My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (22 page)

The morning of Wylda's wedding dawned bright with sunshine tempered by an understandable miasma of anxiety. Many a guest's neck was wrenched painfully as highstrung souls strove to keep one eye on the nearest exit at all times.

Not everyone present was in an advanced state of nerves. Some were not merely tranquil but downright apathetic. Among these latter was Wylda's aged admirer, Middleton.

"Oh dear," said Nora. We were standing together at the door to the Oak Room, where the preceremony cocktail reception was taking place. "That's Mr.

Middleton's 
third
 martini! I hope he knows what he's doing."

"He knows exactly what he is doing," I told her. "He is getting drunk."

"Drunk?"
 Nora's eyes went wide with shock, although there was the hint of a hotter emotion in her voice as she added: "At 
my
 daughter's wedding?"

Being a gentleman, I could not reveal Middleton's motivation for seeking solace in liquor. I doubt it would have evoked Nora's sympathy. Instead, I offered her the weak consolation that excessive drink rendered Middleton melancholy and silent rather than loud and vulgar. His alcoholic excesses posed no threat to the smooth progress of Wylda's wedding.

Nora saw matters otherwise: "I don't care; he's still being a jerk. What if he gets ugly later on? This is just like something one of 
my
 relatives would pull. I grew up thinking that you couldn't have a wedding or a funeral or a baby shower or even

dinner
 without someone making a scene. When your sister asked me to be her bridesmaid, and when I saw how 
beautifully
 you people behave, it was like a glimpse of heaven. No arguments, no fights, no cursing, nothing but dignity and refinement and 
peace.
 I only wish that Freddie and I could've had a wedding like that, here at The Club, but he was so insistent about eloping to Vegas . . . ! Well, maybe I didn't get the wedding of my dreams, but Wylda will."

Besotted as I was, I remained oblivious to the true sentiment underlying those words, namely: 
Wylda will get the wedding of
 my 
dreams, and God help anyone who
 
gets in the way.

The preceremony reception ended and we progressed to the marriage rite itself, conducted in The Club rose garden. The setting was idyllic, the air perfumed, the flowers at that ideal point of maturity, blossoming but not yet blown. The guests sat in rows of white folding chairs decorated with snowy satin ribbons. As escort to the mother of the bride, I sat up front beside her, smiling like a sentimental ninny. A string quartet played a delicate air by Vivaldi to herald the groom. Miles Martial looked striking in his Prince Edward coat and trim gray trousers. As he took his place beside the minister from St. George's (who, at the AustinCowleses'

behest, had consented to make a house call) his grin was brilliant enough to blind legions of paparazzi.

The lone bridesmaid, Solana Winthrop, walked down the aisle to a Mozart sonata, and then it was time for Wylda to make her entrance on her grandfather's arm. As the strings began to play Wagner's traditional tripe, we all rose on cue and turned to honor the bride.

"Stop the wedding!"
 A towering beautiful naked woman appeared out of nowhere and hipchecked Hilliard across the laps of the guests in the back row. As chairs toppled like dominoes, she grabbed Wylda by the scruff of the neck and held the keen point of a footlong golden projectile against the base of the girl's throat.

"Nobody move! This is one of Eros's sharpest arrows, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

A communal gasp of fear and dread arose from all of us. The woman's extraordinary stature and splendor, her utter shamelessness, and her casual mention of Eros, the ancient Greek god of Love, left us no doubt that The Club had once more worked its undesired magic. Alas, this time we had been invaded by a creature more dire than any sphinx, harpy, gorgon, or minotaur, a being who com

manded the most awesomely destructive power in the universe: Aphrodite, queen of Love and Beauty, had arrived.

She had not arrived alone.

"Way to go, Mom! 
Work
 that thing!" The vote of confidence came from one of a pair of tall, handsome young men who materialized beside the goddess. Their faces, hair, and clothingtattered loincloths, nothing morewere all lavishly stained with smoke, ashes, gun oil, and blood.

"Don't call me that!" the naked woman snapped. "Just because I screwed your father doesn't make me your mom, Deimos!"

"So what does it make you now that you're 
not
 screwing him anymore?" the other one asked snidely.

"Don't worry, Phobos," the woman replied. "That's all about to change."

