The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (21 page)

“They closed Houston,” he said, pulling Paula aside, “and Newark. And I just talked to Stacey’s mom. She’s stuck in Lavoy. They just closed the highway. There’s no way she can get here. What are we going to do?”

“You have to tell her the wedding has to be called off,” Paula said. “You don’t have any other option. And you have to do it now, before the guests try to come to the church.”

“You obviously haven’t been out there lately,” he said. “Trust me, nobody’s going to come out in that.”

“Then you obviously have to cancel.”

“I know,” he said worriedly. “It’s just…she’ll be so disappointed.”

Disappointed is not the word that springs to mind, Paula thought, and realized she had no idea how Stacey would react. She’d never seen her not get her way. I wonder what she’ll do, she
thought curiously, and started back into the vestry to change out of her bridesmaid dress.

“Wait,” Jim said, grabbing her hand. “You have to help me tell her.”

This is asking way too much, Paula thought. I want you to marry me, not her. “I—” she said.

“I can’t do this without you,” he said. “Please?”

She extricated her
hand. “Okay,” she said, and they went into the changing room, where Stacey
was in her wedding dress, looking at herself in the mirror.

“Stacey, we have to talk,” Jim said, after a glance at Paula. “I just heard from your mother. She’s not going to be able to get here. She’s stuck at a truck stop outside Lavoy.”

“She can’t be,” Stacey said to her reflection. “She’s bringing my veil.” She turned to smile at Paula. “It was my great-grandmother’s. It’s lace, with this
snowflake pattern.”

“Kindra and David can’t get here either,” Jim said. He glanced at Paula and then plunged ahead. “We’re going to have to reschedule the wedding.”

“Reschedule?” Stacey said as if she’d never heard the word before. Which she probably hasn’t, Paula thought. “We can’t reschedule. A Christmas Eve wedding has to be on Christmas Eve.”

“I know, honey, but—”

“Nobody’s going to be
able to get here,” Paula said. “They’ve closed the roads.”

The minister came in. “The governor’s declared a snow emergency and a ban on unnecessary travel. You’ve decided to cancel?” she said hopefully.

“Cancel?”
Stacey said, adjusting her train. “What are you talking about? Everything will be fine.”

And for one mad moment, Paula could almost see Stacey pulling it off, the weather magically
clearing, the rest of the string quartet showing up, the flowers and Kindra and David and the veil all arriving in the next thirty-five minutes. She looked over at the windows. The snow, reflected softly in the candlelight, was coming down harder than ever.

“We don’t have any other choice than to reschedule,” Jim said. “Your mother can’t get here, your maid of honor and my best man can’t get
here—”

“Tell them to take a different flight,” Stacey said.

Paula tried. “Stacey, I don’t think you realize, this is a major snowstorm. Airports all over the country are closed—”

“Including here,” the viola player said,
poking his head in. “It was just on the news.”

“Well, then, go get them,” Stacey said, adjusting the drape of her skirt.

Paula’d lost the thread of this conversation. “Who?”

“Kindra and David.” She adjusted the neckline of her gown.

“To
Houston?
” Jim said, looking helplessly at Paula.

“Listen, Stacey,” Paula said, taking her firmly by the shoulders. “I know how much you wanted a Christmas Eve wedding, but it’s just not going to work. The roads are impassable. Your flowers are in a ditch, your mother’s trapped at a truck stop—”

“The cello player’s in the hospital
with frostbite,” the viola player put in.

Paula nodded. “And you don’t want anyone else to end up there. You have to face facts. You can’t have a Christmas Eve wedding.”

“You could reschedule for Valentine’s Day,” the minister said brightly. “Valentine weddings are very nice. I’ve got two weddings that day, but I could move one up. It could still be in the evening,” but Paula could tell Stacey
had stopped listening at “you can’t have—”

“
You
did this,” Stacey snapped at Paula. “You’ve always been jealous of me, and now you’re taking it out on me by ruining my wedding.”

“Nobody’s ruining anything, Stacey,” Jim said, stepping between them. “It’s a snowstorm.”

“Oh, so I suppose it’s
my
fault!” Stacey said. “Just because I wanted a winter wedding with snow—”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Jim
said sternly. “Listen, I don’t want to wait either, and we don’t have to. We can get married right here, right now.”

