dammit. I found a hand mirror in the hall powder room and went out to the kitchen, where by resting my head on the kitchen table and propping the hand mirror against a vinegar cruet I could free up both hands and still see what I was doing.
What I was doing was going nowhere fast. In fact, I was making it worse, and the last few shreds of my patience evaporated. I heard gales of laughter outside. Steven must be really hamming up the garter bit. I rummaged through the kitchen cabinet drawers--one-handed--until I found a pair of scissors, and was reaching up to hack off the bouquet, hair and all, when I felt someone grab my wrist. I shrieked.
'Now, now,' Michael said. 'Let's not be hasty. You have two more weddings coming up; you'd regret doing that in the morning.'
'Right now I just want to get the damned thing out of my hair,' I said, close to tears.
'Sit down and I'll do it,' he said, pulling up a chair and easing me into it with one deft motion as he began the tedious business of untangling the bouquet. 'However did you manage this?'
'I didn't, Eileen did. I always thought you were supposed to give the bouquet a gentle toss and let fate decide who caught it. Eileen must have hurled the thing at my head with the speed and accuracy of a Cy Young award winner.' Just then I saw Eileen and a couple of the bridesmaids flit by on their way upstairs. 'Damn, I'm supposed to be helping her change!'
'I'm not sure that's either possible or necessary,' Michael said. 'Like all the local inhabitants, Eileen is an original; you don't want to tamper with that.'
'Very funny,' I said--all right, snapped. 'Change her clothes, I mean, of course. God only knows what she'll do in the state she's in.'
'Don't worry, Mrs. Tranh will take care of it. Though that does mean you're stuck with me to untangle this thing. Are you sure you wouldn't rather just wear this as a trophy till it grows out?'
'Just hack a chunk out,' I said, reaching again for the scissors. 'I can wear a flower or a bow over the spot in the other two weddings.'
'Leave those alone,' Michael ordered, slapping my hand away from the scissors. 'I was only joking; I've almost got it.' Sure enough, in another few minutes my hair and the bouquet parted company.
'I'm sorry,' Michael said, as he saw me rubbing the spot. 'I was trying not to yank out quite so much hair by the roots.'
'Don't feel bad; I think most of the yanking happened when the thing landed. Besides, it's not the hair, it's the thorns on the roses that really hurt. Well, at least there's one consolation.'
'What's that?' Michael asked, while rummaging through the debris on the kitchen counters.
'I seem to have missed the damned garter throwing ceremony.'
'If it's any consolation, there wasn't one.'
'What do you mean, there wasn't one? We have a garter; I know because I had to exchange the red one Steven bought for the pink one Eileen wanted.'
'When Steven went to take the garter off Eileen's leg, they realized they'd never put it on her leg. The beastly Barry left it in his trunk, and can't find his car keys. Ah! Champagne?' he said, unearthing a full bottle that had somehow been left in the kitchen and brandishing it triumphantly.
'I give up,' I said, holding out my hand for the glass. 'After all the trouble we went through picking out the perfect garter, and they give it to that Neanderthal Barry for safekeeping.'
I stretched out with my feet up on a second kitchen chair and sipped. However inadequate the air- conditioning was, it was better than outdoors. I was just beginning to feel relaxed when, speaking of the devil, Barry bounded in with all the grace of a half-grown Saint Bernard.
'Look what I've got!' He dangled the garter from his finger and leered in what I suppose he thought was a charming manner.
'It's you, Barry,' I said. 'Wear it in good health.'
'You know what I get to do with it!'
'Get lost, Barry,' I said, holding out my glass for more champagne.
'Ah, come on,' he said, reaching for my leg. I grabbed the scissors and feinted at his hand with the point. He froze.
'Barry, if you lay one hand on my leg, I will stuff that garter down your throat and then cut it into shreds. I am not in a good mood, and besides, I know damn well that you didn't catch that thing, you just finally found your car keys. Now run along.'
Barry did, though not without looking back reproachfully at me a few times. When the screen door slammed behind him, I sighed.
'I'm so glad he's gone, but now I feel as guilty as if I kicked a puppy.'
'He'll live,' Michael said. 'I think.'
'Why do I always end up using weapons on Barry?' I wondered.
'Seems perfectly sensible to me.'
'Oh, God, I am so tired of Eileen and Steven throwing Barry at me. Why don't they see that he's just not my type.'
'What is?' Michael said.
'What is what?'
'What is your type?'
'I don't know. Probably nonexistent; it's too depressing to think about.'
'Come on,' he said, 'I'll make it easy. Tell me some of the ways in which Barry falls short of the mark. What would you have to do to Barry to make him even remotely resemble your type?' Bizarre, I thought; was Michael catching the local mania for matchmaking? I certainly hoped not.
'He'd have to be smarter,' I said. 'More articulate. Dare I say intellectual? With a better sense of humor. Not always so politically correct. And physically ... I don't know; I prefer lean, muscular men to that beefy jock type. It's weird, whenever I try to tell Eileen why Barry doesn't appeal to me, she thinks I'm trying to knock Steven. I'm not; I think Steven's very nice, and they're a great couple. But Steven isn't my type, and the beastly Barry even less so.'
'I can see that. Although he's not actually an ogre, he certainly doesn't strike me as your type. On the other hand--'
'Only this commendation I can afford him,' I said, paraphrasing some lines from Much Ado About Nothing, 'that were he other than he is, he were unhandsome; and being no other but as he is, I do not like him.'
Michael laughed and struck a pose. ''Rich she shall be, that's certain,'' he quoted back. ''Wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God,'' he finished with a flourish, using some strands of my hair he'd removed from the bouquet as a prop.
'Who's that?' said Jake, who had come in while Michael was speaking and was looking confused. Which was more or less his usual state as far as I could see.
''You are a villain!'' Michael declaimed in yet another speech from Much Ado. He grabbed the scissors and struck up a fencing position. ''I jest not: I will make it good how you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you!''
Jake turned pale and began backing out of the room. 'Is everyone here completely crazy?' he asked.
'He's just quoting me some lines from a Shakespeare play he appeared in, Mr. Wendell,' I said, soothingly. To no avail. Jake reached the door and fled.
'That man's damned lucky to have an ironclad alibi,' Michael remarked. 'Have you ever seen anyone so hysterical?'
'For two cents I'd frame him for either murder, just to have him out from underfoot,' I said. 'And what's more, he's too big.'
'Too big! He's shorter than you are, and I doubt if he weighs more than one hundred fifty pounds. Too big for what?'
'Too big for me to toss over the bluff,' I grumbled. 'We've already proven I can barely handle one hundred five pounds.'
Michael gave me an odd look, but Eric's arrival cut off whatever answer he might have made.
