A Wedding on Ladybug Farm (3 page)

“And I’m sure the garden club would send a representative,” Cici asked.  “You’ve done a lot of work for them.”

“Not to mention the Ladies Aid Society at the church,” Lindsay added.

“There, you see?”  Dominic lifted his glass to her.  “You’ve already gathered quite a crowd.”

Bridget smiled contentedly.  “I have, haven’t I?”

Lindsay gave a small, disbelieving shake of her head.  “And we’re doing it again.  Talking about funerals.  Can’t anyone think of anything less maudlin?”

Cici sipped her wine.  “My grandma always said you should stop and take stock of your life every now and then by counting the number of people who would go to your funeral if you dropped dead today.  If you can’t find more than a dozen people who would make the effort, you’re doing something wrong.”

“I for one expect an impressive showing,” Dominic said.  “I’m very well liked, if I do say so myself.”

“You’ve been here forever,” Cici agreed.  “Everyone knows who you are.”

“Not to mention being in public service,” added Bridget.

“I wrote a column for the paper for five years,” Dominic pointed out.

“And every farmer in the county has probably had you to thank for his crops at one time or another.”

Dominic inclined his head modestly.  “Well.”

“You ran the 4-H program and helped start the high school ag department,” added Cici.  “Now that’s the kind of resume you need to have for a really good funeral.”

“They’ll be lined up in the street,” Bridget decided.

“Perfect,” said Dominic, “because I want the marching band to play “American Pie” while everyone files past the casket.”

Bridget and Cici laughed, but Lindsay pressed her hands to her ears.  “You people are ghouls,” she said.

Dominic grinned.  “Apologies, my love.  But I do believe a well-done funeral is the reflection of a well-lived life.”

“We should be planning a wedding,” Lindsay grumbled, “not a funeral.”

“That reminds me,” Dominic said, “Cassie called this afternoon.  She’s put together a week of vacation days and is definitely committed to coming out for the wedding.  So that gives us a Yes for all three of the kids.  As soon as you set a date, of course.”

Lindsay paused with her glass halfway to her lips, her attention sharpening. “Your daughter?  She’s coming?”

“She said she wouldn’t miss it.  Also,” he admitted, “she thought the trip would give her a chance to meet with their east coast distributor, so it’s a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing.” 

Dominic had three children, but his daughter, who managed a winery in California, was the oldest, and the
farthest away.  Now that she had committed to coming all the way from California, the wedding had suddenly taken on new scope.

Lindsay realized she was looking a little nonplussed, so she forced a quick smile.  “That’s great. 
Your kids must really like you.”

He laughed.  “I like to think so.”

“What I mean is, they’re all coming such a long way, and it’s a lot of trouble.”

“I’d do the same for them.”

“That’s true, I guess.”

“Besides …” He winked at her.  “I think it’s only natural to be a little curious about who your new stepmother is going to be.”

Lindsay smiled, but it was a little weak.

“I think Katie would come from Chicago for my wedding,” Bridget said thoughtfully, “if I decided to get married again.  Of course, the twins would be flower girls.”

“I’m sure Kevin could be talked into giving the bride away,” Cici added.

Bridget made a wry face. “I think it’s more likely he would refuse to give the bride away.  Remember how hard he tried to talk me out of moving in here?”

“Up until the very minute we signed the papers,” Cici agreed.

“He can be a little bossy,” Bridget admitted.  Then, “Don’t you think Lori would come home from Italy for your wedding?”

“I’m not even sure she’d come home from Italy for my funeral.” Cici’s tone was glum, and she took another sip of her wine.

“And what do you hear from
her?” Dominic asked.

Cici
’s daughter Lori, whose ambition was to be a winemaker, had apprenticed under Dominic during the summer, and he had more than a passing interest in her welfare.  Though she reported she had secured another—paid, this time—apprenticeship at one of the most prestigious wineries in Italy, she was not as regular a correspondent as her mother would have liked.  

“You probably hear more from her than I do,” Cici admitted
, her expression still dour.  “She’s still at Villa Laurentis, doing all sorts of obscure things with wine I can’t even pronounce, and she seems very happy.  She e-mails pictures every week or so.  It looks like a beautiful place.”

“Good for her,” Dominic said.  “I hope she’s learning a lot and learning it fast, because we sure could use her help around here.” 
“Here” began and ended for Dominic at the winery.  “When is she coming home?”

