A Wedding in Truhart

by Cynthia Tennent

  She was trying to be diplomatic, but I could read doubt in her eyes. Aunt Addie fished her wedding album from the annex. She proudly showed the dress to anyone who would look. It was made of lace and satin in a style that covered her from head to toe. She had been large even then, when she married my uncle at the age of forty-two. I couldn’t imagine how it would work.

  June and Scarlett were weighing in on the dress situation as well. Their ridiculous idea involved flying another dress into Truhart on a special plane. I wondered if they had already dipped into the liquor cabinet. All the money in the world couldn’t fly a wedding dress into the middle of a snowstorm.

  “Once I cut the material I can make it look very pretty,” Mary explained, grabbing the album out of Aunt Addie’s hands. “Actually a wedding dress is one of the simpler styles to sew. I can make it look like one of those beautiful dresses in your magazine. I’ll cut off the arms and the neckline, and then I’ll reshape the bodice and pinch in the waist. You won’t even recognize it.”

  Aunt Addie looked at Mary like she had grown two heads. “You will do what with my dress?” She put her hand on her hip and glared.

  Mary waved her hand in the air, dismissing Aunt Addie’s concern. “Oh, come on, Adelaide. It’s not like you are going to wear it again. You have to agree it is a little . . . well, dated.”

  “What do you mean, dated? That dress is absolutely beautiful. I thought you were going to resize it, not chop it up.”

  “Well, you can chop mine up,” said Marva, thinking she was being helpful. “I’d be happy to go home and bring it over. The taffeta would shine real nice for your video cameras.”

  “God almighty, Marva, your dress is worse than Addie’s!” declared Corinne.

  I escaped the room as it erupted into loud bickering.

  “Well, it looks like that’s the last car that’s going to make it on the road tonight,” declared Mom. Mary’s Jeep carried my cousins to her house. It crept down the driveway, the headlights engulfed in white before they turned onto the county road.

  The day had gone from bad to worse when the last of the Adler cousins arrived. As usual, they had failed to give us a final head count, and Mom had had to scramble to get several cousins a bed at Mary’s. It took them forever to decide who would stay at the inn and who would go to Mary’s. I was so confused I still didn’t know who was staying where by the time they finished talking.

  There was no question that the rehearsal dinner at the Red River Lodge should be canceled. The roads were too dangerous. Even the camera crew had decided to stay put and camp out in the lobby. There seemed little point in rehearsing without the minister. Ian kept the wedding party and the camera crew entertained with a card game. Alain finally woke up from a long nap. He stared morosely into the fireplace, muttering something about a weekend in Palm Beach he had passed up.

  Travis, Scarlett, and June fretted over the guests who were stranded at the Grande Lucerne. And Jessica looked miserable. She had passed up the card game to sit next to her mother. With her head down and her hair straggling over her face, I wondered if she was wishing she were back at school with her friends.

  Marva and Corinne had left in their snowmobiles hours ago, before the snowdrifts grew deeper. Earlier, they had helped Mary measure Charlotte and cut and baste a rough template for a dress using an old sheet. No one agreed on exactly what the dress would look like or be made of, but everyone agreed that plan B was a necessity. Charlotte held out little hope that her original wedding dress might arrive by tomorrow, especially after the evening forecast.

  Grady made several trips out into the snow. He tried to shovel a pathway around the inn, and the snowplows had been nice enough to visit our stretch of road several times. But the wind and drifting snow won the battle by late afternoon. With the exception of the snowmobile paths that were barely visible from the lobby window, we were well and truly cut off. Almost three feet of snow had fallen by the time the sun set.

  That was when Charlotte’s tears started.

  She sat on the couch in front of the fire with Henry’s arm around her and clutched a tissue. The silence in the room was cut only by Charlotte’s occasional sobs. Unable to handle it after the first few minutes, Ian hastily made everyone drinks. When Brittany asked if he could make her a Truhart Twister, he looked at her like she was crazy. I remembered the story I had told at the Double Olive in Atlanta and wondered if I should explain. But Ian squinted his eyes and left the room. When he returned he held a tray of drinks that looked lethal. After one sip Brittany declared her love for it. Henry forced Charlotte to drink two. This earned him a censorious glare from Aunt Addie, but a thumbs-up from Ian.

