She opened her mouth wide, drew an enormous calming breath, ran four agitated fingers through her hair and said to the floor, 'I don't care. I'd like to do it… whenever you want.' But once the words were out, she realized one of the two statements had to be untrue. Which was true? Either she wanted to do it, or she didn't care.
'Day after tomorrow, then? I'll come and pick you up around seven.'
'Fine,' she answered despondently. 'Seven.'
'Good night, love. Get some good rest now. You seem a little high-strung lately, and it's probably all the last-minute details piling up.'
It was not the details and Winn knew it. The details were being handled with parliamentary punctiliousness by Fern Gardner, who only checked with her daughter as a matter of principle, not because Winn's approval was either sought or necessary. No, Winn's problem had nothing to do with details. It had to do with a curly-haired Irishman whose sexy eyes she could not forget, who played a wicked game of racket ball, drove rusty pickups and kissed like Prince Charming.
Within a half hour of Winn's hanging up after her conversation with Paul, Sandy called.
'Hi, kiddo, how're the wedding plans coming?' Winn had to force herself not to vent her wrath upon her unsuspecting friend-after all, Sandy had no idea of the turmoil within Winn lately. 'Pretty well, considering mother's handling all the last-minute glitches with her usual steel-trap deadlines.'
'Oh-oh! Something's up.'
Winn sank onto the chair she'd earlier kicked so hard. 'No, nothing's up. It's just that I have other things on my mind besides wedding, wedding, wedding. But neither mother nor Paul seems concerned.'
'The little girl at the hospital?'
'Yes, among other things. She's dying and I-' Winn drew a deep breath and battled the almost irresistible urge to tell Sandy everything, including her feelings for Jo-Jo Duggan, to be honest and open and ask her friend's opinion about the whole matter. But before she could broach the subjects, Sandy went on.
'Well, I have just the thing to take your mind off your troubles and put you in a happy frame of mind. I guess you know what it is. We've talked about it long enough.'
Winn covered her eyes and braced an elbow on the table.
'It's the shower. I've just been waiting to hear from you until I put the date on the invitations. And it's getting awfully close. I think we'd better have it maybe week after next, or the week following that. Do you have your calendar handy?'
It was staring at Winn from a nail on the wall beside the telephone, and as she looked up at it, it suddenly became blurred by tears. Sandy was waiting for an answer, and here she sat, recalling how Paul had once walked up to that nail and said, 'I hope you don't plan to drive nails into the walls of our new house this way.' If she wanted to drive a four-inch railroad spike into her wall, by God she'd drive it! On the ugly stucco walls of Jo-Jo Duggan's kitchen there hung a calendar with a picture of a tin lizzie, and a header advertising Duggan's Body Shop. Next time she was there, Winn promised herself to check and see what he'd hung it up with.
Apparently Winn took longer to mull over the shower than she'd realized, for Sandy 's voice came across the wire once again. 'Winn, have you sent out your wedding invitations yet?'
'No, I've been working on them.'
'Well, the shower invitations shouldn't really go out until after people get the ones for the wedding. Don't you think you should get going?'
Fern had called four days in a row to issue the same reprimand. Winn felt pressured and antagonized. 'Yes, I'll make sure I have them out by the weekend if I have to stay home from work one day to finish addressing them.' But at work Merry needed her, and she'd no more have deserted the child for a single precious day of her remaining life than Winn would have jumped at the chance to own a chess table of inlaid wood.
They chose two weeks from Saturday for the shower and agreed that Sandy would delay sending her invitations until midway through the following week, giving Winn enough time to get her own out first.
When Winn hung up the phone, she resolutely dragged out the box of pink envelopes and notes, the lists of addresses, her own phone book and a pen. She had addressed five when the phone rang again.
'Hello, Winn, this is mother.'
What would it be this time? Had the apricot-rose crop failed in Florida? Winn bit back the sharp response and answered, 'Hello, mother.'
'Have you got the invitations in the mail yet?'
'No, but they're almost done,' she lied.
'Winn, have you taken a look at the calendar lately? Those invitations should have been in the mail no later than last Saturday.'
'I know, mother, I know.'
'And now something else has come up. Perry Smith has just received word that he's being transferred to Los Angeles.'
For a moment Winn was disoriented. She couldn't figure out what Perry Smith's transfer had to do with anything concerning her. Evidently her mother expected some moan of dismay that was not forthcoming, for her voice crackled with indignation. 'Well, for heaven's sake, I should think there'd be some reaction from you. After all, there's not much time to find someone else to do the singing.'
Oh, yes-Ramona Smith, Perry's wife, had agreed to do the music at the wedding and had already discussed the choice of songs with Winn.
'It's not the end of the world, mother. I'd be happy with just the organ, anyway. Mrs. Collingswood might be twittery, but she's wonderful when she touches a keyboard.'
'Oh, Winnifred, don't be ridiculous. Whoever heard of a church wedding without vocal music? The songs are all chosen, and they've been planned into the entire service. Don't tell me you have no intention of asking someone else.'
'I don't know any other singers, mother. I didn't even know this one. You found her.'
'Well, it's imperative that we move fast on this.'
Winn's temper snapped. 'You move fast on it if you want to, mother. I've made all the fast moves I can stand for a while!'
Her mother's voice softened, but with an effort. 'Darling, you're not yourself these days. Why, I swear you sound as if you really don't care about these decisions one way or another.'
'Frankly, mother, I don't. If you want a different singer, get one. Tell him he can sing 'Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight' for all I care. And hire a sequined chorus line to dance along with it!'
She could see her mother's stunned face and feel her hurt surprise at the rebuff. 'Oh, mother, I'm sorry. Please just do whatever you want and let me know, all right?'
Thirty minutes later Paul called again. 'Your mother and I just had a long talk, Winnifred, and she tells me you just snapped at her and hurt her feelings, and have washed your hands of making decisions about the singer. Winnie, you really shouldn't treat your mother so… so…' He ended with a sigh.
'So what?'
'You know. You're short with her all the time and find fault with everything she does when she's really bending over backward to facilitate matters and help us plan a very high-class wedding here.'
'Maybe I didn't want a high-class wedding, Paul. Maybe I just wanted you to pay mother a few glass beads, open a vein, exchange blood with you and slip away to a tepee in the woods.' Where had this caustic person come from? Winn was being unfair to Paul, and she knew it but couldn't seem to curb these cutting remarks. She felt him tightly controlling his anger.
'I understand, you're under a lot of pressure right now, so I'll excuse you for getting short with me, but I think you owe your mother an apology.'
Dear God-it struck Winn-he's marrying me as much for the mother-in-law he'll inherit as he is for the bride he'll get. Still, she softened her tone. 'Paul, do me a favor, will you? Call mother back, and you two discuss the singer and pick one. Will you do that for me, please?'
