The Wedding Machine (10 page)

“Martha Stewart doesn't have a
thing
on us!” Kitty B. says.

Ray winks at Kitty B. and beams with pride, despite the strain on her gash, as she hands Kitty B. a corsage that includes a rose, a piece of a hydrangea, and three sprigs of lavender sweet pea.

She hands her a stick pin. “Put it on.”

“Me?” Kitty B. says.

“Of course,” Ray says, pointing to Sis, who is pinning hers on in the hall mirror.

“One for every hostess.”

“Mama would be so proud,” Kitty B. says, and in her mind's eye she sees Roberta nudging God on the elbow and pointing down at the gals. “Now how's that for southern hospitality, Lord?”

When the doorbell rings, Kitty B. opens it to find the petite and beautiful Little Hilda standing in its center in a strapless pale pink and white seersucker dress. She's wearing the elegant strand of pearls they helped Hilda pick out at Croghan's in Charleston for her debutante ball four short years ago. Little Hilda is so lovely and delicate that she takes Kitty B.'s breath away.

“Hi, Miss Kitty B.,” Little Hilda says as Kitty B. stares into her face, unable to utter a word.

“Don't you look lovely,” Ray interjects, sliding the pomander of pale green hydrangea onto Little Hilda's minute wrist.

“Thank y'all so much,” she says, looking to each of the gals. “Especially you, Miss Ray, for hosting this and for putting everything together.” Then she tucks a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear and blushes. “Mama's running late.”

Sis swats the air, “That's okay, honey. We know your mama very well, and we wouldn't expect it any other way.”

Little Hilda grins before whispering, “Did y'all know that she still sits in a hot tub for an hour after putting on her makeup for it to ‘soak in'?”

“No, not the Princess of Jasper?” Ray says cutting her eyes at Sis. “I can't imagine her spending more than, say, a
half hour
letting her makeup soak in.”

They laugh at Hilda's expense.

“Well, there must be something to her lengthy grooming procedures,” Kitty B. says, patting Little Hilda on the back, “because she's always the most gorgeous person in the room.”

“Besides the bride,” Sis says, hugging Little Hilda tight. “We're so happy for you, sweetheart.”

Kitty B. tears up again, and Little Hilda reaches out to squeeze her hand. She's probably the most sensitive one out of all of their children, which surprises the socks off Kitty B., considering she was reared by the self-centered daughter of the dictator of Jasper.

“It's okay,” Little Hilda says to Kitty B. as she dabs her eye with one of Sis's linen napkins. “I understand.”

Next Cricket and Katie Rae arrive, and Kitty B. is delighted to see that Katie Rae found a skirt, not to mention a little lipstick. Those boys that she's meeting on the computer have got her primping for the first time ever. Kitty B. doesn't care what people say about the evils of the Internet, she's thanking the good Lord for online dating services!

“Hi girls,” Kitty B. says. “Don't y'all look nice.”

Truth is, Cricket is the only one in the Blalock clan to have gotten her act together. She married one of the McFortson boys of the large and successful McFortson Funeral Home business that has locations up and down the South Carolina coastline. She even works there part-time while she and Tommy try to start a family. Cricket's dressed in a sleeveless, teal linen dress that looks like one of her tailored Talbots, size-four specials with a tasteful gold slider necklace that has an octagonal medallion charm with her monogram dangling just below the center of her neckline.

Cricket is in good shape and well-proportioned with a short hairdo that always looks freshly cut and in place, and sometimes she seems so together that she makes Kitty B. uncomfortable. Like maybe Cricket should be the mother and Kitty B. should be the daughter so that she could rear her up with the kind of order and organization that Kitty B. has never been able to muster.

“We came in a hearse, Mama,” Katie Rae snickers, and Kitty B. notices a piece of pepper or spinach lodged in between her daughter's front teeth.

Katie Rae turns and points to the street, where sure enough there is a long black hearse parked in front of Kitty B.'s brother Jackson's house. “To carry the wedding gown.”