“Yeah,” the viola player said. “You’ve got a minister.” He grinned at Paula. “You’ve got two witnesses.”

“He’s right,” Jim said. “We’ve got everything we need right here. You’re here,
I’m
here, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it, not some fancy wedding?” He took her
hands in his. “Will you marry me?”

And what woman could resist an offer like that? Paula thought. Oh, well, you knew when you got on the plane that he was going to marry her.

“Marry you,” Stacey repeated blankly, and the minister hurried out, saying, “I’ll get my book. And my robe.”

“Marry you?” Stacey said. “
Marry you?
” She wrenched free of his grasp. “Why on earth would I marry a
loser
who
won’t even do one simple thing for me? I
want
Kindra and David here. I
want
my flowers.
I want
my veil. What is the
point
of
marrying
you if I can’t have what I want?”

“I thought you wanted me,” Jim said dangerously.

“You?”
Stacey said in a tone that made both Paula and the viola player wince. “I
wanted
to walk down the aisle at twilight on Christmas Eve,” she waved her arm in the direction
of the windows, “with candlelight reflecting off the windowpanes and snow falling outside.” She turned, snatching up her train, and looked at him. “Will I
marry
you? Are you
kidding?
”

There was a short silence. Jim turned and looked seriously at Paula. “How about you?” he said.

At six o’clock on the dot, Madge and Shorty, Uncle
Don, Cousin Denny, and Luke’s mom all arrived. “You poor darling,”
she whispered to Luke, handing him the green bean casserole and the sweet potatoes, “stuck all afternoon with Aunt Lulla. Did she talk your ear off?”

“No,” he said. “We made a snowman. Why didn’t you tell me Aunt Lulla had been an actress?”

“An
actress?
” she said, handing him the cranberry sauce. “Is that what she told you? Don’t tip it, it’ll spill. Did you have any trouble with the goose?”
She opened the oven and looked at it, sitting in its pan, brown and crispy and done to a turn. “They tend to be a little juicy.”

“Not a bit,” he said, looking past her out the window at the snowman in the backyard. The snow he and Aunt Lulla had packed around it and on top of it was melting. He’d have to sneak out during dinner and pile more snow on.

“Here,” his mom said, handing him the mashed
potatoes. “Heat these up in the microwave while I make the gravy.”

“It’s made,” he said, lifting the lid off the saucepan to show her the gently bubbling gravy. It had taken them four tries, but as Aunt Lulla had pointed out, they had more than enough drippings to experiment with, and, as she had also pointed out, three lardballs made a more realistic snowman.

“The top one’s too big,” Luke had
said, scooping up snow to cover it with.

“I may have gotten a little carried away with the flour,” Aunt Lulla had admitted. “On the other hand, it looks exactly like Orson.” She stuck two olives in for eyes. “And so appropriate. He always was a fathead.”

“The gravy smells delicious,” Luke’s mother said, looking surprised. “
You
didn’t make it, did you?”

“No. Aunt Lulla.”

“Well, I think you’re
a saint for putting up with her and her wild tales all afternoon, she said, ladling gravy into a bowl and handing it to Luke.

“You mean she made all that stuff up?” Luke said.

“Do you have a gravy boat?” his mother asked, opening cupboards.

“No,” he said. “Aunt Lulla wasn’t really an actress?”

“No.”
She took a bowl out of the cupboard. “Do you have a ladle?

“No.”

She got a dipper out of
the silverware drawer. “Lulla was never in a single play,” she said, ladling the gravy into a bowl and handing it to Luke, “where she hadn’t gotten the part by sleeping with, somebody. Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Richardson, Kenneth Branagh…” She opened the oven to look at the goose. “And that’s not even counting Alfred.”

“Alfred
Lunt?”
Luke asked.

“Hitchcock. I think this is just about done.”

“But I thought you said she was the shy one.”

“She was. That’s why she went out for drama in high school, to overcome her shyness. Do you have a platter?”

At 6:35 P.M., a member of the Breckenridge ski patrol, out
looking for four missing cross-country skiers, spotted a taillight (the only part of Kent and Bodine’s Honda not covered by snow). He had a collapsible shovel with him, and a GPS, a
satellite phone, a walkie-talkie, Mylar blankets, insta-heat packs, energy bars, a thermos of hot cocoa, and a stern lecture on winter safety, which he delivered after he had dug Kent and Bodine out and which they really resented. “Who did that fascist geek think he was, shaking his finger at us like that?” Bodine asked Kent after several tequila slammers at the Laughing Moose.

