She's With Stupid

by Amanda Dennis

  Lana and Emilie shared a puzzled glance. Normally, Kate would have been leading the charge to congratulate Emilie on embracing a potential future with Ethan. Instead, she was pouting in a corner and wrinkling the pristine white dress Emilie had gone to great pains to re-steam two days before. She also looked like she was going to be sick. Emilie found this alarming on several levels, not the least of which was that she didn’t know how to get regurgitated Perfect Perk coffee out of white satin.

  Emilie narrowed her eyes and was about to mention this salient fact when she was interrupted by a forceful knock. Three pairs of eyes shot to the door.

  “Who could that be?” Kate slowly sat up straight and visibly shook off her daze, staring up at her friends with an expression bordering on panic. “I specifically told my mother to stay out of here unless I asked for her, which I obviously have no intention of doing.”

  When the knocking began again, this time sharper and louder, Lana heaved a put-upon sigh. Stomping to the door in a huff, she opened it a crack, fully prepared to tell whoever it was to get lost. Instead, she squealed with delight, and exclaimed, “Auntie Olive! Oh, it’s so great to see you!”

  Lana opened the door wider to make way for a tall, plump woman wearing an electric blue muumuu. A hat with what appeared to be a stuffed bluebird adorning it was perched atop her sparse, feathery white mane.

  Emilie forced her eyes away from the hat when Aunt Olive bustled in and spotted her. “Emmy Lou, you come over here and give your old Auntie Olive a kiss,” the woman bellowed before pulling her into a suffocating hug. “My goodness, child, you’ve certainly come into your figure! After you pop out a few babies you’re bubbies will be as big as mine!” She groped shamelessly at Emilie’s breasts. “Ha!”

  Because Lana and Emilie had spent so much time at Aunt Olive’s home over the years, the older woman felt no compunctions about treating them like family. Consequently, she felt no compunctions about embarrassing them thoroughly.

  Lana crept up behind Aunt Olive and stuck her tongue out at Emilie’s appalled expression before mouthing “Gotcha!” silently.

  Her humor faded marginally when Aunt Olive sensed her presence and swung around, with Emilie still firmly in her grasp, and enfolded Lana into the soft folds of her other arm.

  “But you, girly, your rear end is still flat as a board.” The older woman reached down and gave Lana’s bottom an affectionate pinch, and Emilie’s lips curved in amusement at the look of chagrin on Lana’s face. “Ha! It’s so good to see you again, my darlings.”

  Aunt Olive chuckled again as she pulled them down and placed a wet kiss on each of their cheeks before reluctantly releasing them from her clutches and casting a sideways glance at Emilie. “I saw that nephew of mine lurking in the hallway. Seems to me he was always following you around like a loyal pup when you were youngsters, too,” she said archly.

  At the swift blush that rose high in Emilie’s cheeks, the older woman let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Ha! So that’s still the way the wind blows, is it?” She pinched Emilie’s cheek and continued to chuckle as she looked around the room.

  “Now, dearies, where is that niece of mine?” Auntie Olive scanned the room like a hawk searching for prey before spotting Kate, who was cowering in a corner on the opposite side of the room. “Why are you hiding over there, child?”

  Aunt Olive squinted at Kate, who remained conspicuously silent, before charging over to her grand-niece, hauling her to her feet, and giving Kate’s bodice an unceremonious tug. “Gracious, dear, you’re liable to fall out of this thing before the night is over.” She glanced over her shoulder to Lana and Emilie, who were desperately attempting to contain their enjoyment of the situation, and smirked. “I guess that’s the general idea, eh girls? Ha!”

  Lana and Emilie gave up the fight and burst into a fit of laughter that had Kate throwing a killing look their way. The glare quickly switched to panic when Aunt Olive turned her attention back to Kate.

  “Now listen up, girly. I have something very important to give you and I need you to focus for just a minute on something other than how to fix the mess you’ve made of your hair.”

  Kate’s hand flew to her only slightly poufy hair, her eyes searching out Emilie’s for reassurance. Taking fortifying breaths, Emilie and Lana moved to stand on either side of Kate. They smiled sweetly at Aunt Olive but didn’t budge from their positions when she gave them a disgruntled snort.

