'Let's go someplace,' he begged, pulling me up from the bench. 'Someplace where we can be alone. Come on. There's no one at my mother's house. Let's go there. We need to talk.'
Actually, I thought we'd done enough talking for the moment, but I figured we'd work that out when we'd ditched the rest of the wedding guests.
As we rounded the corner of the house, watching warily for anyone who might waylay us, a spectacular flash of lightning and an almost simultaneous burst of thunder dwarfed the fireworks, and the heavens opened.
We were ignored as everyone began running for shelter, either in the tent or the house. But then, one end of the tent sagged dramatically as part of the bluff collapsed beneath it, sending buffet tables ricocheting down the cliff. Guests and caterers nearly trampled each other evacuating the tent as larger and larger portions of the bank dropped off. A sudden gust of wind caught the out-of-balance tent and sent it flying out onto the water, while with a final rumbling, one last, enormous chunk of bluff subsided into the river, taking the shallow end of the swimming pool with it. Several mad souls cheered as the contents of the pool spilled over the side of the bluff in a short-lived but dramatic waterfall.
As we watched, the tent drifted gently down the river, with one lone, wet, bedraggled peahen perched atop it, shrieking irritably until the tent finally disappeared below the waves and she flapped to the shore.
'Oh, my God,' I said.
'Pay no attention,' Michael said.
'We've got to do something.'
'No one's hurt, and there's a thousand other people here to do something. Come on!'
We dashed through the downpour down to Michael's mother's house. Which now looked like an Easter egg in a bed of very wet excelsior. With several damp, irritable peacocks sitting on the peak of the roof. We ignored their plaintive shrieks.
'Alone at last!' Michael exclaimed, slamming the door shut. We stood there, looking at each other for a moment.
Looking into Michael's eyes, I wondered how I could ever have been so blind all summer, how I could ever have been so mistaken about him, and whether he'd ever let me hear the last of it.
Time enough to worry about that later. He reached out to pull me close and--
'Michael? Is that you?' came a voice from deeper within the house.
Michael dropped his arms, leaned back against the door, and closed his eyes.
'Not now,' he muttered. 'Please, not now.'
'Michael! What on earth have you done to the dog? And why is there Spanish moss all over the backyard? And where did all these peacocks come from? What is going on around here?'
Michael sighed.
'Your turn,' he said. 'Come and meet my mother.'
