Men in Kilts

by Katie MacAlister

Joanna, that giggling is a dead giveaway. It’s going to have to cease. I have lived here for three months now, and I can tell you that Iain has no giggling animals.”

  “It’s not stealthy at all,” Bev said solemnly, and frowned at her still giggling daughter. “She always was a giggler. Liked to have her bum tickled when her nappies were changed.”

  “Mum!”

  I waved my wand for silence as the occupants of the second car piled out.

  Laura and Mary had remained behind at their hotel, leaving only Mo, Mom, and Aunt Amber.

  “Now, this is very important,” I told the group. “Stealth! We need stealth. Do we all understand?”

  “No, I don’t,” Mo said. “I thought we were taking Kathie to her hotel? What are we doing here?”

  We all tried to explain at the same time, but Joanna hushed us and did the honors. After the questions were answered (all but what the men were carving), we weaved our way up the drive.

  “This is stupid,” Mo said five minutes later, her teeth chattering as she blew on her hands. “This drive is at least a mile long. It’s freezing out here! We could have driven almost all of the way and no one would have seen the headlights.”

  “Shhhhhhhh,” we hushed her. Whispers of Stealth ! were periodically uttered by members of the SWAT team. Some of us, those who had watched James Bond movies, adopted the zigzag approach to the house to avoid the spotlights and machine gun fire from the guard towers, but this inevitably caused giggling in the ranks, so the zigzaggers had to cease.

  We snuck up to the sitting room window with a minimum of Shhhh !

  comments, and ignoring the fact that we were standing in the remains of Mary’s flower bed, we soon had our noses plastered against the glass peering in through the crack in the drapes.

  “I see a leg,” said Mo.

  “Is it bare?” I asked, thinking of Cerise.

  “No, it has pants on it.”

  The English members of the group snickered. A time out was taken to explain the pants/trousers situation, then new peekers were assigned to the window. “I can see David,” Joanna said, her head tilted at an odd angle. “He’s reading a book.”

  “Reading?” Bev asked.

  “Does it have a picture of a naked lady on it? Is it smut?” asked Aunt Amber.

  “No, it’s something about sheep, I think. You and —”

  “— Your Ewe. Yes, I’ve read it,” I said, waving the book away with my wand and watching the lovely sparkles shine in the light from the outside lamp. “No smut in it unless you’re a ewe. What else do you see?”

  “I see Dad,” Joanna said, moving to the other side of the window. “My Dad, not Iain. He’s asleep.”

  It started to dawn on us that maybe we had jumped to a conclusion as far as what the men were doing. It didn’t sound like they were having a wild stag party at all. Several members began to stamp their feet and shiver in a most un-stealthy way. It was motioned and seconded that we return to the warmth of the cars. We were a bit disappointed by the lack of an orgy, to tell the truth, and threw stealth to the winds as we started back toward the cars.

  “Something the matter, ladies?” Iain loomed up out of the darkness, causing several members of the Stealth Brigade to shriek and come close to having heart attacks.

  “Well, it’s a good thing Aunt Amber has on her June Allyson bladder pants,” Mom said, clutching her heart. “I sort of wish I had a pair on as well.”

  “Ooooh,” squealed Bev, and slapped a hand over my eyes. “You’re not supposed to see the bride, Iain. It’s bad luck. What are you doing out here? We were being ever so stealthy.”

  “Aye, you were. Very stealthy. I was bedding down the animals. What is it you are doing here?”

  We all (all but me) looked at one another. “We—left something behind.” Joanna said, and betrayed our cause with a bit of a snicker.

  I’m told (I couldn’t see at the time, Bev being under the impression that if she hid my eyes, Iain wouldn’t see me), that he sized up our condition pretty quickly, and after making sure mere were sober members of the group to drive us home, sent us on our way.

  After he asked one question.

  “Erm… why is it Kathie is wearing her knickers on the outside of her frock?” I pried Bev’s hand off enough to look down. Sure enough, I had forgotten that I had tried on the crotchless knickers to the delight of the waiters and Bad Boy chiropractors. I didn’t have my legs looped through the leg openings; it was being worn more like a deranged garter belt.

