Mother of the Bride

by Lynn Michaels

  “Oh Angus,” her mother tsked. “You’re dripping.”

  So was Cydney, into a little puddle of hormones on the floor.

  Munroe dried his face and arms, ran a hand through his wet-spiked hair and draped the towel around his neck. Lucky towel.

  “Cydney tells me,” Georgette said, “that you have a grand piano.”

  “It’s my Aunt Phoebe’s.” Munroe kicked off his loafers and peeled off his socks. His feet were long and strong and as gorgeous as the rest of him. Straight toes, high arches and narrow heels. “Is this about music for the wedding?”

  “Yes,” her mother said. “In all the hubbub of packing and getting here, we forgot about music. I play piano. Not well enough for Carnegie Hall, but I can play ‘The Wedding March’ with sheet music.”

  “There’s music in the bench. You might want to look. We’ll have to move the piano into the great room, then it’ll have to be tuned. I don’t know if Aldo and Herb and I can move it, but we can try. I’ll call Aunt Phoebe’s piano tuner in the morning and see when he can get out here.”

  Lightning illuminated the bay window, giving Cydney a glimpse of windbent trees and the anything-to-help smile on Munroe’s face. Monday night he’d threatened to invoke the codicil to his brother’s will to keep Aldo from marrying Bebe, now he was volunteering to move a grand piano. What was wrong with this picture?

  Thunder crashed, needles of rain pelted the glass and Herb came back from the pantry with an armful of flashlights and four battery lamps. He switched one on and sent a laser-bright shaft of light shooting across the kitchen.

  “These babies sure kick out the light, Gus,” Herb said as he adjusted the beam. “We can signal the rescue plane, no problem.”

  Cydney smiled at his good-natured humor. Her father would’ve blown his stack at the first flicker of the lights and chewed Munroe to pieces for failing to keep gas for the generator on hand.

  “I don’t think we need to send up flares just yet, Herb.” Munroe picked up a lamp and turned it on. “I’m going to change.”

  “Would you like a cup of cocoa, Angus?” her mother asked.

  “Love one, thanks. I’ll be right back.”

  He moved toward the swinging door with his loafers and the lamp, the beam pointing ahead of him. Be glad to help you peel off those khakis, Cydney thought, then jumped, startled, when he glanced at her over his shoulder and crooked a finger. Her mother and Herb didn’t see; they were looking in the cabinets for a saucepan and mugs. She nodded and followed him through the door, into the pool of light cast by the lamp.

  “I haven’t seen Aldo and Bebe since the lights went out, have you?”

  “No.” Cydney shook her head. “Three guesses where they are.”

  “In the sack, probably. What d’you think I should do?”

  “Yell’Fire!’?”

  He laughed and gave her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder that made her breath catch. “I like you, Cydney Parrish.”

  “I like you, too, Angus Munroe.”

  “Gus,” he said, and smiled.

  “Gus.” She smiled back at him. He nodded and pointed his finger at her. “Wait till I change and we’ll yell ‘Fire!’ together.”

  He turned toward the stairs and Cydney toward the kitchen, an old Barbra Streisand song, “He Touched Me,” playing in her head. It snapped off with a jolt when she pushed through the door and saw Bebe and Aldo standing at the gas range stirring a Dutch oven full of cocoa with wooden spoons. Well, darn. She was looking forward to yelling, “Fire!”

  Gus came back a few minutes later in jeans, a pair of his white over-the-calf tube socks with gray toes and a white T-shirt with a chest pocket. He swung onto the slatted stool next to Cydney’s at the island and reached for a big red mug of cocoa floating with marshmallows.

  “Don’t tell me you found marshmallows in my pantry, Georgette.”

  “No,” she admitted. “I brought them with me.”

  One bag of marshmallows, maybe two more inches of space in one suitcase, Cydney thought. What on earth had her mother packed?

  The storm continued to crash and boom and flash like a strobe light. Gus turned on a portable radio and found an AM station crackling with static that said the National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm watch for all of Taney County, which included Branson and Crooked Possum, until midnight.

  “We won’t get the lights back tonight,” he said, leaning his watch close to a battery lamp. “It’s eight-forty-five.”

