A Wedding on Ladybug Farm (10 page)

Cici, who was tearing at another square of lathing with her crowbar, looked up and pushed back her glasses, looking both surprised and disappointed.  “I thought you were cutting back the tomato vines.”

The visit from Kevin had been a fun diversion from the routine and the ladies had enjoyed it, but the dust of his departure had barely settled on the drive before they were all back at their chores.  With the schedule they had to keep, there was no time for idleness.

“I was.”  Lindsay took a hesitant step into the room, looking around at the rubble. Broken strips of lath and chunks of plaster littered the plastic-covered floor, wallpaper hung in huge sagging strips from all the walls, and a fine coat of white dust covered everything, including Cici.  “I heard the noise and came to see what was wrong.”

“Oh. Well, it can’t be helped now I guess.”  Cici gave an apologetic shrug, and then grinned.  “I wanted to get more done before I showed you, but what do you think?”

Lindsay’s consternation grew as she looked from the floor to the wall to Cici.  “Think?”

“It’s going to be your new suite,” Cici explained.  “Yours and Dominic’s.  You see, these two rooms used to be one great big room—Miss Emily’s room when she was married—with the two windows overlooking the garden and the marble fireplace … didn’t you ever wonder why it was off-center?  Look, the floorboards are even flowing the same way, and if I’m careful all I’ll have to do is touch up the finish underneath this frame.  The bathroom is twice as big as the one in your room, and it even has a shower!  You’re always having to use the guest bath to wash your hair.  All we have to do is knock down this wall and the room will be just like it used to be, and big enough for two people.  It’s our wedding gift to you,” she added, a little breathlessly.  “Mine and Bridget’s.”

Lindsay’s lips parted but for a moment she didn’t seem to know what to say.  She turned in a half circle.  She looked at Cici.  “But
… we have a wedding in a matter of weeks!  And trim to paint and chandeliers to wash and—and a wedding to plan!”

“We’ll have this done long before the wedding,” Cici assured her.  “Seriously, a matter of days.”

“But …” It was almost possible to see the thoughts flickering and wrestling for attention behind Lindsay’s eyes.  “Give up my room?  I like my room.  I worked hard on it.”

“But it’s your room,” Cici replied patiently.  “Don’t you think you should have a room that’s yours
and
Dominic’s?  You know, to start your new life together?”

“Wow.”  Lindsay let this sink in for a moment.  “A new life.”  She brought herself back to the problem at hand with a visible effort.  “But—all this work!  Cici, I can’t let you and Bridget do this!  You’re doing so much already!”

Cici waved it away.  “Look what you did for Bridget when you turned your art studio into The Tasting Table.  Look what you did for me when I broke my collarbone.  Look what Dominic did for all of us.  This is nothing.”

Hesitantly, Lindsay bent down and peered through the opening into the other room.  “It sure looks like a lot.”

“It’s simple.  I’ve done all this just since Kevin left.  Here.”  She handed the crowbar to Lindsay.  “You try.  It’s kind of fun.”

Lindsay took the tool, glanced at Cici dubiously, and took a halfhearted swing at the wall. The plaster gave a satisfying crack and a few pieces crumbled to the floor.

“Like this.”  Cici corrected her grip and suggested, “Try pulling instead of hitting.  And stand back if you don’t want to get hit by falling plaster.”  She hesitated, remembering Lindsay’s recent mishaps, and added, “Maybe you should wear a helmet.”

Lindsay returned a grimace and said, “Maybe you should just do it.”

She offered the crowbar back to Cici but they both turned at the sound of Bridget’s voice.

“Cici! Did you see this e-mail?”  She appeared at the door and stopped short at the sight of Lindsay.  “Oh,” she said, and then smiled.  “How do you like it?”  She gestured with the paper in her hand.  “Great idea, right?”

“Actually,” Lindsay agreed, “it is.  Thank you both.  But it’s an awful lot of work.”

“Don’t be silly.  You deserve it, both of you, and we want to do this.”

Cici said, “What e-mail?”

Bridget passed her the printout.  “It’s from Lori,” she said excitedly, “and it solves everything!”  She turned to Lindsay. “How about this?  Instead of a formal run-of-the-mill wedding reception like everyone has, we’ll open up the vineyard for the burning of the vines!  Just like we did for the blessing of the vines last spring.  We’ll publicize it all over town, put it on the website, make it a great big open house! We’ll have a wine tasting and sell tickets!  We’ll have cheese pairings, of course, and heavy hors d’oeuvres instead of a sit
-down meal, and nobody gets left out!”

