Even so... As Pamela broke from him and picked a careful path through the puddles to Lizard, calling, “Liz, it looks like your uncle and I are going to get married,” Joe couldn’t stifle a twinge of...wistfulness? Regret? He wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling.
Except that it seemed an awful lot like longing.
***
A BRIDE NEEDED her mother at a time like this.
Sighing, Pamela leaned back into the pillows. She was stretched out on her bed in the dreary furnished room that was destined to be her address for only a few more days. Her eyes burned, and she closed them against the too-bright light of the bedside lamp. She wanted to believe her tears were a result of frustration or even exhaustion. But she knew they weren’t.
Although it made no sense, she believed Jonas Brenner was the cause of her weepiness.
She couldn’t begin to fathom what it was about him that made her want to cry. Marrying him was far from the most arduous task she had ever faced in her life. Living in the charming room at the end of the upstairs hall in his house would be a pleasure after the week she’d spent at the ticky-tacky apartment complex. Lizard was a brat, but an intriguing one—and without her work, Pamela needed something to occupy her mind. Lizard would surely fit the bill.
So why were tears seeping through her lashes and skittering down her cheeks? Why was it that she could witness a cold-blooded murder, survive the ordeal of testifying against a killer in court, comprehend that she was in danger and flee for her life without shedding a single tear—and now all of a sudden, when salvation seemed at hand, she was as touchy as a twelve-year-old besieged by puberty?
Perhaps all brides went through this. Pre-marriage jitters. Second thoughts. Abject dread. Wedding Bell Blues. Third and fourth and fifth thoughts.
If only she could talk to her mother and ask whether it was normal to experience this strange blend of melancholia and exhilaration as she contemplated the step she was about to take. Had her mother been this anxious on the eve of her wedding?
Of course not. Her mother had been a sweet young thing, and madly in love with the man she was about to marry. She’d known him for two years, had a long, properly public engagement, become a part of his family and welcomed him into hers.
None of which described Pamela’s situation.
She fingered the telephone on her bedstand, then shoved it away. Her lawyer had warned her, for the safety of her parents, not to try to contact them directly. She could convey messages to him, and he would pass them along to her parents. “It’s easy enough for Mick Morrow to find your parents, if you honestly believe he’s after you,” her attorney had pointed out. “Don’t put them in a position where they have to conceal information about you. They’re safer if they don’t know anything.”
What would her mother say if Pamela called with the news of her betrothal?
She’d be miserable, Pamela realized. Miserable because she wouldn’t be able to attend the nuptials. Even more miserable because she would understand what a desperate step this was.
She would argue that Pamela could change her name and her identity without getting married. And Pamela would reason that getting married would make a name change seem more natural, and that it would be the last thing Mick Morrow would expect her to do. She was supposed to be a high-powered professional woman, not a mousy little hausfrau.
Her father would dwell on the practicalities. He would want to know what financial arrangements had been made, what contingencies had been planned for. But her mother would focus on matters of the heart. “How can you do this?” she would wail. “You don’t even love him!”
And Pamela would have no way to refute that.
She felt a steady stream of tears leak down her cheeks. She pictured the hose Lizard had wielded like a mad firefighter that afternoon in the garden. Her eyes gushed just as freely.
To her amazement, a chuckle slipped through her sobs. Lizard was a pint-size lunatic, but how could one not laugh at a little girl spouting arcana about mint and sage? Especially a little girl in a pajama top and jeans that apparently doubled as a doodle pad. Pamela recalled the solemn expression on Lizard’s face as the little girl told her, “It’s called foodilizer because plants eat it,” and “Earthworms are good cuz they stick air in the ground, and also cuz they’re slimy.”
Jonas had looked solemn, too—in a very different way. As Pamela had listened to Lizard’s dissertation on herbs, all the while trying to remain clean and dry while the wild child dug in the dirt and sprayed it with water, one part of her mind had remained firmly with Jonas on the porch with his lawyer, going through papers and planning strategies.