  Apparently deciding it wasn’t worth putting up a fuss, Aunt Olive shrugged and turned her attention to rummaging through her cavernous handbag. Kate caught Emilie eyeing the vintage Chanel bag and gave her hip a hard pinch.

  Emilie flushed guiltily and returned her attention to Kate. “Your hair is fine,” she whispered in her ear. “Or it will be after you let me fix a few of the curls in the back.”

  “I told you not to lean your head against the wall so much,” Lana hissed into her other ear.

  “Well, excuse me.” Kate glared at the two of them. “I’m surprised you guys even noticed me amidst all your self-congratulatory babbling.”

  Emilie’s jaw dropped in an affronted O of surprise, but her retort was cut off when Aunt Olive shouted “A-ha!” and all three of them nearly jumped out of their skins.

  Kate’s eyes became small saucers as she saw what Aunt Olive was waving in front of her face. It seemed to be some sort of faded pink cloth, but it was so wadded up it was difficult to be sure. The older woman confirmed her suspicions when she sat her purse on the ground and launched into a story of love and loss in her youth, which they all suspected had occurred sometime in the late nineteenth century.

  The handkerchief had evidently played a key role in this love affair, and Aunt Olive loquaciously filled them in on all the details of love gone wrong in Budapest. She finally got to the point when she declared that she wanted Kate to carry this precious cloth when she walked down the aisle.

  “It would mean so much to your old Auntie Olive, dear,” she said with a snivel as she wiped her eyes and nose with the aforementioned family memorabilia.

  “Uh, well—”

  Kate was saved from having to find an excuse when Emilie began to speak. Kate gave her a sappy smile of gratitude, feeling completely certain that Emilie would take care of this and diplomatically make Auntie Olive understand that Kate wasn’t really into handkerchiefs, especially old, soggy ones. Emilie would let Auntie Olive down gently. Emilie would — wait just a minute, why was Emilie taking the hanky from Auntie Olive and kissing the old lady on her cheek, sweet as you please?

  Kate was appalled when her overwhelmed brain tuned into what Emilie was actually saying. “Of course Kate will carry the handkerchief. It’s so kind of you to want to share this little piece of your history with her.” She looked at Kate and made a face that Kate interpreted as asking her to play along. “Isn’t it, Kate?”

  Kate sent Emilie a silent, desperate plea with her eyes, and then turned to Lana, who avoided her gaze by bending down to pick up Aunt Olive’s purse for her.

  Turning back to Aunt Olive, Kate opened her mouth and said, “I really don’t—oof.” She looked down to find Lana’s fist pressing down on her foot. Giving Lana a shove, Kate repeated, “But I don’t—”

  Sensing that Kate was about to panic and/or punch her Auntie Olive in the nose, Emilie seized the hanky from Aunt Olive’s fingers and stepped in front of a flabbergasted Kate. Quickly folding the hanky to make it as small as possible, Emilie grabbed hold of the too-tight bodice and shoved the damp material down into the front of the wedding dress.

  Lana clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the squeak that escaped it. Kate opened her mouth, prepared to tell her friends where they could take the hanky and stick it, when Emilie leaned forward and hissed “Just do it or she’ll never leave!” before stepping back to her side.

  Blinking, Kate faintly nodded her head and flashed a beaming Aunt Olive a wan smile. She gave her bodice another tug. “I, uh, would be proud to carry it. Thanks, Au
nt Olive.”

  Aunt Olive gave them all another wet, smacking kiss before Lana managed to gently usher her out of the room. “Now I want that back when you’re done with it, dear!” Aunt Olive peaked back around the door frame and gave Kate a sharp look.

  “Don’t worry, Auntie Olive. We’ll make sure you get it,” Lana assured her before firmly shutting the door. When the lock clicked in place, she turned to find a disgusted Kate with her hand down her dress and a frantic Emilie trying to pry her hand away.

  “Stop! You’ll rip the gown!”

  “I don’t care! I don’t want that snotty rag against my skin all night.”

  “She meant well.”

  “Ha!”

  “I’m telling you, I pushed it down really far and you’re gonna tear the dress if you keep pulling! Then you’ll have to walk down the aisle naked.” Emilie threw her hands up in exasperation. “Is that what you want?”