  Nestor was the only one unfazed by the situation. He heated up the meal he had planned for New Year’s Day and said he could make things work no matter what. Mom and I helped him in the kitchen, glad that his famous venison chili was already made. Even June would be impressed by that.

  Nick had decided to stay at the inn through dinner and avoid the bedroom shuffling that was still going on with my cousins. He said he would borrow one of our snowmobiles if he couldn’t make it to his mother’s on foot. I felt his gaze on me as I moved around the inn, taking care of details. I helped prepare dinner and finished a few last-minute tasks in the guest rooms. It helped me forget my worries if I kept busy and tackled one task at a time.

  When I entered the lobby to tell everyone that dinner was ready, I found Brittany staring at me. She took a sip from her tumbler and giggled. I wished to God that I could grab the drink from her hand and swallow it, but a drink would put me over the edge right now.

  Nick walked over and stood next to me as everyone filtered into the dining room. “You have flour in your hair,” he whispered. No wonder Brittany had laughed. I didn’t even care. He kissed me on the tip of my nose when the last person left the room. “Annie, why don’t you just sit down and enjoy your meal? We can all lend a hand later.”

  I shook my head. Somehow I couldn’t see Brittany with her hands buried in dishwater. Nick reached out and massaged the back of my neck. I leaned into him. For the first time in a long time, I was too tired to talk.

  “Does the minister have a snowmobile?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well then, this wedding will happen no matter what.”

  I suppose there was a simple comfort in that thought. If only a minister could solve our debt problem too. I walked over to the desk and grabbed my dad’s old camera.

  “I guess we’ll all laugh over these pictures someday, huh?”

  “You know, I can think of a lot worse things than being snowed in with you,” Nick said. He kissed me again.

  A commotion in the dining room caught my attention. What now? I pulled away from Nick to see what was happening and ignored his protest as I left the room.

  Charlotte and Aunt Addie stood inside the dining room doorway, arguing loudly while Mom hushed them and glanced nervously at the guests gathered near the table. But it was too late for good manners. June, Scarlett, Travis, and Brittany were focused on the doorway above us. They stared with mixed expressions of amusement and horror. I looked up to see what they were looking at and my heart sank. Macaroni reindeer dotted the garland that framed the room.

  “—I’ve been looking for them for weeks,” Aunt Addie was saying. “Grady found them in the golf shack and was nice enough to put them around the room for me. What are you so upset about?”

  Charlotte’s face was purple in the low light of the dining room. She pointed up and stamped her foot. “Mom, make her take them down!”

  “Now, Charlotte—”

  “Mom! This is so embarrassing!”

  “Let’s take this into the kitchen,” Mom said as she coaxed Charlotte and Aunt Addie through the swinging doors. I put the camera down in the corner and followed Ian, nodding and smiling sweetly at the table of guests as if this happened all the time.

  The door had barely swung closed when Charlotte started talking. “I can’t be
lieve you are going to let her keep them up. You have to take them down before the wedding.”

  “Why? I thought you liked my pasta ornaments,” said Aunt Addie, stricken.

  “Why would you think that? They are the tackiest decorations I have ever seen,” Charlotte declared loudly.

  Ian stepped forward. “Look, let’s leave them up for now. They’re kind of fun and part of our tradition.” Aunt Addie’s eyes were filling with tears and he put his arm around her shoulders.

  “It’s great that Grady found them, Aunt Addie,” Ian continued softly. “I was really missing them.” He looked over Aunt Addie’s head at me and we exchanged guilty looks.

  “Of course you don’t care how this looks! You and your card games and snow golf... and your music! Ian, all you seem to think this wedding is about is you and your chance at fun and fame! Well, all of your lame attempts to get on The Morning Show aren’t going to work. I swear to God, Ian, if you so much as try to embarrass me I am going to cut you out of every part of the video we air, especially the parts where you play music.”