"Oh, my God!" Nora exclaimed, rising to her feet. "Doesn't this place have any security? You! Crazy naked lady! Get the hell away from my daughter!"

"What
 did you call me?" The goddess's eyes narrowed dangerously. She pressed the arrow point even closer to Wylda's flesh. The poor child's moans of terror sent the two illclad young men into ecstasies.

I clamped my hand across my beloved's mouth and dragged her back down into her seat. "If you value Wylda's life, be quiet," I whis pered vehemently in her ear. "This is exactly what I feared might happen." Then, as swiftly and as succinctly as possible, I informed my delectably undereducated sweetheart as to the true nature of our un invited guests.

For those who know the old Greek tales, there is a special irony to the catchphrase 
Make love, not war.
 Though Aphrodite was the wife of Hephaestus, weapons maker for the gods, the goddess of Love could not resist the potent attraction of Ares, god of War. Their adulterous union became, quite literally, the stuff of myth.

Now, for whatever reason, Ares apparently had tired of his divine ladylove. Like many another randy godincluding his own sire, ZeusAres had disguised his true nature the better to conquer a comely mortal maiden.

"Unfortunately, it seems that Aphrodite is not the sort to deal well with rejection.

What is worse, her rage is such that it has attracted Ares' sons, Deimos and Phobos, the gods of Fear and Terror. They are 
ow!"

Nora had bitten my hand.

She fought free of my grasp and leaped back to her feet, bristling with fury. "Are you telling me that 
my
 baby's wedding is being spoiled because 
that
 twobit toy soldier's been boinking 
that
 bimbo behind her husband's back for 
how
 long?"

"Hey!"
 There was nothing wrong with Nora's lungs or the gods' ears. Ares and Aphrodite heard her well enough and objected in chorus. The soidisant Miles Martial strode forth to confront Nora. With each step, another facet of his mortal masquerade blew away like morning mist before the advent of the bronze helmet, breastplate, and greaves, the bloodred loincloth, the shining spear, sword, and shield, and the ironsoled sandals of Ares. He ignored Aphrodite and Wylda, behaving as if his bridetobe were not still in peril of her life at the hands of his mistressthatwas.

"What did you just say about me, woman?" he bawled in Nora's face. (Or rather, down upon it, for Ares had regained his divine stature and now towered over her by at least three feet.)

"Great, you're as dumb as she is." Nora jerked her thumb at Aphrodite. "Pay attention and take notes: You've got two minutes to ditch the bitch and the brats;

then we're going to get this wedding back on track before the icesculpture swans melt, 
or else.
 Got it?"

"But Mommy, I don't 
want
 to marry him anymore," Wylda whimpered. "He lied to me, and he's got kids, and a girlfriend, and he's not even human, and"

"Shut up!" Nora stamped her foot. "I spent the past twentythree years of my life planning this day. You'll marry him and like it!"

"Wow," Phobos breathed, his eyes brimming with admiration as he gazed upon the wrath of Scruggs. "Now 
that's
 scary! I think I'm in love."

"I saw her first, loser!" Deimos yelled, and sprang upon his brother. The two of them vanished in a whirlwind of punches, kicks, and obscene namecalling. Fear and Terror might be potent forces in the short run, but they had very little staying power in civilized society.

"Don't you 
dare
 talk like that to the woman I love!" Thunder reverberated over our heads. However, it had nothing to do with the god of War, who had not so much as opened his mouth. The booming command had come from Middleton.

The older man swept down upon Nora with a warrior's battle wrath. "If Wylda doesn't want to marry this scoundrel, she 
won't.
 She's a grown woman, not your dressup bride doll, and it's about time you knew that!"

In spite of her stated yearning for sophistication, elegance, and peace, Nora's family heritage could not be suppressed or denied. She had been raised by people who never fled the field of battle except to fetch larger guns, and it showed.

"You're 
drunk,"
 she spat. "You're drunk and you're old and you'd like it just fine if my daughter were your undress bride doll. Well, guess what, Grampa? 
Not
 gonna happen. This wedding is go."