  “Tradition,” said Mo in a moment of inspiration.

  “Yes, tradition,” my mother agreed. “All of the women of the Williams family wear our underwear on the outside of our clothes the night before a wedding.

  Doesn’t your family have that tradition, too?” she asked Bev.

  “Oh, certainly we do,” Bev replied, giggling.

  “I was going to wear the zebra thong, but they wouldn’t let me,” Aunt Amber told him. “It has the loveliest hip tassels you ever did see.” Joanna says Iain just shook his head and went back into the house.

  I waved my wand in his general direction, and allowed myself to be guided down the driveway. Bev didn’t think it was safe to uncover my eyes until we were to the cars, lest Iain inadvertently see me.

  February 14: If still alive, marry Iain.

  “So, is Iain going to wear a kilt today?” Mo greeted me when I opened the door to my hotel room the following morning.

  I pried one eye open enough to look at her.

  “Nurofen,” I croaked, and staggered off to the minuscule bathroom. How on earth had a herd of elephants found their way into my room, and why had they all tap-danced on my poor little head?

  “So, is he?”

  The fiendish Satan’s imp who resembled my sister had followed me into the bathroom, screaming at me at the top of her lungs. I did my best to peel open my other eye, but it was too much of a strain so I left it closed. “Water. Nurofen.”

  The imp took pity on me and handed me a glass. “You’d think by now you’d learn not to mix your liquor. You guys slugged back almost a fifth of scotch, you know.”

  By an enormous output of concentration, I managed to get some water into the glass, and a couple of pills out of the package. Swallowing was harder than I thought, but I got them down and staggered back to the bed to better confront this demon in my sister’s clothes.

  She wandered over and examined a dress hanging from the front of my wardrobe. It struck me that I wasn’t in my room.

  “This’ll look nice next to Iain. He is wearing his kilt, right? I didn’t come all this way not to see him in a kilt, you know.”

  Kilt. Iain. Wedding.

  “Aaaaaaaaargh!” I screamed.

  The Mo-demon looked over at me. “Did you just moan something at me? Was that a yes moan or a no moan?”

  “Wedding!”

  “That’s right, baby sister. Got that other eye opened, have you? Good. Whoa, you need some Visine. Good thing I got here before Mom. She’d never stop reading you the riot act if she saw you looking like something the cat crapped.” It all came back to me. The hen party. The chiropractors. The crotchless underwear. Iain outside of his house.

  Mo eyed me with concern. “I think you need a bit of the hair of the dog.”

  “If you have any mercy in your soul, no,” I pleaded, carefully propping myself up on the pillows and reaching for the water. “I never want to see whisky again.

  Or champagne.”

  She plopped down on the foot of the bed and set the elephants to tap dancing again.

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  I took a tentative swallow of water and waited a moment to be sure it was staying put.

  “No, Iain won’t be wearing his kilt. He doesn’t like wearing them. He wouldn’t even wear one to David and Joanna’s wedding, and all of the other men there did.”

  “That’s a shame. I’d like to see him in one.”

  I murmured an agreement and cl
osed my eyes. “Ewen’U probably wear his.

  Iain says he loves to wear it. It’s a babe magnet.”

  “Ah, Ewen. I’m looking forward to swooning over him.”

  “Just remember you promised to keep an eye on Aunt Amber. She’ll go gaga over him.”

  It took a half hour before Mo could talk me into taking a shower (while I was in mere I took a couple more Nurofens, feeling that I could live without my kidneys, but I couldn’t get married with such a head). When I emerged from the steamy womb of the bathroom, Joanna and my mother had joined Mo.

  “We’re here to dress you,” Mom said. “Mo’s going to do your hair. Goodness, you do look terrible. Joanna, maybe you had better do her makeup. I wouldn’t want Iain seeing her with those red eyes and that blotchy skin.” My mother. Always the queen of tact.

  “What color is Iain’s kilt?” Mom asked, examining my dress. “I hope it won’t clash with the red and pink of these tea roses.”

