama said.
I looked at Mama’s frenemy, doing a shimmy now, the shiny fabric of her dress stretched tight across her breasts. They perched unnaturally high and round on her skinny frame, like two honeydew melons on a grocer’s shelf.
“I guess she got her nickname before she got the implants,” I said.
Betty came over just then with a cup of punch and a plate: A deviled egg, a pig-in-the-blanket, some spicy bean dip with a few tortilla chips, and three ham-and-cheese roll-ups.
“Bless you, Betty. I’m starving.”
“Well I could tell you didn’t stop home to eat, Mace, ’cause I know you would have done something with that hair.”
My hand went to my mass of snarls. I couldn’t remember if I even washed it after my dip in the lake. There hadn’t been much time for hair care once Carlos joined me in the shower.
“Is that a new shade of blush, Mace?” Betty asked. “It’s very becoming. But, honey, you have got to come in to Hair Today, Dyed Tomorrow and let us fix that mess on your head. You can’t walk down the aisle in that beautiful dress with hair that looks styled by a weed whacker.”
“Amen!” Mama said, though her eyes were still fastened on Sal and Dab.
Now, Dab was affixing the tail to Sal’s upper arm. She gave his bicep an appreciative squeeze. Mama sat on the edge of the couch, as if she was about to launch herself like a missile at Dab.
“My Lord!” Dab’s voice sounded like sex and cigarettes. “You must really work out. And I do hope that’s your arm.”
Marty giggled. I leaned behind Mama and raised my eyebrows at Maddie. She grinned.
“Looks like you are never too old,” she said.
Mama rocketed off the couch, shouting, “Next!”
She grabbed the blindfold off Dab. I thought she’d yank out a handful of her scarlet bouffant, too. But she just gave Dab a tight smile.
“Maybe you’d better sit down and rest a bit, honey.” She patted Dab’s arm. “Those varicose veins must act up something awful at your age.”
“I guess at your age your eyesight’s not what it used to be, Rosalee.” Hiking a high-heeled foot onto Betty’s coffee table, Dab displayed a surprisingly shapely leg. “I don’t have any varicose veins.”
Pushing past Dab to claim her rightful place on stage, Mama tied the blindfold gingerly, so as not to muss her helmet of hair. Since I was woefully familiar with the Mama Show, I turned my attention to my food and punch while I checked out Betty’s home.
And I’d thought Hair Today was a purple palace. Her home made the salon seem sedate. The living room drapes were mulberry velvet, with low-hanging swags in the same shade. The over-stuffed couch was plush, and as purple as an eggplant. The carpet was a thick pile, closer to lilac than lavender. About the only thing that wasn’t purple was the TV, and it wore an orchid-hued doily like a lacy hat.
In her sherbet-colored pantsuit, Mama looked like a tangerine in a bowl of plums.
Among a dozen or so guests, I recognized some of Mama’s bingo buddies and several of her fellow church-goers. D’Vora, from the salon, chatted with Charlene, the waitress from Gladys’ Diner. Alice Hodges sat by herself, an untouched plate of food on her lap. Her clothes were clean and pressed, and she wore a hint of lipstick. She’d tried to fix herself up. But her eyes were still blank; her complexion sallow. It seemed as if no one wanted to breach the force field of mourning that surrounded her.
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.