Mother of the Bride

by Lynn Michaels

Liar, her little voice said. You hate secrets. Which was true, but only because she sucked at keeping them from her mother.

  It was just as well that Gwen hadn’t told her. One tiny little arch in Georgette’s eyebrow aimed at Cydney and she would’ve blabbed the whole story. She avoided her mother when she entered the dining room with Gus, kept her head down and sat at the far end of the table eating chicken and coleslaw and biscuits with honey.

  When Bebe and Aldo came in from their walk, flushed and windblown, the only places left at the table lay directly opposite Gwen. Bebe balked, but Aldo sat down and pulled her into the chair next to his.

  “Here you are, sweetie.” Gwen offered Bebe her plate and the chicken wings Cydney had saved for her. “Your favorite.”

  “No thank you.” She turned her nose up and dipped into the bucket for a leg. “I prefer dark meat.”

  Misha sat next to Bebe and Domino next to him. When he bent his head toward her and slid a French fry between her pursed lips, Domino cooed. Georgette glanced at them and up shot her eyebrows.

  “Hey, George.” Fletch reached across the table and caught her wrist. “Remember when the girls were little? We had to save for a week to afford a bucket of chicken this lousy.”

  “I remember.” Her mother smiled at him. “One night a week I didn’t have to cook. And you did the dishes.”

  “Those were the days, George.”

  “The days of dishpan hands and no money.”

  “You cried when I bought you a dishwasher for Christmas.”

  “Of course I cried. I wanted a mink.”

  They laughed at each other, their eyes shining. Herb glowered.

  “I prefer your chicken, Georgie. This is greasy and undercooked.”

  “Then hie yourself to the fridge and see if there’s any left, Herbert.” Georgette flicked him an irritated frown and swung back to Fletch.

  She missed the flicker of startled hurt behind Herb’s glasses, but Cydney saw it. Gwen caught her eye and gave her a see-I-told-you smile, then poked Misha under the table and hissed, “This is not discreet.”

  It amazed Cydney to watch her father and Gwen play Cupid. For selfish reasons, of course. The cover of Time for Gwen, the material for his next book, the price of a new sable coat for her father. Even so, it was almost enough to make Cydney believe dreams could come true. The thought made her heart skip and her gaze leap across the table to Gus, happily chomping on a chicken leg.

  He wouldn’t say, “Meet me at midnight on the back stairs. I’ll tell you then,” and spout some drivel about chapter six, would he? Surely he had something private and momentous to say. If he didn’t, she’d kill him.

  If she had the guts to show up at midnight and hear what he had to say. Which Cydney decided at 11:35 she didn’t. Coward! her little voice howled as she fled down the hall to Gwen’s room and knocked.

  “Hi,” Cydney whispered when she opened the door. “I think we need a council of war about Bebe.”

  “What makes you say that?” Gwen replied. “The fact that she said, ‘Suit yourself,’ when I said I was staying for the wedding? Or the fact that she ignored me all evening? Even when we were Scrabble partners?”

  “All of the above. Let me in and let’s talk.”

  And Cydney did, nonstop, her heart jumping at every creak the house made—Was that Gus? Was he looking for her?—until 2:30, when Gwen kicked her out so she could get some sleep. Cydney tiptoed down the hall, her heart banging, and peeked around the corner at the stairs.

  No Gus. Relief washed through her, then a clutch of dread. How long had he waited to tell her whatever he had to tell her? She’d never know now, would she? How could she sleep, wondering? The anxiety would kill her. Maybe he was still awake. Cydney slipped down the stairs. He could yell at her for standing him up, so long as he told her.

  The dining room wall sconces were lit, their reflections shimmering on the polished tabletop. She’d crept halfway toward the living room when she heard moans and one of the leather couches creaking like someone—er, two someones— were rolling around on it. Well, nuts. Cydney turned toward the dining room swinging door, pushed it open and heard breathless, panting French coming from the kitchen. If Misha and Domino were in the kitchen, who the heck was in the living room?

  Flip you for it, her little voice said. Heads, it’s your mother and father. Tails, it’s your mother and Herb.

  “Oh shut up,” Cydney muttered, and went back to her room.