Cici shrugged unhappily.  “Who knows?  If ever.  I think,” she confessed, “she’s involved with that boy, that Sergio she
’d been e-mailing with before she left. It’s his father who owns the winery where she’s working—and living, I might add.”

Dominic chuckled.  “I say again, good for her.  Every young person should have two things in her life before she settles down: an adventure to remember, and an affair to regret.”

Cici frowned.  “You sound like Lindsay. She’s the one who said every woman should be kissed by an Italian at least once.”

Dominic glanced at Lindsay, his eyes twinkling.  “Did you
, now?” 

“I think it’s romantic,” Bridget said with a sigh.  “
Lori’s had a crush on this guy for over a year, she cancelled her wedding for him, flew across an ocean to meet him, and now she’s living in his castle.”

“Villa,” corrected Cici, still frowning.

“Whatever.  It’s romantic.”

“It’s flighty and irresponsible.”

Bridget gave her a dry look.  “I’m starting to see why she doesn’t call home more often.”

“October twenty-fifth,” Lindsay blurted.

Everyone stared at her.

Lindsay glanced around quickly, almost as though she was surprised to realize she had spoken out loud. But then she gave a decisive nod and repeated, “October twenty-fifth.  That’s our wedding day.”

Dominic lifted an eyebrow.  “Well, I don’t know.  I’ll have to check my calendar.”  He, too, had learned to take Lindsay’s constantly shifting dates in good humor.

Bridget smiled.  “Sounds wonderful, Lindsay.” 

And Cici murmured, “Can’t wait.”

“No, I’m serious,” Lindsay insisted.  “This is it.  October twenty-fifth.”

“Okay.”

“For sure this time.  Really.”

“We’ll be there,” Cici assured her.

Lindsay sat back in her chair and sipped her wine, looking satisfied.  “You’ll see.  October
twenty-fifth.”  She reached across and took Dominic’s hand.  He just smiled.

They sat for a time, sipping their wine, enjoying the gentle peace of the evening that floated down from the mountains and settled over the valley like a sigh.  A bluebird landed on the feeder that Bridget had hung from the eaves of the porch, helped himself to a morsel or two, and darted away.  Rebel the border collie raced across the lawn toward the house from the sheep pasture on a determined mission, then suddenly swerved in response to a call only he could hear and ran toward the woods; changed his mind and corrected course back toward the house.  The chickens clucked and muttered as they found their roosts.  A flock of barn swallows rose with a flutter of wings into the pale twilight sky. 

Dominic said softly, “It seems only yesterday I was a boy sitting on this porch watching the day melt away.  Where do the years go?”

Lindsay shared a quiet and private smile with him, and then with her two friends.  “The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess,” she said.

Bridget added somberly, “There’s nothing like a funeral to remind you how quickly the time passes.”

Cici sipped her wine, watching a hummingbird dart toward the feeder and then veer away.  It all happened so quickly that the naked eye could not detect the pause the little bird had taken to drink from the feeder.  “I feel bad,” she said after a moment. “During the service, all I could think about was what a waste all those fresh flowers were.  I know we weren’t all that close to Maggie personally, but she did sell us this house and I realize now what I was trying
not
to think about was how she had changed our lives and how, now, everything is different.  I know that doesn’t make sense.”

Bridget looked at her with an understanding, sympathetic smile, but Lindsay protested, “Things may be different, but they’re better.  Change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.”

“I know.”  Cici blinked, surprised to feel the salty blur of tears.  “But even good change is hard sometimes.  We have Dominic and the winery and you’re getting married and Paul and Derrick are living practically next door again and all of that is fabulous. But …” she cast an apologetic glance around the group, “as amazing as all that is, and it is amazing, I miss the way things used to be.  My kid is having the time of her life in Italy, but I never hear from her and that makes me sad.  And look at this place.”  A brief gesture encompassed the mountains, the lawns, the vines, the outbuildings.  “It’s more than we could have imagined when we started out.  Remember how we almost froze to death that first winter?  It’s not that I ever want to go back there, or do the work that we did again to get here, but …”  A brief, nostalgic smile touched her lips as she looked down into her glass, a little embarrassed.  “I kind of miss the women we were then.  And Maggie was a part of that.”

