Murder With Peacocks (28 page)

  "I'll get Eric and Caitlin going." I  grabbed Eric with my left hand and Caitlin with my  right.

  "Slow and steady," I stage-whispered, "just like  we rehearsed it."

  Caitlin looked excited but not nervous. Good.  Eric looked bored and only marginally  cooperative.

  "Roller coasters," I hissed at him. He  assumed a look of pained innocence and exaggerated  cooperativeness. I mentally crossed my fingers  and gave both kids a gentle shove.

  I peeked as they slipped through the curtains and  set out down the makeshift aisle. They were more or  less in time with the music, and I could hear oohs and  aahs and exclamations of "Oh, aren't they  precious?" Father Pete appeared behind the altar,  beaming with enthusiasm. I turned to check that the first  pair of bridesmaids were ready. I was beginning  to relax when I heard the first titters. I  whirled back to my peephole. At first I  couldn't see anything wrong. Eric and Caitlin were  doing splendidly. Then I realized that Duck  had escaped from her cage somehow, and was waddling  sedately down the aisle behind Eric.

  "Oh, God," I moaned, turning away from  my peephole. Michael took my place.

  "At least she's in step with the music," he  remarked. I reclaimed my peephole and saw  that Eric and Caitlin had reached the altar.

  "First pair, on three," I hissed. "One,  two, three."

  I marshaled the other two bridesmaids out and  took my bouquet. Mr. Donleavy was being  buttoned into his robe. Eileen looked  shell-shocked.

  "Send her out in another--" I began.  "I know, I know," Michael said. "I'm a  showbiz veteran, remember? Go!"

  I stepped out on cue and marched down the aisle, head high, shoulders squared,  trying hard to ignore the little trickles of sweat  running down my neck, back, and legs.

  Eileen looked radiant as she walked down  the aisle. At least I hoped it was radiant.  It could very easily have been early warning signs of  heat stroke. But when I saw the looks on her  face and Steven's as she reached the altar, I    suddenly felt, at least for the moment, that all was  right with the world and everything I'd gone through all summer  was infinitely worthwhile. I stood there for a few  minutes, beaming sappily as they began taking their  vows, until I caught a glimpse of Barry,  beaming just as sappily at me. I came down  to earth with a thud.

  Fortunately, just then something happened to distract  me from my sudden, almost irresistible urge to throw  something at Barry. Duck, who had been sitting  sedately at Eric's feet, suddenly rose and  began walking toward the center of the aisle,    quacking loudly. When she reached the absolute  center of Eileen's train, she sat down and  continued to look around and emit an occasional  quack. I debated whether to leave her alone or  not, and decided I'd better get her off the  train before she laid an egg or answered any  other calls of nature. In as dignified  manner as possible, I tucked my flowers under  one arm, walked out, picked Duck up, and  returned to my place. There were titters from the  audience, and Father Pete was overcome with a fit of  coughing. Duck seemed to calm down after that, but I  held her bill closed for the rest of the ceremony,  just in case.

  The minister pronounced Steven and Eileen  husband and wife, and we began exiting to the  triumphant strains of a royal fanfare. When  Barry tried to take my arm, I handed him Duck instead. Duck didn't appear to like it  any more than he did.

  We marched into the side yard and formed a receiving  line. Although they could just as easily have  circumnavigated the house, most of the guests  played by the rules and ran the gauntlet before going  to the backyard for champagne and hors  d'oeuvres. Unfortunately, this kept us standing  around for rather a long time under the inadequate shade  of a flower-trimmed bower. I found myself silently  cheering whenever someone sneaked out of the line.

  The Renaissance banquet, once we finally got to sit down for it, was much admired,  especially the spit-roasted pigs. Eileen did  manage to set her veil on fire with one of the  votive candles decorating the head table, but  Steven put it out immediately with a tankard of mead.  Only a few of the die-hards joined in the period  dancing, but the tumblers, jugglers, and acrobats  were a great hit.

