Crazy Bitch (Bitches and Queens) (17 page)

Taking only a few seconds to
access the situation, Kate quickly realized this was just one of Hannah’s
ploys—rather last second and desperate but effective none the least. Well, that
bitch had another thing coming if she thought it would really work. One way or
another, come twelve-thirty, she was going to become Sam’s wife.

Spinning on her heels, Kate
called out to Jenner, her maid-of-honor, and her mother, “Slight change of
plans. If we’re not back in an hour, tell everyone to go to the reception hall.
We will meet them there.”

On the way out of the door,
Kate nearly ran into the minister, who had witnessed Sam’s abrupt departure and
was on his way to the bridal party to see if a last-minute counseling session
was in order.

“Good! You are just the man I
wanted to find. I need you to come with me now,” Kate explained as she began to
drag him out the front entrance.

Sam had already reached his car
when he heard Kate scream, “Sam Montgomery, the last time you walked away from
me you went on a four-month, international cocaine tour!”

Sam held his arms wide. “It’s
not like that. I swear. I’ve really got to go. I’m sorry!”

Kate stormed across the parking
lot, stopping once she reached the passenger side door and then angrily pulled
it open. “I’m going with you,” Kate exclaimed. “Make that we’re going with you.”

Sam turned and looked surprised
at the sight of the baffled minister who was being dragged alongside Kate’s
long train.

“Hey Mark,” Sam muttered.

“Sam,” Mark acknowledged
warily.

As soon as Kate was situated
and buckled in, she turned around to face Mark, who was sitting in the
backseat. “You may begin,” she said politely.

“You want to get married here?
In a car?” Mark questioned.

“Yes,” Kate answered.

“Without any other witnesses, I’m
not sure it counts,” he said.

“It counts!” Kate and Sam
declared in unison.

“All right then,” Mark
grumbled. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God to
witness… Whoa, whoa, whoa, son, you need to slow down. I want to meet my maker
just like the next preacher, but I hadn’t planned on doing so today,” he called
out as Sam peeled out of the lot, causing him to go sailing in the backseat.

“Sam, slow down,” Kate
demanded.

“No,” Sam answered firmly.

Kate turned back around and
looked embarrassed. “Sorry, he really is a safe driver. You can continue.”

Mark was perplexed. They had
seemed like such a normal couple during their pre-wedding sessions. Now, Sam
was veering in out of the lanes like he was a Nascar driver, Kate didn’t seem
to notice anything amiss, and neither of them had bothered to explain why they
had left the church or where they were going in such hurry.

Once Mark started up again, Sam
reached into pocket and pulled out his cellphone. He dialed Willow’s number. “What’s
going on? Have you heard anything inside the bedroom?” He paused while she
answered then sneered. “Well, maybe if you would stop screaming like a freaking
lunatic, you might actually be able to hear something?”

Kate elbowed Sam in his side. “You’re
not even paying attention. I can’t believe you are making a call in the middle
of our wedding.
You
only get to this once.”

Sam glanced in the rearview
mirror. “I do,” he proclaimed.

Kate waved her hand in disgust
and then crossed her arms defiantly under her breast. “We’re not even at that
part yet.”

“Sorry,” Sam mouthed and then
turned his attention back to phone. “Did it sound like something moving or
someone breathing heavily?”

Kate rolled her eyes in
frustration. She didn’t think it was too much to ask for him to be here in the
moment with her. No, instead he was completely focused on Hannah. That evil
witch was probably doing a victory jig inside her bedroom. The more Kate
thought about it, the less she believed Hannah would ever do anything to harm
herself, especially not with a gun. Hannah was too enamored with her own image
to ever risk marring it.

Taking the exit that led to
Hannah’s subdivision, Sam slammed on the breaks and came to a screeching halt
in the middle of a busy four-lane road. Kate was just about to ask if he had
lost his mind when he leaned over, pulled her into his arms, and proceeded to
kiss her as if nothing else mattered but the two of them. He lingered for only
a few moments then pulled away and punched the accelerator.

It was the kind of kiss that
stole her breath that made her forgive any and all of his faults. Then he
ruined it.

Glancing once again into the
rearview mirror, Sam motioned to the bar that they had just passed and
explained, “That was the first place we fucked.”

Kate’s jaw dropped. For several
moments, she was speechless, but then gasped, “I can’t believe you just said that
in front of a man of God.”

“What?” Sam questioned
defensively. Glaring, he reached for wallet and proceeded to pull out a twenty-dollar
bill.

“It doesn’t work that way,”
Kate hissed. “You can’t say anything you want and then pay it off.”

“I will take that,” Mark
interrupted. “Last night between you and your friend, we rose over half the
amount we needed for our Honduras mission trip.”

“Ah!” Sam declared
triumphantly. “Because I said the word
fuck
some little Honduran child
will get clean water.”

“Actually, it’s a medical
mission trip. We have several doctors and nurses in our congregation.”

“Even better,” Sam said. “My
filthy language may single-handedly eradicate polio in a third-
world
country.”

Kate was still giving him the
evil eye. Conceding with a grump, he said, “It was the first place I knew her
biblically speaking. Is that better?”

“No, Sam, it is not better,”
Kate growled. “People aren’t supposed to do
that
before they get
married.”

“What?” Sam questioned, confused
as he looked over at Kate. A small smile curled his lips, his first genuine one
of the day, and then he started to laugh.

“Look at the road,” Kate
demanded.

