Cry Uncle (11 page)

She’d be miserable, Pamela realized.
Miserable because she wouldn’t be able to attend the nuptials. Even
more miserable because she would understand what a desperate step
this was.

She would argue that Pamela could change her
name and her identity without getting married. And Pamela would
reason that getting married would make a name change seem more
natural, and that it would be the last thing Mick Morrow would
expect her to do. She was supposed to be a high-powered
professional woman, not a mousy little hausfrau.

Her father would dwell on the practicalities.
He would want to know what financial arrangements had been made,
what contingencies had been planned for. But her mother would focus
on matters of the heart. “How can you do this?” she would wail.
“You don’t even love him!”

And Pamela would have no way to refute
that.

She felt a steady stream of tears leak down
her cheeks. She pictured the hose Lizard had wielded like a mad
firefighter that afternoon in the garden. Her eyes gushed just as
freely.

To her amazement, a chuckle slipped through
her sobs. Lizard was a pint-size lunatic, but how could one not
laugh at a little girl spouting arcana about mint and sage?
Especially a little girl in a pajama top and jeans that apparently
doubled as a doodle pad. Pamela recalled the solemn expression on
Lizard’s face as the little girl told her, “It’s called foodilizer
because plants eat it,” and “Earthworms are good cuz they stick air
in the ground, and also cuz they’re slimy.”

Jonas had looked solemn, too—in a very
different way. As Pamela had listened to Lizard’s dissertation on
herbs, all the while trying to remain clean and dry while the wild
child dug in the dirt and sprayed it with water, one part of her
mind had remained firmly with Jonas on the porch with his lawyer,
going through papers and planning strategies.

She didn’t know what to make of him.
Yesterday, he’d been surprisingly tender and protective, letting
her humiliate herself by crying in his arms. Once she’d gotten
control of herself, he’d nobly acted as if she hadn’t fallen apart,
as if she hadn’t blubbered and leaned on him and all in all behaved
like the one thing she never wanted to be: a helpless female. When
he’d suggested that she return for lunch today, she was afraid he
would remind her of the fool she’d made of herself, but he
hadn’t.

Still, it troubled her to think he had seen
her at her weakest. What if all his promises held only until they
were legally a couple, and then he took advantage of her—not
financially or even sexually, but emotionally. He knew how
frightened she was, and how much she hated to be frightened. He
knew what a strain she was under.

Yet she had to trust him. She’d run out of
options.

She shoved away from the bed, crossed to the
door and stepped outside. The night sky was dark, laced with pale
clouds. A tropical breeze floated across the parking lot, thick
with the perfume of the ocean.

Three days. Three days until she would be
Jonas Brenner’s wife. Three days to erase all her notions of white
weddings, of the grand organ at the Presbyterian church her family
had belonged to since before she was born, of the chapel’s long
center aisle covered with a white satin runner, her father proudly
bearing her down that aisle to deliver her to the man of her
dreams—someone tall, dark and handsome, with a wall full of framed
diplomas and a notable absence of jewelry on his ears. Three days
to replace her fantasies of a reception dinner at her parents’
country club with the reality that awaited her: a grunge-fest at
the Shipwreck.

Three days to come to her senses.

At this point, though, she wasn’t sure
whether coming to her senses meant going through with the marriage
or climbing into her car and hitting the road, searching for a new
hiding place, a refuge, a haven not only from Mick Morrow but from
Jonas Brenner and all the trouble he might well turn out to be.

Chapter Five

“
LET’S SEE, NOW: you’ve got
something old—” Kitty gestured toward the gold locket strung on a
chain around Pamela’s neck “—and something new—” she tapped the
white satin headband around which Pamela’s pale blond hair was
arranged. Two more dabs with a cosmetics brush in the vicinity of
Pamela’s eyes, and then Kitty hauled Pamela off the toilet seat and
guided her to the mirror above the sink, so Pamela could see for
herself the lush blue eye shadow Kitty had applied. “Something
borrowed and something blue,” she said, snapping shut the cake of
shadow and beaming proudly at her handiwork.

