Ciji Ware (12 page)

“Well, there was certainly no need for y’all to make such a
public
fuss about everything,” Antoinette declared. “The mess you created by runnin’ out of that church—right in front of the
priest
—caused such awful talk, Flowers by Duvallon is still recoverin’ from it all.”

“Even though I’ve paid you and Daddy back the money, you still have to make me wrong, don’t you?” Daphne asked quietly in rising frustration and sadness. Antoinette glared at her daughter, refusing to speak. “Convince me, Mama, that you don’t really care more about your business relationships with the Eberts and the Petrellas than about my almost marrying a two-timing, double-crossing pathological
liar
who could’ve killed your
son
!”

“You’re just twistin’ everything all ’round,” Antoinette cried shrilly, and then glanced toward the tent to see if they were attracting unwanted attention. “Just like you always do!” she whispered harshly. Her vermilion lips had bloomed into a full-blown pout.

“I’m not twisting one single thing,” Daphne retorted, starting to tremble. “You’ve got to stop making things
up
!” Pushed to the limit by her mother’s persistent refusal to face reality, she raised both hands and sketched imaginary headlines in the air. “Dateline: Mardi Gras. Back in the day. You had drunken sex with Lafayette Marchand, betrayed your own sister, and married Daddy to cover it up. Dateline: Christmas. Two years ago. Jack had drunken sex with Cindy Lou Mallory the night before my wedding, betraying King and me at the same time. See any parallels?”

Antoinette’s air of injured innocence had transformed itself into righteous indignation. Daphne ignored this, however, adding, “If the fallout from all that was humiliating to you, I’m sorry. But that’s the way it
happened.
Don’t you take
any
goddamned responsibility for the way things turned out?”

“Don’t you
dare
talk to me like that, young lady!” Antoinette hissed.

It was always like this between her mother and her, Daphne thought distractedly, wondering if Antoinette’s glare had the power to vaporize her, right on the spot. She glanced into the tent. If she didn’t extricate herself from this situation soon, both of them would begin to behave even more appallingly.

Just
accept
the
way
she
is
, she lectured herself ferociously. She had no power to alter her mother’s compulsive need to dispute hard facts—a habit ingrained since her girlhood. For a brief moment, Daphne studied the fine lines around Antoinette’s lips and at the corners of her eyes. In the full light of day, even the most carefully applied makeup couldn’t camouflage these telltale signs of aging. She knew, suddenly, that it was up to her to make different choices in the way she responded to the woman’s lunatic behavior.

“You know, Mama…” she said slowly, hardly believing what she was about to say, “I’m glad to see you looking so pretty today.” Her mother blinked, as if she were dumbfounded by her daughter’s abrupt change of demeanor. “And I’m glad you came to the wedding, for King’s sake. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you, considering everything that’s happened. Now, please excuse me, will you? Corlis is waving at me.”

Antoinette was clearly mystified by Daphne’s conciliatory tone. The younger woman briefly rested her hand on her mother’s coat sleeve. Then, she turned and reentered the tent. King called out to her just as the musical trio began to play softly in the background.

“Hey, Sister Woman! Sit right here, darlin’.” He pointed to a chair beside him. His bride was already seated to his right. Daphne inhaled deeply and sat down.

“Are you all right?” Corlis whispered. “I was about to send out the search-and-rescue squad.”

“I’m… okay,” Daphne confirmed. “At least I’m still breathing.”

“King told me Jack made a brief appearance at the church, the scum. Fortunately, I never saw him or you might have witnessed the lovely bride decking an uninvited guest.”

Daphne couldn’t help but laugh at Corlis’s wisecrack. She was surprised, herself, to discover that she’d regained most of her composure. In fact, she felt pretty great. She had faced the snake and the tigress—and survived with dignity. This time, at least. She glanced surreptitiously in her mother’s direction in time to see her wander over to the table where some Kingsbury cousins from Baton Rouge had gathered.