  Every little noise jerked her awake, sent her dashing to the door to see if it was Gus. She ventured once into the hall, peeked around the corner and caught a glimpse of a pale hem of nightgown slipping past a bedroom door. Whose nightgown and whose bedroom? She fretted about it all night and finally fell asleep with a sense of doom closing around her like the pillow she stuffed over her head to block out the house noises.

  A little past eight Friday morning, she pushed through the dining room swinging door and heard something bang like a gong in the kitchen. Uh-oh. Cydney eased down the hall and peeked around the corner. Her mother stood at the stove. Her father sat at the island, hunched on his elbows and gazing morosely at her poker-straight back.

  Gus sat catty-corner from him. When Cydney peered into the kitchen, he slid to his feet and started toward her.

  “If we’re going to Branson, we’d better get a move on.” He caught her elbow and turned her around. “Get your purse and let’s go,” he said as he double-timed her down the hall. “Tell your sister and Bebe to stay the hell out of the kitchen. I’ll tell Aldo and Herb.”

  “What’s wrong?” Cydney asked. “What happened?”

  “Beats me.” Gus pushed her up the back stairs ahead of him. “Your mother was in the kitchen when I came down, all red and puffy-eyed. When your father came in she grabbed the skillet and smacked it on the stove. If I hadn’t been there I think she would’ve used it on him.”

  “I knew it. I just knew it. Give me five minutes.”

  She ducked into her bedroom, Gus down the hall to Aldo’s room. Cydney grabbed her purse and a red blazer, tugged it over her white ribbed top and jeans and dashed down the hall. Gwen came half-asleep to the door but snapped awake when Cydney told her that their parents were about to kill each other in the kitchen.

  “Damn it, Dad. You were doing so well last night.” Gwen sighed, then squeezed Cydney’s arm. “Go get your rental car. I’ll warn Bebe.” A thin smile tugged her mouth. “She’ll have to talk to me, won’t she?”

  Cydney went down the gallery stairs. Gus waited for her on the foyer, fumbling to gather the signs in the crook of his arm.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go,” Cydney said, taking half the signs from him. “Maybe we should stay.”

  “We’re going.” Gus took her elbow with his free hand, steered her out the door and down the porch steps. “You and I need to talk.”

  The sun was bright but brisk, the air chilly enough to vaporize Cydney’s breath. “I’m sorry about last night. Gwen was upset and I—”

  “My own house and I couldn’t walk across the living room,” Gus griped as he hustled her down the drive. “Somebody was going at it on the sofa and Misha had Domino spread-eagled on the kitchen island.”

  “I know, I heard them.” Relief flooded Cydney that she hadn’t stood Gus up. He hadn’t been able to get to her any more than she’d been able to get to him. “Did you see who was in the living room?”

  “It was too dark, but I’ll tell you what.” Gus passed her the signs, swung around to open the garage door and shot her a scowl. “I’m the warden of this asylum and I say tonight there’s gonna be a lockdown.”

  He rolled the door up, tossed the signs and a hammer in the back of the truck, helped Cydney into the cab, got in behind the wheel, started the engine and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  “Let’s run away,” he said, expelling a deep breath. “Pick a place.”

  “Outer Mongolia. Surely they can’t find us there.”

  “Mongolia it is. We’ll stak
e the signs on our way out.”

  Gus backed the truck out of the garage, cut the wheel to swing the nose toward the house and slammed on the brake. “Damn it!” he swore.

  Cydney hooked her seat belt, looked up and saw her father running toward them, waving and tugging on his rally cap.

  “Make a nice little hood ornament, wouldn’t he?” Gus growled.

  “After the wedding,” Cydney agreed darkly. “Once he gives Bebe away we can have him stuffed and mounted if we want.”

  “Don’t ask,” Fletch snapped when she opened her door and scooted toward Gus to make room for him on the bench seat. “Just drive.”

  He didn’t offer to help with the signs; Cydney held them while Gus drove them into the partially frozen ground with the hammer. Fletch stayed in the truck, muttering and toying with an unlit cigarette. When they reached the car rental agency, he hopped out, lit up and paced the parking lot while Gus went inside with Cydney.

  “I’ve got an idea.” He opened the glass door and gave her a quick kiss. “We’ll let your father drive the rental car to Tall Pines.”

  “You are astonishingly brilliant this morning.”

  “Desperation does that to a man. C’mon.”

