Mother of the Bride (44 page)

Aldo caught her in a hug as she spun away. Then he opened the door and escorted her through it like she was a queen.

Gwen just stood there, white-faced and staring at the foyer. The Prince and Domino looked at each other and crept away behind her, up the gallery stairs. Her father laid a hand on her mother's arm and gave Herb the high sign. He nodded and followed Fletch into the R&R room.

“Yell if you need me,” Gus murmured in Cydney's ear. He caught her fingers from behind and gave them a squeeze.

When the R&R room doors slid shut, Gwen sat down on the oak and glass coffee table, bent her elbows on her knees and covered her face with her hands. Cydney looked at Georgette. She had tears in her eyes. Cydney hadn't seen her cry since Fletch left.

“Bebe's hurt, dear,” Georgette said. “I'm sure she didn't mean—”

“Stop it, Mother. You can't put a lovely spin on everything.” Gwen's chin shot up and she glared at Georgette. “She meant every word.”

“No she didn't,” Cydney said. “She's just hurt and angry.”

“That was very well done.” Gwen swung toward her, her eyes glazed with tears. “Even better than a pizza in the face.”

“Now, you wait just a damn second—”

“I'm sorry.” Gwen raised her hands. “As much as I'd like to accuse you of stealing my child, I can't. I gave her to you.”

“Yes, you did. And by the way—thank you.”

“Oh, you're welcome. Anytime.” Gwen slapped her hands on her knees and stood up. “I guess I'll go pack.”

“You aren't going anywhere.” Cydney pointed a finger at her sister. “At four o'clock Saturday afternoon you're going to be sitting in the mother of the bride's chair with a big bright smile on your face. If I have to tie you in the damn chair, you're going to be there.”

“Bebe has two mothers.” She sighed. “She doesn't need three.”

“Bebe has one mother, Gwen, and you are not bailing out on her. Not this time. I won't let you.”

“Nor will I.” Georgette rose from the hearth, a take-no-prisoners glint in her eyes. “Neither Cydney or I ever tried to take your place, and we refuse to now. The mother of the bride's chair is yours and you will be in it on Saturday, Gwen, come hell or high water.”

Gwen sat down on the table again and raked her fingers through her hair. Of course it fell back into place perfectly— lousy, stinking, flawless hair—when she glanced up at her mother and Cydney.

“I had no idea I'd screwed this up so badly. The thought of trying to fix it just—paralyzes me. I don't know where to start, what to do.”

“Do you honestly want to mend things with Bebe?” Cydney asked.

“Yes. I had no idea how much until she said she didn't need me.”

“Need is one thing, Gwen.” Cydney sat next to her and slung an arm around her. “But want is a whole 'nother ball game.”

“What's this?” She raised an eyebrow at Cydney's arm on her shoulders. “Are you offering to help me win my daughter back?”

“Yes, I am. If you'll let me.”

“Absolutely I'll let you. So long as you understand one thing.” Gwen slid her a narrow-eyed smile and looped an arm around her. “If it's the last thing I ever do, I'll get even with you for that pizza.”

chapter

twenty-eight

“Did Gwen say 'piece'?” Herb cupped his ear against the right-hand R&R room door. “Piece of what?”

“She said ‘pizza.’” Fletch pressed his ear and the glass he'd grabbed from behind the bar against the door. If you're gonna snoop, he'd said, do it right or don't bother. “If you'd shut up we could probably hear.”

“She said 'piece.' There's nothing wrong with my ears.” Herb glared at Fletch. “Or my eyes, Parrish, and I don't like what I saw today between you and my fiancee.”

Gus sat at the bar, grinning. This was
really
getting fun now.

“Don't get your shorts in a twist, Herb. George and I were married for eighteen years. We're old friends.”

“Old friends don't suck each other's tonsils in J.C. Penney's shoe department when they think no one else is looking.”

“A friendly little buss, Herb. Shut the hell up, will you?”

Herb opened his mouth just as Cydney shrieked. Gus bolted off the stool and knocked Herb and Fletch out of his way like bowling pins. She shrieked again as he flung open the pocket doors.