  Ian’s expression turned cold. He clenched his jaw as if he wanted to say something but didn’t trust himself. I watched him stalk off to the sink and pour Aunt Addie a glass of water. When he returned he shoved the glass into Aunt Addie’s hands and glared at Charlotte.

  “We are all going to remain calm here, okay, everyone?” Mom said, looking at each of us and enunciating each word. Her voice shook as she spoke. “This is not a disaster. Do you hear me? We are going to remain calm and go back into that dining room and show those people that Adlers are not people who let things like snowstorms get the best of them. Is that understood?” We all recognized her tone from childhood, the don’t mess with me tone. But I saw her shake.

  Even Charlotte knew not to cross the line. She glared at Ian before stomping out of the room. Ian shook his head and turned to guide Aunt Addie into the dining room. I stayed behind to make sure Mom was all right. Her eyes glittered and her chin wavered as she stared at the swinging door.

  I reached out and touched her arm. She put her hand on top of mine.

  “I just wish your father were here, Annie. He would know what to do at a time like this.” She was thinking about more than just the wedding, I knew. There was so much that I wanted to say.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “Oh, Annie. What would I do without you?” Nodding her head toward the door, she said, “Come on, let’s try to make the best of this.”

  When we sat down to eat, the tension in the air was so thick you could cut it. Henry must have read my mind because he tried to lighten the mood.

  “Well, that cake is so beautiful I wonder if anyone would notice if I cut into it with a knife and stole a piece right now.”

  “It certainly is beautiful,” chimed in Travis. Even Brittany nodded her head and smiled nervously at the strain in the air. Everyone, including my cousins, looked toward Charlotte for confirmation, but she stared sullenly at the ornaments around the room and said nothing. Aunt Addie blotted the corner of her eye with a tissue and Ian’s frown deepened. He set down his napkin and rose from the table, heading over to the piano. He nodded toward the video crew to come closer as he fished out a sheet of music from the piano bench and turned on the microphone nearby.

  Sitting down, he flexed his fingers.

  “Uh-oh,” I heard Nick say from the other side of the table. He realized what was happening before I did.

  Ian’s fingers flew over the keys as he started playing. Charlotte’s water goblet was halfway to her mouth and froze in midair as Ian began to sing the sappiest song Barry Manilow had ever written.

  He was only halfway through the first verse when Charlotte slammed down her glass and stood up. Stomping across the room, she grabbed the lid of the piano and tried to slam it shut.

  Henry jumped out of his seat, but I was closer. I put my hand on the lid before Charlotte broke Ian’s fingers.

  “Hey,” Ian said. “I was playing a song.”

  “Stop it!” she hissed.

  I pushed Charlotte away from Ian. “That’s enough,” I said in a low voice.

  She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. A rumbling sound caught our attention. The roar grew louder until it shook the walls. From the corner of my eye I caught a flash of white out the window. Was that snow cascading from the roof? It sounded as if a freight train was racing above our heads. The chandelier shuddered. I looked up, wondering what was happening.

  Suddenly, a sharp crack of splintering wood ripped through the air.

  Then a chorus of cries erupted from the table. I could hear Alain yelling above the din, “Avalanche. Everyone run!”

  Most of us were too shocked to do anything but stand with our feet glued to the floor as dust poured from the ceiling. When the noise finally ended we still felt the echo vibrate through the room.

  It took me a moment to realize two things. One, the ceiling in the corner of the room was completely open to the night sky. And two, it wasn’t dust falling down. It was snow. My eyes followed the shower to the floor. Where the cake once stood, a pile of snow and frosting lay in a rubble on the floor. A sickening heap of white on white.

  Oh my God!

  A rush of cold air swept through the room and I realized in astonishment that the years of patching the roof hadn’t worked. The wood must have been rotting in the rafters.

