Bulan jumps up and down to emphasize the hilarity of these puns.
Since everyone around me is useless, I act as if it does not, in fact, feel like my feet are being perpetually greeted by Chihuahuas and unpack the pallets by myself.
Armed with a venue coordinator and an able-bodied assistant, I should have no trouble setting up for a wedding—even if said wedding is hosted on a not-entirely-inanimate island. And that seems to be true initially:by the time Robert pushes the last of our supply-bearing canoes across the pond, Mandy and I have finished creating the base of the stage-cum-wedding-altar in the center of the stone circle. We’ve covered the pallets with carpets, emptied twelve trash bags of leaves on top, and laid out the freshly woven garlands of silver dollar eucalyptus, threaded with dahlias, daisies, and white phlox. I artfully pluck a few blooms out and strew them across the ground, which… eats them.
And burps.
Thankfully, Dexter doesn’t have a taste for stones, the stage, or the seating. I appreciate this, because the tasseled floor pillows are rentals. Robert helps Mandy and me position them meaningfully around the stone circle; then we walk the venue, ticking through items on the checklist. Our wedding setup seems to be going off without a hitch. The venue looks almost boho-cool instead of just weird and random.
I hold up a hand.
“High five?” I ask Robert. He eagerly lopes to meet me, and gears up to slap my palm with satisfaction, when we’re interrupted by a huff.
A disapproving, ominous one.
I turn my head and am met with the most terrifying middle-aged woman ever. She’s a redhead, clocking in at over six feet and easily two hundred pounds of pure muscle. She has aggressively pointed eyebrows and biceps that would make a gym rat weep. Her outfit doesn’t tone things down either: she’s dressed in a silky knee-length skirt, and held in place at her neck by a twisty silver brooch is a deer pelt cape. With the head still intact. The deer’s eyes are bugged out. Its tongue lolls to the left. I think this was homemade. As in, last night.
“Are you the photographer?” I ask hopefully. But Robert takes a soggy knee to the woman, dashing my hopes. Mandy, politely noting the cue, curtsies in her strawberry-embroidered skirt. Bulan bows nose-first into his clipboard.
“Good morning, Becuille mac Nuadat!” Robert says. His reverence merely prompts another huff. I swear Dexter starts trembling a tiny bit beneath us.
“Knock it off,” I grouse, stamping pointedly.
“It is not yet morning,” announces the she-monster, Becuille. She then shifts her ire to me. “I, Becuille mac Nuadat, am the mother of the bride. Master of ceremonies. Chief Druidess of the Northeastern Shore. And Idid notapprove of… those.”
I attempt to follow her gaze. It seems she’s referring to the pillows. Which aren’t laid out in a seating arrangement anymore, but instead are forming a pyramid. It gives the energy of ancient Egypt mated with the Woodstock concert of 1969. What the hell? Is Dexter expressing an aesthetic preference? Or was he preparing to turn them into a midnight snack?
“We’ll be putting the pillows into the arrangement Fi wanted,” I say soothingly. Or at least what I want to be soothing. It clearly isn’t the right tone, because the druidess clenches her teeth so hard, a vein sticks out of her neck.
“Who is Fi?” she demands.
“Your… daughter?”
“I see you refer to the sole child of my womb, Mryyaofionnadynn mac Nuadat,” says Becuille, who I now choose to think of as Hell-Mother. Only a creature of darkness would terrify an animated chunk of dirt. Or worse, give their daughter a name too long to fit on a Scantron. “I told her your services would not be needed today.”
“Okay. Well, we signed a contract. You’ll have to take it up with her.”
“I will.” Before stalking away from me, she adds, “No pillows. Disgusting. Robert!”
Relieved to be off the hook, I slink away in search of Bulan.
I find him hiding, understandably, behind the cake stand. I’m glad he’s avoiding the Hell-Mother’s all-knowing sight. Compared to Robert and me, he has the disadvantage of being the shape and size of a soccer ball. And Becuille has the physique and vibe of a good kicker.
“Bulan,” I hiss. “Someone moved the pillows.”
“Well, I suppose you should move them back, then.”
Oh, like it’s easy. “The bride’s mom wants me to get rid of them. If I put them back how they were, I know she’ll be pissed. But I have to; it’s what Fi wants. What could Becuille do to me, Bulan? Can she curse me?”
“Stab you,” Bulan corrects. “Oh, I havenotmissed interacting with druids. So pretentious! You know they’re crunchy too. The pillows probably have polyester woven into the—”
“I don’t care if they’re made from orphaned babies’ hair and threaded with octopus tears. This wedding is for Fi and Asher, not Fi’s mom. What am I going to do?”
“Avoid creative punishment?” Bulan guesses.
Hmm. Judging by her deer-pelting skills, Becuille does seem like the creative type, not to mention the domineering kind. In #weddingtok terms, she’s a Momzilla for sure.
Now that the Hell-Mother’s landed on Dexter’s banks, almost all the work I’ve been performing to meet Fi’s requests gets derailed. She doesn’t let me take a breath without disagreeing with how I’m doing my job. Crumpling my layout sketch, she tells me the salad bar needs to be positioned in line with the sun. On stable ground? Absolutely not! Oh, and what’s with the tables? There shouldn’t be forks. Why are there forks? What else are hands for? There go the forks, tossed into a makeshift fire she chanted into existence.
