“It’s your dad’s blood pressure I’m really worried about,” Mom said with a half smile. “If a naked woman popped out of a cake, no telling what might happen!”
I poured iced tea and set the glasses on the table. “It doesn’t seem too likely that anyone will do that,” I said, because she was looking for reassurance. “Dill’s not a kid, and it’s not his first marriage. I don’t think any of his local friends are likely to get that carried away.” I sat down at my place.
“You’re right,” Mom said with some relief. “You always have such good sense, Lily.”
Not always.
“Are you… seeing anyone… now, honey?” Mom asked gently.
I stared up at her as she hovered over the table, plates in her hands. I almost said no automatically.
“Yes.”
The fleeting look of sheer relief and pleasure that flashed across my mother’s pale, narrow face was so intense I felt like taking back my yes. I was feeling my way with Jack every hour we were together, and to have our relationship classified as a standard dating situation made me horribly anxious.
“Can you tell me a little about him?” Mom’s voice was calm, her hands steady as she set the plates down at our places. She sat down across from me and began to stir sugar into her tea.
I had no idea what to say.
“Oh, that’s all right, I don’t want to intrude on your privacy,” she said after a moment, flustered.
“No,” I said just as quickly. It seemed awful to me that we were so leery of each other’s every word and silence. “No, that’s… no, it’s OK. He…” I pictured Jack, and a tide of longing swept over me, so intense and painful that it took my breath away. After it ebbed, I said, “He’s a private detective. He lives in Little Rock. He’s thirty-five.”
My mother put her sandwich down on her plate and began smiling. “That’s wonderful, honey. What’s his name? Has he been married before?”
“Yes. His name is Jack Leeds.”
“Any kids?”
“No.”
“That’s easier.”
“Yes.”
“Though I know little Anna so well now, at first when Dill and Varena began dating… Anna was so little, not even toilet trained, and Dill’s mother didn’t seem to want to come to take care of Anna, though she was a cute little toddler…”
“That worried you?”
“Yes,” she admitted, nodding her faded blond head. “Yes, it did. I didn’t know if Varena could handle it. She never enjoyed baby-sitting very much, and she never talked about having babies, like most girls do. But she and Anna seemed to take to each other just fine. Sometimes she gets fed up with Anna’s little tricks, and sometimes Anna reminds Varena that she isn’t her real mother, but for the most part they get along great.”
“Dill wasn’t in the car wreck that killed his wife?”
“No, it was a one-car accident. Evidently, Judy, his wife, had just dropped off Anna at a sitter’s.”
“That was before Dill moved here?”
“Yes, just a few months before. He’d been living up northwest of Little Rock. He says he felt he just couldn’t bear to raise Anna there, every day having to pass the spot where his wife died.”
“So he moves to a town where he doesn’t know a soul, where he doesn’t have any family to help him raise Anna.” I spoke before I thought.
My mother gave me a sharp look. “And we’re mighty glad he did,” she said firmly. “The pharmacy here was up for sale, and it’s been wonderful to have it open, so we have a choice.” There was a chain pharmacy in Bartley, too.
“Of course,” I said, to keep the peace.
We finished our meal in silence. My father stomped through on his way out the kitchen door to his car, grousing the whole time about not fitting in at a bachelor dinner. We could tell he was really gleeful about being invited. He had a wrapped present tucked under his arm, and when I asked what it was, his face turned even redder. He pulled on his topcoat and slammed the back door behind him without answering.
“I suspect he bought one of those nasty gag gifts,” Mom said with a little smile as she listened to Father back out of the driveway.
I loved getting surprised by my mother. “I’ll do the dishes while you get ready,” I said.
“You need to try on your bridesmaid dress!” she said abruptly as she was rising to leave the kitchen.
“Right now?”
“What if we need to take it up?”
“Oh… all right.” This was not a moment I’d anticipated with any pleasure. Bridesmaids’ dresses are notorious for being unusable, and I’d paid for this one as a good bridesmaid should. But I hadn’t seen it yet. I had a horrible, wincing moment of picturing the dress as red velvet with fake fur trim to suit the Christmas motif.
I should have had more trust in Varena. The dress, which was hanging in my bedroom closet swathed in plastic like Varena’s own dress, was deep burgundy velvet, with a band of matching satin ribbon sewed under the breasts. In back, where the edges of the ribbon came together, there was a matching bow-but it was detachable. The dress had a high neckline but was cut low in the back. My sister didn’t want her bridesmaids demure, that was for sure.
“Try it on,” Mother urged. I could tell she wouldn’t be happy until I did. With my back to her, I pulled off my shirt and wriggled out of my shoes and jeans. But I had to turn to face her to get the dress, which she’d been divesting of its plastic bag.
Every time, the impact of my scars hit her in the heart. She took a deep, ragged breath and handed me the dress, and I got it over my head as quickly as possible. I turned so she could zip me, and together we looked at it in the mirror. Both our pairs of eyes went immediately to the neckline. Perfect. Nothing showed. Thank you, Varena.
“It looks beautiful,” Mother said stoutly. “Stand up straight, now.” (As if I slouched.) The dress did fit well, and who doesn’t love the feel of velvet?
“What kind of flowers are we carrying?”
“The bridesmaids’ bouquets are going to be long sprays of glads and some other stuff,” Mother said, who strictly left the gardening to my father. “You’re the maid of honor, you know.”
Varena hadn’t seen me in three years.
This wasn’t just a wedding, then. This was a full-scale family reconciliation.
I was willing, but I didn’t know if I was able. Plus, I hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time.
“Do I have to do anything special?”
“You have to carry the ring Varena’s giving Dill. You have to take her bouquet while she’s saying her vows.” Mom smiled at me, and her washed-blue eyes crinkled around the corners of her eyelids. When my mother smiled, her whole face smiled with her. “You’re lucky she didn’t pick a dress with a ten-foot train, because you’d have to turn it around for her before she leaves the church.”
I thought I could remember the ring and the bouquet.
“I’ll have to thank her for the honor,” I said, and Mom’s face sagged for just a minute. She thought I was being sarcastic.
“I mean it,” I told her, and I could almost feel her relax.
Had I been so frightening, so unpredictable, so rude?
When I’d worked my way carefully out of the dress, and pulled my T-shirt back on, I patted my mother gently on the shoulder as she made sure the dress was absolutely even on its padded hanger.
She smiled fleetingly at me, and then we went back to the kitchen to clean up.
Chapter Two
I wore the off-white blouse, gold vest, and black pants to the shower. I buttoned the blouse all the way up to the neck. My makeup was light and perfect, and my hair fluffed out in the right way. I looked fine, I decided, appropriate. I worked on relaxing, buckled into the backseat of my mother’s car.
We picked up Varena on the way. This was at least her second shower, but she was as excited and pleased as though celebrating her forthcoming marriage was an original idea.