Ciji Ware (2 page)

“Corlis and I have decided our little shindig’ll work just fine in Natchez, instead of New Orleans, so you have
no
excuse not to be there,” King’s voice message continued. “We’ve almost got the church lined up, with the rest of the details—like the reception—to follow.
Y’have
to come, Daph.”

King’s mellifluous Southern drawl was soothing. Daphne would bet a new set of harp strings that her brother and his fiancée were lounging on King’s elegant, fern-strewn gallery overlooking the French Quarter, relaxing after work.

She could imagine her brother’s tall, lean figure slouched in a chair, his handsome dark head framed by a fan of white wicker, his feet propped up on the wrought iron railing. Even over the phone line she could hear the sound of a jingling harness, the faint clip-clop of a mule passing by on Dauphine Street below, and the shout of a tourist-carriage driver speeding toward the city’s livery stable a few blocks away. According to her kitchen clock, it was still early evening in New Orleans. The gas-lit street lamps would be glowing through a riverine mist obscuring the modern skyscrapers that loomed over the Quarter. Those steel-and-glass monstrosities towering above Canal Street had made King’s efforts as an architectural historian to protect the city’s remaining store of venerable old buildings a
cause
célèbre
in the Big Easy—and justly earned him the title “The Hero of New Orleans” in the
Times-Picayune.
To his younger sister, however, King had been a hero long before that. He’d been her rock. Her bulwark against—

“Guess I’m taking up all the space on the ol’ voice mail,” her brother said apologetically, jolting her back to reality. “Call us, sugar, ASAP. And don’t let any of this wedding stuff freak you out. It’ll all turn out just fine. Take good care, y’hear?”

Daphne inhaled shakily, pushed “save,” then speed dialed the familiar number in New Orleans. As expected, she got King’s voice mail. Daphne knew he routinely screened his calls to avoid any unexpected verbal confrontations with Magnolia Mama, as their mother, Antoinette Kingsbury Duvallon, was known among her intimates.

Daphne’s brother concluded his taped greeting with his customary wry dispatch. “Y’all have a decent day, y’hear?”

Before Daphne could leave a congratulatory message, call waiting kicked and King’s caller ID appeared.

“Hey! Daphne!” King’s deep voice broke in when she clicked the line. “Corlis said it’d be you. Whatcha think, angel girl?”

“I will be forever in your debt for
not
getting married in our hometown.”

“Cousin Maddy, up in Natchez, is over the moon ’bout us holding the wedding in the Town That Time Forgot,” he replied with deliberate irony. Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, sparred in an age-old rivalry as to which riverside city was held in higher esteem by historians, or possessed the most revered architecture. “She’s offered us that tumbling down old mansion of hers, overlooking the river, as Wedding Central.”

“You’re getting married at Cousin Maddy’s
house
?” Daphne asked incredulously. A mental picture of her elderly cousin’s chaotic abode materialized in her mind: the lopsided veranda supported by six shaky Corinthian-style front porch pillars, five years of magazines stashed under priceless antique furniture throughout four floors, and a good half inch of cat hair dusting every horizontal surface. Cousin Maddy was a sweetheart and a superb music teacher, but a tidy housekeeper she was not.

“Oh, good Lord, no!” King assured his sister. “Our
very
abbreviated bridal party’s just sleeping there ’midst the rubble, since everything in town was booked for Spring Pilgrimage.”

“You’re getting married during the home tours? You
are
brave.”

“The ceremony’s planned for First Presbyterian on Pearl Street. We’ll know for sure later today if we got the church, but I’m pretty sure we lucked out there.”

“Mmmm… it’s gorgeous… and a lot
smaller
…” Daphne murmured into the receiver.

“I just don’t think any of us could have stomached seeing those same ol’ people in that same ol’ cathedral on Jackson Square this time ’round.”

“I’m afraid my stomach might have made me a no-show,” Daphne admitted sheepishly.

“Naturally, Mama’s fit to be tied not being able to over decorate Saint Louis Cathedral with Flowers by Duvallon again, but what else is new?”

“Nothing,” Daphne declared, pronouncing the
g
distinctly. She’d worked hard on losing her Southern inflection in a conscious effort to sound like other New Yorkers.

“First Pres being only a third the size of the cathedral means most of Mama’s friends will be
highly
insulted
not to be invited—as she informed me this morning—but it’ll all work out, eventually. I keep telling her the bride gets to pick the church, but you know those magnolias… they think they rule the world.”

“You got
that
right,” Daphne agreed with more pique than she intended. How could things “work out eventually” when her mother and father had refused to speak or communicate with her in the twenty-seven months since she’d bolted from her wedding at the absolute last second?

“Now, don’t you start worrying ’bout Jack getting wind of this. He’s moved to Dallas. And besides, everyone on this end’s sworn to secrecy—even ’bout the date of this thing. Waylon claims he’s goin’ fishin’ next weekend, so there won’t be trouble on
that
score, either,” he added with an uncharacteristic edge of bitterness. Daphne’s throat tightened at her brother’s oblique reference to another family problem.

“Oh, King…” she murmured. “Daddy’s so impossible sometimes…”

“You gotta trust me ’bout all of this, Daphne,” King insisted. “We’ve tried to think of everything.”

“Of course I trust you,” she replied in a rush. “I’m really touched you and Corlis are thinking so much about
me
when—”

“Of course I’m gonna look out for you, darlin’. You’re my baby sister, aren’t you?” he teased gruffly.

