Nancy Clue Mysteries 2 - The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend (43 page)

"No, that would be unhygienic," Cherry replied. She scooped up the finery and raced down the hall to the washroom, where Velma had sequestered herself hours earlier.

Using a handy hairpin, Cherry picked the lock and barged in. Velma was sitting on the side of the tub, her head in her hands.

"Put this on," Cherry ordered.

"But, Cherry, this is a wedding dress," Velma protested.

"Yes, Velma, it is. You're getting married today. To Midge."

"What!" Velma cried.

"In ten minutes, Midge, pretending to be Frank Hardly, is going to be downstairs waiting at the altar. Well, the fireplace, really. Anyway, we need a bride, and you're just the right size, so get in the dress."

"If this is some sort of scheme to bring us together, forget it," Velma cried. "I'll never go back to her. Never!"

"Don't you love Midge anymore?" Cherry wailed.

"Of course I love Midge," Velma sighed. "But you heard the horrible things we said to each other."

Cherry nodded. Everyone had.

"I know Midge too well to think she'd ever get over this fight!" Velma cried. "The things I said to her-and in front of everyone! Midge is a proud girl, Cherry."

"Don't you think Midge is a big bluffer, too?" Cherry cried. "Don't you think she cares more about you than she does about her pride?"

Velma grinned, then her grin faded into a sad smile. "No," she said. "I know Midge loves me, but I'm afraid I've injured her beyond repair."

Cherry gasped. "So now you two are going to part ways and live lives of loneliness and despair just because ... because ... Miss Velma Pierce, if you'll forgive me for saying so, you're just about the most obstinate girl I have ever met!" Cherry cried.

"Here I am, torn between two loves, walking around with my head held high but my heart wrenched in two. You have the most wonderful girl ever waiting downstairs for you, and you sit up here feeling sorry for yourself! Sure, Midge can be a big jerk sometimes, and her teasing can be wearing, plus she's not the tidiest person I've ever met-I for one am sick of cigarette butts lying about," Cherry confided.

"Midge is not a big jerk!" Velma cried. "She's the most wonderful girl in the world!"

Cherry smiled and put the wedding gown on the dressing table. Velma giggled and threw her arms around her chum. "Oh, Cherry, for such a simple little nurse, you sure can be smart!"

Cherry smiled with pride when she heard those words.

"Mr. Donald will give you away," she said. "I'll send him up for you in a few minutes." Velma nodded excitedly. She stripped to her slip and pulled the dress over her head. She was fiddling with her new hairdo when Cherry left the room to check on Midge.

"Midge, you look so handsome," Cherry gasped when she saw her chum wearing a luxurious black tuxedo. "Doesn't she look spiffy?" Mr. Donald agreed. "Luckily, we're the same size, so everything fits to a tee."

"I don't want to do this," Midge complained.

"It's not legally binding," Mr. Donald assured her. He winked at Cherry. "You and Nancy are just doing it for show."

"It's not that," Midge groaned. "I don't want to face anyone after what happened between me and Velma," she sighed.

"Why, Midge?" Cherry wondered. "No one cares that you yelled the roof off. We've all forgotten about that by now. Everyone needs to let off steam now and then. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Velma wasn't letting off steam," Midge said miserably. "She was getting rid of me once and for all."

"Oh, Midge," Cherry wanted to cry. "You don't how wrong you are." But she held her tongue.

Someone had put on the Liberace record. The wedding march began. "Time to go," Mr. Donald chuckled. "Do you and I need to have that father-son talk?" he joked.

Tears filled Midge's eyes. She gave Mr. Donald a hug.

"Hurry, Mr. Donald," Cherry cried. "You're giving away the bride. Jackie's the best man, and I'm the flower girl. Jeepers, if I'm the flower girl, I'd better get out there." She raced to Nancy's room, selected a darling mint green dinner dress and dyed-to-match satin pumps, powdered her nose, raced downstairs, and grabbed the basket of rose petals.

As Cherry walked up the makeshift aisle, her heart filled with a kind of sad joy. "Even if I am doomed to be unlucky in love, I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that I have helped bring others together," she told herself as she made her way to the altar, Mr. Donald and Midge right behind her.

"Oh, isn't she beautiful," the guests gasped when they spied the shrouded figure of the bride descending the stairs. Cherry could see Midge glancing furtively around the room, looking for her beloved Velma. "She looks as though her heart would break," Cherry thought, blinking back a tear.

Midge looked puzzled when she spied Nancy in the crowd, clad in a frock of the palest blue and wearing her mother's diamond-studded horseshoe-shaped brooch. Then a delighted grin broke over Midge's handsome features. With shaking hands, she lifted the bride's veil.