Cici looked up from the paper with a light in her eyes. “It’s tax deductible,” she said. “And it’s entirely possible we could actually
make
money on your wedding reception!”       

Lindsay scanned the e-mail.  “What does Dominic say?”

“He says Lori is a marketing genius and when is she coming home?” Bridget watched Lindsay, her eyes sparkling.  “What do you say?” 

Lindsay looked up from the paper.  “We could have that band from town, you know the bluegrass one that Dominic likes so much.  And we’ll light the bonfire as soon as it gets dark and everyone will gather around and we’ll have toasts and wedding cake
…”

“So much more romantic than a sit
-down dinner,” Cici agreed.  “I’ve got to admit, sometimes that kid of mine is pretty smart.”

“Now you see?” Bridget beamed at Lindsay.  “Sometimes things
do
work out.”

“Yeah,” Lindsay said happily, grinning back.  “Sometimes they do.”

With a laugh of delight, she swung the crowbar against the wall as Cici had shown her and pulled hard.  There was a clang, a clatter, and the sound of rending metal.  Lindsay stumbled backward and sat down hard as a geyser of water shot from the wall.

Bridget squealed and ran for the door, but Cici just stared at Lindsay in disbelief, oblivious to the torrent that was quickly soaking them both.  “And sometimes,” she said, “they don’t.”

~*~

At the Hummingbird House

~*~

Cocktail hour in the wildflower garden was one of the unadvertised delights of the Hummingbird House, for both the owners and the guests.  At the end of a long day of hiking, antiquing, sightseeing, or simply rocking on the porch, the guests would drift out onto the stone terrace to sample the sherry and the cheeses their hosts had selected for them, to chat and share their days while the hummingbirds buzzed and darted around the feeders and the yellow daisies and purple columbine nodded in the breeze of a setting sun.  As the days grew shorter and cooler, their hosts would light the torches that meandered along the stone paths and guests might linger around the dancing flames of the outdoor fireplace for one last glass before departing to keep their dinner reservations.  It was also, for the busy proprietors of the B&B, often their first opportunity of the day to catch up.

“So
then,
” Derrick reported importantly, setting a tray of sherry and glasses on the patio bistro table, “they had to turn off the water to the entire second floor, but not before the carpets in two rooms were soaked through. Cici doesn’t think there’s any damage to the underlying structure, thank heavens, but it’s going to take days to repair.  Lindsay is in an absolute panic that it won’t be finished before the wedding.”

Paul followed closely with the cheese board and a selection of beautifully arranged sliced fruit and water crackers.  “
It’s not that I don’t have perfect confidence in our girl Cici,” he confided, “but honestly—who takes on a job like that mere weeks before hosting a wedding?”

Derrick sighed.  “She and Bridget wanted to make the bridegroom feel welcome.”

Paul placed the cheese board beside the sherry tray and began to arrange the Hummingbird House logo cocktail napkins in a fan shape between them.  “Poor Lindsay.  She’s letting this wedding turn her into a complete wreck. She’s usually so competent and composed, but I’ve seen twenty-year-olds with more sangfroid about their big day than this.  When she was over here the other day to drop off the dress for alterations, she backed her car into the oak tree trying to park—no damage to either one, thank goodness, tree or car—and then tripped on the bottom step and almost dropped the gown in the mud before she even got to the front door.  Then …” he looked mildly abashed.  “I’m afraid I might have stabbed her with a pin a couple of times during the fitting, which was
completely
not my fault because you know she’s utterly incapable of standing still for more than ten seconds at a time.  But the odd thing was, as soon as the dress was boxed up and ready to be shipped to the seamstress, she was perfectly fine again.  We had a lovely tea, and she even helped me cut flowers for the dining table—using real gardening sheers—with absolutely no incidents whatever.  I just don’t know what to make of it.”

“It’s perfectly clear to me,” announced Harmony, sailing across the patio with her empty wine glass extended.  “The poor girl has an attached spirit or two.  A quick exorcism and she’ll be as good as new.”