“Yeah,” Kent said
eloquently, and they settled down to the serious business of how to take advantage of the fresh powder that had fallen while they were in their car.

“You know what’d be totally extreme?” Bodine said. “Snowboarding at night!”

Shara was quite a girl. Warren
didn’t have a chance to call Marjean again until after seven. When Shara went in the bathroom, he took the opportunity to dial home. “Where
are
you?” MarJean said, practically crying. “I’ve been worried sick! Are you all right?”

“I’m still in Cincinnati at the airport,” he said, “and it looks like I’ll be here all night. They just closed the airport.”

“Closed the airport…” she echoed.

“I
know
,” he said, his voice full of regret. “I’d really counted on being home with you for Christmas Eve, but what can you do? It’s snowing like
crazy here. No flights out till tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I’m in line at the airline counter right now, rebooking, and then I’m going to try to find a place to stay, but I don’t know if I’ll have much luck.” He paused to give her a chance to commiserate. “They’re supposed to put us up for the night, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up sleeping on the floor.”

“At the airport,” she
said, “in Cincinnati.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Great place to spend Christmas Eve, huh?” He paused to give her a chance to commiserate, but all she said was, “You didn’t make it home last year either.”

“Honey, you know I’d get there if I could,” he said. “I tried to rent a car and drive home, but the snow’s so bad they’re not even sure they can get a shuttle out here to take us to a hotel. I don’t
know how much snow they’ve had here—”

“Forty-six inches,” she said.

Good, he thought. From her voice he’d been worried it might not be snowing in Cincinnati after all. “And it’s still coming down hard. Oh, they just called my name. I’d better go.”

“You do that,” she said.

“All right. I love you, honey,” he said, “I’ll be home as soon as I can,” and hung up the phone.

“You’re married,” Shara
said, standing in the door of the bathroom. “You sonofabitch.”

Paula didn’t say yes to Jim’s proposal after all. She’d intended
to, but before she could, the viola player had cut in. “Hey, wait a minute!” he’d said. “I saw her first!”

“You did not,” Jim said.

“Well, no, not technically,” he admitted, “but when I did see her, I had the good sense to flirt with her, not get engaged to Vampira
like you did.”

“It wasn’t Jim’s fault,” Paula said. “Stacey always gets what she wants.”

“Not this time,” the viola player said. “And not me.”

“Only because she doesn’t want you,” Paula said. “If she did—”

“Wanna bet? You underestimate us musicians. And yourself. At least give me a chance to make my pitch before you commit to this guy. You can’t get married tonight anyway.”

“Why not?” Jim
asked.

“Because you need two witnesses, and I have no intention of helping you,” he pointed at Jim, “get the woman I want. I doubt if Stacey’s in the mood to be a witness either,” he said as Stacey stormed back in the sanctuary, with the minister in pursuit. Stacey had on her wedding dress, a parka, and boots.

“You can’t go out in this,” the minister was saying. “It’s too dangerous!”

“I have
no intention of staying here with him,” Stacey said, shooting Jim a venomous glance. “I want to go home now.” She flung the door open on the thickly falling snow. “And I want it to stop
snowing!
”

At that exact moment, a snowplow’s flashing yellow lights had appeared through the snow, and Stacey had run out. Paula and Jim went over to the door and watched Stacey wave it down and get in. The plow
continued on its way.

“Oh, good, now we’ll be able to get out,” the minister said, and went to get her car keys.

“You didn’t answer my question, Paula,” Jim said, standing very close.

The plow turned and came back. As it passed, it plowed a huge mass of snow across the end of the driveway.

“I mean it,” Jim murmured. “How about it?”

“Look what I found,” the viola player said, appearing at
Paula’s elbow. He handed her a piece of wedding cake.

“You can’t eat that. It’s—” Jim said.

“—not bad,” the viola player said. “I prefer chocolate, though. What kind of cake shall we have at our wedding, Paula?”

“Oh, look,” the minister said, coming back in with her car keys and looking out the window. “It’s stopped snowing.”

“It’s stopped
snowing,” Chin said.