by John Saul
The temperature had soared into the high eighties, and the heavy silk dress had long sleeves. Nervously, she imagined herself walking across the wide yard and up the hill to Russell’s front porch with dark stains spreading under her arms. Just the thought of it made her skin go clammy. But what else was there to wear? She was just about to make a quick inventory of the clothes she’d brought with her when a car horn startled her. She looked out the window to see a gray Jeep Cherokee pulling into the yard. As it rolled to a stop, Karen gazed at the man behind the wheel. Though he looked vaguely familiar, she couldn’t quite place him.
And what was he doing here so early? The guests weren’t supposed to start arriving for another half hour. Her nerves getting edgier by the second, Karen abandoned the idea of searching for another dress, and hurried toward the door to take up her duties as hostess. But even before she got Otto’s front door open, she heard the voice of the old man himself.
And, as usual, he sounded mad.
Pushing the screen door open, Karen stepped out onto the front porch just as the man, heavyset, and a few years older than herself, was climbing out of the Cherokee. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. He wore jeans and a western shirt, and as he stepped out into the heat of the sun, he reached back into the car for a stained and battered cowboy hat with which to protect his balding head from the sun. Then, with an amused grin playing at the corners of his mouth, he leaned against the Jeep as the angry Otto Owen bore down on him.
“What the hell are you doin’ here?” the old man demanded as he strode across the yard. Stopping before he was close enough for the visitor to offer his hand, the old man folded his arms belligerently across his chest.
The younger man’s grin broadened into a smile in the face of Otto’s hostility, but to Karen the pleasant expression looked forced. “The wedding, Otto,” he said. “Russell did invite me, you know. I just came out early to see if I could lend a hand with anything.”
“He don’t need nothin’ from you,” Otto growled.
The man nodded in apparent resignation, as if he’d heard all this before. Finally he shrugged, almost sadly. “I don’t get it, Otto,” he said. “What is it you’ve got against making this place pay off?”
“Pay?” Otto Owen repeated, the color in his face rising along with his voice. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Henderson!”
And suddenly Karen realized who the man was, and why he looked familiar. Although he was older and had put on some weight, she remembered Carl Henderson perfectly clearly, from her childhood. He was four or five years older than she was, and he used to help her and her friends catch butterflies in the fields. In fact, hadn’t he gone to Cal Poly to study entomology? The two or three times she’d thought of him over the years, she’d assumed he’d wound up in a museum somewhere. But apparently he was still here, where he’d grown up.
“This farm paid pretty damned good for a lot longer’n you’d know about!” she heard Otto Owen sputtering as she turned back to the scene before her eyes. “First for my pa, then for me. And if it wasn’t for you bastards, it’d do just fine for my son and my grandson, too!”
“Come off it, Otto,” Henderson replied, his eyes narrowing as they fixed on the angry old man. “You know damned well these fields weren’t producing like they used to. And it’s not like anyone meant for that fertilizer to sterilize the hives! What the hell do you want from us? We’ve paid more damages than the crops were worth, and we’re still paying. Besides, if you and your precious pa hadn’t farmed the fields out, you wouldn’t have needed that fertilizer in the first place! Left to yourself, you’d have gone broke in another five years.”
“The hell I would!” Otto roared. “And I don’t need no more of your kind of help! Buncha damned chemicals polluting the place! No wonder you hafta have all them fancy hybrid bees. Regular ones couldn’t stand the pollution! Why don’t you just stay the hell away from here?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Otto,” Henderson said. “The fields still have to be fertilized, and the crops still have to be pollinated. All I’m trying to do is make things better for you! We’re working on your fields, and we’re supplying you with bees, and if you want to know the truth, I’m doing you a favor looking after the hives. If it was up to you—”
But Otto didn’t let him finish. Shaking his finger in the younger man’s face, his querulous voice rose once again. “We let you and the bastards you work for keep on taking care of us, and we’ll all be poisoned in five years! UniGrow, my ass—UniDead is what they should call your outfit!”
“I don’t believe it.” Karen realized she’d been holding her breath, half expecting Otto to take a swing at Carl Henderson. “Otto?” she called as she hurried off the porch and started toward the two men. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Otto’s concentration on Carl Henderson broken, he turned to glare at Karen for a moment, then swiveled on his heel and strode back to his son’s house, slamming the front door behind him.
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” Carl Henderson said, taking a tentative step in Karen’s direction. “I’m—” He stopped abruptly, then a look of recognition came into his eyes and a smile spread across his face. “My God—Karen Gilman! Even after all these years, I’d recognize you anywhere. And just as pretty as when you were a kid.” His smile faltered slightly. “You probably don’t even remember me, do you?” he asked. “I’d already gone to college by the time you got to high school. I’m—”
“Carl Henderson,” Karen finished for him, moving toward him and extending her hand. “I do remember you! You used to help me and the other kids catch butterflies! But I haven’t used ‘Gilman’ since I married my first husband.”