“Since we thought your mother wasn’t coming,” Corlis said, nodding in the direction of her new mother-in-law, “Lani Riches squeezed her in where I thought she’d do the least damage.”

King nodded agreement and then leaned forward and kissed his bride lightly on the forehead. “Bless you, O wife of mine.”

Daphne quickly filled them in on Jack’s latest untoward behavior in church and in the parking lot and, briefly, about the photographer coming to her rescue.

“Just watch your back while we’re on our honeymoon, okay, sugar?” King urged. “Hopefully Jack’s bosses in Texas will keep him too busy to mess with you anymore. But, good for you for givin’ the guy what for.”

From that moment on, the joy in the room became palpable. A series of raucous, ribald toasts were offered by friends and relations honoring Corlis and King; Great Aunt Marge; King’s newly acknowledged father, Lafayette Marchand; and the rest of the bridal party. King then raised a glass to Daphne’s harp playing “under duress,” as he obliquely put it. The jazz trio began to play again, and soon, everybody paired off.

Through the open-sided tent, Daphne caught sight of Sim Hopkins walking out the mansion’s back door with his ubiquitous cameras looped around his neck. He turned toward the rear garden near the arbor, as if prepared to take off in pursuit of the elusive yellow-rumped warbler once again. Impulsively, Daphne rose from her chair, dashed down a brick path flanked by neatly sculptured, knee-high hedges, and hailed him just as he was descending the stone steps near the rose beds aflame with pink, blush, and peach-colored flowers.

“Sim! Hey, Sim!” she called, wondering if two glasses of vintage champagne provided the impetus that drove her to take this wholly uncharacteristic action. “Hi, there!”

“Well… hi,” he said, smiling as he turned to her. “You obviously feel a lot better.”

“A lot,” she pronounced, suppressing a champagne-induced giggle. She was slightly breathless by the time she arrived at his side. “Sim… won’t you come have a glass of the bubbly and meet my brother and new sister-in-law? I told them what a lifesaver you were today, and they said they’d love it if you’d join us for a bit. Will you?”

He pointed to his khaki pants. “I’m not exactly dressed for a wedding.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she declared, waving her hand dismissively. “Plus, if you have a drink with us, then you can also dance with me,” she added, smiling up at him in a deliberately flirtatious fashion that even Magnolia Mama might admire.

Oh, puh-leeze
, she thought, chagrined.

Then she almost laughed aloud. Maybe there were some things she’d learned from Antoinette Kingsbury Duvallon that might actually prove useful.

Chapter 5

Sim didn’t respond immediately to Daphne’s invitation to join her family’s wedding celebration inside the tent.

“It’s absolutely fabulous champagne,” she assured him in a rush. “My favorite… Veuve Clicquot.” When he didn’t reply, she suddenly felt inane. “Oh. Well…” she added uncertainly, “I can see you’re just on your way out…”

He glanced up at the sky and then at his watch. “Sure, why not?” He flashed a grin, and then added more graciously, “I’d be delighted to raise a glass to the happy couple.”

Daphne eyed the mellow shafts of light pouring through the moss-covered branches of the large oak tree that Jack had probably hidden behind earlier. “It’s the perfect time of day for shooting pictures, isn’t it?” she asked with a guilty expression.

“Golden time,” he acknowledged with a shrug.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t stop to think about the job you’re here to do.”

Sim gazed pensively toward the rear of the garden. “That little sucker in those hedges out there has dodged me for two days now,” he declared, as if he’d reached an important decision. “Why should I let him deprive me of a glass of fine champagne and a dance with a beautiful woman—not to mention getting to meet the famous Kingsbury Duvallon?”

“You know about my brother King?” she asked, startled.

Daphne did her best to ignore the fact he’d called her beautiful. After all—in the words of her cynical female musician friends—he was a “travelin’ man,” and they tended to say those sorts of things to women they met along the way.

