“That’s sad,” I said, because it was, and not the kind of thing one usually discussed en route to a wedding.
“Les and Adelaide were high school sweethearts,” Cissy blathered on, “and she gave him three sons before he traded her in for a younger model.” She clicked tongue against teeth. “It’s like his wives got younger as he got richer.”
“Isn’t that how it works?”
“Les told Vern and Shelby they could use the place for Penny’s big day since no one’s livin’ in it at the moment,” Mother informed me. “Lester’s latest ex got the house in Vail, and he’s been staying in a suite at The Mansion.”
The Mansion being The Mansion on Turtle Creek, of course, one of Dallas’s swankier hotels. It was a go-to spot for the very rich when they wanted to run away from home but not too far.
Click! A lightbulb went on in my brain, and I put two and two together. Lester Dickens wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill rich-as-Croesus chauvinist cum oil baron: he was Senator Ryan’s biggest supporter. He had put together a PAC and bought TV ads out the wazoo to help Vernon get elected in the first place. Word was that Dickens aimed to put Vernon Ryan in the White House come the next presidential election. It was no wonder he’d loaned the senator his mansion for a day. He was probably even more anxious than the Ryans to get the pregnant Penny married off.
“You know, it’s a good thing you came with me, sweet pea,” my mother said, changing the subject, “it’ll give us some ideas for your wedding.” She smiled as she pulled the Lexus up to a pair of gates and rolled down her window to give her name to a security guard. “Your old classmate from Hockaday, Olivia La Belle, will be here. She’s Penny’s wedding planner,” Cissy informed me as the guard stepped back and the gates parted, revealing a sprawling Mediterranean villa sitting at the end of a very long driveway beyond palm trees and cascading fountains.
“Did you say Olivia La Belle?” I repeated, because I hadn’t heard anything else my mother had said after the name. And all of a sudden I was flashing back to prep school and the athletic blonde who used to taunt me during Phys Ed. You must be a boy, Andy Kendricks, ’cause you have no boobs at all! Andy’s a boy, Andy’s a boy!
I flinched as though I’d been hit hard with one of Olivia’s carefully aimed dodge balls, and I rubbed my arms. I could still feel the bruises.
“Yes, Olivia La Belle,” mother repeated and wrinkled her nose. “Do you have wax in your ears, sugar plum?”
My mouth was too dry to tell her my ears weren’t the problem. “I thought we’d chat her up and see if she’s available any time soon,” Cissy said, clearly ignoring the stricken look on my face. She steered the Lexus past a long line of shiny Caddies, Mercedes, Range Rovers, and Beemers that took up one side of the driveway and some of the expansive front yard. She finally turned into the circle around the fountain and pulled up to the valet. “You and Brian really need to firm up the date. Wouldn’t it be the bee’s knees, havin’ your old schoolmate in charge of your wedding?”
Was Cissy insane?
La Belle from Hell planning my wedding?
I shuddered at the thought.
“Absolutely not,” I said, plain and simple, and gave my mother the evil eye as we got out of the car; but she ignored me, smiling at the valet as she handed over her keys.
Hiring Olivia wouldn’t be the bee’s knees at all. It’d be more like being swarmed by an entire, very angry beehive.
Chapter 2
“If you’d follow me, please,” an unsmiling man in a dark suit with a headset said politely, and he led Mother and me inside to the two-story foyer with dripping chandelier and curving staircase that had been set up like the security checkpoint at the airport.
Impeccably dressed guests were lifting their arms and being wanded, while others were opening purses for inspection and surrendering their cell phones to receive paper stubs in a modern-day version of a coat check.
“They’re confiscating cell phones?” I murmured.
“Shelby said they were running a tight ship,” my mother whispered. “They don’t want anyone but the official wedding photographer snapping pictures.”
What, no selfies with the pregnant bride and her proud papa?
“Spoilsports,” I said, but Cissy didn’t laugh.