Lindsay admitted uncomfortably, “I guess it was
a little selfish of me to worry about not being able to use roses for the wedding.  Without Maggie, there wouldn’t even be a wedding.”

The four of them were silent for a moment, contemplating the enormity of that truth. Then Dominic lifted his glass to the distant mountains, the sunset,
the shadows sighing across the lawn.  “To Maggie,” he said.  “You brought me my love …” he glanced at Lindsay, “my dear ladies …” the other two smiled as his gaze turned to them, “and you brought us all home.  You will be remembered.”

Cici, Lindsay
, and Bridget lifted their glasses to his.  “To Maggie,” Bridget said, and added simply, “Thank you.”

And when they drank, it was as much to themselves as to the one they had lost.

~*~

Chapter Two

There’s Nothing Like a Good Plan

Late-summer mornings on Ladybug Farm began with the butter-yellow square of sunlight that crept across the age-worn brick floor of the kitchen from the east-facing window that opened onto the dining porch.  A breeze might ruffle the blue tablecloth that draped the table there; a jewel of dew might glint from the lacy fabric of a spider web that spanned the petals of a fading hydrangea blossom in the garden below.  The flutter of wings announced an early bird at the feeder while inside the kitchen a cupboard would open and close and utensils would rattle in the drawer as Ida Mae officially announced the beginning of a new day.  In a moment the aroma of coffee would begin to waft its way throughout the house, perhaps to be joined in a few moments by the smell of cherry muffins baking or—if Ida Mae was feeling particularly contrary, because she knew the ladies were always watching their weight—bacon frying in the pan. 

The rooster would crow lazily and the chickens would begin to cackle, the nanny goat would bleat a greeting, and Rebel the border collie would bark back.  Before long the ladies would descend the grand staircase in their nightshirts and light summer robes, slippers scuffing and clattering on the polished mahogany treads.  Coffee in hand, they would settle into the wicker chairs that were drawn up around porch table and gaze out over the damp morning lawn with its colorful gardens and winding stone paths, listen to the birds chirping and rustling in the trees, and plan their day.

On most mornings.

On this morning, the first drops of coffee had barely begun to sizzle on the bottom of the automatic coffeemaker’s carafe when Lindsay burst into
Cici’s room after the briefest of knocks and tugged the covers off her shoulders.  “Family meeting,” she said urgently, “Downstairs in ten minutes.”

Cici bolted upright.  “What happened?  Is it Noah?  Did Lori call?”

“No,” Lindsay replied, “this is about me.”

When Cici groaned and pulled the pillow over her head, Lindsay jerked it away and pummeled her lightly with it.  “Hurry!” she called as she rushed from the room.

She crossed the wide, plantation-style hall and burst into Bridget’s room in a similar fashion, her unbelted robe flowing behind her and bare feet slapping on the floor as she strode across the room.  She swept open the heavy celadon damask drapes, then, for good measure, the embroidered ivory sheers.  Bridget had done her room in an elegant Victorian style, which suited her personality, with floor-to-ceiling draperies, chandelier lamps, needlepoint footstools, and fringed throws.  She was all but lost in the tall four-poster bed, squinting quizzically at Lindsay through the veil of her tousled bob as she pushed herself to a sitting position.

“What?  What’s wrong? Is it the kids?  Have you heard from Noah? Is he okay?”

“No, they’re fine,” Lindsay assured her quickly, “but this is still important. Family meeting,” she declared just before she sailed from the room, “ten minutes, in the kitchen.”

“What is it?” demanded Bridget, flinging back the covers.  “Is somebody in trouble?”

“Yes,” Lindsay replied over her shoulder.  “Me!”

Their faces barely washed and their hair barely brushed, Bridget and Cici met Lindsay in the big country kitchen slightly over ten minutes later.  Ida Mae greeted them with a sour look.  “Y’all’re up with the chickens this morning,” she said.  “You gonna want eggs?”

“No, thank you, Ida Mae.”  Bridget opened the refrigerator door.  “Just cereal and fruit for me.”

“Good.”  Ida Mae started cracking eggs and separating the white
s from the yolks into two bowls.  “I’m gonna need them all for my angel food cake.”

Cici smothered a yawn as she poured a cup of coffee.  “You’re making a cake?  We still have half a pie left.”

