Authors: Nancy Martin
He let me go. He cursed and turned away. I tried to reach for him, but I couldn’t make myself do that, either.
He went down the stairs and out of the house.
I sleepwalked back to the bedroom and found a bra. Put it on. Then I stood for a while, looking at the dress on the floor with a storm in my head.
My phone rang, and I saw it was Loretta. My hands were shaking as I opened the phone.
“There you are,” she said, sounding miraculously friendly. “I’ve been looking for you. Are you coming to the wedding with us? You haven’t forgotten, have you? You’re coming, right? Roxy? Are you there?”
In the mirror, my face didn’t look like the face of a woman who ought to be in church unless it was for confession. My voice sounded hollow. “Not the ceremony, but I can make the reception. Pick me up?”
“We’d be delighted.”
“Do you have a slip I could borrow?”
“I’ll find one. You’re at home, I hope? Not in jail? I hear you’re an enemy of the whole fire department.” When I didn’t answer she said, “Five o’clock. Be ready.”
We hung up, and I put my dress on. I went downstairs to find something to eat. I was famished. After a Red Bull and a Slim Jim, I was almost ready to face anything again.
Even Uncle Carmine.
I tried calling Adasha to talk to her about Jane Doe, but she didn’t pick up. I left a message on her voice mail, though. I told her I thought Jane was going to be okay.
At five o’clock, I hear a horn honk outside, so I tucked a lipstick into my bra, grabbed a thick scarf that would have to be enough of a wrap for the night, and went out to see Loretta’s big Cadillac waiting in front of the house.
Loretta’s face and Sister Bob’s face both goggled at me from inside the car. I opened the rear door and slid into the backseat.
“My God,” Loretta said. “Put this on, and do it fast before somebody sees you.”
She tossed the slip over the seat to me.
Sister Bob turned around as far as her seatbelt would allow. She wore a black suit left over from her days as a nun, but had jazzed it up with a string of green and purple Mardi Gras beads probably from a pre-Lent party. “Holy moly, that’s some outfit you’re wearing, Roxana. What happened? Somebody run over you with a lawn mower?”
“It’s supposed to look this way. A famous designer made it. Well—he’ll be famous soon.” I kicked off my leopard shoes and wrestled the slip up over my hips. While Loretta drove, I scooched around until I had the slip on under my dress. “Where’s Sage? Isn’t she coming?”
“She has a date.” Bob rummaged in her gigantic black nun purse and came up with a ChapStick.
“Oh yeah? Is she with Brian?” I wondered if he was back to driving his Escalade.
Bob slathered her lips and stowed the ChapStick back in her purse. “She wouldn’t say.”
“Didn’t she show up at the church?”
“Hardly anybody goes to the church anymore. It’s all about the reception.”
I put my hand to my forehead and groaned. “I forgot! I didn’t help deliver all the wedding cookies. Did you manage to move them up to the restaurant in time?”
“We rented a U-Haul,” Loretta said. “Nooch came over to help this morning, and he was very useful.”
“He hardly ate any,” Bob added. “But he carried all the boxes for us. He said he was making himself into a magnet. Does that make any sense to you?”
“More and more.” I slipped my shoes back on and sat up in the backseat. “How was the wedding ceremony at the church?”
“You should have seen Gino,” Sister Bob said. “It’s the first time I ever saw the father of the bride run up the aisle. Like he had ants in his pants. I’ve never seen a man’s face so red. I think he had a fever.”
Looking at me in the rearview mirrow, Loretta said to me, “Are you okay?”
“Gino was sweating like a horse,” Bob went on. “Perspiration was gushing out from under that toupee of his. Something was definitely wrong with that man.”
“Nothing he didn’t deserve,” I said mildly.
Loretta frowned into her mirror.
As dusk fell over the city and lights began to blink on around us, Loretta drove across the bridges and up the winding road to Mount Washington—so named because George Washington himself had surveyed the place where three rivers converged and made what looked to George like a great place to build a fort. Fort Pitt had long since disappeared under the railroads and steel mills, and now the department stores and skyscrapers made the downtown of Pittsburgh. I felt a tug of emotion for my hometown. It was a tough place that had survived a lot of hardship. I belonged here.
