Fatally Flaky (3 page)

Julian said he didn’t want to worry me, just give me a heads-up. Then he asked how things were going. I told him about the security guards, and he wanted to know if there was anything he should say to them so he could be let into the parking lot.

“Just tell them you’re with the caterer. They seem pretty bored.”

Before signing off, Julian said that the rain was making everyone on the highway slow down, but he should be at our event center in less than an hour. I stepped into the chilly deluge, heaved up the last box of food, and splashed through the mud to the kitchen door.

There, Tom was already unpacking.

“Father Pete just called,” Tom informed me. Father Pete was our parish priest at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and was doing the O’Neal ceremony. “He couldn’t get through to you. Anyway, he’ll be here early.”

“Great. I was on the phone with Julian. Billie called him, looking for me.”

Tom shook his head. I thanked him for bringing in the lion’s share of the boxes and said I would be right back, just after I checked on the dining room.

There, all was lovely. Rows of chairs had been custom fit by Dodie in a luscious pink sateen; she’d sewn the slipcovers, and made Cecelia’s wedding dress, herself. For the twelve-top tables, now pushed to one side and hidden behind a curtain, Aspen Meadow Florist had done a phenomenal job. Centerpieces of pale pink carnations, baby’s breath, and ivy had been Dodie O’Neal’s low-cost choice. Pink faux-linen napkins, also sewn by Dodie, looked exquisite next to the snowy white tablecloths.

As if to reassure myself, I said aloud, “Everything’s going to be great.”

If only.

S
wathed in an apron, my handsome husband was refrigerating the trays of hors d’oeuvres that we would start to heat once the bridal procession began. Together, Tom and I finished unpacking and setting things in order. From time to time we consulted the printed schedule I had taped on the kitchen island. Julian arrived with the cake, a frothy pink and white three-layer confection that he had triple wrapped in plastic. Tom and I ooh’d and aah’d appropriately. Blushing with pride, Julian thanked us. With his wavy brown hair, clean-cut face, and compact swimmer’s body, Julian would be sure to attract a few ooh’s and aah’s himself, especially from the unattached twenty-something females who would be in attendance.

The three of us worked for the next hour and a half finishing our setup. Julian set the cake on its own special table behind the curtain with the twelve tops. Tom laid out row upon row of martini glasses. When the guests began to filter into the main dining room, Tom methodically filled each glass with shredded lettuce, then moved on to arranging poached shrimp on top. Just the sight of Tom bent so intently over his work warmed my heart. My good mood lasted until my cell phone tooted and I checked the caller ID again: Billie Attenborough. Aw, gee, why should I have been surprised?

Tom saw me make a face. “Now what?”

“Bridezilla Billie has some new demand.”

“Remind me when her wedding is.”

“Day after tomorrow.” I set the phone to Vibrate and put it in my apron pocket. “I’m still not taking her call.”

“Good idea,” Julian interjected.

“She’s nervous.” Tom’s tone was sympathetic. “Maybe she’ll find somebody else to bother. Don’t be too hard on her, Miss G.”

I shook my head. What ever reservoir of compassion I’d had for Billie Attenborough had dried up long ago.

When I was checking the temperature of the champagne Doc Finn would use for his toast, my cell phone buzzed against my skin. If it was Billie Attenborough again, I was going to turn it off. But it wasn’t Billie. It was Jack Carmichael. I checked my watch: 11:30. He and Doc Finn couldn’t have already started drinking, could they?

“Uncle Jack,” I said, glad for the break. “I thought you were coming to Cecelia’s wedding.”

“Gertie Girl.” He sounded a bit worried. “Is Finn there?”

“Doc Finn?”

“Yeah, yeah, Doc Finn, the old coot. He was supposed to pick me up, and he never came. Maybe he forgot. He does do that sometimes.”

“Let me check.”

I ducked into the dining room. About fifty guests had already taken their seats. They looked at me expectantly: Food already?

“I don’t see him, Jack. Did you try his cell?”

“He’s not answering. I’ll just drive over to your center. Maybe he’s in the parking lot visiting with somebody.”

“Okeydoke. When you get here, come and say hi to us. We’ll be in the kitchen.”

He hung up, but before I could return to the kitchen, I saw a weaving figure duck into the dressing room, which was right next to the dining area. He was not a member of the wedding party. I was guessing it was Norman O’Neal, the difficult father of the bride. So much for the security guards.

Tom was ferrying the shrimp cocktails to the small refrigerator in the curtained-off dining area.

“It looks as if Norman O’Neal is here,” I warned. “There could be trouble. He just walked in a very unsteady fashion right into the dressing area, where Ceci is supposed to be.”

Tom bobbed swiftly behind the curtain to the dining area, and I followed, unsure of what to do. But Tom showed no signs of uncertainty. He slid his tray into the small refrigerator that we’d set up next to the cake stand, and headed to his left, right into the makeshift dressing room.

Behind him, I murmured, “Maybe you should be careful. This guy’s an attorney.”

