The Wedding Machine (34 page)
The girls are still in their street clothes, but their faces and hair are all fixed up. Kitty B. treated them all to an afternoon with Sylvia and Trudi Prescott, who sculpted beautiful French twists with fine little curled wisps for everyone with long enough hair.
Katie Rae smiles and laughs on the edge of the gathering. She's managed to keep off most of the weight from her Special K diet, and she's going to be a more beautiful bride than Ray ever imagined. Sylvia fixed her hair down, but she's taken two strands from the front and tied them back with a pearl clasp so that it looks very free and natural. Quite a good choice for her. Oh, what will Ray do about Priscilla's dreadlocks? Surely, she can talk her daughter into cutting them off before her big day.
Ray watches as Katie Rae leans into Froot Loop's cage and pats his head. She doesn't know why in the world Katie Rae insisted that the parrot attend the ceremony, but she's always been a bit off when it comes to animals. Anyhow, Marshall arranged it so that two groomsmen will bring Froot Loop's cage out just before the ceremony, and they will set it in the far corner of the stage so he can have a good view. Thank goodness Marshall didn't ask to bring any reptiles!
Now Ray zips up dress after glorious bridesmaid dress. She guided Katie Rae on the selection, and she was thrilled when she chose the lovely green velvet gown in the window of Berlin's. They are sleeveless with a regal square neckline and floor-length A-line skirt. Also, they have a satin stole that the bridesmaids are to wear around their necks. The stole settles along their shoulder blades and highlights the velvet-covered buttons on the back of the dress. They are remarkably elegant, and Ray has already ordered next season's styles for Priscilla to choose from.
Kitty B. looks beautiful. She's in a gold silk jacket she bought in the boutique section at Steinmart and a black velvet skirt that sweeps the floor. She's wearing her mama's triple strand of pearls and her long white kid gloves, and she's lost at least ten pounds in the last two weeks so that she looks more like Roberta than ever.
Sis pops in to check on everyone. She sports her standard winter concert dress: a sleeveless black velvet top and a red raw silk skirt. She reminds Ray of a china doll or Snow White with her dark hair, ivory skin, and bright red lipstick. How in world has a man not swooped her up by now? That's one of life's greatest mysteries.
“Come on,” Ray says, pulling Katie Rae's arm gently away from Froot Loop's cage. “Let's get the bride dressed.”
“Okay,” she says sheepishly, and the other girls giggle as they check one another's dresses. Vangie's seamstress did a fair job with Kitty B.'s old dress, but it doesn't have Hilda's touch. Hilda could have cut out the puffy sleeves and created a strapless top trimmed with the beading from the old sleeves, but this gal just sewed some new silk trim across the top, and it doesn't quite match the color of the aged dress. Ray hopes to heaven that Hilda will come out before Priscilla's wedding.
Just as she snaps the final button on Katie Rae's dress, the bride turns to Ray, plunks down on the vanity stool, and starts to weep. Kitty B. and Cricket run over and Ray scurries to find a handkerchief in the bridal emergency kit, which she quickly hands to Katie Rae and says, “Heavens, don't let your makeup run!”
“And don't let your mascara get on the dress, darlin',” Kitty B. adds.
Katie Rae wipes her eyes with a handkerchief then turns to look at her reflection. “I just don't know if I can go through with this.” She looks up at Kitty B.'s reflection in the vanity mirror. Ray glances at Kitty B. and then back to Katie Ray.
It's thirty minutes before the
ceremony
, Ray thinks.
She can't be doing this
.
“Sweetheart, what do you mean?” Kitty B. asks. “Is there something wrong?”
“I'm just scared.” Katie Rae spins her engagement ring round and round her finger as her large chest rises and falls dramatically as if she is starting to hyperventilate. For a minute Ray's afraid her bosoms are going to flop right over the top of the beaded trim, but Katie Rae pulls up her top and says, “I mean this is the rest of my life, Mama. And I haven't known Marshall all that long.”
Just then Ray's cell phone rings and though she hesitates to answer it, she can't help herself once she sees Priscilla's cell number lighting up the small screen.
“Excuse me just one moment,” Ray says to the gals as she takes a few steps back into the bathroom. She knows she should help get Katie Rae settled down, but she just has to find out about the proposal.
