“They look drunk though. Can’t you get them to waddle a little less?” Chyna demonstrated. Hands still at her sides like wings, she executed a graceful straight walk down the center of the aisle.
This had gone on long enough. The woman was beyond demanding now; her request was ridiculous. I opened my mouth to tell her just where she could shove the ideas of my penguins non-waddling down the aisle. Before I could say a word, Zina clamped her hand over my mouth.
“We’ll practice with the penguins to see if we can straighten their gait. Right, Alex?” Her eyes had taken on an almost maniacal shine. Like if I didn’t play nice and agree with her, she might nip off my nose or something.
Clearing my throat, I reached up to move her hand away from my mouth and twined my fingers with hers.
“That’s right.” The smile I forced on my lips felt strained. “I’ll see what I can do to de-waddle the birds.”
Zina bit back a grin. I could tell she was about to lose it by the way her chest moved in and out, like she was trying to breathe without laughing.
“Very well.” Chyna let her hands drop. “Now let’s do the whole ‘kiss the bride’ and let me see how you manage to get yourselves back down the aisle.”
I lifted a brow, and Zina linked her arm through mine again. “She doesn’t really mean for us to kiss, right?” I asked.
“No. Just turn around and we’ll walk down the aisle. Slow, though.”
We let our arms drop as we turned toward the front and then linked arms again.
Chyna had moved to the side, where she was trying to wrangle the penguins into a line to walk back down the aisle.
“I told you, we haven’t practiced that part yet.” I stepped toward her, passing my nieces, who still posed as bridesmaids.
“What do you do to get them to move?” Chyna asked.
“We’ll work on it. I’ll have it all pulled together by the time you come back for the real rehearsal.”
“Stupid birds. No wonder you can’t fly.” She practically spit out the last word.
“Fly. Fly. Fly.” The mimicked cry came from where Izzy stood. Her hands were still clasped in front of her, holding one of the scraggly last-minute bouquets Lacey had shoved in all of their hands.
How had I missed it? Hadn’t she learned before not to bring the damn bird around? The pesky parrot in question poked his head out of the bag hanging from Izzy’s shoulder.
“No.” I made a move to stop him as Shiner Bock emerged from the bag and clambered up Izzy’s arm.
“Fly. Fly. Fly,” the damn bird called. Then he spread his wings and drifted from Izzy’s shoulder to land on top of Chyna’s head.
The scene unrolled as if in slow motion. As Chyna’s hands grappled for him, he spooked, sailing back to Izzy, something hot pink in his grip.
Holy shit. I turned in horror to find Chyna with her hands on top of her head. The bird had stolen her hat.
Zina leapt toward Izzy, tossing her bouquet to the ground as she reached for the bird. Izzy must have freaked out because she whirled away from Zina and tried to run. But she tripped over the twine we’d used to mark the edges of the tent. Izzy screamed and clutched at her arm. Char yelled as her daughter went down.
All I could do was watch the scene unfold, massive disaster after massive disaster. Before the dust began to settle, one thing became sufficiently clear.
I was fucked.
CHAPTER 27
ZINA
“It’s going to be okay.”If I said it enough times, it was bound to come true. That’s what I kept telling myself as I muttered those five little words over and over again. We were in the emergency room, waiting to see if Izzy’s arm was broken or just sprained. After Chyna’s hat had been rescued from Shiner Bock and returned, the woman had retreated to her rental car and sped out of Ido so fast she left skid marks on the pavement.
Lacey had been admitted for observation due to high blood pressure, and Alex paced the small waiting room while we waited for news about poor Izzy. The bird had disappeared. Morty and the other girls had stayed at the scene to try to find him. How could things get any worse?
A few moments later I remembered why I never, ever asked that question. Lacey’s face appeared on my phone wanting to video-chat. How the hell was that possible seeing as how Lacey was supposed to be under medical observation in a room upstairs?
“I thought you were admitted for high blood pressure,” I said as the video call connected.