“All the better,” Tom replied without breaking stride.

There was no way I was going to stand by while my husband, who lifted weights and was in spectacular shape, flattened the father of the bride.

“You’re my ex-dad,” the bride was whispering angrily at the tottering male figure in a rumpled suit. The loveliness of Cecelia O’Neal, whose white dress fit her stunningly, was ruined by the flaming spots on her cheeks and her furious expression. “Please leave,” Cecelia hissed when Norman O’Neal didn’t move. “I don’t want to see you.”

“Where’s your mother?” Norman demanded, pulling himself up straight. He was under six feet tall, and had a gray bottlebrush mustache and a puff of gray hair just above his forehead. He positively reeked of alcohol.

“Sir,” Tom said calmly, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m asking you nicely. And I want you to leave nicely.”

“Who the hell are you?” asked Norman O’Neal.

“I’m police,” announced Tom, one eyebrow raised.

Norman O’Neal’s rheumy blue eyes took in Tom, who was still wearing his apron. “I don’t think so.”

Lissa O’Neal, who was now an adorable eighteen-month-old with wisps of blond hair framing her face, clung to her mother’s dress and began to whimper. In the main dining room, the hum of voices from more waves of arriving guests rose. I couldn’t imagine that this little conflict—between Tom and an inebriated attorney, no less—was going to end well.

“Where’s Harold Finn?” Norman O’Neal demanded querulously. With his index finger, he scratched his mustache. “If Doc Finn’s in this wedding, then I’m going to be, too.”

“Sir—,” Tom began again, still patient.

The curtain swished open, and everyone except Tom jumped. It was not the first time I’d thought he had better hearing than I did, not to mention a sixth sense as to who was approaching.

“Dear me,” said Father Pete, our short, corpulent priest. He cleared his throat and took in the anxious faces of our little tableau. All anxious, that is, except for Tom, whose eyes had never left Norman O’Neal.

“Who’re you?” demanded Norman O’Neal, reeling unsteadily toward Father Pete.

Father Pete was as kind and pastoral as the midsummer days were long, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly. “Where is your mother?” Father Pete asked Ceci, who had picked up the now-crying Lissa. Father Pete looked around the small makeshift room. “Cecelia? Where is Doc Finn? I thought he and your mother were walking you down the aisle.”

“I don’t know where any of them are,” Cecelia wailed suddenly. She began to cry, too, which brought a fresh onslaught of tears from Lissa. As mother and daughter clung to each other, I thought,
There go the hair and makeup.
Two bridesmaids, both clothed in their floaty pink dresses, appeared at the curtain, widened their eyes at the scene, and whisked themselves away. “This is my ex-dad,” Cecelia said, sobbing, to Father Pete. “He’s insisting he’s going to be part of the ceremony! Plus, he’s wasted! He’s going to ruin everything!”

There was a sudden hush in the large dining room on the other side of the curtains. All ears were apparently now attuned to the dressing room drama. Luckily, the DJ must have sensed something was amiss, as he started playing some Led Zeppelin a bit too loudly.

“He’s not going to ruin anything,” Father Pete was saying soothingly. “That’s because he is going to get out of here right now. Off you go, ex-dad.” At that point, Father Pete, who was wearing his robes and surplice, took hold of Norman O’Neal’s elbow and began pulling him back toward the curtain.

Norman O’Neal hollered, “I’m not going to allow a cop in an apron and a priest in a dress to tell me what I am or am not going to do!” At that point, he took a wild swing at Father Pete. Tom moved swiftly to plant himself between the two men, but Father Pete was too fast even for Tom. Our priest caught Norman O’Neal’s arm with one hand and delivered an uppercut to his chin with the other. Norman O’Neal flailed awkwardly, grasped bunches of the curtain to the area with the dining tables, and crashed backward, landing in Julian’s perfect wedding cake.

“Oh, Christ,” said Father Pete. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard.”

Norman O’Neal, his backside covered with frosting, didn’t move. Tom bent down to feel his pulse.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Tom announced quietly.

“You’re not going to charge me with assault, are you?” Father Pete asked, his eyes filled with worry.

“Absolutely not,” said Tom as he punched numbers into his cell phone. “That was textbook self-defense, Father.” Tom asked me to send someone to find Julian, which I did. Father Pete, meanwhile, had moved to soothe Ceci and Lissa.

Two seconds later, Tom was giving quick directions to emergency services. He then hung up his cell and hoisted a still-unconscious, frosting-and-cake-covered Norman O’Neal.

“Any way I can get to the kitchen from here without going through the main dining room?” Tom asked me.

“Yes, I’ll show you,” I said quickly. I was trying to suppress a wave of nausea.

“Say, Father Pete,” Tom said as he heaved Norman O’Neal toward the kitchen. “Where’d you learn to box like that?”

Father Pete stopped comforting Ceci and smiled shyly. “In my former life, I mean, before I was called to the ministry, I won the Golden Gloves.” He beamed. “Twice.”