  “You go on to bed, Georgie-girl,” Herb said. “I’ll finish the dishes.”

  Cydney couldn’t recall her father ever offering to help with the dishes, let alone volunteering to do them. She remembered Fletch wolfing meals and racing back to his office, so absorbed in himself that he barely heard what was said to him, or snapped answers that made it clear he couldn’t be bothered with a wife and kids.

  It hadn’t been that way at all, really. In those days he’d worked two jobs—columnist for the Kansas City Star by day, novelist by night and on weekends—but that’s how it had felt to Cydney. Especially when his fourth book hit it big and he’d walked out on them.

  She stole a glance at Bebe, feeding cocoa to Aldo on a spoon. How much had she been aware of when Gwen brought her home to Gramma’s house and left her there after she won her first Pulitzer? Abandoned, not good enough to be included in her mother’s newfound success?

  “I will not leave you with all these dishes, Herbert,” Georgette said firmly. “We’ll finish them together.”

  “Let Aldo and me do the dishes, Gramma.” Bebe dropped her spoon and spun her stool toward Georgette. “We’re not tired.”

  “Yeah.” Aldo hopped off his stool and started collecting empty mugs. “You cooked, Gramma George. We’ll clean up the kitchen.”

  “Thank you, Bebe dear. You, too, Aldo.” Georgette took Herb’s arm and waggled her fingers. “Good night, Cydney. Good night, Angus.”

  They each took a flashlight and pushed through the swinging door.

  “Need a hand?” Gus asked his nephew.

  “No thanks, Uncle Gus. We can manage.”

  Gus glanced at Cydney. She gave him an oh-well shrug.

  “Okay, then.” He slid off his stool and helped Cydney down from hers. “Goodnight.”

  “Good night, Bebe,” Cydney said as Gus pushed open the swinging door for her. “Good night, Aldo.”

  “Uncle Cyd?” Bebe called, and Cydney glanced at her over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I was such a brat today. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I love you.” She picked at the dishrag in her hands. “That’s all.”

  That was enough. “I love you, too, Bebe. Good night.”

  Cydney smiled and pushed through the door. Gus followed her and switched on a flashlight.

  “Would you like some company on your shopping trip tomorrow?”

  Cydney blinked up at his face, half in shadow and half in the light cast by the flashlight. “You?”

  “Yeah, me.”

  “Well—don’t you have a book to write?”

  “I always have a book to write, but I can take a day off.”

  “Then—um—yes.” Cydney’s heart fluttered. “That’d be great.”

  “Good.” He took her arm and led her across the living room to the gallery stairs. “Keep the flashlight. My bedroom is up those stairs,” he said, nodding at the foyer. “Next to my office.”

  “Thanks. I can make it to my room from here.”

  “I’m sure you can, but I’ll wait anyway.” He gave her a lift onto the first step. “Up you go.”

  Cydney climbed to the gallery and turned around. “See? Made it.”

  “I knew you could. Good night, Cydney.”

  “Goodnight, Gus.”

  A sheet of lightning gave her light enough to watch him cross the living room and disappear up the foyer stairs. When she heard a door shut, she wheeled down the hall as fast as she dared in the dark, pushed open her door, flung it shut behind her and be
lly-flopped on the bed, her heart pounding in her chest.

  He touched me, Barbra Streisand sang in her head. He put bis band near mine and then be touched me. I felt a … a … what? Cydney couldn’t remember what Barbra felt. A sparkle? A glow? She felt shaky and on fire, rolled on her back and cupped her flushed face.

  Who would’ve believed that behind Angus Munroe’s scowl lurked a touchy-feely guy who liked to be called Gus, with a grin that turned her bones to goo? Cydney had no idea if cold showers worked, but she scrambled off the bed and made for the bathroom to find out. She did not want to end up a headline on the front page of The National Enquirer. She could see it now—GORGEOUS GUS MUNROE’S BIGGEST FAN SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTS IN HIS LIVING ROOM.

  She lit three of the aromatherapy candles she always traveled with on the toilet tank and cranked on the shower, lukewarm rather than ice cold, stripped and got in. She stuck her head under the spray and then remembered the power failure, which meant no hair dryer. She’d look like Little Orphan Annie in the morning.