I figured the Black Suits were hired guns, not Secret Service, since Senator Ryan wasn’t yet a presidential nominee. We opened our bags so one could rifle through the contents and then another confiscated our phones and gave us numbered stubs in return.
“After you,” my mother said and nudged me forward toward the guy with the wand.
“No, no, age before beauty,” I cracked. But if Mother’s frown was any indication, my attempt at humor once again fell flat.
At the Black Suit’s prompting, I raised my arms, and he started scanning the length of me. I suddenly feared he’d do a pat-down and feel the Lycra binding my gut and butt. Would he then ask me to remove the Spanx to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything? I wondered, although it was impossible to hide anything beneath Spanx but flesh.
I’d heard more than a few TSA horror stories involving strip searches, and I’d read about police arresting a teenage girl and finding a loaded gun hidden in her hoo-ha.
Big Brother wasn’t just watching. He was doing body cavity checks.
“You’re good to go,” the Black Suit said, and I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.
I watched my mother take her turn next. She looked as anxious as a bull at a cattle auction, gearing up to have its hooves checked and its junk inspected. But she was done in a minute flat, and all was well.
“What, no three-D X-ray machine?” I remarked once Cissy had rejoined me. “That’s disappointing.”
“Andrea.” She said my name in that way mothers had of issuing a warning with one mere word.
“Will we at least get one free beverage on this flight?” I asked and snapped my tiny clutch closed—a Judith Leiber bag of my mother’s, also on loan like the dress—that contained little more than a wad of Kleenex, one Vanilla ChapStick, and a half-eaten roll of Wintergreen Life Savers.
“This way, please.” A woman in a crisp white shirt, black vest, and bow tie approached us after we’d cleared security.
No way was she Secret Service. I don’t think they ever dressed like cater-waiters.
“Thank you, dear,” Cissy said to the woman and proceeded to follow, her Saint Laurent kitten heels tapping a beat on the polished marble floors.
We traveled a path from the foyer through a wide hallway into a richly appointed living area that seemed to be missing one wall entirely. A bank of folding doors had been opened wide, and we stepped onto a partially covered patio with balconies above supported by dramatic arches. Beyond lay a backyard that looked more like a ritzy resort than private property. Farther along the expansive patio area, the black-vested wait-staff appeared to be putting the finishing touches on tables for the reception.
“Oh, my,” I heard my mother say, “this is lovely.”
What Cissy considered “lovely” seemed like overkill to me. I tried to calculate in my brain how many rescued dogs and cats Lester Dickens could have saved by donating to Operation Kindness instead of putting in multiple freaking swimming pools, and I figured it was plenty. Yes, dead ahead were acres of limestone pavers surrounding not one, not two swimming pools, but three.
Beyond the centermost pool sat a cabana with its awnings drawn wide. The opening was framed by a thick arch of twigs twined with fairy lights and scads of purple orchids. In fact, there were twigs and orchids and fairy lights just about everywhere I looked. As we approached the cabana, I heard music and saw a string quartet off to the side playing Mozart. At least they weren’t playing the “Wedding March,” so we couldn’t be that late.
When my mother realized where we were going, she hesitated.
/> “We’re sittin’ in the pool?” she drawled none too happily into my ear, noticing the rows of silver Chiavari chairs that appeared to be hovering atop the water.
“There’s an acrylic floor,” I told her and stepped onto the thick plastic. “See? We’re fine. You’ll stay as dry as toast.”
“What if the weight’s too much and we all fall in?” she asked, raising a hand to her freshly done hair as if getting it wet would be a fate worse than death.
“Then I guess I’ll drown instead of being squeezed to death by my underwear,” I replied and tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t.
The woman in vest and bow tie cleared her throat.
“Would you prefer the groom’s side or the bride’s?” she asked, and Mother told her, “We’re with the bride.”
The woman found us spots on the outside aisle closer to the back than the front, which made Cissy grimace.
