My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (19 page)

"If that's your name for it, then that's what I got. I can tell a lot about people without ever askin'. The stuff just comes to me. Sometimes too much."

She'd never heard of a guy having the talent, but why not? It wasn't anything she or Gramma talked about much with others, so why should anyone else?

"You know of a way of shutting it off?" he asked.

Shutting it off? "Uh, not really. What, you get stuff twentyfour/seven?"

"Sometimes, when I'm around too many people. I use the music. It's a buffer between me and the world. And I use the getup."

She presumed he referred to the Elvis gear. "How?"

The shy grin flashed. It was a nice grin. "Well, everyone loves Elvis. I get mostly positive stuff coming at me then. If I went around too much as Rick Cooper I'd be crazy. I'd be picking up all kinds of misery otherwise, and a body can only take so much."

"So . . . you impersonate Elvis to
keep
from going crazy. That's. . . crazy."

"I guess so, but it sure works."

"Your real name's Rick Cooper?"

"That's what's on the drivin' license." He gestured at the van. "Originator of Coop's CoolCats."

"Do they know about your vibe?"

"They're like my family; they know everything. No one seems to mind. We do good, too. Like tonight. We kept something fine from breakin'."

"I saw that. I never knew things could be changed."

"It takes some work, an' I don't do the changing. It's the music going out of me that does it. If I sat down in front of those two an' gave 'em a talkin' to it wouldn't have done a lick a good. But music can come out of one soul and touch another in amazin' ways. I see it all the time and it still gets to me. Pretty humblin'."

"Look, uh, Coop?"

"Coop's fine. Rick if you ever get the notion for it."

"Okay, Coop, maybe you and my gramma should talk. She knows more about this stuff than I do. She's got the vibe, too."

"Oh, I could tell that. She is one sweet little lady. I'd be pleased to call on her and you both, any day you name."

"In what persona? I don't mean to be rude, but"

"I know. If it's just the two of you I can shed the getup. I can't change the face or hair, though. This is what the Good Lord gave me, so I have to live with it."

Wow. "It's amazing."

"Uncanny?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, I've heard all that. Seemed only right to just take it and run. It's worked out. I got a good life."

"How did it start?"

"You won't believe it."

"Try me."

"Well, when I was beginnin' my teens my folks took me on a tour of Graceland."

"Me, too! Gramma took me."

"Then you know how that place is; everything's so well cared for and clean and just plain
loved.
When we were going through the rooms I couldn't shake the feeling that Elvis would walk in at any moment. It
is
like he's still there. That's about when I first started perceivin' things. And what I perceived first was
him!'

"You saw his ghost?"

"No, nothin' like that. It was . . . like a presence . . . only it wasn't him so much as the love everyone who'd ever crossed that threshold had for him. It was love for him, for his gifts, for all that he gave the world. That's a mighty powerful lot of energy, and it's permeated into every square inch of the whole place. That's how he's there. I don't hold nothing about ghosts, but I do believe a place can pick up...

"A vibe?"

"Surely. What I think is maybe some of it got into me and found a home. And if any of that has even a single atom of himself inside me, then I'm pleased and honored to carry it."

She liked his attitude. "And you spotted the vibe in me?"

"Right away."

"But I didn't see it in you. I shut down."

"You saw the getup, is all. Give it a while. Maybe you'll get past it."

No time like the present. She decided to risk another faint; she had to know.

Frankie opened up . . . and . . . wow, again. Now she was able to see the guy who was Rick Cooper, and something more. The Elvis energy. Dampened down quite a lot, but it was as much a part of him as his skin and went far deeper. Very reassuringly, it wasn't the least bit scary but rather comforting, like a piece of Elvis truly did live on. This must have been what Gramma had seen, and it had thrown her, virtually two guys sharing the same space.

She would have also figured that it was all right, though. Had it been bad, Gramma would have had nothing to do with him.

Damn, but the universe was a strange place to hang out. Strange, but never boring.

"You got it, didn't you?" he asked.