  She couldn’t imagine that Gus really wanted to go shopping with her. She thought he was being polite, since she’d gotten lost twice getting here. If he were up to something nefarious, he’d let her go alone, figuring she’d get lost again and the buzzards would have her bones picked clean by the time they found her with the wedding decorations.

  He was behaving like a polite and considerate host, doing everything he could to make them feel welcome, and yet something about it didn’t feel right. Cydney hated it when she did this, let a little thing like Gus’ damn-the-hernia-be-glad-to-move-the-piano smile fester in the back of her mind. Why couldn’t she just accept him at face value?

  She didn’t hear the bathroom door open, but she felt a draft of cool air and saw a shadow on the other side of the pebbled glass door. Her heart kicked and she fumbled with the taps to shut off the water.

  “Who’s there?” she called.

  “It’s me, Uncle Cyd,” Bebe said. Cydney heard the toilet lid shut and saw Bebe’s shadow shift as she sat down.

  Cydney opened the shower door and reached for a towel. The candles flickering on the tank behind Bebe lit her mane of copper-red hair like a Renaissance painting. She wrapped the towel around her body and tucked the end between her breasts. “Yes, Bebe?”

  “Why were you spying on me and Aldo in the hall?”

  “I wasn’t spying on you. I was on my way downstairs when I heard a thump and looked around the corner and caught you telling a bald-faced lie to Mr. Munroe.”

  “Aldo and I are engaged, Uncle Cyd. You keep forgetting that.”

  “How can I forget it? You keep reminding me of it every five minutes like it means something.”

  “It does mean something. It means we love each other, we’re committed to each other and we have the right to make our own decisions.”

  “You and Aldo have intentions, Bebe. That’s all it means to be engaged. You have an intention to marry and commit to each other. You do not have the right to behave like you’re married or demand that people treat you like you’re married until you are married.”

  “Marriage is just a ceremony and a stupid piece of paper!”

  “Then why are you and Aldo bothering with it? Why did you drag your grandmother and me and Herb down here to the backwater of nowhere if marriage is just a stupid piece of paper?”

  “Because I want my mother at my wedding!” Bebe cried, tears in her eyes and her voice as she jumped to her feet. “And you aren’t her!”

  “But I’m here and Gwen isn’t. If she really wanted to be at your wedding, she would be. It wouldn’t matter where you held it, and we wouldn’t have to plot and scheme to keep her from leaving.”

  “The only person who’s leaving is you” Bebe shouted, pointing a finger at her. “I don’t want you at my wedding!”

  Cydney sucked a breath, so hurt she could hardly think. She’d read an article once about children leaving home who subconsciously picked fights with their parents to make the break less painful. For the child or the parent, she’d wondered, and now she knew.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” she managed to say evenly. “It’s your wedding, Bebe.”

  “Mine and Aldo’s,” she snapped, and spun out of the bathroom.

  What’s wrong with you? What happened to the sweet kid who apologized in the kitchen not fifteen minutes ago, Cydney wanted to shout, but her throat was clogged with tears. She trailed Bebe into the bedroom, watched her open the door and slam it behind her, hard enough to knock a painting of a sunny Ozark hillside on the wall askew.

  Cydney sat down next to her suitcase on the blanket box at the foot of the bed, her insides shaking. She’d wanted to leave, but not like this. She got up and straightened the picture, walked to the window and lifted the embroidered curtain. Lightning still flickered, but the rain had stopped and she could see the moon behind a scud of racing clouds.

  It would be practical and prudent to stay until morning and drive home in daylight, but she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Bebe or trying to explain this to her mother. And why should she? It was Bebe’s decision to uninvite her—let Bebe explain it to Georgette.

  She’d miss the shopping trip with Gus. Oh boy, would she miss it, but it was just as well. He liked her and that’s all she’d wanted. She’d thought it was all she could hope for, but his easy, offhand touches stirred feelings in her she was sure he didn’t share. If she stayed he’d break her heart. He wouldn’t mean to, and he’d never know it, but he would.