  A crowd of people stood in the doorway where they had been cowering and stared at the wreckage. Mom put her hand on her chest and moved toward the pile of debris. She crouched down in shock and reached for a piece of wood as if she thought she could salvage something. Aunt Addie followed her, holding her arms up to protect Mom from the falling snow. She realized the futility as she looked up at the gaping hole and tried to pull Mom away. But Mom resisted. She knelt in the layer of rubble and tried to put things back together.

  A sense of loss hit me. My old camera lay under a pile of wood, broken into pieces.

  I looked back at Charlotte, who still hadn’t moved. She stared at the spot where her wedding cake had been. Her face was drained of all color. Except for her eyes. They were on fire.

  “My wedding is completely destroyed!” Her voice broke and she balled her fists at her sides. Henry put his arms around her, but even he looked scared at the sight of her unraveling right in front of us. She turned to him with wild eyes, “We should have stayed in Atlanta. Even that wedding hall with the pink fountain and bubbles would be better than this . . . this catastrophe!”

  Then she twisted toward my mother and screamed, “It’s ruined. You have all ruined everything!”

  Without thinking I stepped toward Charlotte and drew back my hand.

  “Annie!” Nick grabbed my arm.

  “Stop it, Charlotte! Just stop it!” I said. My voice was low and harsh. I barely recognized it. “Stop thinking about yourself and grow up! You and this wedding—you aren’t the center of everything!”

  Charlotte stepped back, startled by my outburst.

  “Mom has been doing everything she can to make your wedding special!”

  “Annie—” Mom said in warning behind me, but I ignored her.

  “Did you ever consider what this has cost her? You and your expensive dress and your trip to Vegas could have paid off half of the bills in Mom’s office. They could have kept us from losing the inn. Did you even know about that? Or were you too busy telling the world about origami ornaments on that phony morning show to figure out what was going on in your own family?” My voice rose as I spoke.

  I felt a hand pull on my arm and I shook it off. I was trembling with anger. “There is a lot more going on here than your wedding, Charlotte. But you wouldn’t notice because you’re so busy trying to be perfect for everyone else, you never considered your less-than-perfect family. Your wedding is a day in your life. Just one day! But this family has been there for you your whole life. Does that count for anything?”

  I stopped for breath and became painfully a
ware of the hush in the room. Even the snow coming from the hole in the roof was falling in silence.

  “Well, the viewers will love this segment with their morning coffee,” Ian said, breaking the stillness in the room.

  I turned around and saw the cameras pointed straight at me. If they kept this segment, my tantrum would give The Morning Show a ten-point boost in their ratings.

  Chapter 20

  All at once everyone began to talk. I stood, unable to breathe, wondering if I was going to faint from lack of oxygen. A pair of strong hands grabbed my shoulders and steered me out of the room. I wasn’t aware of where I was going or how my legs were holding me up. A door closed behind me. Then I heard Nick saying soothing words that didn’t register.

  I felt cold all over. He propped me up against a wall and ran his hands along my arms, holding me as I tried to stop my body from shivering. When I could stand on my own, everything started to come back into focus. I looked up at him and realized we were in one of the guest rooms.

  My mouth was dry. “Did I really just do that?” I put my fingers up to my lips, hoping that he would tell me I had imagined everything.

  Nick smiled and he tilted his head sideways. “I’m afraid you did, sweetheart,” he said gently.

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe I said all that. I just yelled at Charlotte. And everyone heard . . .”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “How could I? I completely lost it. Everyone must think I’m terrible for yelling at her.”

  “Well, actually, several people were cueing up behind you to do the same thing. I kind of think you were just the first in line.”

  I couldn’t believe he could joke at a time like this.

  “Nick! I almost slapped her.”

  “Well, I felt compelled to stop that one. I remember too many of your fights when you were little. You have a pretty vicious punch.”

  I lowered my forehead to his chest. The gravity of the situation began to sink in. “And the roof. The cake . . . What are we going to do?”

  “Who cares about the cake? I may only be the best man, but it seems to me that there is a hell of a lot more to a wedding than the cake. And a lot more that needs to be fixed than a roof.”