"I did." She really liked what she'd seen, too. Of Rick Cooper, that is. Elvis was mighty fine, but so was Rick. He looked just as interesting; for one thing, he'd also made it to adulthood with an oddball gift and not gone raving nuts. He'd opted for a unique way of dealing with it, but hey, whatever worked. Frankie wanted to see more of him, on a lot of levels.

"Uh, about me talkin' to your gramma?" he began.

"Yeah?"

"I shouldn't like to impose unless I could . . . well, I know of this diner where they do the oldfashioned burgers an' milk shakes an' have a real jukebox with fortyfives. If you think she"

"She'd love it. Tomorrow for lunch?"

"I'd be mighty pleased with your company Yummyoh, sorry."

"You can call me Yummy Cat. If anyone else does, I'll bust 'em."

"Well, that's all right, then. There's just one more thing, an' it's been on my mind all evenin', but. . ."

She didn't have to read his vibe to have seen that in his blue, blue eyes. She tossed her soda can away, grabbed the black leather lapels of his jacket, and pulled him toward her.

Oh. My. God.

Rick Cooper or Elvis, it didn't matter; he, they, whoever, was a worldclass kisser. He knew exactly what to do and how much to do it and the breath went right out of her for a third time that night, and it felt
great.

Better than great.

Oh yeah, baby ... he had her
all
shook up.

P. N. ELROD is best known for
The Vampire Files,
featuring her wisecracking undead gunshoe, jack Fleming. She's written over twenty novels and twenty short stories in the paranormal genre, edited several collections, and branched into fantasy and mystery. You can check out all her projects at www.vampwriter.com . Yes, she really
does
love Elvis, huhhuhhuh!

#################################

"THE WEDDING OF WYLDA SERENE"

copyright © 2006 by Esther M. Friesner.

It has been said that God makes marriages, but the Devil plans weddings. I know this has been said, because I said it. I coined the aforementioned b
on mot
upon the occasion of my elder sister's third wedding of a careerbest total of six.

The nuptial rut that dear Katherine wore into the aisle of St. George's Anglican is one reason for my own continued bachelorhood. If one cannot learn from the mistakes of others, one might as well become a Democrat.

One would presume that when a woman has gone through the same ceremony so many times (not counting an illconsidered elopement with one of the pool boys during her fourth honeymoon on Maui), the mechanics of a wedding, if not the subsequent marriage, would go more smoothly as experience was garnered along the way.

Ah, but when has logic ever refused to defer to human stupidity? Our dear Katherine somehow managed to turn each wedding into an even greater display of obsessive perfectionism, spectacular tantrums, and alienated bridesmaids. By the time she embarked upon Marriage VI she hadn't a female friend left with whom she was on speaking terms, let alone one who would be willing to stand up for her in a cloud of mint green tulle at the altar of St. George's.

Thus my sister made a virtue of Necessity and struck up an instantaneous friendship with one Nora Scruggs. La Scruggs was a parttime employee at the florist's shop that had provided Katherine with so many wedding bouquets, boutonnieres, pew decorations, altar flowers, and table centerpieces that the proprietor had to be forcibly restrained from falling to his knees and covering my sister's hands with kisses every time they met.

Miss Scruggs was an attractive, wellmeaning young woman of gentle mien and biddable disposition. She seemed to have about as much selfdetermination as a tablespoon of tomato aspic. When, within the space of twenty minutes, my sister took their conversation from, "I'm getting married in May," to, "Your bridesmaid dress fitting will be this Saturday at ten A.M.. I'll pay for it, of course," the poor girl was thrilled.

Katherine's sixth wedding proved to be an historic occasion for many reasons, not the least of which being that it was her last. Apparently her latest husband, Bryce Calhoun III, took exception to a torrid Internet romance that Katherine initiated in a cybercafe on St. Bart's during their first Christmas together. As they flew home together in one of Bryce's smaller private planes, they had a dreadful fallingout about it. For my sister, the fallingout was quite literal, helped along by a hearty push from her exasperated spouse. By a remarkable stroke of luck, Bryce was both defended (well) and prosecuted (weakly) by two of Katherine's former husbands, although I hope for our family's sake that there is little or no truth to the rumor that my late sister also had dated nine out of the twelve jurors.