Pamela stared at the borrowed blue make-up,
wondering whether two of the traditional bridal requirements could
be met with a single item. Not that such details mattered. This
wedding was a farce. Kitty knew it as well as Pamela did.

“
I should have bought a new
dress,” she grumbled, scrutinizing the sleeveless white shift that
emphasized the ruler-straight lines of her physique. “This thing
looks like an oversize undershirt.”

“
It looks wonderful,” Kitty
assured her, preening beside her in a strapless flowered sun dress.
“Anyway, it’s white. How do I look?”

“
Spectacular,” Pamela said,
meaning it. Kitty’s cleavage bisected her sun-bronzed upper chest.
The flare of her dress emphasized her narrow waist. Her bright
blond hair glowed. Pamela wondered whether anyone would even notice
the bride standing in the shadow of her bridesmaid’s
resplendence.

“
I’m so excited,” Kitty
squealed. “I’ve been married four times, but I’ve never been a maid
of honor. Ever hear the expression, ‘Never a bridesmaid, always a
bride’?” When Pamela didn’t smile, Kitty slid her arm around
Pamela’s narrow shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. “Trust
me, Pamela—this is going to be the party of the summer. A major
blast. You’re going to have a great time.”

Pamela had never thought of weddings in terms
of blasts, major or otherwise. She’d certainly never thought of her
own wedding that way. A wedding ought to be a solemn occasion.
Relinquishing one’s freedom shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Of course, Pamela had relinquished her
freedom the moment she’d telephoned the police and announced that
she’d witnessed a murder. Compared to that, marrying Jonas Brenner
was hardly significant.

“
You did say he cleaned up
the Shipwreck,” she half-asked.

“
We all did—Lois, Brick, me
and a few others. You’re not going to recognize the place.” She
marched Pamela into the bedroom, deftly navigating through the
clutter, and lifted two bouquets from her unmade bed. Gardenias,
Pamela noted wryly. Not exactly the sort of blossom she associated
with weddings. When she thought of gardenias she thought of sultry
Southern weather and fading Southern belles, and...

Sex. Gardenias implied eroticism, something
hot and steamy and private.

With a weak smile, she accepted her bouquet
from Kitty and followed her out of the flat. The late-afternoon air
was sweltering. Pamela felt as if she were wading through sludge as
she descended the stairs to the parking lot. By the time she
reached Kitty’s ancient VW Beetle, she was drenched with sweat.

She settled onto the passenger seat and
cranked down the window. Her palms were soaked, and she let the
bouquet rest in her lap so she wouldn’t accidentally drop it onto
the floor, which was littered with fast-food wrappers, bent straws
and sand.

“
Nuptial jitters,” Kitty
said sympathetically as she coaxed the engine to life. “I had them
before my first and third weddings. Don’t worry—a couple of beers
and you’ll be feeling fine.”

Pamela eyed Kitty warily. “Jonas promised
he’d have champagne.”

“
Oh, yeah, sure—if you like
that stuff. Me, I find it gives me a roaring headache. Plus, it’s
too sweet. Tastes like soda-pop.”

Pamela considered explaining
vintages to Kitty, and the difference between
sec
and
brut
, but decided it wasn’t worth the
effort. No doubt the champagne Joe would serve at a place like the
Shipwreck would be just what Kitty predicted—sweet and guaranteed
to cause a crippling hangover.

The drive took only five minutes. Emerging
from the car, Pamela heard a cacophony of voices through the
Shipwreck’s screened front door, on which was hung a sign that read
“Closed for private party.” Judging by the noise, Pamela doubted
the party was all that private. It sounded as if Joe had invited
the island’s entire population to this shindig.

Before she could either march bravely into
the bar or else come to her senses and flee, Kitty grabbed her arm
and ushered her around the building, up an alley and into the small
back lot where Jonas had offered his hand in marriage less than a
week ago. “You can’t go in the front door,” Kitty reminded her. “No
one can see the bride before the wedding.”

“
What are we going to do?
Stand out here roasting in the sun?”

Kitty ignored the exasperation in Pamela’s
tone. “I’ll sneak you into Joe’s office. Hang on.” She opened the
back door a crack, releasing a blast of boisterous voices. It
sounded as if the party was already well under way.