  “He’s not wearing a kilt.” I explained while Mo whipped out a set of hot rollers. I sat in the one available chair and let her comb my hair. “He bought a really nice suit last week and is going to wear that.” My mother looked like she was going to hit the floor. “He’s not wearing his kilt? Well, what’s the use in his being a Scot if he’s not going to wear his kilt?” I shrugged.

  “I think they ought to take it away from him then,” she said with a sharp nod.

  “It’s not right, him having one and refusing to wear it.”

  “David is wearing his,” Joanna offered. “Dad didn’t wear a kilt at our wedding, but David and Ewen did. They looked marvelous, so don’t worry, you’ll have some gorgeous examples of MacLaren men in kilts to admire.” Laura and her two daughters, Karen and Melody, arrived while my head was full of curlers.

  “Hi, Aunt Kathie,” the girls piped in their sweet, charming, innocent teenaged girlish voices that scraped across my aching brain like barbed wire strung with nettles on bare flesh.

  “God, you like, look so sick. Are you going to hurl?” Karen asked.

  I glared at her as best I could. “If I do, I’ll do my very best to aim it away from you.”

  “This is starting to resemble that Marx Brothers film,” Mo said, scooting over so the girls could sit on the floor next to the basket of flowers. They had been deputized as my bridesmaids, and were thus entitled to the rose and carnation corsages made up for the wedding party. Laura handed Karen a packet of pins, and gave her instructions on pinning a corsage.

  “So,” she said, that task completed. “We can’t wait to see Iain in his—”

  “Kilt!” Mo and Mom and Joanna said in perfect unison.

  I wearily explained the whole anti-kiMain phenomenon, and designated Laura as the person who would take each and every wedding guest aside and update him or her on this bit of information.

  “Who’s got Aunt Amber?” I asked, suddenly realizing that she wasn’t with us.

  “Mary does,” Mo replied, mumbling since her mouth was full of hairpins. “We thought she could work off some of her verbal energy on Aunt Amber. They were going out to breakfast.”

  That didn’t sound like a good idea, but I figured Aunt Amber was my mother’s problem.

  “Anybody home?” asked Brother as Melody opened the door in response to his knock. “Good god, you’re all packed in here like sardines.”

  “How’s Iain?” I asked, twisting around to see him. I knew Brother had been out to the farm to check on the last minute catering details for me. “Did Archie show up? Is he giving Iain grief?”

  “Sit still or you’re going to look like Mary Pickford,” Mo threatened, waving a comb around.

  “Sober as a judge,” Brother replied to my question. I didn’t think that sounded particularly good. Bridegrooms weren’t supposed to be sober as judges on their wedding days, were they? Weren’t they supposed to be happy and thrilled and full of appreciation for the Mystery of Woman? “And yes, Archie is there, in a particularly surly mood, but I had a little man-to-man with him and threatened to break his leg if he said anything out of line to you or Iain.” I smiled at Brother. There were times when he had his moments, and this was one of them.

  “Iain’s not going to wear his kilt,” Laura told him, fulfilling her primary duty.

  “Ah. He said something about that,” Brother nodded, and accepted his boutonniere. He eyed me in that annoying way elder brothers have. “You look awful. Aren’t you going to put on a gallon or two of makeup?” So much for sibling affection. I made a rude gesture at him, which he ignored by opening the door.

  “Here they all are,” Mary said, pushing Aunt Amber inside. “I told you—lord, it’s a bit of a crush in here, isn’t it? I told you they’d be here and here they all are. And here we are, safe and sound.” Mary leaned toward my mother. “I had a little bit of trouble with her once we were finished with breakfast. She wants to know how to get to Gretna Green. Something about marrying a blacksmith.” Mom looked startled. “A blacksmith? I didn’t even think she knew a blacksmith. Why would she want to marry a blacksmith?”

  “Anvils, Mom,” Mo said, tweaking a curl into place. “You know, people used to go to Gretna Green to get married over the anvil. Haven’t you read any Georgette Heyer? Aunt Amber got it mixed up in her mind, that’s all.” Mo finished with my hair, and I turned around to face the mass of humanity crammed into my small room.

  “Mom, why is Aunt Amber dressed like she’s Heidi?”

  “Oh, she thought that would be a nice tribute to Iain. Sheep, you know.”

