'I was supposed to go for a fitting for my bridesmaid dress. They're all waiting for me. This will only take a minute. I'll run in and run out, and we can go look for Rodriguez.'
'I love wedding dresses,' Lula said. 'I might buy one even if I never get married. I like the bridesmaid dresses, too. And you know what else I like… wedding cake.'
Fourteen
I put the Cayenne in gear and raced off, doubling back to Hamilton. I took the turn to the parking lot on two wheels and diagonal-parked the SUV next to my mothers Buick LeSabre.
Lula and I jumped out of the car and sprinted for the Bride Shoppe. Ranger's men in the SUV barreled in after us. The guy in the passenger seat had one foot on the ground when I turned and pointed at him.
'Stay!' I said. And then Lula and I hustled through the front door.
The Bride Shoppe is run and owned by Maria Raguzzi, a dumpling of a woman in her late fifties. Maria's got short black hair and long black sideburns and fine black hair on her knuckles. She always wears a fat round pincushion on a Velcro wrist bracelet, and for as long as I've known her, she's had a yellow tape measure draped around her neck. She's been married and divorced three times, so she knows a lot about weddings.
Loretta Stonehouser, Rita Metzger, Margaret Durski, Valerie, Grandma Mazur, my mother, and the 'wedding planner' were all crammed into the little showroom. Maria Raguzzi and Sally were bustling around, distributing dresses.
Margaret Durski was the first to see me. 'Stephanie!' she shrieked. 'Omigod, it's been so long. I haven't seen you since Valerie's first wedding. Omigod, I see you in the paper all the time. You're always burning something down to the ground.'
Rita Metzger was right behind her. 'Stephaneeeee!' she said. 'Is this so awesome? Here we are all together. Is this cool, or what? And have you seen the dresses? The dresses are to die for. Pumpkin. I love pumpkin.'
My mother stared at me. 'Are you still gaining weight? You look so big.'
I unzipped the sweatshirt. 'It's the vest. It's bulky. I was in a hurry and forgot to take it off.'
Everyone gaped.
'What is that thing you're wearing?' Rita wanted to know. 'It like squashes your boobs. It's very unflattering.'
'It's a bullet-proof vest,' Grandma said. 'She's gotta wear one of them on account of she's an important bounty hunter, and there's always people trying to kill her.'
'There's not always people trying to kill her,' Lula said. 'Just sometimes… and this is one of them times,' she added.
'Omigod!' Margaret said.
My mother squelched a groan and made the sign of the cross.
'The fudging vest wasn't in the fudging plan,' Sally said. 'What the fudge am I supposed to do with this? It's gonna fudging ruin the fudging line of the fudging gown.'
'It's a flak vest, not a chastity belt,' I told him. 'It comes off.'
'Cool,' he said.
'You should chill,' Lula told him. 'You're gonna get a embolism you keep that up.'
This is a fudging responsibility,' Sally said. 'I take my wedding planning seriously.' He took a gown off the rack and handed it over to me. This is yours,' he said.
Now it was my turn to gape. 'What happened to pumpkin?'
The other girls are wearing pumpkin. The maid of honor has to have a different color. This is eggplant.'
Lula gave a burst of laughter and clapped her hand over her mouth.
Eggplant. Great. As if pumpkin wasn't bad enough. I ripped my vest off and unlaced my shoes. 'Where do I go to try this on?'
There's a dressing room through the pink doorway,' Sally said, leading the way, carrying Valerie's gown, staggering under the weight of it.
Five minutes later we were all zipped up. Three pumpkins and an eggplant. And Valerie, who was wearing enough glaring white to make everyone snow-blind. Her breasts bulged out of the bodice neckline, and the back zipper valiantly struggled to hold the dress together. The skirt was bell-shaped, meant to disguise leftover baby fat. In actuality, the skirt emphasized her hips and ass.
Valerie tottered over to the three-way mirror, took a look at herself, and shrieked. 'I'm fat!' she yelled. 'My God, look at me. I'm a whale. A big white whale. Why didn't someone tell me? I can't go down the aisle like this. The aisle isn't even wide enough.'
'It's not so bad,' my mother said, trying to smooth away the fat bulge at the waistline. 'All brides are beautiful. You just need to see yourself with the veil.'
Maria came running with the veil, draping the gauze fabric over Val's eyes. 'See how much better it looks through the veil?' Maria said.
'Yeah, and if you want to really feel better, you should get a load of Stephanie in the eggplant,' Lula said.
It didn't seem that vegetable when we were looking at swatches,' Sally said, eyeing my gown.
'She needs a different makeup palette,' Loretta said. 'Some eggplant on her eyes to balance the dress. And then some glitter under the brow to open the eye. And more blush.'
'A lot more blush,' Lula said.
'What am I doing getting married anyway?' Valerie said. 'Do I really want to get married?'
'Of course you want to get married,' my mother said, the panic clear in her voice, her life flashing in front of her eyes.
'Yes,' Valerie said. 'But do I want to get married to Albert?'
'He's the father of your child. He's a lawyer, sort of. He's almost as tall as you.' My mother drew a blank after that and looked to Grandma for help.
'He's cuddle umpkins,' Grandma said. 'And oogieboogie bear and all them things. What about that?'
'I love this,' Lula said, big grin on her face. 'I thought I was gonna lose a thumb this afternoon, but here I am in the middle of cuddle umpkins' pumpkin patch.' Lula turned to Sally. 'What are you going to do? Does the wedding planner get to be an attendant, or something? Or do you just gotta be the wedding planner?'
I'm singing,' Sally said. 'I have a lovely russet satin gown. I thought it would continue the fall theme.'
'Maybe we should get the Trenton Times to cover this,' Lula said to me. 'Or MTV.'
Maria had been jumping from one gown to the next, pinning and tucking. 'All done,' she said.
Sally took me aside. 'You remember about the wedding shower, right? Friday night at the VFW hall.'
'Sure. What time?'
'Seven. And it's a surprise, so be careful what you say to Valerie.'
'My lips are sealed.'
'Let me see you make the zipper,' Grandma said. 'I always like when a person makes the zipper and throws the key away.'
I zipped my lips, and I threw the key away.
Lula swiveled in her seat. 'Ranger's guys are still back there.'
It was the second time I drove past the bar at the corner of Third and Laramie. Most of the street was residential, if you can call warehousing human misery in squalid brick cubes residential.
There were no public parking lots, and curbside parking was nonexistent. Half the cars parked at the curb looked like they hadn't been moved in years.
I double-parked directly in front of the bar, and Lula and I got out. I didn't bother to lock the Cayenne. Rangers men weren't going to let anything happen to his car. I had cuffs tucked into the back of my jeans. I was wearing the Kevlar vest under the sweatshirt.
I had pepper spray in my pocket. Lula was half a step behind me, and I didn't ask what she was carrying. Best