“Not for you.  For poor old Mr. Farley.  He’s got nobody to cook for him now. You all can take it over to him after lunch.”

Lindsay pushed the refrigerator door close
d. “We’ll eat later,” she told Bridget.  “This is an emergency.”

“You know, Linds,” Cici pointed out, “when you have one child serving in a war zone and another living halfway across the world with a complete stranger doing who-knows-what, ‘emergency’ is probably not a word you should bandy about at five
forty-five in the morning.”

Lindsay looked briefly chagrined.  “I know.  I’m sorry.  But I was up half the night.  I might not be thinking clearly.”

Cici added to Ida Mae, “I’m sure Farley will appreciate the cake, but as far as I know, he never had anybody to cook for him but you and Bridget.”

“Cici, focus, please?”  Lindsay glanced frantically at the big Westminster kitchen clock on the wall.  “Dominic will be here at seven and you know he always comes in for coffee.  Ida Mae, this involves you, too.  Everybody, sit down.”

Lindsay took her place at the hickory table that was set in front of a now-empty fireplace, moving aside the vase of wildflowers to make room for the papers she had assembled during the long sleepless early morning hours.  Bridget stirred sugar into her coffee, Cici raised a questioning eyebrow, and Ida Mae announced, “I’m not about to let my egg whites go flat listening to your folderol.  I can hear you just fine from here.”

Cici sat down, turning one of the papers toward her curiously.  “What’s this all about?  What are you doing with our purchase agreement for the house?”

A sudden alarm shadowed Bridget’s eyes as she came over to the table.  “Lindsay, you’re not going to sell your share, are you?  You promised you wouldn’t!”

Cici shot Bridget a quick warning look.  “Not that we wouldn’t understand if you did,” she said.  “That’s why we have a contract.  We just hope you won’t.”

Lindsay was shaking her head before Cici finished speaking. “No, that’s not it.  I told you, I’m not leaving Ladybug Farm.  The thing is …” She drew in a deep breath, folded her hands in her lap, and announced, “I’m getting married.” 

Bridget eased into her chair, sighing in relief.  Cici sipped her coffee.

“Seriously,” Lindsay said.  She looked expectantly from one to the other of them. “October twenty-fifth.”

Ida Mae grunted skeptically and cracked another egg sharply against the side of the bowl.

Bridget said, “Ida Mae, save a couple of eggs and I’ll make pancakes.”  She smiled.  “That’ll be a nice surprise for Dominic when he comes in.”

Cici said, “I’ll bet we have some strawberries in the freezer.  I’ll get them.”
She started to get up, but Lindsay startled them both by slapping a manila folder down hard upon the center of the table.  Cici sank back down into her chair.  Bridget stared at her. Lindsay’s expression was completely without mirth.

“October
twenty-fifth,” she repeated sternly.  “That’s barely six weeks away.  This …” she took one paper out of the folder and shoved it toward Bridget, “is the guest list.  You’re in charge of the invitations.  This …” another paper went to Cici, “is the diagram of the wedding ceremony and the reception.  You’re in charge of set up.  This …” she presented another paper to Bridget, “is a sketch of my cake.  White chocolate with raspberry filling
and
…” she tossed a triumphant look to both of them, “white chocolate roses with raspberry centers.  Paul said you can order them online.  Speaking of which—I mean whom—he’ll be over for lunch to iron out the details.  He’s also bringing some shoes for me to try on with the gown.”

“What about us?” Bridget put in hopefully.  “Is he bringing bridesmaids gowns too?”

Paul Slater had been a syndicated style columnist and a widely acclaimed fashion guru before retiring with his partner Derrick only months ago to open the Hummingbird House B&B a few miles down the road from Ladybug Farm.  He could still have his choice of designer gowns, shoes, and accessories delivered into his hands with nothing more than a phone call and the mention of a favor, which was how Lindsay came to be wearing Vera Wang at her wedding and her friends had hopes of doing the same.  

“Don’t be silly,” Lindsay answered.  “We can’t order the gowns until we decide on the color scheme.  Now.”

She reached for another manila folder and began to sort through more papers.  “These are the legal documents we have to talk about.  I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Delores, and she says we really need to modify our house-sharing contract if Dominic is going to move in here, even though my part of the deed will stay in my name—which I’m not changing, by the way.  My name, I mean.  After all, we’ll be four now, and that changes everything.”

