“Of course, he’s been in love with you since the first time he met you,” her mother said.
How did Jane miss this? “And you didn’t say anything?”
“If the chemistry was there, wild horses couldn’t keep you apart. I can see the sparks flying between you and Taggart. I’m so happy for you.”
“Mom. I asked Taggart to marry me.”
For a minute, her mother’s eyes only went wide with surprise. Then she turned away, hands over her face.
“Mom?”
“I’m so happy.” Her mother said, or at least, that was what Jane thought her mother said, since her hands muffled the words.
“So, why do you have your hands over your face?” Jane said.
“Because I don’t want you to see me crying!”
They stood in front of the shelves of sexual products, pretending her mother wasn’t weeping in joy.
Just in case someone else who knew Jane would come walking by, Jane nudged her cart down the aisle toward the vitamin section. “I need to be the one that tells Hal, so don’t tell anyone who might talk to him — like your sons.”
“Oh, Jane, how am I supposed to plan a wedding without telling — wait — have you set a date?”
“Before the Shutdown in September. We’ll need a few days to file the paperwork after the ceremony. I don’t know the date at the moment. We’re kind of in a middle of something important.”
Her mother pulled out her phone to check the calendar. “Oh, Jane, less than two months to plan a wedding! We’re going to have to get the invitations out next week. There’s barely time to get them printed!”
“I wasn’t planning on invitations. We need to find these nests…”
“You will have invitations. This will be a proper wedding. I’ll take care of everything. There will be two Saturdays before the Shutdown in September. The sixth and the thirteenth.”
Jane knew better than to suggest that they pick a day other than Saturday. “The thirteenth.”
Her mom came to a full stop. “Oh, Jane, what about his parents? They won’t be able to be here for the wedding! He’ll have to wait until the August Shutdown to tell them and you’re getting married before the September one!”
Did Taggart have parents? Brothers or sisters? She wasn’t even sure how to pronounce his first name. “It can’t be helped. We’ll film it. We can send them a copy of the video.”
“I need to go to the printers today. I’ll get their names off the Internet. I’ll have to make sure we can use the church. I don’t know what we’ll do if we can’t — but I’ll work it out. You can wear my dress. Who is going to be your maid of honor?”
“I–I—I don’t know, Mom!” Jane started her cart toward the check-out line. “We just decided this last night. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem that important. We’re at war.”
“The human race will always be a war, somewhere or other. People will die. Babies will be born. Life plows on. You need to stop and say ‘this day is mine’ or every precious moment will be eaten up.”
Her parents had gotten married on an army base just days before her father was deployed the first time. It might be the reason her mother was so determined that Jane had an elaborate wedding.
“Brandy is probably my best girlfriend.” Jane remembered that she’d lied to Brandy last time she saw her. “If she’s still talking to me. Give me a few days.”
They stood in the check-out line as her mother cycled through a long list of choices. Color of cummerbunds: red. Type of flower: roses. Wedding party-size: small as possible.
“If I have all my brothers as part of the wedding party, I’ll have to find five girls to be bridesmaids. Six. Nigel is going to be best man. I don’t have that many close girlfriends. I’d end up inviting someone I barely know to be part of my wedding to keep numbers even. That would be stupid. I don’t want to do it.”
“You could use your cousins Julia, Cora, Ina and Rachel.”
“I would still need two more girls if Brandy is pissed off at me.”
“Well, you could have — oh. Oh! What are we going to do about Boo and Joey?”
“I could elope” would get her into trouble. “It’s two months. We’ll figure something out. Maybe we can just invite family.”
Her mother look so torn that it hurt Jane to look at her. Her mother had spent twenty-six years dreaming of Jane’s wedding. It was always supposed to be a huge celebration of everyone they knew — friends, family, neighbors and co-workers.
Her mother would kill to protect Boo. It would crush Boo to be excluded from something as important as a wedding.
“We’ll figure it out,” Jane said. “We could dye her hair black and introduce her as Taggart’s niece. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. Just don’t tell anyone yet.”
“I’m going to have to tell the printer and Father Cunningham.”
Jane pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just make sure the Barkers don’t find out, or the whole city will know by dinner time.”
Only later did Jane remember that she needed to find a bride for Nigel too. She made a note to ask her mom to play matchmaker.
Aaron Wollerton had sold Hal an entire crate of dynamite. At discount. “You’re going to blow those monsters out of the water and save the city. I’m happy to do my part. Sorry about the fishfinder thing. People don’t fish that way here.”
Jane eyed the crate. Maybe she should wait on telling Hal about her getting married until after they needed to fling around lit sticks of dynamite. She handed out sandwiches she’d picked up at Giant Eagle’s deli. “What’s a fishfinder?”
“A mythical piece of equipment here in Pittsburgh,” Hal lovingly caressed the side of the dynamite crate. “Along with most other advanced technology.”
“Thank you!” Nigel accepted the sandwich that she handed him. “A fishfinder is an instrument used to locate fish underwater. It pulses sound through the water and reads the reflection to determine what the sound echoed off of. Fishermen use it to locate schools of fish, but it also can be used to find underwater debris, like shipwrecks. The more sophisticated versions can distinguish between fish and vegetation. We were hoping we could use one to find the nest.”
Aaron spread his hands helplessly. “With the jumpfish and river sharks, most people don’t go near the water. Some of the foragers work the streams that are too shallow for the bigger fish. They normally use a combination of fly fishing and fish traps.”
“Catfish do spawn in shallow water,” Nigel said.
“What is this?” Taggart held out his sandwich. He’d taken a bite out of it. “Ham?”
“Chipped ham and cheese,” Jane said.
“Chipped chopped ham is a local thing,” Hal added. “It’s luncheon meat made from chopped ham and spices ground together and then pressed into a loaf. The deli cuts it thin as possible. You’ll get addicted to it eventually.”
Nigel took a bite and made appreciative noises. “We need to do a ‘Food of Pittsburgh’ and cover all the different types of food. Do you think we could film at an enclave?”
“Possibly.” Jane tried to corral them back on track. “How are we going to find the nests? If they’re under water, we’re not going to be able to see the eggs. Not unless they nested in very shallow streams.”
“Magic?” Aaron said.
“What?” Both production crews asked.
“Elves have magic,” Aaron said. “Why don’t you see if you can find an elf who can use magic to see under the water?”
Contrary to what most newcomers believed, anyone could cast magic. Most elves had a number of utilitarian spells that they knew written down in well-guarded books. Her brother Geoffrey had spent his teen years talking the elves into teaching him their common day spells. The elves were as intrigued by his youth as he was with their magic. One of his teachers marked his height on the wall every time he came to visit, exclaiming at his “impossibly fast” growth.