Harmony Haven was a large woman somewhere on the far side of fifty with a headful of riotous blonde curls and a bosom that had been compared once too often to the jutting prow of a ship.  She had a tendency to dress in flowing colorful garments and outrageous jewelry combinations, and she promoted herself as an expert on all things spiritual, esoteric, and arcane. She had moved into the fuchsia room almost before the B&B was even open, and had shown no signs of ever leaving.  Fortunately, they had managed to convince her—ever-so-diplomatically—to pay in advance. 

Paul looked alarmed, although whether that was from her words or from the fact that she clearly intended to pour sherry into a glass that had only moment
s ago contained red wine was not clear.  “Whatever you do, don’t tell Lindsay that.”  He took her glass and passed it to Derrick, who quickly filled a proper sherry glass for her.  “She already has one foot on the slippery slope of no return as it is.”

“What, exactly, is an attached spirit?” Derrick inquired, passing the sherry glass to her.  He had the look of one who both dreads and anticipates the answer.

Harmony waved a casual hand and cut herself a slice of cheese.  “The easiest thing in the world to manage.  Far easier than exorcising a whole house.  I could take care of it in half an hour.”

Paul met Derrick’s eyes and then they dismissed the notion with a quick and mutual shake of their heads.  Paul said, “Seriously, I read an article only the other day in
O
Magazine
about how people define their futures and I’m starting to get a bit concerned.”

“Nonsense.”  Derrick filled his own glass.  “We make our own happiness and Lindsay is just being silly.  The only thing we have to worry about now is an engagement party that will make her feel like the princess she is.”

He turned a meaningful look on Paul, who swallowed his pride with a visible effort.  “Harmony,” he said.  “About that …”

~*~

Chapter Four

Surprise

L
ori knew she was not very good at her job.  She wouldn’t have been very good at it even if everyone spoke English, or if she spoke more than a mangled version of Google-translator Italian. She wouldn’t have been good at it even if she had liked her job, which she did not.  She was not put on this earth to serve grappa and cappuccino to sweaty Italians for ten hours a day, and that was not simply a conceit.  In the first place, she didn’t like grappa; in the second place, she didn’t like Italians—both of which were significant handicaps for someone who worked in one of the busiest cafés in Siena.  As far as she could tell, the only reason the owner had hired her at all was because he liked to pinch her ass. 

Of course
, the charm of that had worn off for Lori fairly quickly, and had become meager compensation for her boss after the first day of spilled drinks, misplaced orders, and angry customers. Now they coexisted in a state of wary dislike that occasionally flared into active animosity, if not outright violence, and Lori was quite sure that if she could understand even half of what her employer was saying when he got all red in the face and shook his fist at her she would have quit weeks ago. As it was, she found him fairly easy to ignore amidst all the rest of the high-decibel chatter and clutter that characterized the afternoon cappuccino rush.

The café was something of a cross between a Starbucks and a corner bar, with wine, grappa, and hard liquor served any time of the day, along with a confusing variety of coffee drinks and even pastries.  It would have been hard enough to keep up with the orders even if she could understand what they were ordering. 
Already she had sloshed hot coffee on one customer, given the wrong change to another, and dropped a tray of drinks on the floor.  They were standing six-deep at the bar, and the boss was at it again, yelling something in her ear with many grand gesticulations, while she tried to remember which button was espresso and which one added the milk on the giant, brass-coated octopus that resembled a time-travel machine more than a coffee maker.  That was when she heard an American voice shout from the back of the crowd.  “Hey!  What does a man have to do to get some service around here?”

There was a time when the sound of an American accent would have made her heart soar, but now it just annoyed her.  All the Americans ever wanted to do when they came in here was take up her time gushing about how authentic the place was, and how did she like living here and what was she doing here and did she know any good places for dinner, and then they’d leave her a fifty cent
euro for a tip—like they actually thought the big 50 on the coin meant something other than fifty cents—or sometimes they’d walk off with nothing but a friendly wave. They were big, they were loud, they were pushy, and most of the time they made her embarrassed to be from the same country. She had even less patience for the Americans than she did the Italians.

So she shouted back, without even bothering to turn around, “McDonald’s is down the street!”

That usually got rid of them, but this one was determined to be a pain in the ass.  He returned, “Is that the way you talk to a customer, dollface?”

Dollface
?  She abandoned her struggle with the stubborn machine and turned around to give him the death stare.  She saw a chestnut-haired young man in a yellow Polo shirt making his way toward the bar.  He pushed his sunglasses into his hair and smiled at her.