  I was increasingly glad that I had talked  Eileen and Steven out of some of their more bizarre  ideas of Renaissance authenticity. The dancing  bear, for instance, would have been a bit too much.  Although I wasn't entirely sure that the  substitute was much of an improvement--Cousin  Horace, risking heat stroke in his moth-eaten  gorilla suit, which he'd ineptly altered in the  vague hope of making it look bearlike. Ah,  well. Horace had fun, anyway. After  dinner, the rest of the program was largely the  usual agenda, in costume. There was much to be said  for the usual agenda. The guests knew it, and could  carry on without a lot of instructions. Already  guests were beginning to coagulate for the bouquet and  garter throwing. Then we would have changing into going  away clothes and pelting the departing van with  organic birdseed. Followed by the utter  collapse of the maid of honor. My  responsibilities for the day would be over and I  could swill down a couple more glasses of  champagne. Maybe a couple of bottles.

  Eileen had chosen to throw her bouquet from the  Donleavys front stoop, which was gussied up  to look like yet another bower. All the unmarried  women were being chivvied into a semicircle at the  base of the stoop. I took a safe place at  the outskirts, hoping the lucky recipient of the  bouquet would be a perfect stranger with no reason  even to invite me to her wedding, much less  recruit me as a participant.

  Eileen teased the crowd with a few fake throws.  "Come on, Meg," someone behind me said, "you'll  never catch it like that."

  I was turning to explain that catching it was the last  thing on my mind, when something struck me  violently on the side of the head. I was actually  somewhat stunned for a few seconds, and then people  began hugging me and clapping me on the back, and  I realized that without even trying I had caught the  bouquet. In my hair.

  In fact, the thing had become inextricably tangled with my hair and the intricate  floral headpiece that Mrs. Tranh and the  ladies had anchored in place with about a  million hairpins. Everyone seemed to find this  hilarious except me; I had to hold onto the  damned thing tightly to keep my hair from being  torn out by the roots. Steven headed up to the stoop  to remove the garter from Eileen's leg and fling it  to the crowd. I was not about to sit still for having the  garter put on my leg with a basketball-sized  shrub stuck to my head. I fled inside  to untangle myself. They would just have to wait till  I was finished; if they got impatient, someone  could come and help me, dammit. I found a hand  mirror in the hall powder room and went out to the  kitchen, where by resting my head on the kitchen table  and propping the hand mirror against a vinegar cruet  I could free up both hands and still see what I was  doing.

  What I was doing was going nowhere fast. In  fact, I was making it worse, and the last few  shreds of my patience evaporated. I heard  gales of laughter outside. Steven must be really  hamming up the garter bit. I rummaged through the  kitchen cabinet drawers--one-handed--until I  found a pair of scissors, and was reaching up  to hack off the bouquet, hair and all, when I  felt someone grab my wrist. I shrieked.

  "Now, now," Michael said. "Let's not be  hasty. You have two more weddings coming up; you'd  regret doing that in the morning."

  "Right now I just want to get the damned thing out  of my hair," I said, close to tears.

  "Sit down and I'll do it," he said, pulling  up a chair and easing me into it with one deft motion  as he began the tedious business of untangling the  bouquet. "However did you manage this?"

  "I didn't, Eileen did. I always thought you  were supposed to give the bouquet a gentle toss  and let fate decide who caught it. Eileen  must have hurled the thing at my head with the speed and  accuracy of a Cy Young award winner." Just then  I saw Eileen and a couple of the bridesmaids  flit by on their way upstairs. "Damn, I'm  supposed to be helping her change!"

  "I'm not sure that's either possible or necessary,"  Michael said. "Like all the local  inhabitants, Eileen is an original; you  don't want to tamper with that."

  "Very funny," I said--all right, snapped. "Change her clothes, I mean, of  course. God only knows what she'll do in the  state she's in."

  "Don't worry, Mrs. Tranh will take  care of it. Though that does mean you're stuck with  me to untangle this thing. Are you sure you wouldn't  rather just wear this as a trophy till it grows out?"

  "Just hack a chunk out," I said, reaching again  for the scissors. "I can wear a flower or a bow  over the spot in the other two weddings."

  "Leave those alone," Michael ordered,  slapping my hand away from the scissors. "I was  only joking; I've almost got it." Sure  enough, in another few minutes my hair and the  bouquet parted company.

  "I'm sorry," Michael said, as he saw  me rubbing the spot. "I was trying not to yank out quite  so much hair by the roots."

  "Don't feel bad; I think most of the  yanking happened when the thing landed. Besides, it's not  the hair, it's the thorns on the roses that really  hurt. Well, at least there's one consolation."