At the restaurant, Bob and I got out of the car while Loretta talked to the parking valet. From the ridge of Mount Washington, the city radiated from the Point, and we could see all three rivers glinting with the colors of the sunset. A tugboat pushed two empty coal barges down the Monongahela toward West Virginia. I saw the casino far below, and the spot where Clarice Crabtree’s body had washed up on the bank.
Loretta accepted a ticket from the valet and tucked it into her tiny evening bag as she came over to the sidewalk to join us. Maybe she knew what I was thinking, because Loretta put her arm around me.
“Let’s join the party,” she said gently.
We went through the rococo front doors of the restaurant. Inside, the overblown decoration—the marble floor, crystal chandeliers, flecked mirrors in heavy frames—still looked ridiculous to me, but it was a grand place for an Italian wedding.
The Martinelli family had formed a receiving line inside the door of the restaurant—all except for the bride and groom, who were probably off getting pictures taken. Gino was missing, too. Probably changing his underwear someplace. The bride’s sisters, Caprice and Malibu—so named, said neighborhood legend, because of where they’d been conceived—greeted Sister Bob and Loretta enthusiastically.
Me, they tolerated because they had good manners.
“Oh, hello, Roxy.”
“Yeah, nice of you to come.”
“Thanks, girls. You both look great.”
Caprice and Malibu could have passed for twins in their big hair and poufy red bridesmaid dresses, wearing enough mascara to cause blindness.
Their mother, Carlene, was dabbing her eyes with a wadded-up tissue as she talked to Sister Bob. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Gino. He hasn’t been himself since he got dressed this morning. I never expected him to get all emotional about the wedding, but— Oh, Roxy’s here?”
“Hi, Carlene.” I pumped her hand and hoped she hadn’t seen me skulking out of her basement with my tube of Ben-Gay. “Thanks for inviting me. Beautiful wedding. Sorry Gino’s not here.”
She gave my dress a startled look, but Loretta nudged me down the line before we could exchange further pleasantries.
The groom’s parents were perfectly nice people. But they both had highballs in their hands already. A good strategy for surviving a Pittsburgh wedding.
The tow truck business must have been good, because the Martinellis were throwing a big bash. A Frank Sinatra look-alike sang us through to the ballroom, where swan ice sculptures glittered beside towering flower arrangements.
The restaurant was a Pittsburgh landmark that cantilevered over the edge of the cliff overlooking the rivers. At the back of the ballroom, a wall of windows allowed a wide-angle view of the city below. Tonight, people mingled around the antipasto table and could see the nearby Incline—a funicular railway left over from the days when steel workers lived up on the hills and needed a quick route down to the mills along the rivers. Now it was a touristy thing for the most part—twin red cars that ran up and down the steep hillside.
The room filled up fast. The men peeled off their jackets and hustled over to join the line at the bar. The women preened in dresses cut so low that a dairy farmer wouldn’t know where to start. Plenty of rhinestone jewelry. Torturous shoes. Half the crowd were busily moving place cards around so they didn’t have to sit with their parents.
I knew most everybody. Irene Stossel’s mother tottered past. I hadn’t seen her since buying my last bag of doughnuts at the family bakery. Pepper Petrone, the owner of the gas station where I filled the Monster Truck, a woman usually dressed in overalls and axle grease, looked adorable in pink. Stony Zuzak’s brother Archie, who spun pizzas at a joint in Lawrenceville, gave me a salute with his beer bottle.
Around a four-tiered wedding cake, a group of aunts gathered to discuss its towering design the way jealous artists probably argued about Picasso.
The cookie tables were already set up along one wall, but to keep eager fingers off the goodies until the dancing started, long yards of tulle had been laid over the cookies and weighted down with strings of white Christmas lights. Just to be on the safe side, Gino Martinelli’s mother kept an eagle eye on the display. She was the size and shape of a storybook troll, and nobody crossed Mrs. Martintelli.
I saw Flynn come in with Marla Krantz. No surprise, she was the most beautiful woman in the room. Big eyes, high cheekbones. Heroin can do that, I thought. I noticed she clamped Flynn’s hand in hers. They moved like a couple that had been together a long time—with easy body language and murmurs. If he saw me, he pretended otherwise. They headed for the bar.
Abruptly, I turned around and worked my way through the crowd, going the other direction.
A man I didn’t know appeared in front of me and blocked my path. He had two glasses of champagne. “I hear your name is Roxy.”