“Kevin!”

Lori scrambled over the bar, pushing cups and canisters and outraged customers out of her way, and launched herself into his arms.  He caught her up, laughing and staggering backwards, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and covered his face with kisses.  “Kevin!  Kevin, it’s you, it’s you, it’s really you! What are you doing here?  How did you find me?  I can’t believe it’s you!”

Then she jumped onto the floor again and gave him a hard punch on the arm, staring at him suspiciously.  “What are you doing here?” she demanded again.  “Did my mother send you to check up on me?”

“Hey!” he rubbed his bruised arm, scowling. “Give a fellow a chance, will you?”

The owner of the café shoved his way through the crowd, and he did not look as though he was in the mood to give anyone a chance.  His jowls were swinging and his beet-red face was sweating and he was yelling at Lori at the top of his considerable lungs.  Lori, who had had enough for one day, shot back every Italian curse she knew.  He looked momentarily startled, but when the customers nearest him started to grin and even chuckle, he gave a roar of rage that made even Lori shrink back.  Kevin let forth a stream of Italian that ended with the belligerent chin-flipping gesture that, until she moved to Italy, Lori thought had been invented by the Sopranos.  Then, not waiting for a reply or a reaction, Kevin gripped her arm hard and dragged her out of the café.

“Wow,” said Lori, when they were far enough down the street that the café owner’s furious threats were only background noise, “I didn’t know you spoke Italian.”

Kevin dropped her arm, gazed at her for a moment, and then deliberately lowered his sunglasses down over his eyes.  He started walking again.  “I hope you didn’t like your job.”

“Hated it.  Why?”

“Because you’re fired.”

“Fired?” She looked outraged.  “Just for a little argument? What did you say to him?”

“Me?  You’re the one who called him a penis-face and invited him to go make love to a pig.”

Lori slowed down, grinning.  “I did?”

“God, Lori, you’re living and working in Italy and you can’t even be bothered to learn the language?”

“It’s not that I can’t be bothered!”  She frowned a little, shoving her hands into her pockets as she walked beside him.  “I’m trying.  I’m just not very good at it.  Turns out I’m not very good at a lot of things,” she added, so lowly it was almost inaudible.

She could feel Kevin’s glance, but she did not look up.  They walked in silence for a
while, strolling with tourists who gawked at the crumbling architecture and colorful storefronts, dodging the purposeful strides of the natives with their cell phones and intense expressions.  In a moment Lori said, “So?  Did my mother send you?”

“Not exactly,” he said, then admitted, “My mother did. Of course
…” He slid a glance at her.  “You’re not exactly where they thought you were, are you?”

Lori chose not to reply to that.

Kevin said, “Mom also sent cookies.”

Lori’s eyes lit up.  “Really?  What kind?”

“Chocolate chip, with nuts.  I ate most of them on the way over, though.”

And when her expression grew stormy again he grinned, and nodded toward a kiosk just ahead.  “Come on, I’ll buy you a gelato.  And maybe you can tell me how you went from living in a castle at one of the most prestigious wineries in the region to serving coffee for tips with a penis-face for your boss.”

Lori said glumly, “For that you’ll have to buy me dinner.”

He draped a companionable arm around her shoulders.  “Let’s start with gelato and see how it goes.”

She smiled and leaned into him, just a little.  She had never imagined how good it would be to see a face from home.

~*~

“At least you’re being a good sport about it.”  Bridget set a platter piled high with sandwiches on the table while Cici replaced the vase of yellow daisies and purple asters with a pitcher of iced tea. 

“I am not being a good sport,” Lindsay said grimly, bending her head over the papers that were spread out in front of her.  “I am soldiering through.”

“Anyway, what has she got to be a good sport about?” Cici demanded.  “I’m the one who had to spend two days without water in my bathroom.”

“It would have only been one day if you’d called a plumber in the first place,” Bridget pointed out.

Cici rolled her eyes, grabbed a sandwich
, and sank into her chair.

The work on the soon-to-be master suite had been stalled for over a week, thanks not only to the broken water pipe but to the myriad of other wedding-prep details that were constantly pulling their focus.  The gazebo had to be repainted, along with the shutters, the front door
, and the trim.  The vegetable garden, now that the last of its produce had been harvested, had to be plowed under and mulched, and Lindsay thought the fence surrounding it could use a fresh coat of paint, just for appearances’ sake.  Even Cici was beginning to wonder whether tackling a major remodeling project this close to the wedding might have been a mistake.

