Ciji Ware (2 page)

Soon, however, Corlis began to calculate her
own
margin of safety. She sternly reminded herself that associate professor of architectural history King Duvallon was merely a groomsman in this wedding tonight. He was also the brother of the bride. At the moment there was no sign of the Hero of New Orleans, celebrated everywhere for putting a stop to misplaced bridge and highway projects, condo complexes, mini-malls, and other scourges threatening this southern city’s hallowed and revered architecture. Despite Corlis’s duty to cover this wedding in the French Quarter, there was absolutely no need for her to get up close and personal with anyone tonight, especially King.

Just dodge this bullet, baby. You can’t afford to get fired one more time.

The church’s pillared interior was suffused with the golden glow of twinkling lights from two rows of chandeliers that hung from the barrel-shaped ceiling. Parallel lines of eighteen-inch tapers—each ivory candle attached to a pew—marched down the center aisle of New Orleans’s famed landmark. The pungent smell of incense collided with the sweet scent wafting from banks of fragrant red and white roses and abundant pine boughs that had been deployed everywhere as part of the Christmas wedding theme. In fact, the bloom-filled church served as a vivid advertisement for Flowers by Duvallon, the firm owned by the bride’s family, and the
only
florist ever recommended to bereaved customers by the groom’s family, founders of the prominent Ebert-Petrella chain of funeral homes.

This merger must have been in the works since the bride and groom were in kindergarten!
Corlis thought with a glance around the cathedral.

“Virgil,” she addressed her cameraman, “give me lots of wide shots and some good cutaways of the altar, the flowers and candles attached to the pews, and some close-ups of the priest. Oh, and be sure to hold tight for a good long while on the groom, Jack Ebert… and on Daphne Duvallon… that sort of thing.”

“Yes, boss lady,” Virgil replied patiently. “When do you want to do your lead-in and the stand-up?” he added, carefully placing his video camera on its tripod and tightening the screws.

“After the ceremony,” Corlis replied. “Let’s record an intro and maybe a bridge in front of the church just before we head back to the studio, okay? When the guests leave for the reception, I’ll stay up here and write the copy while you go down below and grab what you need of the wedding party during the family picture-taking.”

Good plan, McCullough. Keep your distance from the almighty Professor Duvallon.

Virgil Johnson raised his shaved, ebony head from the camera. Then he arched an eyebrow and shrugged agreement with a change of logistics that even
she
knew was completely out of character for her. When had she ever, in the two months they’d worked together,
not
been standing right next to her camera operator, breathing down his neck to make sure he got every damned frame she was going to need when it came time to edit?

She turned to address sound technician Manny Picot. Her news crew, who’d been great work companions since the day she started her new job, had shared the rumors that the new cameras due to arrive at WWEZ any day now would have built-in, high quality sound, eliminating the need for a separate sound operator—which was a pity, as Manny was as good as any guy Corlis had ever worked with in LA.

She smiled in his direction. “Be sure you record a nice long stretch of organ music so we can lay it under the action and my voice track, okay?”

“Yeah… gotcha,” Manny mumbled behind his thick black mustache that bespoke his Hispanic-African ancestry.

Mellow sounds of classical organ music resounded throughout the cavernous space as five hundred of the bride and groom’s nearest and dearest continued to file into the church with help from an army of groomsmen.

Corlis glanced down at the best watch she’d ever owned. Seven thirty-five. She had purchased it during her heady days as a well-paid, on-air consumer watchdog in Los Angeles. Exactly one week prior to the day she got fired, she’d plunked down an outrageous sum and then was promptly axed for graphically reporting the amount of air pumped into various brands of ice cream. Did she know that her former television station’s biggest grocery chain sponsor was the worst offender?

Yes.

Did she overrule the twenty-three-year-old kid on the assignment desk and do the story anyway, despite his warnings that the ad department would kill her?

Yes.

Did she get fired for telling the truth at a moment when she could least afford to?

Yes.

Had she shot herself in the foot that time, too?

Yes.

So, what else was new?

Well… there
were
extenuating circumstances
that
time…

Let’s not think about that,
she told herself.
Just think about getting through the job you came here to do.

Where the heck
was
Kingsbury Duvallon, anyway? she fretted, peering over the edge of the balcony at the center aisle below. She certainly didn’t intend to be blindsided by him—again.

At that moment Corlis heard footfalls coming up the stairs to the balcony, and to her horror, her nightmare suddenly materialized. A dashing, six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered figure, clad in white tie and black tail coat, appeared like an apparition, not twenty feet from their media outpost.

King looked even handsomer than she remembered, damn it! His stylishly trimmed dark brown mane was a far cry from the close-cropped hair he’d sported when they had both been college students in California. In the shadowed church balcony, his eyes appeared to be a darker shade of blue than when he’d last glared at her while they shouted at each other in the blinding Los Angeles sun. And the engaging grin he’d bestowed on virtually every female member of the UCLA cheerleading squad was nowhere in evidence this evening. In its place, the man’s lips were set in a grim line above a cleft chin that could prompt movie stars to sign up for plastic surgery.

Corlis prayed King wouldn’t recognize her after twelve years. After all, her look now was certainly different than it had been in those days. During her tenure as a take-no-prisoners editor of the feminist journal
Ms. UCLA,
she’d adopted a jet black Grateful Dead hairdo, pale makeup accented by magenta lipstick, shapeless sweatshirts and baggy jeans, plus she’d been a good twenty-five pounds heavier before the media consultants revolutionized her dietary habits.