Katherine's hymeneal excesses aside, her final wedding was also significant in that it provided her makeshift bridesmaid, the bewitchingly bluecollar Miss Scruggs, with unexpected entree to the higher strata of Society. It happened at the reception, which of course took place at The Club. It was there, in an earthly paradise of scrupulously groomed lawns, tastefully decorated function rooms, and perfectly chilled champagne, that the winsome florist's assistant made the acquaintance of young Frederick AustinCowles. The rest was history, as written by Cinderella.

Frederick came from an American lineage so old, rich, and respectable that defending its age, wealth, and honor was his parents' sole preoccupation. The burden of nigh four hundred years of ancestral obligation had made them into blueblooded martinets of the first order, intent on raising their only child to be nothing more than topgrade mulch for the family tree. The lad spent the first twentyfive years of his life firmly compressed beneath their totalitarian thumbs.

Each aspect of his existenceeating, sleeping, clothing, schooling, playing, and morewas regimented with a strictness to make the ancient Spartans look like fifthstring yoga instructors.

No one but a confirmed masochist or a member of Yale's Skull and Bones club would doubt for an instant how deeply Frederick abhorred his micromanaged childhood and the parents who had engineered it. At the age of five he resolved to find some way to put their patrician noses well and truly out of joint the moment that he came into full possession of the trust fund his grandfather had left him.

Wisely averse to any act that would mortify his parents but harm himself in the process, Frederick could not take any of the more conventional paths to rebellion, such as substance abuse, sexual excess, decorating his skin with blobs of ink and globs of metal, or mailordering a readymade polyester men's suit from Montgomery Ward. He was at what passed for his wit's end when he met Miss Scruggs and the angels sang.

They sang something by Patsy Cline, to be sure, something so downhome, simple, honest, and saltoftheearth as could not fail to send Frederick's parents into fits. Oh, how that thought left him gloating! Moreover, Miss Scruggs herself was so sweet, meek, and pleasing to the eye that it would be no great hardship for him to employ her as his bedmate as well as his implement of vengeance. He put the astonished girl through a whirlwind courtship, a hasty wedding flight to Las Vegas, and got her in the family way before my sister Katherine and Bryce came back from their honeymoon.

Alas for Frederick, he did not live to relish the fruits of his filial retaliation. He left his pregnant bride in their Central Park West piedaterre and was driving hellforfinestNewZealandlambskinleather to Connecticut, to drop the proverbial bombshell on his parents, when his Mercedes lost an argument with a lawn furniture delivery truck somewhere east of Greenwich. Hilliard and Margot AustinCowles learned that they were childless, inlaws, and incipient grandparents at almost the same time that poor Nora found out she was a widow.

Of course The Club was soon buzzing with the details of what followed, to no one's surprise. The Club is a veritable beehive for rumor. My sister's last wedding, Frederick's illmotivated pursuit of the unsuspecting Miss Scruggs, the new widow's genuine agony at the loss of her beloved young husband, all these juicy morsels of gossip quickly shriveled to mere dessicated jerkybits of tittletattle on that crisp October evening when Preston Bedford came rushing into the bar and breathlessly announced:

"They've taken her in!"

And so they had, they being Frederick's parents and she being their pregnant daughterinlaw. This news was startling enough to anyone who knew the AustinCowleses' stringent outlook as to who was and was not socially acceptable.

(They regarded the Pilgrim Fathers as pushy immigrants, the JohnnyAldencomelately embodiment of all that was dragging America down into the populist mire.) But this was as nothing when compared to what followed, namely, the intense, immediate, and profound change we all observed in Margot and Hilliard the moment that little Wylda Serene was born.

She was a lovely child, for someone who had begun her existence as a means of petty payback. Her mother's reliable breadandbutter comeliness had given a muchneeded anchor to Wylda's father's frailer caviarandcabernet attractions. Her infant prettiness was but a faint harbinger of the glorious beauty she grew to be.

Fiery redgold hair, luminous skin, and eyes the color of newly unfurled leaves adorned a lithe and vibrant body of unquestionable appeal. She carried herself with the poise and elegance of a young gazelle, and her curves put the corniche at Monte Carlo to shame.