"Why, that's not Nancy," everyone murmured in surprise.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Meeks cried. "Oh, Nancy, have you been left at the altar? Oh, dear," she cried as she fanned herself with a hankie.

Nancy silenced the guests. "The wedding will proceed as planned." She looked over to Midge and Velma. "Right?"

"Right," they chorused happily.

"I'm not marrying Frank Hardly because I'm in love with someone else," Nancy declared. Cherry's heart started pounding when she realized Nancy was looking straight at her!

"Will there be another wedding?" everyone cried as they glanced around the room, trying to spot Nancy's beau.

"Not today," Nancy said shyly. "But maybe very soon." She shot Cherry a searching look.

Cherry felt dizzy with confusion. Could she and Nancy iron out their problems and recapture the splendor of their earlier love? "I won't think about that today," Cherry told herself. "Today is Midge and Velma's special day." She gave Nancy a little smile. Just maybe, the smile said.

"Dearly beloved..." the minister began, and before Cherry could wipe the tears of joy from her eyes, Midge and Velma were married!

"My, that was a lovely ceremony," she overheard a nearby matron remark as they sat in the garden and ate slices of the delicious cake. "Although," she added, "have you ever seen a groom weep like that?"

"I timed their kiss," she heard someone else remark. "It lasted ten whole minutes. Why, I was beginning to feel faint!"

"Goodness, they do make an awfully attractive couple," a girl added. "I wish I could find someone like that Frank Hardly. He's even more handsome than I remember!"

"Where did they go on their honeymoon?" someone asked Cherry. "Niagara Falls?"

"Lake Merrimen?"

"The Poconos?"

"Did you see how quickly they left? Why, the bride didn't even bother to throw her bouquet," someone whispered loudly.

"They must have rushed off to catch a train," another girl speculated.

Cherry blushed. What would these society mavens think, she wondered, if they knew the honeymoon had already begun right above their heads, in the secret attic room upstairs? Cherry smiled as she recalled the sight of Velma hiking up her long gown and racing to the attic with Midge hot on her heels.

Jackie joined her on the wrought-iron garden bench. "I'll bet we won't see them for a few days," Jackie guessed as she peered up to the third floor. Was it her imagination or was the house shaking just a bit?

"What are you going to do now, Cherry?" Jackie quizzed her. "Go back to ward work at Seattle General? Stay here while the dust settles? If you decide to go back West, you're welcome to hitch a ride with me. I'll be leaving in a few days for San Francisco.

"You don't have to decide now, Cherry," Jackie added softly.

Cherry looked into those warm black eyes. She knew if she turned her head just another inch, their lips would meet and the decision would be made.

"I mustn't let my heart rule my head," Cherry told herself. "I don't have to decide anything today. For tomorrow is the day after today, and that will be soon enough."

The End

Mabel Maney was born at All Saint's Hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin, to Marge Muldoon Maney, a former beauty queen whose titles include Miss Muskie Queen 1949 and Miss Cheese Log 1951, and Milton Maney, a traveling footwear salesman specializing in sensible shoes.

After her parents were lost at sea, Mabel's spinster aunt, Miss Maude Maney, a successful women's undergarments buyer for a local department store, enrolled Mabel at St. Agatha's School for Girls in nearby Bear Lake, where she excelled in Conversational Skills and Table Manners. After an idyllic four years spent in the highest academic pursuits, Mabel was expelled for behavior too unpleasant to mention here.

Mabel enjoyed a short stint at the Appleton Home for Wayward Girls, after which she made her way west where she found employment in the film industry, training miniature collies to jump through hoops. Following many years devoted to canine education, Mabel retired to San Francisco, where she now resides.

Her key to success? "Never mix plaids with stripes!"

Mabel Mandy is the author of The Case of the NotSo-Nice Nurse, The Case of the Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend, and Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys in A Ghost in the Closet (Cleis Press). Her short stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories (Houghton Mifflin) and San Francisco Thrillers (Chronicle Books). Her new girl spy adventure series is forthcoming from Avon.

Maney's installation art and handmade books, self-published under the World ()'Girls Books imprint, have earned her fellowships from the San Francisco Foundation and San Francisco State University, where she received her MFA in 1991. Her art has been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States. Artspace wrote of her handmade World O'Girls edition of The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse: "In Manev's refigured narrative, gay heroine Cherry Ames moves unhampered through a world populated by lesbian nuns and adventuresses, even engaging in a one-nighter with Nancy Drew. Entertainment aside, by appropriating and redefining the sexual orientation and cultural lim its placed upon her fictional female characters, Maney provides a powerful reminder of the exclusionary nature of the ruling (in this case, straight) culture, with its power to define specific roles and acts as 'natural' while denying or marginalizing others."