She didn’t know what to make of him. Yesterday, he’d been surprisingly tender and protective, letting her humiliate herself by crying in his arms. Once she’d gotten control of herself, he’d nobly acted as if she hadn’t fallen apart, as if she hadn’t blubbered and leaned on him and all in all behaved like the one thing she never wanted to be: a helpless female. When he’d suggested that she return for lunch today, she was afraid he would remind her of the fool she’d made of herself, but he hadn’t.
Still, it troubled her to think he had seen her at her weakest. What if all his promises held only until they were legally a couple, and then he took advantage of her—not financially or even sexually, but emotionally. He knew how frightened she was, and how much she hated to be frightened. He knew what a strain she was under.
Yet she had to trust him. She’d run out of options.
She shoved away from the bed, crossed to the door and stepped outside. The night sky was dark, laced with pale clouds. A tropical breeze floated across the parking lot, thick with the perfume of the ocean.
Three days. Three days until she would be Jonas Brenner’s wife. Three days to erase all her notions of white weddings, of the grand organ at the Presbyterian church her family had belonged to since before she was born, of the chapel’s long center aisle covered with a white satin runner, her father proudly bearing her down that aisle to deliver her to the man of her dreams—someone tall, dark and handsome, with a wall full of framed diplomas and a notable absence of jewelry on his ears. Three days to replace her fantasies of a reception dinner at her parents’ country club with the reality that awaited her: a grunge-fest at the Shipwreck.
Three days to come to her senses.
At this point, though, she wasn’t sure whether coming to her senses meant going through with the marriage or climbing into her car and hitting the road, searching for a new hiding place, a refuge, a haven not only from Mick Morrow but from Jonas Brenner and all the trouble he might well turn out to be.
Chapter Five
“LET’S SEE, NOW: you’ve got something old—” Kitty gestured toward the gold locket strung on a chain around Pamela’s neck “—and something new—” she tapped the white satin headband around which Pamela’s pale blond hair was arranged. Two more dabs with a cosmetics brush in the vicinity of Pamela’s eyes, and then Kitty hauled Pamela off the toilet seat and guided her to the mirror above the sink, so Pamela could see for herself the lush blue eye shadow Kitty had applied. “Something borrowed and something blue,” she said, snapping shut the cake of shadow and beaming proudly at her handiwork.
Pamela stared at the borrowed blue make-up, wondering whether two of the traditional bridal requirements could be met with a single item. Not that such details mattered. This wedding was a farce. Kitty knew it as well as Pamela did.
“I should have bought a new dress,” she grumbled, scrutinizing the sleeveless white shift that emphasized the ruler-straight lines of her physique. “This thing looks like an oversize undershirt.”
“It looks wonderful,” Kitty assured her, preening beside her in a strapless flowered sun dress. “Anyway, it’s white. How do I look?”
“Spectacular,” Pamela said, meaning it. Kitty’s cleavage bisected her sun-bronzed upper chest. The flare of her dress emphasized her narrow waist. Her bright blond hair glowed. Pamela wondered whether an
yone would even notice the bride standing in the shadow of her bridesmaid’s resplendence.
“I’m so excited,” Kitty squealed. “I’ve been married four times, but I’ve never been a maid of honor. Ever hear the expression, ‘Never a bridesmaid, always a bride’?” When Pamela didn’t smile, Kitty slid her arm around Pamela’s narrow shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. “Trust me, Pamela—this is going to be the party of the summer. A major blast. You’re going to have a great time.”
Pamela had never thought of weddings in terms of blasts, major or otherwise. She’d certainly never thought of her own wedding that way. A wedding ought to be a solemn occasion. Relinquishing one’s freedom shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Of course, Pamela had relinquished her freedom the moment she’d telephoned the police and announced that she’d witnessed a murder. Compared to that, marrying Jonas Brenner was hardly significant.
“You did say he cleaned up the Shipwreck,” she half-asked.
“We all did—Lois, Brick, me and a few others. You’re not going to recognize the place.” She marched Pamela into the bedroom, deftly navigating through the clutter, and lifted two bouquets from her unmade bed. Gardenias, Pamela noted wryly. Not exactly the sort of blossom she associated with weddings. When she thought of gardenias she thought of sultry Southern weather and fading Southern belles, and...