The lump in Daphne’s throat swelled to the size of a pecan and she found she didn’t dare say another word. At the time of her breakup with Jack, everybody, including her brother and her, had learned that Daphne’s father, Waylon Duvallon, was not, in fact, King’s biological father. She was still recovering from the shock that she was merely King’s half sister, and things within the family would never be the same.

Don’t go there. Just don’t go there.

In the background, her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Corlis McCullough, was saying something. “Oh, yeah… ’course.” King chuckled into the phone. “Here, ask her yourself, California.”

Corlis’s happy voice interrupted her melancholy musings. “So. Are you surprised we’re finally getting hitched, girlfriend?”

“A little,” Daphne admitted. “But I’m really thrilled about it, Corlis. I hereby declare you my
real
sister, and not just a sister-in-law. You and I’ve got to stick together in this clan.” Daphne silently thanked the mysterious fates that the Duvallons were acquiring such a welcome addition to their ragtag ranks.

“Count on it, sweetie pie,” Corlis said, suddenly sounding solemn.

“And brava for finally saying yes to the poor guy!”

“Oh, I said yes to the guy ages ago. I just didn’t have the nerve to say yes to getting
married.
Now, here’s the deal, angel,” Corlis said, becoming serious again. “We would really love you to play your harp at the ceremony. It’d mean a lot to us both.”

“Of
course
I’ll play,” Daphne assured her, though, privately, she wondered if she could actually make it through a Duvallon family gathering.

“Listen, Daph,” Corlis said softly, reading her thoughts, “I know that assembling your clan again for a
wedding
isn’t number one on your list of wishes, but King and I have tried to make this pretty much a no-frills event. And if hauling that big harp of yours all the way down here from New York and plucking out ‘Here Comes the Bride’ sounds too much like work, I’d love you to be one of my bridal attendants. Both Althea LaCroix and Aunt Bethany say they’re game to walk down the aisle ahead of me at this little dog and pony show, if
you
are. Want to be an attendant instead?”

“I’m totally up for this, including transporting the harp to Natchez,” she replied with more conviction than she felt. “What kind of threads are we talking about for this clambake? Evening gowns? Afternoon garden party stuff?”

“The latter. The wedding’s at four… reception starts at five. Everybody’s wearing whatever pretty dress they want,” Corlis announced breezily. “My great aunt Marge’s giving me away in her Hedda Hopper turban. As luck would have it, Hollywood Harry’s shooting a game show pilot next week in LaLa Land, and my daffy mother’s chanting in a monastery somewhere in Tibet, so…” Corlis paused to catch her breath following her flippant description of divorced parents who had put their small daughter in the care of an aged relation so they could “follow their bliss,” as Corlis had once told Daphne privately. “It’s the perfect moment to hold this little hoolie, wouldn’t you say? As you can see, this is not your average Miss Manners event on
either
side of the aisle.”

“Well, as New York’s greatest shrink says, we’re all grown-ups now, aren’t we?” Daphne offered. “We can do what we damn well please, right?”

“That’s the spirit,” Corlis agreed emphatically. “So it’s totally up to you how you want to handle this. We just want you to
be
there, and maybe even have a little fun. Oh! Another call’s coming through. Hope it’s the minister at First Pres. More details to follow. Love you madly. See you in Natchez on Saturday. Bye.”

Click.

Have fun at a wedding?

Not
anytime
soon.

Then, a giant thunderbolt erased all thoughts about disastrous nuptials, disgusting ex-fiancés, self-centered parents, and trips back home.

See you
Saturday
?

Daphne inhaled a gulp of air and stared, horrified, at the silent phone receiver.

“Saturday?”
she wailed to her kitchen’s four walls, prompting the cockroaches to run for cover. “Oh
no
! Not
this
Saturday!”

***

The following morning, the skies over Manhattan continued to dump steady March rain on every pedestrian in the plaza fronting Columbus Circle, including the umbrella-less harpist dashing from the subway exit toward the entrance of the Juilliard School adjacent to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. As Daphne ran, she silently practiced her speech to the conductor, Rafe Oberlin, about having to be at her brother’s hastily organized nuptials in Natchez on Saturday. Despite her well-rehearsed patter, she knew that the thirty-five-year-old musical
wunderkind
was bound to make the next half hour of her life an absolute misery.

But
he
can’t forbid me to go
, she tried to assure herself.
This
sort
of
thing
falls
into
the
category
of
“family emergency,” right? It’s covered in our union contract.

Maybe so, but March 20 at eight p.m. marked the fledgling Oberlin Chamber Orchestra’s debut concert at Lincoln Center, and contract or no contract, Daphne steeled herself for trouble.

“So? You wanted to see me?” Rafe waved her into his office deep in the bowels of the Juilliard School, where he continued to teach conducting while his star rose steadily in the musical firmament. “You have exactly seven minutes to tell me what this is about before I start a master class next door,” he announced, gesturing toward a chair. “Next time, I suggest you phone for an appointment.”

“This will just take a minute.”

The dashing blond impresario wore knife-pleated gray flannels and a turquoise polo shirt that complemented a physique more suited to the winner of the
Tour
de
France
than a classical music conductor. Rafe leafed through a mammoth score on a desk large enough to accommodate architectural blueprints for a skyscraper. He made no attempt to disguise his annoyance occasioned by Daphne’s unexpected arrival.

“By the way,” he said, staring down at his score, “you were late coming in on bar thirty-two at rehearsal yesterday. Make sure that doesn’t happen on Saturday, will you please?”