  Cydney glanced at her still-packed suitcase. All she had to do was shut it, throw on her clothes and she could leave. You mean creep out the front door in the middle of the night, don’t you? her little voice asked.

  “Call it what you want.” Cydney swiped the flashlight off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “I’m going home.”

  She blew out the candles and left them on the back of the toilet. They were too hot to pack. Maybe her mother would think to collect them. She put on clean underwear, her crop pants and her blue shirt and left the shopping list on the Duncan Phyfe desk. She tossed her sandals in the suitcase, sat down to lace on her Keds and stubbed her toe on something on the floor next to the blanket box.

  “Ow!” She rubbed her foot, reached for the flashlight and shined it on her laptop, the one with the blown graphics card she’d picked up from the repair shop on Wednesday and forgot to take out of the Jeep.

  She tucked it in her suitcase and zipped it shut, tugged the pullman-on-wheels off the bed and raised the handle, slung her purse over her shoulder, gently opened the door and listened. All quiet.

  Rather than risk the hallway and waking someone, Cydney took the carpeted back stairs, easing her suitcase down step by step. She couldn’t remember where she’d left the map, but she had a plan. She’d get herself as far out of these hills as she could, then call the Highway Patrol on her cell phone and ask them to come find her.

  She inched herself and her suitcase across the mostly bare living room floor so the wheels wouldn’t squeak. She’d made it almost to the foyer when the moon broke through the clouds and silvery light poured through the glass wall, gleaming on the edges and curves of furniture and casting long pewter shadows on the pegged-pine floor. Cydney turned off the flashlight she didn’t need anymore and put it on a table, lifted her suitcase up the steps and set it down by the door.

  “Made it,” she sighed, reaching for the handle.

  She clicked the latch and then saw the alarm panel on the wall, one of the tiny red bulbs leaping from solid red to flashing red. Cydney jerked her hand away, expecting a siren to blare, but all she heard was a door banging open and footsteps thudding at a run down the stairs from Gus’ bedroom.

  A flashlight switched on, trapping her in the beam like a convict making a break for the wall. Cydney turned her head and saw Gus in the backwash, standing on the third step in red silk boxer shorts, the flashlight in his left hand and a baseball bat in his right.

  “Going
somewhere?” he asked.

  “Yes. Home.”

  “Was it something I said?”

  “No. Something Bebe said.” Cydney tore her gaze away from his naked, dark-haired chest and looked at the floor. “Nice underwear.”

  “Oops. Sorry.” He switched off the flashlight. “If I go put my pants on you won’t leave, will you?”

  She shook her head no and he turned up the stairs. Enough light filtered into the foyer from the living room and through the stained-glass door panels that she saw a timbered bench on the wall behind her. She sat down and waited. Gus came back in his jeans and his white T-shirt, turned off the flashlight and sat down on the steps.

  “You would’ve made a clean getaway if I hadn’t installed a battery backup on the alarm.”

  “I wish I’d known that. I would’ve tried the window.”

  “What did Bebe say to you?”

  “She accused me of spying on her and Aldo, which is ridiculous, but it started an argument and I think that’s what she intended. She told me she didn’t want me at her wedding and asked me to leave.”

  “Kids do that. It’s unconscious, the experts say, but it helps them make the break when they leave home.”

  “I read that article, too.”

  “Doesn’t help much, does it?”

  “It doesn’t help at all.” Cydney’s throat ached and her eyes filled. She raised a hand and wiped tears off her cheeks.

  “C’mere, Uncle Cyd.” Gus patted the stair beside him. When she hesitated he patted it again. “C’mon. I don’t bite.”

  Cydney crossed the foyer and sat on the stairs, not beside him but on the step below his. He scooted down next to her, peeled off his T-shirt and handed it to her.

  “Pretend it’s a handkerchief,” he said, and she burst into sobs, her face buried in his shirt, her elbows braced on her knees.

  He drew her against his warm, sleek side, being kind and sympathetic, his arm around her shoulders, and that made her cry harder. She cried until she gave herself hiccups, and Gus went to the kitchen and brought her a glass of water. Cydney held her breath, drank every drop and wiped her last tear with the last dry inch of his shirt.