“Of course,” Kitty B. says. That is Cricket's role to play in the wedding—to pick up the wedding gown from the cleaners and carry it in the hearse, so it has plenty of room to lie flat, to the church dressing room.

Cricket clears her throat. “Check your teeth in the powder room,” she whispers to Katie Rae, who covers her mouth and scurries into Ray's half bath beneath the stairwell.

“Good to see you, Mama,” Cricket looks her mother up and down. “What happened to your Ferragamo?”

“Oh,” Kitty B. says, patting her on the back as if to console her. “It broke on the way over. I'll get it fixed next week.”

Cricket pulls a roll of double-sided tape out of her little square teal purse, then leads Kitty B. by the elbow to the corner of the dining room, where she kneels down and tapes the bow back on her mother's shoe.

“That'll hold it for now,” Cricket says, standing up and shaking her head gently as her do settles back into place. She smiles at Kitty B. and pats her forearm. “You okay, Mama?”

“Yes.” Kitty B. nods. “Now go over and greet the bride.”

When Trudi Crenshaw, Angus's girlfriend who claims to be his fiancée, arrives
before
Hilda with her plump twelve-year-old daughter Dodi, the junior bridesmaid, in tow, they are all a little uneasy. Little Hilda greets them merrily, and Ray directs them to the fruit punch, and before you know it, half the women in town are making their way through the foyer. There's Mayor's wife, Tootsie Whaley, and Missy Meggett and the ladies who make up the garden club and Junior League of Jasper.

When Sis's mother and the rest of the older ladies arrive on a bus from the Episcopal retirement home on Seabrook Island, Ray runs out to greet them and help them down one by one, making sure their canes and walkers are on firm footing on her new slate walkway.

Some of them eye the hearse with concern, and Ray pats their hands and says, “It's for the wedding gown. Cricket's picking it up from the cleaners this afternoon.”

Then Vangie Dreggs and her sister-in-law pull into the middle of the front yard in a golf cart as if they are on a putting green or in the small confines of an exclusive island resort. They come in with a bang, laughing and hooting and making their introductions.

Now Kitty B. notices Hilda's long white Mercedes as it creeps quietly up into the driveway. From the kitchen she sees Hilda check her makeup twice in the rearview mirror before slipping in through the back door in her cream silk pantsuit.

“Hi, gal,” Kitty B. says, pinning the corsage on her and lying, “You haven't missed a thing.”

“I'm sorry I'm late.” Hilda fans herself with her hands.

“You look lovely,” Kitty B. soothes as she rubs her friend's back.

“Thanks, darling.” Hilda straightens her posture before she enters the dining room to greet everyone with a painted smile.

Kitty B. takes her place at one end of the dining room table, where she mans the Earl Grey tea station. Before she knows it, a line of tea drinkers forms, and she pours cup after cup of tea as the familiar buzz of feminine chatter swells up and falls away over and over like the waves on a choppy day at the mouth of the Edisto River.

The older ladies cluck over the gifts, and the young girls form a circle around Little Hilda, who blushes and shows her engagement ring, an antique-set princess cut that belonged to Giuseppe's great-grandmother who is buried in the Tuscan village of Trassilico that crowns one of the mountaintops they will visit on their honeymoon next week.

“How much do you want for the whole house, Ray, furniture and all?” Kitty B. hears Vangie Dreggs say, half joking. She points to her sister-in-law, who's visiting from Houston. “Deanna says she'll give you a million-two for the whole kit and caboodle.”

“Oh my,” Ray says, straightening out her powder blue linen top. “Well, I appreciate your interest, I suppose”—she nods to Deanna—“but our home is not for sale.”

“Of course it isn't.” Vangie squints her faux emerald eyes. “I was just pulling your leg.”

Ray laughs nervously and catches Kitty B.'s eye from across the room.
I told you so!