Any hope of remaining anonymous was dashed as Corlis became acutely aware that King Duvallon was staring rudely at her across the church balcony. From his glowering expression, he obviously knew exactly who she was. His gaze meandered southward and lingered on the curve of her calves.

Well, to be fair, the man had never seen her legs now, had he?

King abruptly broke into her reverie asking, “Corlis McCullough, right? My, my… I
thought
it was you.”

His voice still had its lilting southern inflections, but it had also deepened, and his stare held her glance like a locked-on laser—cool and deadly.

“Hello.” She felt her chin jut into the air at a belligerent angle.

Hello?
That’s all she could manage after twelve years? Not:
Hello, Mr. Chauvinist Pig? Hello, you enemy of all women on the planet! Hello, and will you please vacate my balcony?

“I need to talk to you,” King said without preamble.

“Now?” she asked incredulously. “Isn’t your sister supposed to walk down that aisle in about two minutes?”

“Exactly!” he countered sharply. “Can you come with me?”

“ ’Fraid not,” she replied, pointing at her watch. “It’s just about showtime, and I’ve got a job to do.” Then she added archly, “I’m surprised you even recognized me after all this time.”

“It’s been pretty hard to avoid you,” he retorted. “You’re on the news every night.”

Of course! The ID slug at the bottom of the TV screen. Even
without
the spiky black hair and the ill-fitting clothes, how many Corlis McCulloughs were there in the news business?

“I like your hair,” he commented abruptly, eyeing her natural brunette, shoulder-length mane. Was this an attempted peace offering, or was he just trying to lull her into complacency? He took a step forward and addressed her fellow crew members. “I’d really appreciate it, fellas, if you’d just pack up and go. This wedding’s closed to the public.”

“Are you kidding?” Corlis asked, amazed by his gall. “Perhaps you aren’t aware,” she added with forced politeness, “that
somebody
in either the Duvallon or Ebert camps provided our station with a complete rundown of who’s who and what’s what at this little pageant! We were sent here by our assignment editor, and
he
wants this story on the ten o’clock news.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and added, “So, I’m afraid leaving is out of the question.”

“Well, nobody in
my
family provided you with any press kit. This wedding is
not
news. We want it to be a private affair!” King repeated, his eyes now slits of steel.

“Believe me,” she retorted, “I couldn’t agree with you more, but we’re here on orders. And, just like twelve years ago,” she added with a feigned sweetness that barely veiled her rising indignation, “I don’t exactly appreciate your coming up here and telling us—”

“Well, you’d better believe
me
when I tell you, the bride’s family wants y’all to just skedaddle on out of here,” King interrupted with icy control.

Corlis felt her blood pressure zoom into the stratosphere. What right did this stuck-up character have to interfere with—?

“Hey! Duvallon!” a hushed voice called up from the balcony’s stairwell. “Come
on
!
They’re ready, son! Get down here!
Now
!”

“Excuse me,” King addressed Corlis angrily, “but I thought by now you’d have sworn off always starting World War Three.” He turned toward Manny and Virgil. “Get her out of here, will you, guys?”

Ah… the boys’ club. Well, forget it, pal
,
she wanted to tell him. Her TV crew knew perfectly well that in this kind of situation, the correspondent called the shots.

“Look, Professor Duvallon,” Corlis replied evenly as she made a renewed stab at keeping her temper under control. “We’ve been assigned to cover this event. We’ve been given
permission
by the diocese to set up in this balcony so that we’d have the best view to get the pretty pictures everybody wants,” she added, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Therefore, we’re covering it! So, as we say out west,
adios muchacho
!”

She absolutely
hated
it when she had to roll out her wicked witch routine, but there it was. Their boss, station owner Victor Girard, would crucify her and her crew if they didn’t get the story for the late news.

“King?”

It was a woman’s voice, and she sounded in some distress.

“Hold on, sugar… I’ll be right there,” King called down the stairwell.

Ever the southern gentleman. “Sugar” was probably the blushing maid of honor that he was slated to escort down the aisle.

“One last time,” King said between clenched teeth. “Please go!”

“I will,” she countered. “If you’d just please go
downstairs
so we could get this thing over with!
Then
we’ll go! Scout’s honor,” she replied, holding up three fingers in mock salute. The nerve of the guy!

For a moment she was tempted to do exactly as King had commanded. Wedding of the year indeed, she fumed silently. Everyone who knew anything about New Orleans had warned her that the place was a small town, but this was ridiculous! Covering a local wedding like it was
news
?

“King!” croaked another disembodied masculine voice.

“I’m coming!” he muttered. The acknowledged leader of New Orleans’s feisty historic preservation movement deepened his scowl, turned on his heel, and strode downstairs without further comment.

Corlis contemplated King’s retreating back and suddenly recalled a story she’d once written entitled “Marriage: Legalized Slavery.” King and his fraternity brothers certainly had a field day with that one! She found it hideously ironic that they’d run into each other at a
wedding
of all places!

She turned and gazed down at the elegantly attired throng, and to her shock and dismay, felt a lump rise in her throat.

Of course this wedding makes you sad. Any wedding would. Even a wedding as wretchedly excessive as this one. It’s perfectly normal, considering… and it has nothing to do with Kingsbury Duvallon. Just do your job.