Buzzkill (Pecan Bayou Series) (15 page)

“Well, I suppose
that happens,” he said. “No one would believe what a cutthroat business wedding
planning really is. Let me at least give Mr. Fischer a call and see if I can
straighten this out. It is what you’re paying me for, after all.”

“Thank you. Do
you have any ideas for somewhere else to have the wedding at this late date?”

“I have a few
possibilities, but I’ll have to check that out first. You told me your colors
are red and black, the classic V-day wedding, right? I need you to head over to
Martha Stokes and find out if she is going to have something that will
complement those colors.”

“Can’t we just
call her?” I said.

“No, and I’m too
busy. You need to eyeball things in order to get true wedding perfection. The
last thing we want to do is to rely on what a vendor tells us. Best to see
things in person.”

“If you say so.”
I hung up the phone and rubbed my eyes with my hands. I suddenly felt very
tired. Too tired to get married, and too tired to go over to Martha’s place. I
took in a deep breath, trying to work myself into getting up off the couch. My
front doorbell jolted me from my meltdown.

I opened the
door to see Wilhelm Mueller, owner of Wilhelm’s B&B, standing at my door.
“It’s Frau Happy Hinter herself. I’m honored to meet you.” He clicked his heels
together and extended his hand. “I come bearing gifts.” All of a sudden his
German accent seemed to vanish and was replaced by a Texas drawl. “Sorry, we
put that on for the tourists. I’m from Waco,” he said, holding up his hand,
“but a proud German Texan. Your mother left our establishment so quickly she
didn’t get her refund. I can’t seem to get hold of her, so I brought you the
money. Would you see that she gets it?”

“Oh,” I said.
“Sure, Mr. Mueller.”

“She said she
was here for your wedding, so we were surprised she didn’t stay. I’m hoping we
didn’t do anything wrong. My missus would be very upset.”

“No, that’s just
my mother,” I assured him.

“Well, not
everyone is partial to living in a German bed and breakfast. We put on the
lederhosen for the tourists, and sometimes it gets pretty loud, what with the
accordion playing the polka music. Our party room was booked with the Lutheran
ladies the weekend she was there. I never made so much potato salad. I hope we
didn’t run her off.”

“I’m sure it was
fine,” I said, then added, “she did say something about polka music …” I
stopped talking but didn’t close my mouth. Wilhelm leaned forward.

“Say, do you
have your party room open on … Valentine’s Day?” I asked.

Wilhelm Mueller
rested his hands on his ample waist and smiled.

An hour later I
was knocking on the door of Martha Stokes’ farmhouse, now smelling of fresh
paint. There were spring pansies newly planted along the front of the house.
Strange how I never noticed that Lenny Stokes, a flower grower, didn’t have any
flowers growing or landscaping around his house. The Stokes house had looked
more like the house you would find on the edge of a junkyard. Now that it was
solely Martha’s house, it was beginning to look like something out of Texas
Highways or Southern Living.

I knocked on the
front door again, and getting no answer, I started making my way around to the
greenhouses. This time I rounded the corner carefully before walking by the
beehives, where the vision of Lenny laying dead flashed into my brain. If they
attacked Lenny, they could attack Martha. I was more than a little pleased to
see that there were no bodies on the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I stuck my head
into the domed greenhouse, feeling the temperature rise around my ears.

“Martha? Are you
in here?”

“Back here,” she
called out from the other end of the plastic-encased structure.

I made my way
through rows of planting beds, each filled with sprigs of flowers reaching into
the warm air.

“I have that
sketch for you, and Mr. Andre wants me to get a picture of your flowers, I
said. “He wants to make sure the color is right.”

Martha, dressed
in jeans and a T-shirt, covered with a denim apron, pulled off her garden
gloves and pushed back a stray strand of hair. “Well, come on into the
greenhouse and you can see the beginnings of some of my newest babies.”

“Oh, and I also
need to tell you we may have lost Chateau Fischer.

Martha expelled
a breath. “I already know.”