It’s a proven fact that just about anybody can get laid after a wedding except total nerds or retirees who can only talk about their health. This guy wasn’t going to have any problem in that department. Tall, good-looking, great shoulders. Suit and tie that hadn’t come from a thrift store. Better yet: no ponytail, no stains on his tie, no stupid pickup lines.
He handed me one of the champagnes and said, “I’m Nolan McKillip.”
“Yeah, I’m Roxy. Thanks.”
He slid one hand into his trouser pocket and looked relaxed. “I feel like I know you already. My studio’s right behind your office. I feed your dog at night sometimes.”
“You’re the blacksmith artist guy?” I blinked up at him in surprise. “The one who burns charcoal and pounds on steel at all hours?”
He grinned. “I guess that’s as good a description as any. I have a forge. Does the noise bother you?”
“Not really, no.” Hell, if I’d known he was such a hottie, I’d have visited him long ago. “My dog hasn’t bitten you yet?”
“No, we’re good buddies.”
I looked into his face and tried to decide if he was on a mission to get laid later. But he had a nice smile and warm eyes.
He said, “Listen, I don’t know anybody here. You mind if I hang out with you for a while?”
“How’d you get invited if you don’t know anybody?”
“I know the bride’s sister a little. She works at the deli where I get lunch. She invited me, but—well, to tell the truth, I’m a little afraid of her. All she talks about is weddings.”
Caprice Martinelli, I guessed. She’d been engaged three times, and her obsession with the perfect wedding had chased away all the men who’d ever thought about slipping a ring on her finger.
I clinked my glass against his. “Sure, you can hang out with me. It’ll be fun.”
At that moment, Sister Bob rushed up to us and waved place cards in the air. “The Martinellis put me at a table with Father Mike! Can you believe it? So I’m moving seats around. Where do you want to sit, Roxana? And who’s this nice young man?”
She peered up at Nolan McKillip with interest. “Would you like to sit with us?” she asked. “I can switch place cards.”
“Why not?”
I gave him points for being nice to old ladies.
The Frank Sinatra look-alike stopped singing and called for everyone’s attention. He announced the bride and groom, and that’s when Shelby Martinelli and her new husband swept into the ballroom. Lots of applause, and then there was a rush to the bar to get more drinks before the dinner started.
Through the melee came Sage, looking adorable in a short blue dress and carrying a little bag shaped like a fish. She was much prettier than Marla Krantz. With her hair up and dangly earrings, she looked surprisingly grown-up. Behind her trailed Zack Cleary in a sport coat that was too big for him.
“Hey, tiger.” I punched his arm. “Where’s Brian?”
Zack shrugged, looking both sheepish and proud. “Who cares?”
Sage gave me a kiss, but she seemed subdued. “Hi, Mom. I hope you don’t mind, but Zack and I are sitting at a different table with some friends of his.”
“Sure. You okay?”
She glanced up, and I saw tears. In a heartbeat, I knew she’d talked to Flynn. The bastard had told her about leaving with Dooce. I grabbed her hand. “We’ll be okay,” I said.
She nodded but didn’t look convinced. I almost ran across the room to deck Flynn in front of four hundred wedding guests. I wanted to smash his face into the wedding cake and drown him in frosting.
Zack stuck his hand out to Nolan McKillip. “Hi, I’m Zack.”
“Sorry,” I said, remembering my special-occasion manners. “Sage, Sister Bob, this is Nolan McKillip. This is my aunt Roberta. And my daughter, Sage. Her friend, Zack Cleary, too.”
Nolan didn’t run screaming when he learned I had a grown daughter. He shook everybody’s hand and looked charmed.
As the crowd began to fill the tables, I saw Irene Stossel sitting with her mother. Irene was rooting around in her purse—a purse at least as big as Sister Bob’s. Who the hell carries such a big bag to a wedding? Except maybe a nun?
A lightbulb went on in my head.
“Excuse me a minute,” I said to Nolan McKillip. “I’ll be right back.”
I left him talking with Sister Bob and went over the talk to the Stossels.
“Irene?” I said.
She stopped digging in her purse and looked up at me, not exactly surprised. “Hey, Roxy.”
I gestured at the otherwise empty table. “Are you sitting with my uncle Carmine?”
“He’s not coming,” she said. “He thought he might stop by for the dancing later, but not for dinner. His stomach’s upset.”
“You’re getting to be a regular family member,” I said.
“I don’t mind looking in on him now and then.”