  Grudgingly admitting defeat, Kate pulled her hand out and pouted. “Why did you have to push it down so far?”

  “I didn’t mean to! I was trying to make her happy so she’d leave!”

  “So,” interjected Lana before the other two could murder each other. “Are we having fun yet?”

  Emilie and Kate shot her dirty looks, but they were already starting to see the absurdity in the situation.

  “I’m pretty sure she had every intention of shoving the thing down there herself.” Emilie threw her hands in the air again and laughed at the image that conjured. “I thought I was helping you out by doing it for her.”

  Kate grinned. At least her good humor had returned. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess I’m glad it was you feeling me up instead.”

  “Never a dull moment, eh?” Lana laughed and sat on the piano bench next to Kate.

  “Pshaw,” said Kate. “It’s early yet. We’ve still got a whole hour till the ceremony.”

  Chapter 24

  Kate’s mother came fluttering into the dressing room full of grim tidings thirty minutes before the wedding was set to start. When the door crashed open, Lana held the veil she was trying to straighten out of harm’s reach and quickly darted backwards to avoid getting cuffed by the doorknob. A startled Emilie poked her head out from under Kate’s dress, where she had been trying to detach the heel on Kate’s shoe from the crinoline in the slip.

  They had finished taking the bridal party pictures five minutes before, when Kate had nearly fallen off the steps leading down from the altar. Lana had managed to break her fall, but the veil had come loose, mussing Kate’s hair again as the two of them had tumbled to the floor in a heap. Emilie had been forced to stifle an appalled gasp of amusement at the sight of the pair of them sprawled out at the foot of the altar cross with their dresses hiked dangerously high before quickly hauling them to their feet and restoring order to the proceedings.

  Neither girl had been physically hurt, though Lana had been a little dazed and Kate had seemed a heartbeat away from hysterics, so Emilie had coolly led them back to the dressing room to repair Kate’s hairdo and resolve the slip issue.

  They had enough problems without Kate’s mother adding to the mix.

  Kate’s gaze seesawed frantically between Emilie and her mother. When her mother had so unceremoniously entered the room, Kate had been attempting to maintain her balance and not topple over again while Emilie tugged on the bit of slip that had attached itself to her heel. Since the last thing her day needed was a visit from her mother, Kate scowled and muttered, “What now?” in a dire tone.

  Apparently immune to her only child’s surliness, Evelyn glided further into the room. “The guests are roasting in that church,” she declared, dramatically waved her arm around in a fanning motion and narrowly missing Lana’s head. “Something must be done about the temperature in that room!”

  Emilie carefully crawled out from under Kate’s dress. “I thought the temperature was fine when we were getting our pictures taken, Evelyn.”

  “Well, it’s not fine now!” Evelyn said with a frenzied shake of her head. “The guests are arriving and it is sweltering.”

  She was carrying a shopping bag of some sort in her other arm and brandishing it around like a sword. Lana discreetly moved closer to Emilie and Kate in an effort to avoid getting smacked in the face.

  “It will not do,” cried Evelyn. “And the flowers! They’re scattered willy-nilly around the sanctuary like it’s a dreadfully tacky funeral instead of my only daughter’s wedding. It’s appalling!”

  Evelyn directed an expectant frown at Emilie and heaved a sigh of frustration when Emilie continued to stare at her as if she was speaking gibberish. “You have to fix it, Emilie, dear.” Evelyn shook her head at all three of the girls’ vacant expressions, as if she simply couldn’t understand why she had to do everything.

  “Why can’t you deal with it, Mom?” Kate began wringing her hands in distress. “Emmy is helping me, and I don’t want—”

  Evelyn cut her daughter off with a slash of her hand. “You have Lana to help you. Besides, I got something for you today and I need to give it to you now. Emilie can deal with the flowers and the temperature while I spend some time with you. Is spending a few moments with your mother before the biggest event of your life really too much to ask?”

  This was evidently a rhetorical question because Evelyn bustled forward and gave Emilie a forceful nudge towards the door. “Go on, dear. I have every confidence in you.” She smiled before turning her attention back to her daughter and hustling her to the screen in the corner of the room.