“How do you
know?” I said. “I just heard about it.”

Morton Fischer
stepped out from around the back of a large plant. “Because I told her, Mrs.
Livingston.”

The surprise
must have registered on my face, because Martha took my hand quietly.

“Mr. Fischer and
I go to the same church. We’ve always been good friends, and after Lenny died,
he decided to help me out around here. Morton – I mean Mr. Fischer – tells me
the mix-up was his fault,” Martha said.

Morton Fischer
sighed, somewhat embarrassed by his lapse of memory.

“Yes, your
brother Yancey told me Prissy Olin and her mother say they booked it before we
did,” I said to Morton.

“Actually they
did. I had completely forgotten about it, and legally they had us first. My
deepest apologies, Betsy.”

“So, great. Now
I’m scrambling for a place for my wedding reception.”

“Have you
checked the VFW hall?” he asked.

“Even though I
had contemplated how to decorate the model B-52 they have out front with a
floral arrangement, I am happy to say I won’t need to. I have Wilhelm’s,” I
answered.

“Sorry I’m going
to have to miss that,” Morton said. “I’ll be working with Prissy’s reception
and hate that I won’t be getting me some of that excellent weinerschnitzel they
serve there.”

Martha’s eyes
met mine as the corners of her smile turned up. “Prissy Olin. Now there’s a
piece of work. She and Lenny got into it a while back. Her mother wanted to
take her senior picture in a field of bluebonnets. Lenny agreed and then went
back on them. They are not a good clan to cross.”

I took her words
to heart, thinking about Prissy’s swollen face and the little black eyes that
shot out streams of hatred. We started walking toward the third row of the
greenhouse.

“Here they are.”
Martha gestured across the rows of flowers like a game show model with a
brand-new car. I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures of the deep
red blooms.

“I can’t get
over how great the place looks, Martha.”

“Well, thank
you,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong – even after all these years, there was a
part of me that still loved my husband, but losing Lenny was probably the best
thing that could have ever happened to this business.” Morton quietly nodded
his head in agreement.

Zach had been
playing with the Mason boys when I picked him up from Scouts. They were running
around the playground outside the school. I was a little late getting there and
apologized to Benny Mason, the Scout leader and owner of Benny’s Barbecue.

“That’s all
right,” he said. “Celia is home with our little girl. I had no idea they took
so long to get through the princess stage. Makes me want to really dedicate my
time to scouting.”

I thought about
the friendships that Zach had made while living in Pecan Bayou. Could he do the
same in Dallas? Kids are resilient, but moving Zach out of the town he had
spent a lifetime in would be difficult.

We headed to the
supermarket after Scouts. The details of the wedding had me preoccupied, and
planning for dinners just wasn’t high on my priorities list. I found myself
running to the store two or three times a week to pick up something that would
be fast and easy. One more night of canned ravioli and I think Zach would
rescind all future Mother’s Day gifts. As we wheeled down the grocery aisle,
Zach was picking up cereal boxes and reading the back of what seemed like every
box on the shelf. He stroked his chin a couple of times as he examined a box of
chocolate circles. He didn’t know it, but I had seen this exact gesture in my
father many times.

“Zach? Are you
looking forward to living with Tyler and Mr. Leo?”

Zach looked up
from his sugarcoated research. “I don’t know. I guess so.”

“If we move to
Dallas, will that be okay?”

Zach put the box
back on the shelf and answered quickly.

“Can we take
Grandpa and Aunt Maggie?”

“No, we can’t,”
I said. “Their lives are here, but we would have a wonderful life there, I
think.”

“I guess.” He
walked farther down the aisle and picked up another box. He seemed to be
listening to me, but I couldn’t be sure. I also wasn’t sure if he realized just
what a big move the two of us were about to make.

“Mom, can we buy
chocolate crunchies this time?”

I thought about
that for a moment. This would be a great time to indulge him just a little to
help him through the transition. It might even make it easier on me.
Nevertheless, I stood firm.

“Don’t think so,
Zach.”

“Aw, come on,
Mom.”