Ida Mae said sharply, “What do you mean, you’re not changing your name?  You’re getting married!”

“Women don’t do that anymore, Ida Mae,” said Cici, pulling one of the papers from the folder and glancing at it.

“Besides, at my age it’s too much of a hassle,” Lindsay explained.  “Can you imagine all the places I’d have to notify after all these years?  Social
Security, driver’s license, pension fund, insurance, bank account … the paperwork alone would take the rest of my life.”

“It’s a crazy custom anyway,” said Cici, who had resumed her maiden name after her divorce.  “You’d think we would have done away with it by now.  Why can’t men change their names when they get married?  Let them deal with the hassle.”

Lindsay grinned.  “I like it. Brand him like a cow so everyone will know who he belongs to.”

“Why not? They’ve been doing it to us for centuries.”

“That’s not why it got started,” Bridget said absently, turning a page on the guest list.  “Having the women and children all take the man’s surname was just a way of keeping up with family units.”

“Even more ridiculous then,” Cici said.  “Anybody can claim to be a child’s father, but there’s never any doubt who the mother is.  So children should take their mothers’ last names. And so should husbands.”

Ida Mae gave a disgusted sniff. “You women are an abomination unto the Lord.  A woman takes her husband’s name and that’s that.  You take your filthy mouths to somebody else’s table.”

“We didn’t say anything dirty,” Lindsay objected.

“Um, Lindsay.”  Bridget looked up from the guest list.  “There are a hundred forty-eight people here. We don’t even know that many people.” 

“I know,” Lindsay admitted, looking worried, “
but Dominic knows everyone in town, plus the people he worked with at Clemson, plus his family, who’ll be coming in from all over the country—that reminds me, I’ve got to make reservations at the Hummingbird House—and I don’t know where to start trimming it down.  I’ve been working on it for weeks.”

“Simple,” said Cici, taking the list from Bridget and glancing at it over her coffee mug.  “Family only.  Twenty people, tops.  Otherwise, if you start marking off people
, somebody’s bound to get their feelings hurt.”

Lindsay’s expression fell, but after a moment she gave a resigned sigh.  “I
really hate to do that.  I mean, I’d hoped for something a little more … you know, festive, for Dominic.  But I don’t know how I can afford to feed a hundred fifty people, not to mention the wine.”

“We’d have to take out a mortgage on the house.”  Cici returned the list to Bridget.

“Speaking of house,” Lindsay said, her mind quickly jumping from one subject to another, “we’re going to have to come up with a new way to divide the expenses once Dominic moves in.  It’s only fair.” 

Ida Mae gave a loud “Harrumph!” and clattered around in the cupboard for the hand whisk.  “In my day, a woman got married, cleaved unto her husband, and moved into his house.  That was it.”

Lindsay craned her neck to look at her.  “Ida Mae, don’t you want Dominic to live here?  That’s why I wanted you at the meeting, so you could have a say.”

“I am having my say, ain’t I? It won’t be no different than when he was a sprout, racing around here getting underfoot, always in one kind of trouble or another.”  She tucked the big glass bowl under her arm and began to whip the egg whites into a froth.  “But it don’t take a bunch of papers to make a home, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Oh, Ida Mae, why don’t you use the electric mixer?”  Bridget started to get up and find it for her.  “You’re going to wear yourself out, hand-beating those egg whites.”

“You just sit there and meet,” Ida Mae told her sternly.  “I been beating my own egg whites going onto sixty years now and I don’t reckon I’ll be changing now.”

Lindsay passed out papers to her friends, and put one at the empty place reserved for Ida Mae.  “Here’s the to-do list.  Countdown, T-minus forty-five, which is how many days we have before the wedding.”

“Wow, you made a spreadsheet,” Bridget said, admiring it.

“There’s a template on the Internet,” Lindsay admitted.

“Shouldn’t it be W-minus
forty-five?” Cici suggested.  “You know, W for wedding?”

“Where did they get T from anyway?” Bridget wondered. “What does it even mean?”

“I don’t know.  Who cares?  T, W, whatever.  The point is, we’ve only got forty-five days to get all of this done.  Now, if you’ll look in the first column …”

“You know,” Cici felt compelled to point out, “it seems to me that whenever we got into trouble with planning a wedding, it was always because there was a short deadline.”