  Kate shot a desperate glance over her shoulder at her friends, but her mother refused to slow down. When they reached the screen, Evelyn gave her a brisk shove and followed her behind it with an ominous frown of determination.

  Emilie and Lana watched them disappear, listening to the hushed argument escalating behind the screen with dread.

  “I can go deal with the flowers if you want,” Lana offered.

  Emilie shook her head. “No, I’m fine,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll handle it and be back as soon as I can.” She opened the door and gave a theatrical toss of her head in a fair imitation of Evelyn. “Hold down the fort for me, won’t you, darling?”

  Lana grinned and gave her a mocking curtsy. “But of course, my lady, anything at all for you.”

  Halfway out the door, Emilie turned back to Lana. “Try not to let her mom get under her skin,” she whispered. “She’s already about to snap.”

  With that dire warning, Emilie left an anxious Lana and hurried to assess the situation in the sanctuary.

  Though she certainly felt bad leaving Lana alone with Kate and her mother, it was the least of Emilie’s worries at the moment. Everyone involved in this disaster of a wedding had been insisting that she take care of every single detail and every single crisis that emerged from it for months, and she was nearing her wits end. She enjoyed averting disasters as much as the next Type A gal, but this was ridiculous. So when she ran into her own mother in the hallway, Emilie felt a rush of relief at finding someone who might actually help her.

  After a brief hug, Lauren gave her daughter a concerned once over. “You look frazzled, honey. What’s wrong?”

  There was no time to waste, so Emilie grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her along behind her as she explained her predicament. “Kate’s freaking out. She’s been acting weird all day: she practically ate her way through the Formica at breakfast, she forced Lana and me to air out her cheesy Bridal Nightmare bedroom, and then she spent the rest of the afternoon acting moody and refusing to talk about what is actually wrong with her. All of this is a clear indication that she is due for a meltdown any second, and now she’s trapped in a corner with her mother while Lana tries to fix her veil and I deal with some sort of air conditioning/ flower catastrophe.”

  “Is that all?” Lauren asked wryly.

  Entering the sanctuary at a brisk jog, Emilie grabbed a stray flower arrangement in a thick glass vase and thrust it into
her mother’s arms. Picking up another vase, Emilie led the way down the aisle, giving faint nods and murmured hellos to several curious onlookers as she went. Upon reaching the altar platform, she wrestled the vase full of hydrangeas and hanging amaranths onto the ledge that bordered the steps and motioned for her mom to do the same.

  With a delicate grunt, Lauren placed the flowers where Emilie wanted them and discreetly wiped a streak of sweat from her forehead. “Well,” she said. “I certainly didn’t expect to do any heavy lifting today. Never a dull moment with you, is there, honey?”

  She smiled good-naturedly at Emilie, who flashed her mom a guilty smile as she lugged another, slightly smaller arrangement from the front pew and carried it onto the platform, placing it on a table already laden with the unity candle paraphernalia.

  “Sorry about this, Mama.” Emilie shrugged helplessly before she knelt to look under the table. Tossing a stray lock of hair over her shoulder, she blew out a frustrated breath when she didn’t find what she was looking for. “Where the hel—um, heck is the lighter?”

  “Emilie, watch your language!” Lauren scolded lightly. “You’re in God’s house.”

  “Sorry.” Emilie grinned ruefully. “It’s been a long day.”

  Avoiding her mother’s disapproving wince, Emilie ran down the steps of the stage and practically sprinted over to Aunt Olive, who was sitting five rows from the front, waving and grinning broadly as she approached.

  “Auntie Olive,” Emilie gasped as she rubbed at a stitch in her side and tried to catch her breath. “You wouldn’t happen to have a lighter stashed in that perfectly preserved classic designer purse of yours, would you?” She crouched down beside the older woman and gave her a hopeful look.

  Merrily pinching Emilie’s cheek, Aunt Olive winked and obligingly opened her bag. “You like this old thing, do you?” she chuckled. “Tell you what, if you and that nephew of mine ever manage to gracefully accept your fates and tie the knot, I’ll let you have it as a wedding present.” The speculative gleam in Emilie’s eye caused Auntie Olive to cackle with delight. “Oh ho, so that’s all it will take, eh? I’ll be sure to inform young Ethan that the way to your heart is through Chanel. That’s my girl.”