“There’s way too
much sugar in that cereal. You know that.”

“I’ll bet Leo
buys it for Tyler.”

“Right now it
doesn’t matter what Leo buys for Tyler,” I said. “All we’re worried about is
what we are having for dinner tonight.” He snorted and put the box back on the
shelf.

“Now, I asked
you how you felt about moving to Dallas,” I pressed. “Are you okay with that?”

“I told you,
Mom,” he said emphatically. “I don’t know.”

Something inside
me told me I needed to stop. There wasn’t any use in interrogating a
ten-year-old about his future. I had wanted him to act and think like an adult
and help me work out this issue. I knew deep down that someday my little boy
would be a grown man and we could talk about decisions like this, but for right
now I was on my own.

******

At two days
before the wedding, I felt like I needed to have a giant white board installed
in my kitchen. With the help of Mr. Andre and Aunt Maggie we had arranged for
everything, including a German buffet for the reception. One thing Prissy Olin
didn’t get to was our wedding singer. Myrtle Richey had chosen to sing for us
for free over Prissy, especially when we promised all the bratwurst she could
eat at Wilhelm’s.

I picked up a
stack of bills from where they had fallen on the floor from the mail slot. I
sorted through the electric bill, the water bill and a bill marked “personal
and confidential” from Chateau Fischer. I put them all down on my desk, vowing
to deal with them after the wedding. We had filled out the necessary paperwork
last week and acquired our official wedding license, and it was now sitting on
the corner of my desk. I picked up the little piece of paper that would change
our lives and set it on top of the stack of bills so I wouldn’t forget it. The
flowing white wedding gown was now hanging on Aunt Maggie’s old dress-fitting
form in the den. This was finally happening.

I walked over
and felt the layers of soft tulle between my fingers. Looking at that dress
made it all suddenly seem very real. I had avoided discussing the prospective
house with Leo. For now, Zach and I would move into Leo’s apartment until we
could find a place big enough for our new family.

A few
half-packed boxes stood against the wall of the den. It was amazing how many
things you could accumulate in ten years. Leo had filled out the paperwork to
register Zach at Tyler’s school, and he was due to start there next week. The
only part Zach had quibbled about was having to leave Butch behind for a while
until we got into our new house. Butch needed a yard to run in, and I couldn’t
imagine what he could do to an already crowded apartment.

To Zach this
whole thing was an adventure. To me, every second we got closer, it was more
terrifying.

I promised Rocky
that I would continue to write my column from Dallas. He promised in turn that
he would continue to mail my checks to me. Of course, after the Prissy
incident, I wasn’t even sure if anyone would ever trust what I had to say
again.

“I know you’re
making a new life for yourself, Betsy. But this old man sure is going to miss
you,” Rocky had said on my last visit to the paper.

“Dallas isn’t
that far away,” I had said.

“How’s your dad
doing with all of this?”

“You know, I’m
really not sure,” I admitted. “Sometimes he seems fine with all of it, excited
even, and sometimes he just gets quiet.”

“What do you
expect? He’s losing his daughter.”

“And I feel like
I’m losing him.”

“Betsy, are you
sure you really want to do this?” Rocky asked.

I sighed. “I
really want to make a life with Leo. It’s unfortunate that our lives are in two
different places. This is the only way to make this work.”

“It seems to me
like you’re already doing all the giving in this relationship. Is there nothing
that Leo can do to keep you in Pecan Bayou?”

That
conversation still echoed with me, and I wondered if Rocky had been right that
day. Maybe I should have held out a little longer. Now we were just a few days
from the wedding, and when I should have been feeling happy to move into a new
phase in my life, I felt panicked and sad. The phone behind me started
ringing.  I was relieved it was Leo calling from Dallas.

“Betsy, I think
we’re all packed up and ready to hit the road,” Leo said. “So what do you say
you and I get married this weekend?”

“Gee, I don’t
know. It is Valentine’s Day, after all, and I thought I might have a hot date.”

“That’s funny,
so do I,” he said.