With laughter, Gus realized, when he saw her head stuck in the crook of her sister's arm and Gwen giving her a noogie, her knuckles scrubbing the top of Cydney's head like she was trying to start a fire. They were both laughing—Cydney struggling to free herself and Gwen to hang on to her. Georgette was laughing, too. Teary-eyed, but laughing.

“Ow!” Cydney wrenched herself out of Gwen's headlock and rubbed her head. “You would have to wreck my hair.”

“Your hair's always a wreck.” Gwen rumpled a hand in Cydney's curls. “I keep telling you to straighten it.”

Over my dead body, Gus thought. He loved Cydney's hair. He loved Cydney. So much he could hardly wait to tell her.

“Let's have supper,” Georgette said, heading for the dining room. “Vile, greasy and disgusting take-out chicken.”

“Hubba-hubba.” Fletch rubbed his hands together and followed her, his head cocked to one side to watch her walk into the dining room. “Nothing like a plump thigh and a well-turned ankle.”

Georgette laughed at him over her shoulder. “Stop it, Fletch.”

“Damn right, Fletch. Stop it,” Herb growled, and stalked after them into the dining room.

“What in the hell was
that
?” Gwen said incredulously to Cydney.

“That was Dad flirting with Mother,” she replied unhappily. “And Herb getting ready to punch him in the nose if he doesn't knock it off.”

“This is wonderful!” Gwen gave a throaty laugh. “Maybe we won't end up being from a broken home after all.”

“Bite your tongue, Gwen.”

“Oh stop, Cyd. I think it's delightful. And way past time. You haven't been to Cannes. I have. I found a picture of Mother in Dad's office. I think he looks at it when he's in there writing. There's a suspiciously clean spot in the dust on his desk to suggest it.”

“Dad is married to Domino, Gwen.”

“So? I'm married to Misha.” Cydney gaped, and Gwen laughed. “Marrying an American is still the easiest way to get out of Russia. We made up the engagement story for the papers here. In a year I'll divorce him. Dad will divorce Domino and she and Misha will move to Paris.”

“The four of you cooked this up and you didn't
tell
me?”

“I couldn't. The Russians still get cranky about this sort of thing.”

“There's a book in this somewhere,” Gus said with a grin.

“Dad's already writing the fictionalized version. I've got dibs on the real story and the cover of
Time,”
Gwen told him. “Where's Misha?”

“He and Domino slipped upstairs.”

“I told them to be discreet. If Mother finds out about this it'll be on Dan Rather and then I'll have to kill her. Grab me a couple of wings, Cyd.”

When she disappeared up the gallery steps and down the hall, Cydney plunked down on the table. “Nobody tells me anything.”

She looked so waifish and woebegone Gus smiled. He sat down beside her, put an arm around her and a kiss between her eyebrows.

“Buck up, old poop. I've got something to tell you.”

“Really?” Her almond-brown eyes brightened. “What?”

“Meet me on the back stairs at midnight. I'll tell you then.”

“Ooh, a secret.” Cydney rubbed her hands. “Hove secrets.”

Liar,
her little voice said.
You hate secrets.
Which was true, but only because she sucked at keeping them from her mother.

It was just as well that Gwen hadn't told her. One tiny little arch in Georgette's eyebrow aimed at Cydney and she would've blabbed the whole story. She avoided her mother when she entered the dining room with Gus, kept her head down and sat at the far end of the table eating chicken and coleslaw and biscuits with honey.

When Bebe and Aldo came in from their walk, flushed and windblown, the only places left at the table lay directly opposite Gwen. Bebe balked, but Aldo sat down and pulled her into the chair next to his.

“Here you are, sweetie.” Gwen offered Bebe her plate and the chicken wings Cydney had saved for her. “Your favorite.”

“No thank you.” She turned her nose up and dipped into the bucket for a leg. “I prefer dark meat.”

Misha sat next to Bebe and Domino next to him. When he bent his head toward her and slid a French fry between her
pursed lips, Domino cooed. Georgette glanced at them and up shot her eyebrows.