  “Yes, but we’re in Scotland. You don’t see too many dirndls hereabouts.” My mother just shrugged, and smiled at Aunt Amber, who shot me a dirty look for picking on her (for once) color coordinated, but unmistakably Bavarian, costume. Where she’d managed to find a tasseled dirndl was beyond my comprehension, but I had other things to worry about.

  “Were the caterers setting up for lunch?” I asked Brother.

  “Yes. Well, one of them was. It seems there was a little accident with your cake, and the other one had gone off to the bakery.” Words that are every bride’s worst nightmare: The groom has run off with the maid of honor/best man; The check bounced; and There was a little accident with your cake .

  “What sort of accident?” I asked, tightening the belt to my bathrobe until it cut off circulation to my lower extremities.

  Brother looked unconcerned. “I don’t know, something about the top layer being eaten by a dog.”

  There’s something to be said for the power of women. Instantly every woman but Aunt Amber and me leaped into action. Mary shot me a This is what you get for not letting me handle the arrangements look, and went off to hunt down the caterer at the bakery to ascertain the extent of the problem. Joanna called the house to talk with David and see how bad it was. Bev, having just arrived, sensed from the pandemonium that Something Was Up, and cleared the room of unnecessary personnel. The girls were sent down to wait in the lobby with their father, and Aunt Amber was dissuaded from joining them in hopes of finding a blacksmith.

  Mom wrung her hands and alternately lectured me about hiring inferior caterers, and reassured me that everything would be fine, just fine, she felt that in her bones, and heaven knows her bones hadn’t lied to her yet.

  But Mo was the best. She dug around in my suitcase and unearthed the remains of the bottle of whisky we had been drinking the prior evening, uncapped it, and handed it over.

  That was the scene that Ewen found when he tapped at the door. He picked me out of the crowd and graced me with a devastatingly handsome smile.

  “Well, how’s the blushing bride this morn? Not having cold feet, are we? No prewedding jitters? Everything running smooth as silk?” I looked him straight in the eye and swigged the last of the whisky straight from the bottle.

  “Yeees,” Ewen said slowly. “Glad to see that all is going well. I’ll just dash off to check on the groom, then, shall I? Any thoughts of love and devotion you’d care for me to pass along to him
?”

  I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, only just refrained from belching, and stood up.

  “Tell him he’s going to regret not eloping when he had the chance.” Chapter Nineteen

  Milefailte dhuit le d’bhreid, fad do re gun robh thu slan.

  Moron laithean dhuit is sith, le d’mhaitheas is le d’ni bhifas.

  A thousand welcomes to you with your marriage

  kerchief, may you be healthy all your days. May you be blessed with long life and peace, may you grow old with goodness and with riches.

  Once I was suitably dressed and coiffed, and my bag had been repacked and I had been checked out of the hotel, we gathered together in the car park for last minute instructions. Brother was driving me to the castle. We were to leave fifteen minutes after everyone else in order to allow them time to gather and be suitably impressed when I arrived in all of my wedding finery. Ewen had left earlier, in charge of herding the groom and his party to the site. He had left behind Angel, his latest, a nice, if scatterbrained, hand model. She spent a lot of time talking to Aunt Amber about the importance of cuticle care. Maps to the castle were distributed, and soon Brother and I were the only ones left.

  “Car or lobby?” he asked, wanting to know where I wanted to wait out our allotted time.

  “How about a bar?” I suggested.

  He steered me back inside the hotel lobby, where we stood around and entertained all of the guests. I didn’t think I looked particularly bridelike, but I guess the bouquet of carnations were a giveaway. That and the headful of flowers that Mo had woven into a fetching hairdo. And, of course, Brother in his morning coat and boutonniere. He was the only man I knew who owned his own morning coat.

  Upon reflection I will admit that we looked pretty weddingish, but mere was still no call for a nasty old man to make obscene comments about wedding nights and rice.

  Nervously, I went over my card with the Gaelic wedding vows on it. I muttered the phrases over and over to myself, but each time I did, I forgot more and more of the words.

  “What am I going to do?” I wailed to Brother. “My brain is leaking Gaelic all over the place! I can’t remember any of this.”