  "What's that?" Michael asked, while  rummaging through the debris on the kitchen counters.

  "I seem to have missed the damned garter throwing  ceremony."

  "If it's any consolation, there wasn't one." 

  "What do you mean, there wasn't one? We have a  garter; I know because I had to exchange the red one  Steven bought for the pink one Eileen wanted."

  "When Steven went to take the garter off  Eileen's leg, they realized they'd never put it  on her leg. The beastly Barry left it in his  trunk, and can't find his car keys. Ah!  Champagne?" he said, unearthing a full  bottle that had somehow been left in the kitchen and  brandishing it triumphantly.

  "I give up," I said, holding out my hand  for the glass. "After all the trouble we went through  picking out the perfect garter, and they give it to that  Neanderthal Barry for safekeeping."

  I stretched out with my feet up on a second  kitchen chair and sipped. However inadequate the  air-conditioning was, it was better than outdoors.  I was just beginning to feel relaxed when, speaking of the  devil, Barry bounded in with all the grace of a  half-grown Saint Bernard.

  "Look what I've got!" He dangled the  garter from his finger and leered in what I suppose  he thought was a charming manner.

  "It's you, Barry," I said. "Wear  it in good health."

  "You know what I get to do with it!"

    "Get lost, Barry," I said, holding out my  glass for more champagne.

  "Ah, come on," he said, reaching for my leg.  I grabbed the scissors and feinted at his hand with the  point. He froze.

  "Barry, if you lay one hand on my leg, I  will stuff that garter down your throat and then cut it  into shreds. I am not in a good mood, and besides, I  know damn well that you didn't catch that thing, you just  finally found your car keys. Now run along."

  Barry did, though not without looking back  reproachfully at me a few times. When the  screen door slammed behind him, I sighed.

  "I'm so glad he's gone, but now I feel  as guilty as if I kicked a puppy."

  "He'll live," Michael said. "I think." 

  "Why do I always end up using weapons on  Barry?" I wondered.

  "Seems perfectly sensible to me." 

  "Oh, God, I am so tired of Eileen and  Steven throwing Barry at me. Why don't they see that he's just not my type."

  "What is?" Michael said.

  "What is what?"

  "What is your type?"

  "I don't know. Probably nonexistent;  it's too depressing to think about."

  "Come on," he said, "I'll make it easy.  Tell me some of the ways in which Barry falls  short of the mark. What would you have to do to Barry  to make him even remotely resemble your type?"  Bizarre, I thought; was Michael catching the  local mania for matchmaking? I certainly  hoped not.

  "He'd have to be smarter," I said. "More  articulate. Dare I say intellectual?  With a better sense of humor. Not always so  politically correct. And physically ... I  don't know; I prefer lean, muscular men to that  beefy jock type. It's weird, whenever I  try to tell Eileen why Barry doesn't  appeal to me, she thinks I'm trying to knock  Steven. I'm not; I think Steven's very nice,  and they're a great couple. But Steven isn't my  type, and the beastly Barry even less so."

  "I can see that. Although he's not actually an  ogre, he certainly doesn't strike me as your type. On the other hand--"

  "Only this commendation I can afford him," I  said, paraphrasing some lines from Much Ado About  Nothing, "that were he other than he is, he were  unhandsome; and being no other but as he is, I do not  like him."

  Michael laughed and struck a pose.  ""Rich she shall be, that's certain,"" he  quoted back. ""Wise, or I'll none;    virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair,  or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not  near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good  discourse, an excellent musician, and her  hair shall be of what color it please God,""  he finished with a flourish, using some strands of my  hair he'd removed from the bouquet as a prop.

  "Who's that?" said Jake, who had come in while  Michael was speaking and was looking confused. Which was  more or less his usual state as far as I could  see.

  ""You are a villain!"" Michael  declaimed in yet another speech from Much  Ado. He grabbed the scissors and struck up  a fencing position. ""I jest not: I will make  it good how you dare, and when you dare. Do me right,  or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed  a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on  you. Let me hear from you!""

  Jake turned pale and began backing out of the  room. "Is everyone here completely crazy?"  he asked.

  "He's just quoting me some lines from a  Shakespeare play he appeared in, Mr.  Wendell," I said, soothingly. To no avail.  Jake reached the door and fled.