Pamela glanced at her watch. Four
forty-seven. The ceremony was supposed to start at five o’clock.
Jonas had taken charge of the invitations, and Pamela had no idea
what time he’d told people to arrive. In Seattle, wedding guests
generally came at the hour the service was scheduled to begin—and
early arrivals were not served liquor.

Who cares?
she muttered inwardly as, baking in the merciless
heat, she waited for Kitty to sneak her into the office. Who cared
if her wedding guests were three sheets to the wind? Who cared if
she was getting married in a seedy bar, surrounded by
strangers?

To her surprise, Pamela
realized that
she
cared. If she’d resolved to get married, she should have
asserted herself a bit on the particulars: a chapel, not a bar. A
morning service followed by a brunch for a few close
friends—although in Pamela’s case, the only locals who could pass
for friends—not close ones, at that—were Joe, Kitty, and Lizard.
But the event should have had at least a modicum of
class.

Tears dampened her lashes. She hastily wiped
her eyes before Kitty returned to the back lot to fetch her. “Come
on,” Kitty whispered, as if anyone could have heard her over the
din in the main barroom.

Pamela let Kitty lead her inside, down the
back hall and through a door. Jonas’s office was a small room taken
up with an old, chipped desk, an even older-looking swivel chair, a
tattered sofa, and a few file cabinets. Crayon drawings decorated
the walls, and a cardboard carton in a corner held assorted toys.
Pamela peeked inside and saw a tricorn hat, a rubber knife and what
appeared to be a cheesily constructed prosthetic hook.

“
That’s Lizard’s stuff,”
Kitty explained the box. When Pamela dared to pick up the plastic
hook, Kitty added, “That’s part of her pirate costume. You should
see her when she gets all decked out as a pirate—the eye patch, the
peg-leg, the gun... It’s adorable.”

I can imagine,
Pamela thought wryly. “Why does she store her toys
in Joe’s office?”

“
So she’ll have something to
play with when she’s hanging out here.”

“
Here? What on earth would a
little girl be doing in a bar?”

“
Well, it’s not like she’s
knocking back a few,” Kitty explained. “But if Joe has a
baby-sitting snafu or something, he brings her along with him. She
used to spend lots of time here when she was younger. He had a
little port-a-crib set up in here for her to sleep in. Although
sometimes it was hard to get her down with the juke box going, or
if there was an especially rowdy crowd, so we’d bring her into the
main room—”

“
The bar?” Pamela couldn’t
believe it. An innocent, defenseless little girl spending her
evenings in a
bar
?

Then again, innocent and defenseless weren’t
appropriate words to describe Lizard. In a brawl among a group of
drunken brutes, Pamela would bet on Lizard to land the most
punches.

“
Everybody in the bar loves
her. Me and Lois, even Brick. And the customers. And Joe, of
course, most of all. It’s not like he wants to bring her here, but
he’s got to earn a living and he can’t just leave her home alone.
His mom was supposed to be Lizard’s baby-sitter, but sometimes she
didn’t come through. Great lady, but less than a hundred percent
dependable. And now she’s off in Mexico digging up
bones—”

“
Bones?”

“
That’s the rumor.” Kitty
swung out the door, calling over her shoulder, “I’m gonna see if
we’re ready to roll.”

Pamela sighed. She wasn’t ready to roll. She
wondered if it was too late to bail out of this charade. Surely
people had been stranded at the altar with far less cause. And
there wasn’t even an altar at the Shipwreck.

But if she didn’t marry Joe, where would she
go? She was tired of running, and she’d literally reached the end
of the road. And even if Joe’s child-rearing strategies included
bringing Lizard to the bar, he deserved to keep his niece.

Pamela wasn’t a quitter. She followed through
on things, finished what she started and obeyed the dictates of her
conscience. Right now, her conscience was telling her she couldn’t
jilt Jonas Brenner.

Kitty returned to the office, smiling
brightly. “It’s show time,” she announced. “Brick’s got the boom
box set up, the judge is here, and you’re about to tie the
knot.”