“Sorry to cause such a stir,” Henderson said as he waved a greeting to Russell, who had just emerged from the house up the hill, the tails of a half-buttoned dress shirt hanging over his pants. “I just figured I’d show up a little early, so Otto could get done with his yelling before everyone else got here.” As Russell came across the yard, Henderson leaned conspiratorially toward Karen, though when he spoke, he made sure his voice was loud enough for Russell to hear. “I’m going to tell you a secret, Karen. Your prospective father-in-law is crazy. Just plain out of his mind!”
As Russell clapped Carl Henderson on the back and suggested they have a quick drink—“just to get me through this hog-tying”—Karen retreated back into Otto’s house, wearily wondering what fight Otto might try to pick next, and if she was ever going to get married at all, let alone that very afternoon.
“I guess that will have to do it,” Karen pronounced half an hour later, checking her makeup in the mirror one last time. “You both look gorgeous, so let’s go get me married to Russell.”
She held still while Julie carefully set the minuscule hat and veil on her head. Molly looked up at her mother, her head cocked as her brows knit into a deep frown.
“How come your veil doesn’t cover your face?” she asked.
“Because I hate the feeling of them,” Karen replied. Or was it because for her second wedding she felt foolish getting all dressed up, let alone putting on a long veil? “Now let me see you.” Molly struck a pose, then pirouetted to show off her best dress, a soft pink that set off the little girl’s rosy complexion. Smiling, Karen turned her attention to Julie, who was wearing the one new dress Karen had purchased for the occasion, when neither her own wardrobe nor Julie’s had yielded anything that could be comfortably altered. She also suspected she might have bought the dress as a form of bribery. Now she found herself searching her daughter’s eyes for a last-minute change of heart about the wedding. “All set to walk down the aisle with your old mother?” she asked.
Julie hesitated for just a split second, and Karen could see her wrestling with the desire to make one last attempt to talk her out of going through with it. But to Karen’s relief, Julie managed instead to produce a smile that looked almost genuine.
“All set,” her daughter said.
“And you look beautiful.”
They left the bedroom and Karen and Julie paused in the living room while Molly went outside and waved to the musicians on the porch of Russell’s house, signaling them to begin playing. A moment later the first strains of the wedding march drifted across the yard, and Molly, picking up a basket she’d filled with wildflowers that morning, stepped off the porch. The yard was filled with people—so many of them that for a second Molly almost forgot what to do. But then she saw Kevin, standing next to his father at the top of the porch steps in the big house, winking at her.
I can do it, she thought to herself. And I won’t mess up, either!
Taking a handful of petals from the basket, she tossed them in front of her and started down the steps. Concentrating as hard as she could, she stepped slowly across the yard spreading petals in front of her. When she heard the crowd murmur a few seconds later, she knew her sister and mother must have emerged from the house, too. She had to resist the impulse to look back, but managed to keep on going until she was finally at the bottom of the steps that led up to Russell’s porch.
Julie waited until Molly had descended the steps from Otto’s house and begun to cross the lawn before following her. Now that the wedding was actually happening, and she had no more opportunity to argue with her mother about it, she found that she was actually enjoying it. Despite the fact that she’d resisted to the very last moment, showing no enthusiasm at all for the plans her mother had made, she loved the pale blue dress she and her mother had chosen, and now, as she followed her sister up the slope to Russell’s house, she realized that everything about the wedding was truly beautiful. The June day was perfect—clear and bright—and the hills, still green from the winter’s unusually heavy rains, made a perfect backdrop to the farm, and to Russell’s house.
Even the guests assembled on the lawn—though they were mostly complete strangers to her—looked open and friendly. Not at all like the people in L.A., who either didn’t look at you at all or stared at you like they were going to slit your throat at any moment. But here, not only was everyone looking at her, but they were all actually smiling!
Almost against her will, Julie found herself smiling back at them, glorying in the friendliness of the attention riveted on her, feeling that today, in the pretty, new dress and with her dark hair cascading loose down her back, she looked nicer than she’d ever looked before.
But then, as she was halfway up the slope to the house, she suddenly felt something else.
The sharp, unpleasant sensation of someone staring.
A stare that penetrated her sunny mood like cold steel, and made her suppress a shiver, despite the warmth of the afternoon.
For a moment her eyes met those of the man watching her, then she quickly looked away. There was something about him that frightened her, and as Julie continued up the hill, she found herself wanting to circle around, away from him.
But that’s stupid, she told herself. Just because he’s looking at you, it doesn’t mean he wants anything. He’s just an ordinary man. Yet as she walked past him, consciously keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, she felt again the chill blade of his gaze boring into her.
It was as if he was looking right inside her.
Once again she shivered, then found herself glancing at the man, despite her determination not to. Their gazes held for a fraction of a second, and he flashed a smile at her.
Julie felt herself flush and quickly jerked her gaze away. Now, as she kept walking, she had to struggle to keep her pace slow and measured. Just before she got to the steps to Russell’s porch, she dared to glance back once again.
Carl Henderson’s eyes were still fixed on her.
Suddenly Molly forgot.
She was at the foot of the porch steps, but what was she supposed to do next? Was she supposed to go on up, or was she supposed to stand somewhere else?
