walk-in stall. I thanked April again for suggesting that we build it like that so that no shower curtain would be needed. “And the beer tap’s fantastic.”
Herman’s deep voice suddenly boomed from the living room. Everybody else usually comes in through the back porch into the kitchen, but he has to use the front door, which is flush with the ground and easier for his wheelchair.
His wife Nadine immediately came to find us, and the first words out of her mouth were, “Did your dress come in yet?”
For some reason, she and Doris were worried that I had ordered something totally inappropriate, and they had appointed themselves arbiters of family values. I know they mean well, but I can’t resist teasing them. In truth, no one had seen what I planned to wear except Aunt Zell and Portland and they were pretending to be as worried as the others that I’d have to walk down the aisle in my judge’s robe if the dress didn’t come soon.
“I don’t know why you can’t at least tell us what color it is,” Doris grumbled.
“Because if you say you hate it before you see it, I’ll feel awful.”
“Long as you don’t get pure white, it’ll be fine,” Nadine said. “I mean, everybody in Colleton County knows Dwight’s not the one that picked your cherry, though I do think you could be a little more careful about letting folks know y’all two are already keeping house. I remember how proud I was when Denise walked down the aisle dressed like a pure angel in that white silk dress. Didn’t she look like an angel, Minnie?”
“She certainly did,” Minnie agreed with a perfectly straight face. Not by the flicker of an eyelash would she nor April nor I ever hint that Nadine’s older daughter had no more right to pure white than I did, even though Denise’s baby weighed a full eight pounds when it was born “prematurely” seven months later.
“All the same, I have to say that I looked really good in the white satin version I tried on,” I said innocently.
Doris pounced. “So it’s satin?”
“There was also a red satin version.”
“You wouldn’t!”
I laughed. “You’re always acting like I’m a scarlet woman. Wouldn’t a scarlet dress be appropriate?”
“She’s just teasing us,” Nadine said. “Even Deb’rah wouldn’t wear red satin when her own matron of honor’s wearing red velvet.”
“White velvet?” April asked, getting into the game.
“Maybe,” I told her.
“Off-white velvet?” Doris considered off-white velvet and nodded approvingly. “What about the veil?”
“Well, I did see one with a twelve-foot train but then I’d’ve had to have trainbearers and I thought that’d be a little much.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nadine. “There’s enough grandbabies in the family. That might’ve looked real cute.”
Before she could get into just how cute the little ones would be pulling on a long veil, Will and Seth came in with lengths of cut molding and began nailing them in place. I was impressed by the precision with which Andrew’s forty-five-degree angles met each other snugly at the corners.
Nadine and Doris went to help Herman finish wiring the wall switches and outlets, while April recruited Minnie and me to lay tile in the bathroom. For the first time, I began to feel optimistic that we might just bring it in on schedule.
At noon, we paused for lunch. My sisters-in-law had brought sandwiches and Dwight got there just as they were pouring the iced tea.
“Aw, y’all didn’t have to go to all that trouble,” he said when he saw the beer tap. “I’d’ve married y’all’s ugly little sister anyhow.”
“It’s only fair,” said Seth. “You’re the one doing us a real big favor.”
“Yeah,” Will chimed in. “Daddy thought we were going to have this old maid on our hands forever.”
Doris giggled. “Not an old maid. A spinster.”
“There’s a difference?” asked Dwight.
“Hold on, now,” said Herman, who always gets red-faced whenever the talk turns the least bit bawdy in mixed company. He rolled his wheelchair back from the table. “We here to work or we gonna just sit around flapping our jaws?”
A few hours later, after the others had called it a day, Dwight and I were getting ready for the bar association’s dinner.
We were running late and had told each other that it would save time to shower together. This was proving not quite accurate.
“So what
“Well, as Doris would’ve said if Herman hadn’t stopped her, a spinster ain’t never been married. But an old maid ain’t never been married ner
CHAPTER 5
Florence Hartley,
Jerry’s Steak & Catfish House is popular with our district bar association. The food is good, the prices are reasonable, and, best of all, its location out in the country, heading for the county line, makes it fairly convenient for everyone in