Once Tom, a lolling, closed-eyed Norman O’Neal, and I were in the kitchen, there was a knock at the back door. Two uniformed security guards had heard they were needed.

“You are,” Tom announced as he handed off a still-unconscious Norman O’Neal. “Lay this guy out on the gravel, and when the ambulance arrives, get him in there. I told the ambo guys no sirens or lights.”

“But it’s raining,” one of the guards protested. “You put this guy on the ground, he’s going to get wet.”

“The rain will help clean him up,” Tom said before turning back to the kitchen.

The guards obligingly took hold of Norman O’Neal and dragged him across the gravel outside the kitchen’s back door. Once he was laid on the ground, Norman woke up enough to begin puking. Julian, meanwhile, had reappeared in the kitchen.

“What the hell happened to my cake?” he demanded.

“Norman O’Neal happened to it,” I said. “Sorry. Can you do anything to make it look like…I don’t know, a ski slope?”

Julian rolled his eyes and said he would try.

Tom, meanwhile, was concentrating on preheating the ovens. Out in the main dining room, the strains of the wedding march began.

“Okay, folks, here we go,” I said.

We crowded together to watch the ceremony through the one-way mirrored panels I’d had put at eye level in the kitchen doors. The bridesmaids swarmed around Ceci, powdering her nose and cheeks with new makeup and patting her hair back into place. Then we only got to see Ceci coming down the aisle with Dodie, and Lissa in a lacy white flower girl outfit, before the back door to the kitchen was flung open, not by the security guards, or even Norman O’Neal, but by someone I dreaded even more: Billie Attenborough.

She swept in wearing a voluminous, silky-sounding black trench coat. Her blond-brown hair was soaked. Tall and bulky, she put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. “Why can’t any of you people answer your phones?”

“I’m doing another wedding today, Billie,” I said evenly. “I’ll be home to night, when you are welcome to call me. Now, would you please leave?”

Billie lifted her small, dimpled chin. “I can’t leave until I tell you the changes we’re making to the wedding arrangements.”

Tom groaned and lined another tray with rows of martini glasses filled with shrimp cocktail. Julian disappeared through the swinging doors.

“What’s that?” Billie demanded as she peered over Tom’s shoulder.

“Shrimp cocktail—what does it look like?” Tom replied.

Tom could move fast, but not as fast as Billie, who scooped one of the martini glasses off the chilled tray and began eating the shrimp with her fingers.

“Hey!” Tom yelled. He grabbed Billie by the wrist. She promptly dropped the martini glass on the floor, where it shattered. Noisily. I prayed the music in the dining room was somehow,
somehow
louder than Billie Attenborough.

“What is going on back here?” asked Jack Carmichael as he preceded Julian into the kitchen. Looking as dapper as ever in a custom-made dark gray suit, Jack’s presence made me smile. “Sounds like either a food fight or a party.” Jack glanced all around the kitchen. Julian started sweeping up the glass, while Tom quickly left the kitchen with his tray of shrimp cocktail. “Ah,” Jack said in recognition. “If it isn’t Bilious Billie. No wonder there was crashing and banging out here.” Jack watched Billie push the shrimp she’d been eating into her mouth and shook his head.

“Don’t say a word, you drunken old coot,” Billie replied, once she’d swallowed. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.

“Nice talk,” commented Julian as he dumped the broken glass into the trash.

I ignored all of them and put the first tray of hot appetizers into the oven.

“Gertie Girl,” Jack said affectionately, “I’m here on an errand from Dodie. She says she hasn’t seen Doc Finn. She wanted to know if I had, because they’re going to want to start with the toasts once everybody’s seated. I told her I’d already called you and asked if you’d seen him, but she wanted me to ask you again anyway.”

Before I could answer that I still hadn’t, Billie cried, “Doc Finn! That miserable old man. We could have a miserable-old-men convention right here.”

“I have not seen him,” I said quickly. I checked my watch: 12:15. “How far along are they?”

“About halfway,” Jack replied. “I came in through the side dining room, so as not to disturb things any more than, say, Billie here breaking a glass.”

“Shut up,” said Billie.

There was a knock at the back door into the kitchen. Mentally, I cursed.

“Who is it?” I called through the heavy wood. If it was Norman O’Neal, he could just stay out in the rain.

“Craig Miller, Goldy. Is Billie in there?”

I shook my head and opened the door to Billie Attenborough’s fiancé, Craig Miller. Wait, I forgot to think of him as Dr. Craig Miller. Important title, that. Before Billie and Craig were engaged, my best friend, Marla, had told me that Billie had told
her
that her next fiancé was going to be a doc. Marla had told Billie she might want to find someone with whom she shared mutual love. But Billie had dreamily countered that she’d always wanted to be introduced at Aspen Meadow Country Club as “Dr. and Mrs.” So much for love, Marla had remarked, but Billie had ignored her. I’d said that I sincerely hoped the doc would be a psychiatrist.