They stopped at a sub shop and bought one sandwich cut in half, two bags of chips and iced tea. When they arrived at the large suburban bookstore, Shelley was waiting just outside the door.
'There's a guest inside you won't like.'
'Not Thelma again?'
'No, your soon to be mother-in-law.'
'Oh dear. What's she doing here? She lives in Atlanta.' 'I have no idea. I just wanted to warn you.'
The bookseller introduced herself and took Jane to the table at the back of the store. There was a big crowd. Jane spotted Addie in the back row and didn't flinch. Addie was reading a local real estate flyer.
Jane answered pretty much the same questions she'd been asked at the last signing. And the signing commenced pleasantly. When she left, the driver was in the car waiting in front. Jane whispered, 'Lock all the doors, please.'
Ms. Smith did so and looked at Jane questioningly.
Addie came outside and tapped on Jane's window. Jane rolled it halfway down and said, 'Why are you here?'
'I came up to book a hotel that could serve a dinner for four hundred and supply a dance floor.'
'That's not the way it works, Addie. It's my choice of sites. And why four hundred people? I don't even know two hundred people.'
'We can talk about it in the car,' Addie said, trying to get in the backseat and finding the door locked.
She came back to the driver's side and said, 'Unlock the back doors.'
'I can't do that,' Barbara Smith said firmly. 'I'm not insured for strangers to ride with me. I've been hired to convey Ms. Jeffry to other signings now.'
And with that, she rolled up her window and drove off. In the rearview mirror Jane could see Addie holding up her fist in anger.
'Who was that woman?' the driver asked.
'To my great disappointment she's going to be my mother-in-law soon.'
'Oh, my dear. I'm so sorry about that. But you stood up to her wonderfully.'
64-
THIRTEEN
W
hen they approached the first of the 'drop-in' bookstores to sign stock, Jane asked Barbara if she could have a brief minute to speak to her future husband on her cell phone. Barbara was glad to do so. 'I'll make sure they have enough copies at the front desk.'
Jane called Mel. 'Your mother is in town.'
'What for?' He sounded alarmed.
'To find a hotel that can cater four hundred guests and host a dance after the wedding.'
A long sigh from Mel. 'That's none of her business. It's up to us where the wedding takes place. And even I don't know four hundred people I'd want to have there.'
'Furthermore, she didn't even buy a copy of my book at the bookstore. And she tried to break into my escort's car to talk about it more.'
'Okay, I'll find her. I have her cell phone number and will stop her in her tracks. I already made it clear that this wasn't up to her. It's our choice of the place. A dance, for God's sake,' he exclaimed before hanging up.
Mel called her back that evening, and said, 'I've told her she can invite fifty people and we'll invite fifty or fewer. We will pick out where and when the public wedding takes place. She can cater it. She can buy whatever stuff she wants to put on the tables. You will pick out your own flowers for your bouquet and the dinner tables. But, Janey darling, her plans also included an enclosure in the invitation for where to buy gifts.'
'Sorry, but it's true. We were supposed to go to Bed Bath and Beyond and pick out what we wanted in housewares, china, bedding, and crystal. Also Home Depot so I could order tools and build a deck, and buy a big monster grill.'
Jane forced a bitter laugh. 'No way, Mel. For one thing it's rude to do that. And we don't need anything. We're grown-up adults. I couldn't find anywhere to put any of this stuff.'
'And I already have a drill with bits, and both kinds of screwdrivers. I'm not building a deck. And if we want a grill, we can pick one out ourselves.'
'How about this?' she suggested. 'If she insists on an enclosure, tell her we want donations to the Red Cross,the Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity. We'll look golden and people we don't even know will benefit from it. And we won't have to build yet another room to hold stuff we don't need or want.'
'Great idea. Speaking of charities, I'm thinking about giving most of my stuff to someone. I don't want that dilapidated sofa of mine, or the complicated pasta maker, or the really scary electrical meat slicer that looks like a power saw. There's also an industrial-size Cuisinart. Do you think the Salvation Army would take it all away? They're all in their original boxes.'
'Of course they could, but what on earth made you buy such silly things?' Jane asked.
'I didn't buy them. My mother sends me domestic cooking gadgets for every birthday and Christmas. I even have a monster-size breadmaker.'
'How did you hide these things from her that time she came to stay with you that Christmas when your furnace went out?'
'I'd like to claim I deliberately disabled the furnace so she'd never know. But it wasn't the truth. I couldn't have done that to you, forcing her to stay at your house for the holiday. She was there for such a short time that she couldn't even look in my kitchen cabinets.'
He added, 'The apartment didn't even come with a fridge or stove, so I'll pay someone to haul them away as soon as she's left after the wedding. I'm sort of glad this discussion came up.'
Jane almost volunteered to help him with his purging,
then thought better of it. It was better if he got rid of his things by himself without any input from her.
'Anyway, she's on her way back to Atlanta,' Mel said. 'She hates having to share her commissions with other real estate people. That's why she seldom visits me. Thank God. Anyway, we should get on with making our own plans for where this fake wedding is going to take place.'
'Shelley and I will look for nice hotels that can accommodate four hundred guests. You have lots of friends and acquaintances because of your job. You can invite as many as you want. I only want my immediate family and Shelley's, and Ted and Dixie, and Uncle Jim. That's seventeen people total including Ted and Dixie's little girls. Eighteen if your mother shows up.'
'You must have a lot more friends you'd like to invite,' Mel said.
'Only if you include my kids' former teachers, and all of the fundamentalist church ladies Thelma knows.' 'Is she coming to either of the weddings?'
'She says she'll consider both. Oh, I completely forgot to tell you what Thelma did to me.'
'What was that?'
'She had a private detective following me everywhere I went. She knew exactly where Shelley and I went, what we were wearing, how long we were there.'
'Good Lord! You've stopped her, I hope.'
'Ted took her on. He balances her checking account and saw a check endorsed by a detective agency a couple of months ago. He thought she was investigating theadoption of their girls. He knew she'd fail to find any
