'And Mom won't have to take the Brewsters to small claims court as she's been threatening.'
'Or hold Samantha's new gowns for ransom a couple of days before her wedding, which I hate to admit is what I'd be tempted to do if the Brewsters still owed me for the last set.'
'See? Everybody's happy,' Michael said.
'Ah, well,' I said, softening. 'They are beautiful.' Michael went over to the happy crew and extracted a dress. The bride's gown was white velvet trimmed with white and gold brocade and ribbon, the bridesmaids' gowns dark blue velvet with blue and yellow, and this one, the maid of honor's dress, in deep burgundy and rose. He spun me around to face one of the mirrors and held it in front of me.
'Look how good that is with your coloring,' he said, coaxing. 'You're going to look smashing!'
'Assuming I can ever get into it.' 'Oh, I've seen Mrs. Tranh and the ladies pull off bigger miracles. It's not that far off, really. Take a look.' He slipped the dress off the hanger and had me hold it at the neckline while he fitted it snugly to my waist with his hands. 'Not bad at all,' he murmured, looking over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror, and then down at me for my reaction. I found myself slightly breathless, even though I knew that the flirtatiousness in his voice was meaningless and that the warmth in those incredible blue eyes was probably due to his relief at getting a decision out of Eileen and unloading the unsold dresses.
'Yeah,' I said, reluctantly pulling away and handing him back the dress. 'We'll all die of heatstroke, but we'll make beautiful corpses. Why don't we leave them alone to coo while we discuss our no doubt very different definitions of the phrase 'really good deal'?'
It wasn't such a bad deal after all. Either Michael was a lousy bargainer, or he was very eager to unload the unsold dresses. Or eager not to have Eileen underfoot dithering for another whole day. Although the total was going to be significantly more than we'd originally planned, Eileen was so deliriously happy that I didn't worry about it. I'd figure out somewhere else to skimp. We'd gotten her to choose a dress, the last major outstanding decision. I figured the worst was over.
I figured wrong.
We dropped her off at her dad's house to call Steven. Several hours later she showed up with Barry in tow, just in time to join Mother, Pam, Mrs. Fenniman, and me for a light supper.
'Steven loves the dresses,' she announced happily.
'Steven hasn't even seen them yet,' I said.
'Yes, but I've told him about them and he loves the idea. Meg, we've decided--that's going to be our theme!'
'What, letting Steven make decisions sight unseen? Sounds efficient.'
'No! The Renaissance! Isn't it wonderful!' Eileen said, clasping her hands together. 'We'll have an authentic period wedding!'
'It's a complete change of plans,' I protested. In vain. During the rest of the meal, I watched, helpless, as the four of them made plans that rendered every bit of work I'd done over the last five months totally useless.
After dinner I fled to my room and began major revisions to my list of things to do. Okay. Renaissance music wouldn't be too bad. I knew some craftspeople who worked the Renaissance Fair circuit; I could probably find some musicians through them. Or the college music department. The florist wouldn't be a problem. Flowers are flowers. Decorating the yard wouldn't have to change much. Floral garlands and perhaps a few vaguely heraldic banners. I was sure I could work something out with the caterer. Perhaps a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth would lend a proper note of Renaissance splendor to the festivities. Later on I could probably talk Eileen into using plastic goblets; if not, her grand scheme of making several hundred souvenir ceramic goblets and inscribing them with the date and their initials would keep her harmlessly occupied and out of my hair for the next few weeks. I was reasonably sure that in the light of day the notion of hiring horse-drawn carriages for the arrival and departure of the bridal party would seem excessive. They'd been rewriting the language of their vows for months now, and I shuddered at the thought of their very politically correct script rewritten in pseudo-Shakespearean language. But, then, it wouldn't make any work for me, so the hell with it. And, on the bright side, it would probably kill the Native American herbal purification ceremony, and perhaps Dad would obsess about the Renaissance instead of true crime.
I'd gotten into the habit of looking at my list each evening and rating the days as well or badly done, depending on how much further ahead or behind I'd gotten. As I looked at the three-and-a-half pages of new items that Eileen had just added to the list, I felt seriously depressed.
Tuesday, June 14
I called Michael first thing in the morning to kick off the costuming side of things.
'Michael,' I said. 'Are you sitting down?'
'I can be. What's wrong?'
'We've created a monster. Eileen has decided to redo the entire wedding in a Renaissance theme.'
'Oh,' he said, after a pause. 'That's going to take some doing, isn't it?'
'Do you think there is any possibility that your seamstresses can cut down one of the extra dresses to make a flowergirl's dress and make seven doublets or whatever you call them--six adult and one child--to coordinate with the dresses? By July Thirtieth?'
'Let me check with Mrs. Tranh.'
'Great. I'll see what I can do about getting the ushers in for measuring as soon as possible.'
'Good idea.'
'If Barry's still loitering with intent, I'll send him in tomorrow. If it should happen to take an unconscionably long time to measure him, no one around here will mind.'
'If it'll make you happy, I'll keep him around the shop long enough to pick up conversational Vietnamese,' Michael offered. 'As for the rest, I assume you had them measured somewhere for tuxedos or whatever else they were originally going to be wearing.'
'Ages ago.'
'Maybe those measurements would be enough for us to get started. Normally I stay clear of Mrs. Tranh's area of expertise, but as an old theater hand I can testify that they never have as much trouble making the costume fit the understudy in a Shakespearean production, what with all the gathers and lacings.'
'I'll try,' I said. 'But we haven't yet finished notifying them all of the change of plans yet. There isn't really any point in sending you measurements for an usher who categorically refuses to prance around in tights and a codpiece.'
'Good point. We'll stand by. I hate to add a note of gloom, but what if you can't find enough ushers willing to prance around in tights?'
'Steven knows a lot of history buffs who like to dress up in chain mail on weekends and thwack each other with swords. He's sure he can find enough volunteers.'
'Oh, well, if there's going to be swordplay involved, you can count me in if all else fails,' Michael said with a chuckle.
I spent most of the rest of the day in futile attempts to track down Steven's footloose ushers. And the priest, Eileen's cousin, who reacted to the news that Eileen wanted him in costume with suspicious enthusiasm. He offered to mail me a book with pictures of period clerical garb. Another would-be thespian. But he was the one bright spot in an otherwise ghastly afternoon. By dinnertime I was in an utterly rotten mood, incapable of uttering a civil word. Fortunately I wasn't required to; Dad had come to dinner and monopolized the conversation with a complete rundown of his theories on Mrs. Grover's death. As long as I kept an eye on him so I could dodge flying food whenever he gesticulated too energetically with his fork, I could wallow in my lugubrious mood to my heart's content. I wallowed.
'Anyway, I'm going up to Richmond next week to see the chief medical examiner,' Dad said finally, as he picked up his coffee and headed out to the porch. Sighs of relief from those family and friends present whose appetites were depressed even by euphemistic discussions of forensic evidence. 'I'll see that we get some straight answers or I'll raise a ruckus they'll never forget.'
'Oh, dear,' Mother murmured.
Dad's voice floated back from the porch. 'Yes, sirree, I'm going to go over the evidence and insist that