“Hey, George.” Fletch reached across the table and caught her wrist. “Remember when the girls were little? We had to save for a week to afford a bucket of chicken this lousy.”

“I remember.” Her mother smiled at him. “One night a week I didn't have to cook. And you did the dishes.”

“Those were the days, George.”

“The days of dishpan hands and no money.”

“You cried when I bought you a dishwasher for Christmas.”

“Of course I cried. I wanted a mink.”

They laughed at each other, their eyes shining. Herb glowered.

“I prefer your chicken, Georgie. This is greasy and undercooked.”

“Then hie yourself to the fridge and see if there's any left, Herbert.” Georgette flicked him an irritated frown and swung back to Fletch.

She missed the flicker of startled hurt behind Herb's glasses, but Cydney saw it. Gwen caught her eye and gave her a see-I-told-you smile, then poked Misha under the table and hissed, “This is
not
discreet.”

It amazed Cydney to watch her father and Gwen play Cupid. For selfish reasons, of course. The cover of
Time
for Gwen, the material for his next book, the price of a new sable coat for her father. Even so, it was almost enough to make Cydney believe dreams could come true. The thought made her heart skip and her gaze leap across the table to Gus, happily chomping on a chicken leg.

He wouldn't say, “Meet me at midnight on the back stairs. I'll tell you then,” and spout some drivel about chapter six, would he? Surely he had something private and momentous to say. If he didn't, she'd kill him.

If she had the guts to show up at midnight and hear what he had to say. Which Cydney decided at 11:35 she didn't.
Coward!
her little voice howled as she fled down the hall to Gwen's room and knocked.

“Hi,” Cydney whispered when she opened the door. “I think we need a council of war about Bebe.”

“What makes you say that?” Gwen replied. “The fact that she said, 'Suit yourself,' when I said I was staying for the wedding? Or the fact that she ignored me all evening? Even when we were Scrabble partners?”

“All of the above. Let me in and let's talk.”

And Cydney did, nonstop, her heart jumping at every creak the house made—Was that Gus? Was he looking for her?—until 2:30, when Gwen kicked her out so she could get some sleep. Cydney tiptoed down the hall, her heart banging, and peeked around the corner at the stairs.

No Gus. Relief washed through her, then a clutch of dread. How long had he waited to tell her whatever he had to tell her? She'd never know now, would she? How could she sleep, wondering? The anxiety would kill her. Maybe he was still awake. Cydney slipped down the stairs. He could yell at her for standing him up, so long as he told her.

The dining room wall sconces were lit, their reflections shimmering on the polished tabletop. She'd crept halfway toward the living room when she heard moans and one of the leather couches creaking like someone—er, two someones— were rolling around on it. Well, nuts. Cydney turned toward the dining room swinging door, pushed it open and heard breathless, panting French coming from the kitchen. If Misha and Domino were in the kitchen, who the heck was in the living room?

Flip you for it,
her little voice said.
Heads, it's your mother and father. Tails, it's your mother and Herb.

“Oh shut up,” Cydney muttered, and went back to her room.

Every little noise jerked her awake, sent her dashing to the door to see if it was Gus. She ventured once into the hall, peeked around the corner and caught a glimpse of a pale hem of nightgown slipping past a bedroom door. Whose nightgown and whose bedroom? She fretted about it all night and finally fell asleep with a sense of doom closing around her like the pillow she stuffed over her head to block out the house noises.

A little past eight Friday morning, she pushed through the dining room swinging door and heard something bang like a gong in the kitchen. Uh-oh. Cydney eased down the hall and peeked around the corner. Her mother stood at the stove. Her father sat at the island, hunched on his elbows and gazing morosely at her poker-straight back.

Gus sat catty-corner from him. When Cydney peered into the kitchen, he slid to his feet and started toward her.

“If we're going to Branson, we'd better get a move on.” He caught her elbow and turned her around. “Get your purse and let's go,” he said as he double-timed her down the hall. “Tell your sister and Bebe to stay the hell out of the kitchen. I'll tell Aldo and Herb.”

“What's wrong?” Cydney asked. “What happened?”