"Never!" Aphrodite protested. The goddess of Love was not used to being ignored and had decided to drag the spotlight back onto herself. "Ares doesn't

really
 want to marry this little jellyfish. He started this whole stupid ooohI'minlovewithamortal thing because I haven't been paying enough attention to him lately. Just because a girl goes to a couple, nine Brad Pitt movies"

"Who asked 
you?"
 Before the astonished eyes of gods and men, Nora stormed up to Aphrodite and slapped her face. The goddess was so startled that she dropped the golden arrow of Eros and lost her grip on Wylda. "Don't blame 
my
 baby if you don't know how to hold on to 
your
 man."

Aphrodite was still immobilized with shock as Nora grabbed Wylda by the wrist, hauled her down the aisle, and shoved her into Ares' arms. When Middleton tried to intervene, Nora laid him low with an impressive right cross.

Wylda witnessed her mother's summary treatment of the older gentleman and looked ready to burst into tears. The god of War kept darting nervous glances from his bride to his potential motherinlaw. His expression was that of a man firmly in the grip of second thoughts, his feet grown cold enough to bring on a new Ice Age.

"Was she always this big a control freak?" Ares asked his betrothed.

"Only since I told her we were getting married," Wylda said quietly. "I don't know why, but that started it. That was when Mommy . . . 
changed."
 Wylda shivered at the awful memory. "She made me ask my grandparents for this huge, silly wedding as if it was all 
my
 idea, but I never wanted to get married at The Club."

"I'll tell you what you want and don't want!" Nora declared to her daughter.

"And what if I no longer wish this marriage to take place?" Ares brandished his sword in a menacing manner, but his attempt at lastminute intimidation was crushed the moment he looked Nora in the eye. The poor deity trembled so hard that his armor rattled. "Uhhh, forget I said anything," he said hastily sheathing the blade.

As I sat nursing my bitten hand and observing this heretofore unknown aspect of dear Nora's personality, I realized two things: one, that there are far worse fates than bachelorhood, and two, that while my beloved Club did attract monsters, alas, they did not all derive from Greek mythology. The tantrums of the most outrageous Bridezilla in the world are trifles beside the blazing chaos incarnate of the 
Mother
 of the Bridezilla.

Not that you could call sweet, timorous Wylda any sort of 'zilla. The poor thing seemed to be so thoroughly browbeaten by her monstrous mother that I wondered whether Wylda had a stick of striped sugar candy where her backbone should be.

I have since learned that it is possible to kill a man by stabbing him to death with a broken candy cane.

"You don't want to marry me?" Wylda asked her beau.

"Of course I do," Ares replied. But his eyes were still fixed nervously on Nora.

"No, you don't," Wylda stated. His mouth trembled. "You don't, and everyone here knows you don't, and the only reason you're saying you do is because Mommy's got you so terrified you're going to pee your pants."

"I am not!" Ares maintained. "I'm not wearing pants."

"And I'm not getting married." Wylda tore off her veil and flung it to the ground.

"I quit."

Before Nora could reexert her imperious power over her daughter, the girl fled up the aisle. Aphrodite cheered. Nora took to her heels in hot pursuit of the wayward bride, but if she thought that simple escape was Wylda's intent, the girl quickly proved her wrong. At the head of the aisle, Wylda stooped suddenly and seized something from the grass, then whirled around just in time for her mother to collide with her headon. The two women went cartwheeling over the lawn and fetched up in a thorny heap at the foot of a Mamie Eisenhower rosebush.

"Wylda, you get back to your groom 
right this minute!"
 Nora shrilled. "You're ruining my wedding."

"If you want this wedding so much, 
you
 have it," Wylda shot back, and stabbed her mother to the heart.

Nora looked down slowly at the slim, glittering shaft protruding from the center of her chest. She touched it lightly, and it crumbled to dust that blew away on the wind. There was no mark to show where it had been, no drop of blood, not the smallest tear in the bosom of her dress. She turned her head slowly from side to side as if she were awakening from a deep sleep with no idea at all of where she was or how she had come to be there.

Cadby Middleton was a gentleman of the old school. Although Wylda's mother had creased his jaw like a championship prizefighter, he could not allow a lady in an awkward public posture to remain unassisted. He stepped gingerly around Wyldawhom he now regarded not so much with love as apprehensionand approached the fallen Fury.

"May I?" he said calmly. Still dazed, Nora accepted the hand he proffered.