She felt a surge of panic, but then saw Kevin signaling to her. Quickly, certain her sister and mother must be right behind her by now, she tossed the rest of the petals onto the steps and darted up onto the porch to stand next to Kevin, who took her hand as a ripple of laughter moved over the crowd. Then she felt Kevin squeeze her hand, and saw her mother smiling at her, and decided that maybe she hadn’t messed up after all.
Julie, a slight frown betraying her feelings, joined Molly on the porch, then her mother came up the steps and moved next to Russell, who’d come out of the house to stand beside the minister.
The ceremony began.
Molly tried to listen to what the minister was saying, but just as he started the ceremony, the buzzing of a bee distracted her. She glanced quickly around, afraid at first that maybe the whole swarm was coming back.
Then she saw it.
A single bee, hovering over the flowers she’d dropped on the steps.
She tried to ignore it, but it came closer.
What if it stung her mother, right in the middle of the wedding?
The bee was on the porch now, still exploring the flowers. If Molly stuck her foot out, she could just reach it. And if she squashed it, then it couldn’t sting her mother! She edged her foot out, moving her white patent leather shoe closer to the bee.
It darted away, then instantly circled back, closer to Molly’s foot than before.
She edged her foot closer.
She glanced up, but nobody seemed to be watching her at all. And the bee was only a couple of inches away from her toe!
She lifted her foot, but just as she was about to reach for the bee, it flew away, and for a moment Molly didn’t know where it had gone.
And then, as she felt it on her leg, she knew.
Under her dress!
The bee had gotten under her dress, and now it was crawling up her leg!
She stifled the urge to jerk her skirt up over her head so the bee could fly away. If she could just hold perfectly still until the minister finished and the wedding was over …
Molly stood rooted to the spot, trying not to feel the insect’s movement tickling her skin as it crept up her calf to the spot on the back of her knee where she’d always been ticklish. Finally she could stand it no longer and moved her leg.
Not much—just enough to make the bee move a little.
That was when she felt the searing heat of the stinger sinking into her flesh.
She gasped, but managed to hold back the scream that rose in her throat.
How long? How much longer before the minister would be done?
She tried to listen, but the burning was spreading rapidly through her leg now, and she was starting to feel funny. Then, through the pain, she heard the words:
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Russell, you may kiss your bride!”
She looked up and saw Russell kissing her mother. She reached out toward her mother, but before her fingers even touched her mother’s arm, she felt it starting to get harder to breathe. She moaned, then lurched against Kevin, who looked down at her.
“Molly?” she heard him ask. “Hey, short stuff, you okay?”
Molly’s eyes widened and she struggled to speak, but her throat seemed to be closing, and all she could utter was a tiny gasp: “A … bee … st-stung me …” Her eyes glistening with tears, she reached down to press her hand against the spot on her leg from which searing heat was spreading rapidly in every direction. Yet even though the pain was almost more than she could bear, when she touched the place where the bee had stung her, she could hardly even feel her fingers against her flesh.
Pulling up her skirt, she stared in horror at her leg, inflamed to a red that looked even worse than the sunburn she’d gotten last summer. There was a bloodless white spot where the stinger had pierced her skin. She could still see the stinger itself, torn from the bee’s body when it tried to withdraw the weapon from her leg. She tried to pluck the stinger from her swollen flesh, but now she was losing control of her nerves, and all she could do was prod helplessly at the tiny black needle that had inflicted such agony on her.
A scream of pain and terror rose in her throat, but emerged only as a helpless gurgle.
Her attention caught by the strange sound, Julie glanced at her sister, gasped, then clutched at her mother’s arm. Startled, Karen pulled away from Russell and looked down. “Honey—?” she began. Then Kevin broke in and told her what had happened.
“She’s having an allergic reaction to a bee sting,” he said. “I’ll get the kit.”
As Karen knelt beside her young daughter, whose breathing was quickly dissolving into labored gasps, Kevin darted into the house, returning almost instantly with a first-aid kit. Taking the kit from his son, Russell opened it, found an Epi-Pen, and quickly injected a dose of epinephrine into the muscle of Molly’s thigh.
A moment later, as Molly’s breathing took on a terrifying feathery quality, Russell picked her up. “Come on,” he told Karen. “She’s going into shock and the shot isn’t working. We’ve got to get her to the clinic. Fast!”
With Molly whimpering helplessly in his arms, he pushed his way through the crowd, Karen following close behind him. Julie, stunned by how quickly it had all happened, tried to follow her mother and sister through the crowd, but before she could catch up her stepfather had gotten them into a car and was already heading down the driveway.
Feeling totally useless, Julie could only watch them go.
CHAPTER 4
“It’s all right, Molly,” Karen crooned. “It’s going to be fine.” But as she held her daughter in her arms, she wondered if her words were true. Molly’s leg kept swelling, and her knee—which she could no longer bend at all—had practically disappeared into her puffy flesh. The little girl’s breathing seemed to be getting worse by the second, and her skin was bright red all over.