But it was, of course, too late now.

Hand-lettered invitations fashioned on thick vellum paper supplied by Paul had gone out to family members and closest friends.  Paul had shown them how to singe the edges of the paper for a weathered look, and Lindsay had sketched a stylized grapevine in gold ink on each one.  Flyers advertising the burning of the vines and the wedding celebration had been printed up and left in shops and businesses all over town, pinned to bulletin boards and posted on the Ladybug Farm website. Bridget had had the idea to add “reservations suggested” and so far had taken almost fifty calls.  And that was in addition to the usual business of running the farm: the fruit that had to be turned into jam before it spoiled, the dozens upon dozens of bags of corn and beans and squash that were sliced, blanched
, and packed into their two freezers; the lawn that had to be mowed and the shrubs that had to be pruned and the flower beds that had to be raked clean of early falling leaves. 

In the past ten days, Lindsay had stabbed herself with a fruit knife while helping Bridget prepare pears for the compote she wanted to serve at the reception, stepped on a rake and almost knocked herself out, and slammed the car door on her fingers.  But her black eye was almost completely gone, and most of the time she walked without a limp.

She was using the lunch table—which, until cool weather drove them inside, would always be the round wicker table on the side porch that overlooked the flower gardens—to do her daily audit of the pre-wedding checklist.  Dominic stopped by to grab a sandwich and a glass of sweet tea to take back to his office, and lingered just long enough to assure his fiancée that he had no intention of wearing the poet’s shirt and brocade vest Paul had decided on for groom’s attire.  Lindsay nodded, marked it off her list, kissed him absently, and sent him on his way.

“
Okay, we got the marriage license and delivered it to Reverend Holland,” Lindsay said, checking off a box.  “It’s good for sixty days.  Dominic asked his oldest son to be his best man.  We’ve got the rings.  The wedding bands are gorgeous, by the way; mine fits rights into the engagement ring like a single vine.  Oh, and Paul sent out seventy-five save the date cards for the engagement party.” She had a sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, and she glanced over the top of her reading glasses to check a notation on one of the papers as she spoke.  “He said it’s great advertising for the B&B even if only half of them come.”

“It was sweet of them to go to so much trouble.”

“It sure was. At least I know one thing about this wedding is guaranteed to go right.”

“Hey,” Cici objected, “we give great parties.”

Lindsay glanced at her apologetically.  “I know.  And it’s not as though I don’t appreciate all you’re doing.  It’s just that I only get one shot at this.  I want it to be perfect.  Or at least as perfect as I can afford.”

Cici nodded.  “I totally get that.  I wanted the same thing for Lori.”

Lindsay held out her glass, checking a box on one of the papers with her other hand.  “More tea.  Have you heard from her, by the way?  Or Kevin?”

Cici leaned over the table to refill Lindsay’s glass.  “Just the usual.  ‘No time to write, must run.’”

“Kevin landed safely though,” Bridget said.  “And he e-mailed to double-check the name of the place where Lori’s staying, so I’m sure he’ll let us know when he sees her.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t just tell Lori he was coming,” Lindsay said.

“He wanted to surprise her,” Cici said with a shrug.  “Who knows why?”

“I know why,” Bridget said. “In case he got too busy to look her up.  You know kids.  They hate to be tied to a schedule.” 

Cici finished her sandwich and sat back for a moment, sipping her tea.  The day was one of a string of exceptionally warm ones for this time of year, and already the temperature on the porch was almost too high to be comfortable.  The lawn looked crisp, the flower beds wilted, and even the mountains in the distance looked hot and dusty.  The sky was the color of acid-washed denim, bleached and tired looking.  “Indian summer,” she said, pressing the chilled glass briefly against her cheek.  “How can it be hotter than real summer?”

“It’s not Indian summer,” Bridget said, beginning to gather up the dishes.  “It can’t be Indian summer until after the first frost.”

“Terrific,” muttered Lindsay, “something else to worry about.  I just ordered a custom-altered jacket to cover up my custom-altered strapless gown and with my luck it will be too hot to wear it.”

Cici shrugged.  “So you’ll sweat.”