“Mama, you're going to die,” Priscilla says from the other end of the phone. Though the connection isn't perfect Ray can tell that she's either giddy or drunk.
“What?” Ray says. “Tell me, darling! I've been waiting for this call all day.”
“Vegas, baby,” a hoarse male voice hollers into the phone. It sounds vaguely familiar, but Ray can't quite place it.
“Who is that?” she asks. “Did Donovan propose? I helped him with the ring. We picked it out at Croghan's. Don't you love it?”
“That's J.K., Mama.”
“J.K.?” Ray says as her gut begins to churn. “As in
Knucklehead
J.K.?”
“Yes,” she says, giggling. “Stop that,” she says to him in a hushed tone. “Mama, we're in Las Vegas.”
“Las Vegas? What in the world are you doing there? And with
J.K
.?”
Kitty B. and Sis peer into the open door of the bathroom. Then they start eyeing each other over Ray, and their faces begin to redden with what they're guessing is a kind of panic or fear. Katie Rae still weeps at the vanity, but they've dropped her arm and they're leaning in to listen to Ray's conversation. Ray moves toward a lavender stall and rests her head against its plastic door. There is a laminated poster right at her eye level that reads, “CREATOR,” and it has a picture of this grand waterfall spewing over a lush valley.
“What are you saying, Priscilla?” Ray says.
“J.K. and I just tied the knot, Mama!” she says. “When Donovan proposed yesterday, I just couldn't say yes. Something just wouldn't let me do it, you know? It was just too perfect or something. And then I called J.K. and by last night we were on our way to Vegas. We got married in this cheesy little white chapel that was actually in the center of a casino! Isn't that a riot?”
This is a joke
, Ray thinks.
Some kind of awful, ugly prank.
Then Priscilla continues, “This is right for me, Mama. I know it's not the way you would have planned things, but Donovan's proposal made me realize how much I love J.K. It made it crystal clear in my mind, and we wanted to make it official as quickly as we could. We wanted to be whimsical, too, you know?”
Now bile rises in Ray's throat. She scratches her thigh, which causes a three-pronged run in her new Talbots extra-sheer black hose. This cannot be happening. Her heart beats at a rapid pace. She might faint, she thinks. She might collapse. She might die right here before Katie Rae makes it down the aisle. It'll be the second ambulance the purple cathedral will have seen in a twenty-four hour time span.
“We can throw a big party in Jasper whenever you want, Mama,” Priscilla says.
“Yeah!” says J.K. “Absolutely, doll!”
“Mama?” says Priscilla. “You can pull out all of the stops like you've always wanted to. It will be great! Mama?”
Ray is speechless. She's still half expecting Donovan to come on the line and say it's all a joke, but she knows deep down it's not.
“Hey there, Mrs. Montgomery,” a raspy voice hollers into the phone. “Yesterday was the greatest day of my life,” he says. “I love your daughter so much. I thought I had lost her for good.”
Before he utters another word, Ray snaps her cell phone closed, bangs it against the wall several times then throws it in the purple plastic trash can in the church bathroom. Sis and Kitty B. rush in and move cautiously around her as though she's a pig trapped in a flower bed and they want to minimize her destruction.
“Poop 2,” Ray says as they take a step closer and try to read her eyes. She can't stop the tears of fury from brimming over. “Priscilla flew to Las Vegas last night and married Poop 2.”
Sis and Kitty B. shake their heads and move in to pat her back. “Oh Ray,” Kitty B. says. “I'm so sorry.”
Then Cricket comes in and says. “Mama, it's ten minutes until the ceremony, and Katie Rae is still upset and refusing to put her veil on.
Well, I've had about enough of Katie Rae's nonsense
. Ray walks fast and furious out of the bathroom and grabs the bride firmly by the shoulders. “Hush up, Katie Rae, and get your fanny ready to go down that aisle. That is a good and devoted man out there who wants to pledge his love to you, and you will be lucky to have him, do you hear me? It's time to buck up now.”
That seems to be just what Katie Rae needs to hear. She wipes her nose and hands Cricket the veil and as soon as it is fixed, she stands up and grabs LeMar's arm and heads straight down the aisle.
Ray never makes it into the sanctuary. She sits for a moment in the reception area and grits her teeth as she watches Katie Rae descend the aisle from the television monitor above the receptionist's desk. She thinks of all of the time she's put in at the church, and she doesn't know why God allowed this to happen.