  The only car available was a periwinkle-blue Ford Aspire, the size and shape of a goldfish bowl, with a standard transmission.

  “I can’t drive a stick,” Fletch said. “Never learned.”

  So Cydney drove the Aspire, glaring at the back of her father’s white head through the truck’s back window all the way to Tall Pines. Halfway up the drive, they passed a flatbed tow truck on its way down with her mangled Jeep chained on the back.

  “No!” Cydney cried. “My peach suit!”

  Her shoes and the sweaters she’d bought, too. Cydney made a U-turn and chased the tow truck, laying on the horn and flashing her lights, all the way to Gib Elbert Senior’s mailbox—not Junior’s—before the driver saw the tiny little Aspire in his side mirror and pulled over.

  Even with the signs, it took Cydney forty-five minutes to make her way to Tall Pines. She was so rattled she missed two of them and had to backtrack. She couldn’t remember if she’d waved at Gus before she’d whipped the Aspire around in hot pursuit of her peach suit. What if she hadn’t? What if Gus hadn’t seen her? He could be worried about her.

  How worried, Cydney wondered. Worried enough to call Sheriff Cantwell? Visions of search parties and APB’s danced in her head. She could see Gus ripping her out of the car, crushing her in his arms and sobbing, “My darling! I thought you’d driven off the mountain. Be mine!”

  When the Aspire topped the drive, she saw Gus’ red pickup by the porch steps and Crooked Possum’s only cruiser parked behind it. Sheriff Cantwell stood in the grass circle with Gus, each of them pointing in a different direction. Cydney’s heart did an oh-no-I-was-only-daydreaming flip as she slowed the car and rolled down her window.

  “Here I am!” she shouted at Gus. “Call off the posse! I got lost!”

  She didn’t see the hatchet he held, the axe in Sheriff Cantwell’s big hands or the fallen pine tree that had come down in the storm until she stopped the car by the fence enclosing the circle and Gus and the Sheriff swung around to look at her. Like she’d just fallen out of the sky.

  The tree, Cydney realized. They weren’t forming a posse to come look for her. They were trying to decide what to do with the tree.

  “When did you get lost?” Gus asked her. “Where?”

  “Urn—no place special. Never mind.”

  Cydney hit the clutch and the gears and sent the Aspire scooting toward the garage. Past Sheriff Cantwell’s cruiser, Gus’ truck, Louella’s ambulance and Sarah’s station wagon. Gus hadn’t missed her. No one had missed her. She was disappearing again. Right on schedule.

  She almost kept her foot on the gas, almost kept going. Down the drive and headed for home. Surely someone would miss her if she didn’t show up at the wedding to wash glasses in the scullery like Cinderella. But if she left, she might never find out what Gus wanted to tell her.

  So she kept the Aspire pointed toward the garage, parked it inside, gathered her purse and her packages and started toward the house. The thwack-thwack of the axe Sheriff Cantwell swung at the shattered tree and the nick-nick of the hatchet Gus used to chip off small branches rang on the crisp air. He didn’t look up. He didn’t even see her. So much for breathless kisses and suggesting they run away together.

  “Cydney,” he called as she started up the porch steps.

  She turned around and saw Gus waving her toward him. Her heart did another flip and she went to him, smiling. Her suit in its plastic bag draped over her left arm, the bags with her shoes and her sweaters in her right fist. Gus wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his wrist and came up to the split-rail fence to meet her.

  “Tell Aldo to get his butt out here and give us a hand, would you?”

  “Oh,” Cydney said flatly. “Sure.” She sighed and turned away.

  “Wait a sec.” She looked back at him and he cocked his head at her. “Where did you go? I thought you were in the garage with the car.”

  “The garage,” Cydney repeated. He’d thought she was in the damn garage. His garage, her garage. It didn’t matter. “Why don’t I just move my stuff out there?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Oh never mind!” Cydney spat at him, and spun away.

  She should leave, just get in the car and go. If Gus wanted to tell her whatever he’d wanted to tell her last night, he could call her. Long distance. If he hadn’t forgotten what he’d wanted to say. If he even remembered she was alive.

  Oh shut up, her little voice snapped. Go have some cheese with your whine, Bebe.

  “Bebe!” Cydney shrilled, coming to an indignant halt on the foyer.

