And she moved back to the dressing table, rejecting the pastel pink lipstick and colored her mouth a bright, wicked red. War paint, she thought. Ready for battle.
Eleven
The wedding rehearsal was an absolute nightmare. St. Anne’s Episcopal Church hadn’t changed in fifty years, and for the first time Susan found herself in familiar territory. It was both comforting and eerie, and she would have liked nothing more than to slip into one of the wooden pews for a few solitary minutes and see if she could find the answers in what was certainly a logical place to look for them.
When she suggested she might like a few moments of quiet prayer Tallulah’s father and fiancé looked at her as if she. was possessed. “No need for such nonsense,” Ridley dismissed it in his gruff voice. “You’ll have plenty of time for that once you’re married.”
“You’re not going to become some kind of religious fanatic, are you?” Neddie demanded.
“Wanting to pray would make me a religious fanatic?” .
“Please!” Ridley said. “Religion is a personal matter, not for public discussion. For heaven’s sake spare us your insights.”
So much for spiritual help, Susan thought The rehearsal went on and on and on, the old stone church filled with chattering people she had to pretend to know. Fortunately Mary kept close, whispering identifications in her ear, and Susan managed to keep a straight face when she’d meet someone she’d heretofore known as a stately dowager.
The dead ones were the hardest. Susan’s mother had been instilled with proper social etiquette, and when an Abbott family friend or distant relative had died she had considered it her duty to attend the funeral, and quite often she’d taken her daughter with her, training Susan in the fine art of social niceties. There were at least a dozen hale, hearty, jovial members of the massive wedding party whom Susan had seen buried, and kissing their warm cheeks, smiling at them while she knew their eventual fate, was completely unnerving.
There were ten bridesmaids, all chattering in high-pitched voices, but for some reason her godmother, Louisa, wasn’t among them. There were ten ushers, their deeper voices echoing in counterpoint in the old stone church. The priest, Father Montgomery, was a stately old man whose mellow tones could barely be heard above the babble, and the organist forgot to show up. Someone else pitched in with a mistake-ridden version of the bridal march, and Susan had no choice but to let Ridley drag her up the aisle on her tottery high heels, following the bevy of chattering debutantes, to hand her over to Neddie.
Jack stood next to him, and Susan stared up in utter honor, ignoring her fiancé. “You’re the best man?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Tallulah,” Neddie snapped. “You know perfectly well Freddy is the best man. McGowan is just filling in until he gets here.”
“Kind of you,” she murmured dazedly.
“Let’s get this over with,” Ridley announced. “The rest of the family is expecting us back at the house for the rehearsal dinner.”
The bridesmaids bumped into each other. Ridley tripped as he practiced moving back to the front pew. The ushers kept losing their places, and Neddie stepped on her foot when they practiced kneeling at the altar.
But worst of all, Jack McGowan refused to mimic the best man’s part in the ceremony. “I forgot the ring,” he said, his hands shoved carelessly in his pockets.
Neddie growled, but Father Montgomery simply laughed. “It’s lucky you’re only standing in, young man, or we would have a disaster on our hands.”
“People can get married without a ring,” Neddie rumbled. “I don’t intend to let anything get in the way of this ceremony.” He smiled his flashing smile, and it seemed as if no one else heard the threat in his voice.
By the time they all piled back into the various cars, the noise level had risen to an even shriller pitch, and Susan’s head was aching so badly she wanted to scream. On the way over to the church she’d been crammed into a huge black sedan, wedged between bridesmaids. Neddie was in the midst of hustling her toward that same sedan when she spied a wonderful-looking hot rod belonging to one of the younger ushers.
Mary was already ensconced in the back seat of the convertible, squeezed between two of the ushers, looking absolutely delighted. “Come with us, Lou!” she called. “You need the wind in your hair.”
Neddie’s fingers dug painfully into her arm, but there was no way he could stop her without making a scene. “I’d love to,” she called, pulling away from him and running across the neatly manicured lawn. She climbed into the front seat, flashing her sister a brilliant smile. At the moment nothing mattered more than simply getting away from Neddie’s oppressive presence.
“You used to love fast cars. You wanna drive, Lou?” the young man behind the wheel asked, and for a moment Susan was sorely tempted. But she’d never learned to operate a standard shift, and God only knew what kind of clutch and choke these old cars had.
“You drive,” she said airily. “I’ll enjoy the ride.” The young man took off with a squeal of fires, throwing Susan back against the seat, and she heard Maty shriek with laughter.
“What are you looking for?” the driver shouted over the rushing wind.
Susan stopped rummaging around her. Of course there’d be no seat belt. And there was nothing to worry about—in 1999 Mary was still alive and Tallulah had survived long enough to marry Neddie. “I dropped a...a bobby pin,” she said, feeling very clever.
“You don’t use bobby pins, Lou!” Mary called from the back seat. “Hey, Todd, why don’t we drive to Eddie’s and get some ice cream?”
“Aren’t we supposed to be back for the dinner?”
“They’ll start without us. I need ice cream,” she shouted.
“Sounds good to me.”
Susan sat very still in the front seat. “Todd?” she said.