“He’s an architectural historian, right?” Sim asked. “Mrs. Riches told me all about the ‘Hero of New Orleans’ and your brother’s fight in Natchez, too, to keep people from demolishing some great, old places around here.”

“That’s right,” she said proudly. “The guy lies down in front of bulldozers for a living. One of the last real crusaders around, and I adore him for it.”

Daphne was inordinately pleased that Simon had been asking the owner of Monmouth Plantation about the Duvallons. Well, she amended silently, he’d been asking about her
brother
, at least.

She waited in the front foyer while Sim took his camera equipment upstairs to his room. When he reappeared, he’d shed his khakis for a pair of gray slacks, a blue blazer, a pale-blue collared shirt, and regimental striped tie.

And
looks
terrific
, Daphne thought.

The jazz trio was well into a romantic bossa nova by the time they returned to the tent. She made introductions on the dance floor while Corlis and King moved gracefully to the sensuous Latin music. The musicians then swung into a set of rock and roll tunes, which left Daphne mildly disappointed that Sim and she were consigned to dancing like planets orbiting in different galaxies. However, she liked watching the supple way he moved and wondered what it would be like to tango with him.

At the end of the set, as guests gathered around, the bride and groom cut the cake, and immediately waiters delivered snowy wedges on gold-rimmed dessert plates, along with coffee, to the assembled guests. Eventually, the wedding party returned to the head table, where everybody made room for Sim’s added chair, and King signaled the waiters for more champagne.

“Thanks for letting me gate-crash,” Sim said, pointing apologetically to his more casual attire.

“Thanks for being there for my sister earlier today,” King countered. His eyes rested briefly on Daphne with a look of concern. “The last thing any of us wanted was for Jack Ebert to show up in Natchez. We’ve all learned to stay on our guard ’round that guy.”

Just then, two members of the hotel staff entered the tent pushing a dolly. The antique harp that Daphne had been playing earlier in the sitting room glided by their table on its way toward the band.

“What—” Daphne said, gaping at the instrument as it was placed next to the bass fiddle.

“Do you mind?” Corlis asked with a mischievous expression. “I know I told you that you weren’t expected to work at our wedding reception, but would you be willing to do that song I heard you sing yesterday in the parlor?” She turned to address her new husband. “Do you have
any
idea what a foxy little songstress your sister is?”

Daphne’s brother smiled faintly. “Not really,” he replied, “but I’d consider it a mighty fine weddin’ present if she’d show me.” He rose from his chair and tapped his knife against an empty glass. “Hey, everybody!” he shouted over the din. “Y’all already know that my sister is a very accomplished classical harpist. Just now, I’m told by my new wife, here, that Daphne’s been holdin’ out on us. What’s the tune you’re gonna sing for us, sugar?”

Daphne rose from her chair, and loudly announced, “‘Greensleeves.’” At her brother’s look of confusion, she shook her head, laughing, and said, “Just kidding… just kidding! I think y’all will recognize the song right away.” She crossed to the dance floor and took a seat upon the silk-covered stool that had been placed next to the harp. She pulled the instrument against her shoulder and smiled at the leader of the jazz trio. “How’s ‘Georgia on My Mind’?” she said in a low voice. “Is the key of F all right?”

The musician nodded doubtfully. He was a man who looked to be in his midfifties, with thick, black-rimmed glasses, patches of gray, curly, close-cropped hair, and coffee-colored skin. “I never played with no harp before,” he whispered.

“I’ve never played jazz with a trio before, either,” she said with a grin, “except as backup for the Cafe LaCroix band, in New Orleans.”

This last statement appeared to bolster the bandleader’s confidence. “Well, me and the boys’ll play real soft, and you play real loud, and we’ll probably do just fine. You can use that mike right there to sing into, okay?” He directed his next words to his compatriots. “Ready, fellas? Key of F, And a one… and two, and…”

The foursome easily slid into the opening bars and played through an entire chorus before Daphne began to sing the familiar refrain.