  “Yeah, Uncle Cyd. Have you seen her?” Aldo popped up behind the living room bar. “I’ve been looking all over for her.”

  “I haven’t seen her, Aldo. I just got back from Branson. Gus and the Sheriff could use some help taking down the broken pine tree.”

  “Sure thing.” Aldo stopped next to her in the foyer. “Would you find Beebs and talk to her? She had a big fight with her Grampa Fletch and nobody’s seen her since.”

  “Oh no. What happened?”

  “Don’t ask.” Aldo flushed and went outside.

  The shutters on the pass-through were latched but the louvers were partially open. Cydney smelled onions and a ham baking, heard Cloris and her sisters’ little bird chirps, Sarah’s chatter, Mamie’s drawl and Louella’s laugh. She didn’t hear Georgette barking orders like a drill sergeant, but figured she had to be in the kitchen. Better find Bebe, Cydney decided, before her mother saw her and press-ganged her into K.P.

  She hurried down the foyer steps, tripping over the suit bag that was slipping off her arm, made it to the closest couch and tossed her packages on the leather cushions. The sign Bebe had taped to the great room doors, TOUCH ONE THING IN

  THIS ROOM AND DIE. LOVE—THE BRIDE AND GROOM, was Still there, but the doors were ajar. A thin sliver of light slid between them. Uh-oh. Someone was in the great room.

  “Cydney.” Georgette pushed through the swinging door with something crumpled in her right fist. “What the hell are you doing shopping?”

  “I rescued this stuff from my Jeep, Mother.” Cydney turned away from her packages. “Aldo said Bebe and Dad had a fight. What’s wrong?”

  “This, for starters.” Georgette threw the crumpled wad in her hand. It was a paper napkin, cocktail-size, Cydney saw when she picked it up, unfolded it and read the gold lettering in one corner:

  Bebe and Frodo Munroe, Saturday, November 10—

  “Oh no.” Cydney crushed the napkin. “This is awful.” “Your father thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his soon-to-be-over-with life. He opened the first box before the UPS driver had the other two in the house. He and Gwen laughed so hard they nearly hyperventilated. Bebe burst into tears. A
ldo didn’t get it. He’s never read Tolkien. Bebe had to explain it to him.”

  “Let me guess. Dad laughed again and the fight started.” “Right.” Georgette sighed and rubbed her forehead. “How dare he laugh at Aldo. How dare he call him stupid. Gwen defended Fletch. Herb defended Bebe. Gwen shouted at Herb. Bebe shouted at her mother and stormed off. No one’s seen her since.” “Where’s Dad?” “I don’t know and I don’t care,” Georgette snapped, but her voice caught. “Gwen is upstairs e-mailing on her laptop and yakking on the cell phone I told you to take away from her. Herbert is sulking because I told him to butt out. The Prince and the French bimbo are in the hot tub, making a cuckold of your father. I’m on my way outside to borrow Sheriff Cantwell’s axe and reenact The Shining.“

  This was her father’s doing. The shrill in her mother’s voice, the glitter in her eyes, still puffy from whatever Gus had walked in on in the kitchen.

  “I’ve got a better idea.” She put an arm around her mother and drew her toward the stairs. “Chocolate, a cup of tea and a long hot bath.”

  “There isn’t time. Louella and Sarah—”

  “Can manage without you. I’m here now. I’ll take care of things.”

  “You always do.” At the foot of the gallery stairs, Georgette caught Cydney’s chin and gave her a teary kiss. “I think I’ll lie down for a bit, too.”

  “Use your sleep mask and your earplugs,” Cydney suggested.

  “I’ll do that.” She held up a finger. “Good idea.”

  It was a brilliant idea. It would keep Georgette from hearing the screams when she killed Fletch. Gus said that whatever was or wasn’t going on between her parents was none of her business, but what did he know? He’d thought she was in the garage with the car. The moron.

  “Up you go.” Cydney gave her mother a lift onto the stairs, waited till she heard her bedroom door shut, then wheeled toward the bar and pushed open the swinging door. “Hello, ladies.” She smiled at Mamie and Louella, peeling potatoes at the sink, Sarah basting a ham and Cloris and her sisters assembling the wedding cake on the island. “Mother has a headache. I sent her upstairs to lie down. Everything okay?”