“You can see from here just fine,” I told her as we sat down, but that wasn’t exactly the case.
Dallas women liked their hair big and—apparently where spring weddings were concerned—their hats, too. Well, the seating was outdoors without a canopy above. So maybe their chapeaus protected their helmet heads from bird droppings. As I was scoping out the headgear, which was worthy of the Kentucky Derby, Mother was craning her neck this way and that, trying to get a fix on the spot beneath the arch of twigs and orchids where the bride and groom would stand.
When I heard her sigh, I looked at my feet to avoid what I was sure would be a first-class glare. Pale blue water seemed to ebb and flow beneath my shoes. Though the clear acrylic floor sat at least six inches above the water line, I could still feel water sloshing. Maybe it was all in my head, but it had a most unfortunate result.
I leaned toward my mother and whispered, “I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the bathroom,” I said. I could feel the Spanx compressing my poor bladder. I suddenly wished I hadn’t drunk half a gallon of green tea with lunch.
“Now?”
“Yes now.”
“No.” She grabbed my arm and held me still. Did she think I was purposefully trying to skip out on the ceremony? Or was she afraid I’d get into trouble if I didn’t have proper adult supervision?
“Do you want me to pee in my pants?” I asked and crossed my legs. “You’re free to chaperone if that’d make you happy.”
For a moment she seemed to consider the option. Then she sighed and let me go. “I don’t want to risk losing our seats,” she said. “Just be quick about it, please.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. Quick was my intention.
Although I’d attended a few outdoor events in the past with Mother and/or Brian where the hosts had fancy portable potties stationed outdoors (they had sinks for hand washing, which was probably as fancy as portable potties got), I couldn’t imagine Senator Ryan making a former president and his wife duck into plastic water closets to do their business. Yes, I’d seen the pair seated a few rows ahead of my mother. And, nope, I didn’t spot a single Porta Potty anywhere around.
So I meandered back toward the faux Mediterranean manse, figuring a house that size had to have a bathroom or ten. I made a beeline for a cadre of folks in black vests and bow ties hurriedly setting up for the sit-down dinner, figuring one of them could point me in the right direction.
“Could you tell me where I’d find a powder room?” I tried to ask one and then another, but they scurried about like ants on a mission. Either they didn’t know where the restrooms were or else they’d been told not to interact with the guests.
I dared to step inside the open doors leading into the kitchen, which not surprisingly looked like a granite and stainless steel vision from Architectural Digest. Voices shouted instructions, pots and pans clattered, people raced about, and steam rose from various burners on industrial-grade stoves.
One voice in particular sent a chill up my spine.
“Where the hell have you been?” I heard it snap.
Oh, no, I thought and swallowed hard, stopping in my tracks.
I would have recognized that derisive drawl anywhere even if it wasn’t yelling, “Andy’s got no boobs! Andy’s a boy!” But I quickly realized the shouts weren’t aimed at me. Instead the angry tone appeared to be directed at a woman in owlish glasses who stood near two young cater-waiters balancing a board between them that carried a seven—yes, I counted seven—layer wedding cake. The way the two guys were wincing, it must have weighed a hundred pounds.
“What in God’s name took you so long, Millie? Did you walk all the way here from your shop on Mockingbird with the cake strapped to your back? You’re an hour late!” Olivia La Belle, the bully from my prep school days, berated the baker, who I knew was Millicent Draper of Millie’s Cakes. Mother had used her for all my birthday cakes starting from Year One, and I’d adored her. She’d forever be the Cake Lady to me. Yes, Millie was older and snowcapped—with a blob of ivory fondant stuck to her tortoiseshell glasses and a terrified expression on her face—but she still looked much as I remembered.
Unfortunately, the same could be said for my archenemy. I hadn’t laid eyes on Olivia in over a decade, but she’d hardly changed a fig. She was still tall and broad-shouldered, just as she’d been when she captained the tennis team at Hockaday. The only difference I noted besides vague crow’s-feet and frown lines was that she’d cropped her white-blond hair from the shoulder-length bob I remembered. Her head now sported a pixie cut framing a face that would have been pretty in that vacuous Texas pageant girl way if it hadn’t been so viciously scowling.