Sam turned his attention back
to his driving but he couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, he explained, “Babe,
that’s just what they tell little kids—like Santa Claus and leprechauns.
Although I’m not sure why parents lie about the whole leprechaun thing. It’s no
wonder some adults are so screwed up with the amount of crap their parents tell
them as kids. People really don’t wait for marriage.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Sam looked back in the mirror and saw Mark watching him equally stone-faced. It
dawned on him that that might be one fairy tale that was true. He gasped in
outrage. “What the hell are they waiting for? It would be like buying a used
car without going out for a test drive. Sure, it might look all clean and shiny
on the outside, but once you get inside it smells like beer and stale
cigarettes. You spend half the night pumping the gas and still can’t get the
damn thing started. That’s ridiculous!”

“People wait because the bible says
that is what we are supposed to do,” Mark answered calmly.

“Yeah, well it was written two
thousand years ago when people got married when they were ten years old. Jeez,
you think they would come up with a more modern interpretation,” Sam shot back.

When Sam said he wanted them
write their own wedding vows, Kate had been touched. She never imagined he
would spout off about leprechauns and used cars. Why hadn’t she just let him
come in drag?

Turning around in her seat, she
said to Mark, “I am so sorry. He isn’t normally like this. His psychotic friend
is pretending to be suicidal.”

Mark seemed to understand or at
least did a very good job of pretending to. He finished the ceremony by saying,
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may not kiss the bride. You just need to
shut up and drive.”

As soon as Sam parked in Hannah’s
drive, he vaulted from the car. Apparently, Mark thought he might be of some
assistance as well as he followed quickly on his heels. Kate wrestled with her
dress, which had looked fabulous while she was standing, but not so great crammed
inside a vehicle. Fishing through the yards of tulle and ornamental beading,
she eventually found the seat belt and released herself. On the way up the
drive, she passed no less than two police cars with their lights blazing, one
paramedic, and a fire truck. She understood the police cars and paramedic, but
what was with the fire truck? Jeez, some people are just attention-seeking,
drama queen bitches. Several of the neighbors had begun gathering outside, looking
more curious than worried.

Once she stepped inside, Kate
could hear the parade of people surrounding Hannah’s bedroom door. The police
officers spoke with a calm, assertive authority. Mark threw in occasional
tidbits about reaching out for Jesus. And Sam and Willow were both shouting
hysterically. Consuela, who was standing with several of the other servants in
the front room, paced as she silently wrung her hands.

Kate glanced at the wall clock.
Had Hannah not so rudely interrupted their wedding, she and Sam would have been
pronounced man and wife just about now. Several minutes passed and there was
still no sigh of Hannah. From the snippets of conversations that floated down
from the second floor, Kate gathered that there was some conversation about
forcing the door open. As they still didn’t know whether she was alive or dead,
although Kate was one hundred percent certain she was not only alive but also
gleefully enjoying her moment in the sun, and quite possibly armed with a
loaded weapon, there was talk of calling in the SWAT team. The SWAT team—were
they for real? While they were at it, they might as well phone the newspapers
and every other media outlet in town. If this kept up much longer, they were
going to miss the reception as well. A girl could miss her own wedding, but the
reception too? Kate realized that she was going to have to take matters into
her own hands. Even if she had to drag that bitch out kicking and screaming,
they were going to have their champagne toast—not to mention the ultra-cheesy
photograph of Sam removing her garter with his teeth. They had been practicing
for weeks.

“Is there any other way into
her bedroom?” Kate asked Consuela.

“She has balcony, but it’s
pretty high,” Consuela answered warily.

“Do you have a ladder?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it
would be safe to climb in that dress,” Consuela answered.

“I’ll be fine,” Kate declared.
In this dress, she felt like a freaking superhero, invincible. After all, she
went through hell and back just to wear it—it wouldn’t let her down now.

Halfway up, she realized that she
had done crazier things in her life than climb a twelve-foot-tall ladder while
wearing heels and a dress that weighed at least fifteen pounds. At the moment,
she couldn’t remember a single one, but she was certain that had she done them.
Moving up hadn’t been so difficult, but hoisting herself over the wrought-iron
railing proved to be a bit more challenging.

As soon as she and all her many
layers of dress was properly situated on balcony, Kate noticed the breeze
ruffle the sheer curtains. Since first thing this morning, people had been
pounding on the bedroom door all the while the balcony was left open. It felt a
little too easy, but she refused to back down now. She had a party to attend, not
to mention the fact that she preferred taking the stairs back down.

Pulling back the sheers, Kate
knew instantly that she may have made one tiny, little, quite possibly fatal,
mistake. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a ploy. Hannah had truly gone insane.

The wreckage was indescribable.
What Kate assumed was once a four-poster bed was now only a pile of feathers
and splintered wood. Shredded clothes and bits of paper cluttered the floor
until there wasn’t an inch of carpet revealed. Yet, none of it compared to the rancid-smelling
wall art. Brown and green colored hieroglyphs lined the walls. Hannah’s choice
of medium had come from somewhere deep inside her bowels.

Going on visual and olfactory
overload, Kate had to cover her mouth to keep the contents of her stomach from
spewing forth. As she glanced around the room, Kate realized that they weren’t
random symbols of madness. Each picture told a story and the stories connected
to form a map. It was a map to Hannah’s worst nightmare—her own personal,
private hell. Had Kate not ventured there once herself, she might not have
recognized it for what it was, but she had and she knew. Hannah had painted
every sin, every violation committed against her.

Kate suddenly noticed a huge
pair of electric blue eyes peeking at her from a crack in the closet door. “Hannah?”
Kate whispered.

Down on her hands and knees,
Hannah scampered at lightning quick speed towards her. Kate tried to move out
of the way, but she was too late. Whatever was all over her walls was also all
over Hannah, and when she reached up and clung to Kate’s waist, it got all over
her wedding dress.

“I knew you would come,” Hannah
sobbed. “Please, I’ll do anything, I promise. Don’t let her in. She wants to
kill me.”