Sex. Gardenias implied eroticism, something hot and steamy and private.
With a weak smile, she accepted her bouquet from Kitty and followed her out of the flat. The late-afternoon air was sweltering. Pamela felt as if she were wading through sludge as she descended the stairs to the parking lot. By the time she reached Kitty’s ancient VW Beetle, she was drenched with sweat.
She settled onto the passenger seat and cranked down the window. Her palms were soaked, and she let the bouquet rest in her lap so she wouldn’t accidentally drop it onto the floor, which was littered with fast-food wrappers, bent straws and sand.
“Nuptial jitters,” Kitty said sympathetically as she coaxed the engine to life. “I had them before my first and third weddings. Don’t worry—a couple of beers and you’ll be feeling fine.”
Pamela eyed Kitty warily. “Jonas promised he’d have champagne.”
“Oh, yeah, sure—if you like that stuff. Me, I find it gives me a roaring headache. Plus, it’s too sweet. Tastes like soda-pop.”
Pamela considered explaining vintages to Kitty, and the difference between sec and brut, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. No doubt the champagne Joe would serve at a place like the Shipwreck would be just what Kitty predicted—sweet and guaranteed to cause a crippling hangover.
The drive took only five minutes. Emerging from the car, Pamela heard a cacophony of voices through the Shipwreck’s screened front door, on which was hung a sign that read “Closed for private party.” Judging by the noise, Pamela doubted the party was all that private. It sounded as if Joe had invited the island’s entire population to this shindig.
Before she could either march bravely into the bar or else come to her senses and flee, Kitty grabbed her arm and ushered her around the building, up an alley and into the small back lot where Jonas had offered his hand in marriage less than a week ago. “You can’t go in the front door,” Kitty reminded her. “No one can see the bride before the wedding.”
“What are we going to do? Stand out here roasting in the sun?”
Kitty ignored the exasperation in Pamela’s tone. “I’ll sneak you into Joe’s office. Hang on.” She opened the back door a crack, releasing a blast of boisterous voices. It sounded as if the party was already well under way.
Pamela glanced at her watch. Four forty-seven. The ceremony was supposed to start at five o’clock. Jonas had taken charge of the invitations, and Pamela had no idea what time he’d told people to arrive. In Seattle, wedding guests generally came at the hour the service was scheduled to begin—and early arrivals were not served liquor.
Who cares? she muttered inwardly as, baking in the merciless heat, she waited for Kitty to sneak her into the office. Who cared if her wedding guests were three sheets to the wind? Who cared if she was getting married in a seedy bar, surrounded by strangers?
To her surprise, Pamela realized that she cared. If she’d resolved to get married, she should have asserted herself a bit on the particulars: a chapel, not a bar. A morning service followed by a brunch for a few close friends—although in Pamela’s case, the only locals who could pass for friends—not close ones, at that—were Joe, Kitty, and Lizard. But the event should have had at least a modicum of class.
Tears dampened her lashes. She hastily wiped her eyes before Kitty returned to the back lot to fetch her. “Come on,” Kitty whispered, as if anyone could have heard her over the din in the main barroom.
Pamela let Kitty lead her inside, down the back hall and through a door. Jonas’s office was a small room taken up with an old, chipped desk, an even older-looking swivel chair, a tattered sofa, and a few file cabinets. Crayon drawings decorated the walls, and a cardboard carton in a corner held assorted toys. Pamela peeked inside and saw a tricorn hat, a rubber knife and what appeared to be a cheesily constructed prosthetic hook.
“That’s Lizard’s stuff,” Kitty explained the box. When Pamela dared to pick up the plastic hook, Kitty added, “That’s part of her pirate costume. You should see her when she gets all decked out as a pirate—the eye patch, the peg-leg, the gun... It’s adorable.”
I can imagine, Pamela thought wryly. “Why does she store her toys in Joe’s office?”
“So she’ll have something to play with when she’s hanging out here.”
“Here? What on earth would a little girl be doing in a bar?”