“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Millie apologized and wrung her hands. “I did my best, but it took every spare second to finish up. I did the whole cake myself, and it had to be absolutely perfect—”
“It had better be perfect,” Olivia cut her off. “If I hear one guest complain that their slice is dry or the fondant’s too thick, you won’t get a penny.”
Millie blanched. “But that’s a ten thousand dollar cake!”
Ten grand for a cake?
My mouth fell wide-open.
“Go on now, boys, and set it down on the round table on the patio that’s ringed with orchid petals. I’ll bring the servin’ pieces out,” Olivia told the two waiters. Then she reached into a suitcase-size satchel and removed a robin’s-egg-blue box. The recessed lights glinted off sterling silver as she plucked a long, sleek cake knife from within.
“Do you want me to stay and cut?” Millie asked, though her meek tone suggested she’d like to do anything but. “Once the bride and groom get their pictures, I mean. Because you’ll need to be careful with—”
“Are you nuts?” Olivia cut her off with a little shriek. “Do I want you to stay and cut?” she repeated, her tone ugly. “Over my dead body,” she hissed, and she waved the cake knife in the air for emphasis. “Now get out of my sight, you old bag, before I say somethin’ I’ll really regret!”
Poor Millie’s hand went to her heart and she swayed.
That did it.
I was no longer a scrawny teenager with braces and an inferiority complex, and I wasn’t about to let my old bully push around a nice woman like Millicent Draper. It was sort of like watching the devil make mincemeat out of a sainted grandmother.
My feet started moving, and I did a Texas two-step around the waiters hauling out the mile-high cake. My chin up, I strode toward the wedding planner with my hands clenched into fists.
“Back off, Olivia,” I barked in Millie’s defense—something I’d wanted to say for a very long time—nearly forgetting in my rush of anger that I seriously had to pee. “If you’re in the mood to pick on someone, go ahead and pick on me. But be warned that I just might bite back.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Olivia shouted at someone over her shoulder. “Turn it off, Pete
,” she ordered, and I realized there was someone standing not six feet behind her. He’d been so quiet back there in the shadows, stalking Olivia with a handheld camera. “Take ten while I put a cork in this nutcase.”
Pete nodded but didn’t speak. I noticed his beard and plain black T-shirt—and the tattoos of roses and thorns wrapped around his arms—as he lowered the camera and walked away.
Was Pete chronicling the wedding for the family or was Olivia taping for her silly reality show? I assumed it had to be the former. It was hard to believe the senator would allow Olivia to record private moments from Penny’s wedding for a reality TV show when the security detail was confiscating cell phones at the door. Then again, I wouldn’t put anything past Olivia La Belle. She’d never cared about other people’s rules.
“Just who do you think you are in your bad shoes and ill-fittin’ designer knockoff,” she snapped, squinting hard at me.
Bad shoes?
My cheeks warmed, and I glanced down at my feet. I was wearing my best pair of J.Crew wedge espadrilles, which hadn’t thrilled my mother either. But they were comfortable and they didn’t even have a lick of paint on them, like every other pair of shoes I owned. As for the borrowed dress, yeah, it was a tad too tight. I’d give her that. But it wasn’t a knockoff. My mother didn’t buy knockoffs. I would know for sure that Armageddon was near if I ever caught Cissy shopping at Nordstrom Rack or TJ Maxx.
“I’m nobody,” I told her, “and you’re making a scene.” Although no one else in the busy kitchen was paying any attention to us, and I wasn’t sure that Olivia cared besides.
She continued to rant like she had a fatal case of PMS. “How dare you interrupt when I was right in the middle of—” Abruptly, she stopped screaming and blinked.
Say Yes to the Death Page 2