Thing is, Kitty B. was the one who convinced the gals to invite Vangie to the Tea and See. Vangie has volunteered to do so much for the wedding that Kitty B. just felt they had to. After all, the “Lone Star” is putting up Giuseppe's entire family in her newest block of furnished apartments between here and Beaufort, and she managed to get a suite donated for Senator Warren, Giuseppe's boss, at the newfangled five-star Sanctuary on Kiawah as well as the honeymoon suite for Giuseppe and Little Hilda on their wedding night.

But the look on Ray's face tells Kitty B. that Ray thinks she was dead wrong in insisting.

~ JULY 7, 2005, ONE MONTH EARLIER ~

“You do have Vangie on the guest list for all of the Prescott parties, don't you?” Kitty B. asked Ray while they'd picked out the wedding tent from Thomason Rental.

“Don't be so naive,” Ray said. “Can't you see that Vangie's just trying to buy her way into our town?”

“I don't think that's true.” Kitty B. shook her head and turned to Ray. “She's gone out of her way to be helpful. You have to admit that.”

Ray rolled her eyes.

Then Kitty B. blurted out, “You were new here once, too, remember?”

Ray's eyes narrowed as if Kitty B. had accused her of committing a crime. “That was thirty years ago.”

Within seconds Ray pointed to the tent that she wanted for the wedding without so much as asking Kitty B.'s opinion and turned to face her.

“Let's go,” she said.

Just as Kitty B. nods to Ray, who summons her to a talk in the kitchen, Little Hilda comes over with a frosted glass of mint julep and says in a hushed tone, “Miss Ray, have I told you about Giuseppe's friend Donovan?”

“No, honey,” she says.

“Well,” she says, her cheeks flushed from all of the excitement. “He's from New Jersey and he worked on Senator Warren's campaign a few years ago, and now he's a medical resident at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Anyway, he wants to be introduced to a nice southern girl, so I'm trying to persuade Priscilla to look after him this weekend!”

“Oh, that's a fine idea,” Ray says and Kitty B. can see her tension over Vangie fading. Ray is no fool. A liberal Yankee is not ideal, but she would certainly take a nice doctor any day of the week over Poop 2.

With Ray diverted, Kitty B. ambles over to chat with Sis's mama and some of the other older ladies who were Roberta's friends. They all want a report on LeMar's health, and they are already organizing a time to bring over a casserole dinner next week. Just when she thinks her mama's gals are grinding to a halt on account of old age and death itself, Kitty B. learns that they still have a little more gas in the tank—what a pleasant surprise!

Then Sis comes over, pats Kitty B.'s elbow, and says, “Hilda's simply not acknowledging Trudi Crenshaw's presence whatsoever.”

“What's Trudi doing?” Kitty B. asks.

“Well, go see for yourself and report back to me,” she says. “I've been staring at both of them too much.”

So Kitty B. grabs a cup of tea and checks out the situation. Trudi seems to be avoiding Hilda like the plague, making a point of scurrying into another room whenever Hilda changes places.

Now some of the guests are picking up the gifts and looking on the bottom of them to note the manufacturer or the pattern. This isn't the most mannerly thing to do, but one can understand since they are on display. Trudi follows their lead, noting to her daughter the names beneath the china and the crystal. But then, in a nervous frenzy, Trudi goes from picking up the gifts on display to picking up the knickknacks and doodads from the shelves and end tables all over Ray's home. Now, that's just not something you do.

Then Vangie Dreggs and her sister-in-law, curious as ever, are right behind Trudi, peering over her shoulder to see. Kitty B. knows that even the Lone Star pain in Ray's behind knows better than to do this, but, by golly, she's not going to miss the opportunity to snoop.

This goes on for about fifteen minutes—Trudi picking up antique plates and picture frames and books as Kitty B. watches in astonishment, sipping her tea and nibbling on a lemon square.

Suddenly, Hilda walks over to Trudi, who is studying the bottom of a small antique wooden box from Ray's great-aunt Nell Pringle, and says plainly, “The whole house is not on display.”

Then Hilda grabs the box, turns it right side up, and continues, “Let's mind our manners,” before she places it back on the bookshelf where it belongs.