“Well, it’s not like she’s knocking back a few,” Kitty explained. “But if Joe has a baby-sitting snafu or something, he brings her along with him. She used to spend lots of time here when she was younger. He had a little port-a-crib set up in here for her to sleep in. Although sometimes it was hard to get her down with the juke box going, or if there was an especially rowdy crowd, so we’d bring her into the main room—”
“The bar?” Pamela couldn’t believe it. An innocent, defenseless little girl spending her evenings in a bar?
Then again, innocent and defenseless weren’t appropriate words to describe Lizard. In a brawl among a group of drunken brutes, Pamela would bet on Lizard to land the most punches.
“Everybody in the bar loves her. Me and Lois, even Brick. And the customers. And Joe, of course, most of all. It’s not like he wants to bring her here, but he’s got to earn a living and he can’t just leave her home alone. His mom was supposed to be Lizard’s baby-sitter, but sometimes she didn’t come through. Great lady, but less than a hundred percent dependable. And now she’s off in Mexico digging up bones—”
“Bones?”
“That’s the rumor.” Kitty swung out the door, calling over her shoulder, “I’m gonna see if we’re ready to roll.”
Pamela sighed. She wasn’t ready to roll. She wondered if it was too late to bail out of this charade. Surely people had been stranded at the altar with far less cause. And there wasn’t even an altar at the Shipwreck.
But if she didn’t marry Joe, where would she go? She was tired of running, and she’d literally reached the end of the road. And even if Joe’s child-rearing strategies included bringing Lizard to the bar, he deserved to keep his niece.
Pamela wasn’t a quitter. She followed through on things, finished what she started and obeyed the dictates of her conscience. Right now, her conscience was telling her she couldn’t jilt Jonas Brenner.
Kitty returned to the office, smiling brightly. “It’s show time,” she announced. “Brick’s got the boom box set up, the judge is here, and you’re about to tie the knot.”
Swallowing a lump of emotion—part rue, part dread, part sheer panic—Pamela straightened her shoulders and joined Kitty at the door. They tiptoed out into the hall as a tinny rendering of the Wedding March r
esounded through the small speakers of a portable stereo atop the juke box.
As Kitty had promised, the barroom had been spruced up. The tables, pushed to the perimeter of the room, were all draped in white paper table cloths, and white satin ribbons had been looped over the exposed rafters and the steering-wheel clock. A strip of what appeared to be unbleached muslin lay the length of the room. Although chairs had been arranged on either side of the runner, most of the guests were standing, peering toward the front of the room, where a silver-haired man in a straw hat and a dapper seersucker suit stood before a table which was bedecked with flowers. Pamela assumed he was the judge.
Lizard abruptly appeared at the rear edge of the bar, near where Pamela and Kitty were standing. Nudged by a wizened dark-skinned woman in a caftan trimmed with feathers, Lizard started down the muslin runner. She wore a cotton sun-suit with a pretty floral pattern—not a dress, but infinitely more respectable than a plastic hula skirt or pajamas. Her hair was half braided, half loose, and she carried a bouquet of peacock and gull feathers.
Pamela couldn’t see her face, a fact for which she was grateful. She knew Lizard didn’t care much for her. Lizard’s reluctant shuffle down the aisle, her feathers fluttering and her steps making clicking sounds as her rubber sandals slapped the bare soles of her feet, told Pamela all she needed to know about the child’s opinion of her uncle’s wedding.
She shifted her gaze from Lizard to the wedding guests. Perhaps they’d been whooping it up before, but now they were still and nearly silent, respecting the sanctity of the occasion. It looked to Pamela as if at least a hundred people were crammed into the room. In her plain white cotton shift, she seemed to be the most elegantly dressed person present.
It isn’t really a wedding, she told herself, but the thought rang false in her soul. A thousand-dollar wedding dress, engraved invitations, a live organist and a sun-filled church weren’t what made a wedding real. When she stared down the long, wrinkled strip of muslin to the judge at the other end, she knew this was a real wedding. Her wedding.
CRY UNCLE Page 8