How could You?
Ray says to her Maker as she stares at the acrylic cross at the center of the altar on the colored screen.
How in the world
could You, after all I've worked for? It's unfair. It's painfully unfair.
And though Ray wants to spit and cry and catch the next flight to Las Vegas to wring Priscilla's rebellious little neck, she doesn't. Tonight is not the night. And she couldn't shirk her Wedding Guild duties any more than she could let a piece of floral tape show in an arrangement.
She simply walks to her car, slips off her heels, and puts on her tennis shoes. Then she drives back down Highway 17 in the cool, clear December night so that she can make her way over to Cottage Hill Island. It's time to put the final touches on Katie Rae's reception. And as usual, she's the one to do it.
“The music was ethereal,” LeMar says as Kitty B. drives him toward home for the reception. He puts his hand on her round knee and squeezes it tight.
“Yes, it was,” she says, marveling at how that Italian trumpeter worked so well with Sis to fill the room with a kind of exuberance and beauty and joy. “There wasn't a dry eye during your solo.” She pats the top of LeMar's hand. And it's the truth. LeMar's voice brought tears to everyone's eyes. He has such a gift, and it pleases him so to sing, especially for his baby girl.
Kitty B. smiles at how beautiful the ceremony was. Katie Rae got herself together and said her vows in a manner that was both bold and tender, and Kitty B.'s so proud of her she could just pop.
“Not a bad homily either,” LeMar says.
“Mmm hmm.” Kitty B. smiles. Roscoe's words really did bring down the house. He talked about adopting Marshall and how he had prayed each night of his life for Marshall's mate and that he realized a few months ago that it was Katie Rae he had been praying for all along.
“I couldn't imagine a better one.” LeMar rubs the back of her neck. “And now it's time to celebrate, sweet!”
LeMar's been better to Kitty B. since she had that talk with him. In fact, his spirits have actually lifted. Maybe it's her standing up to him or all the goings-on at the house with the painting and the fixing or the fact that his youngest is finally married off, but he just seems like a man she hasn't known for quite some time now. He's got a spring in his step, and he hasn't complained about how he feels for at least a week. That is a miracle in and of itself, and she hopes it will last.
Kitty B.'s mama was right. Folks really do rise to the occasion when it comes to weddings. They're hardwired that way. At least they are around Jasper, and she smiles when she thinks of her mama as she waves to Miss C., who is decked out with white feathered angel wings and a shimmery gold halo. The statue stands beside the archway of poinsettias and mistletoe that leads to the tent where Kitty B.'s friends and family have gathered to celebrate.
Shawna Bennington comes running over to Kitty B. in her sparkly red sweater dress with the feathered neckline, and Kitty B. would almost be embarrassed by her if she weren't such a sincerely dear person.
“Everything is so pretty!” she says as she takes a big bite of a California tart. “I can't imagine anything more glorious. You and your friends are amazing!”
“Thank you.” Kitty B. returns her embrace. “It was a lovely ceremony, Shawna. Roscoe did such a wonderful job.”
“Didn't he?” she says. “I was so proud of him.”
Kitty B. takes a moment to look around the tent, and everything seems to twinkle like she's in a Christmas dream. Ray and R.L. have set elaborate candelabras along the buffet tables, and there are little silver ones in the center of each sitting table. Fresh, delicate cedar garlands with thick velvet bows outline everything from the buffet to the sitting tables to the very lining of the tent, and there are silver urns overflowing with scarlet roses and calla lilies and magnolias with their large and shiny green leaves. Even the tall space heaters they rented are decked with mistletoe and bows. There is candlelight everywhere, and it glistens in the crystal and the jewelry and the eyes of the guests. The gals have really outdone themselves with this one. She can't imagine a more magical reception.
Then she looks back at her home by the river. Vangie's wedding gift was the painters, and Willy and Angus spent every afternoon over there for two weeks patching up cracks in the walls and shaving down old windows and doors that had swelled so much they were hard to open or close. Even the yard looks beautiful. Ray bought gorgeous thorny grapevine spun balls that she wrapped in small white Christmas lights, and she's hung one of those from all of the most prominent branches of the live oak trees that line the river front.