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“So, the cake,” she said in her best aren’t-we-all-glad-to-be-here voice, waving her cake plate in Maria’s general direction to distract her from whatever was about to set her off.
“I’m just thinking with everything that’s gone wrong, the wedding might be better at the country club,” Brenda said, and Evie perked up.
Rot in hell, Brenda, Agnes thought, but before she could say anything, Maria said, “Did you hear about my dress?”
“Your dress?” Evie said, but Maria was smiling at Brenda. Fixedly.
Oh, God, what did Brenda do to the dress? Agnes thought, seeing the entire wedding go south as the bride killed her grandmother in the gazebo with the cake knife. Barbie Clue.
“Oh, yes, the dress.” Brenda sipped her lemonade, looking blonde and lovely as ever. “Maria had ordered one from New York, but there was no tradition in that, so I canceled it?—”
“What?” Evie said, putting down her lemonade.
“—and I’m giving her my wedding dress to wear.” Brenda smiled fondly at Maria, who smiled back. Not fondly.
“She’s at least a foot taller than you are,” Evie said, appalled. “You canceled that dress? She loved that dress. We all loved that dress!”
“It’s all right,” Maria said, still smiling.
It’s not all right, Agnes thought, trying to think of how she was going to get the dress back. And how she was going to get Brenda psychiatric help because she’d clearly gone round the bend. And how she was going to keep Lisa Livia from killing her mother, something that had been imminent all LL’s life anyway. “I?—”
“In fact, I’ve been thinking,” Brenda said, and a silence fell over the table, even Evie turning to Brenda to see what was coming next. “What with Two Rivers not looking its best—I’m sorry, Agnes—and the florist quitting, and all, well, I have to agree with Evie that the country club is very beautiful, and they have flowers there anyway, so we could probably just use their flowers. ...”
Her voice trailed off as three women looked at her in horror.
“Well, it’s too late to get another florist, everybody would understand that, and we can’t have it here,” she said, the voice of reason. “This place isn’t even painted.”
You have lost your ever-lovin’ mind, Agnes thought.
“We cannot use the country club’s flowers,” Evie said firmly. “But I do agree that Two Rivers is a little shabby for a wedding of this stature, so I think that moving it to?—”
Agnes said, trying to keep the panic from her voice, “Well, I think?— “
Maria stood up. “You know, I just love my grandpa’s big old house. It’s just... the South, don’t you think?” She turned to look at it in all its scraped and scabby glory, Tara with leprosy, and turned back hastily. “And I do want a Southern wedding, in the fine old Keyes tradition. I do believe in tradition, don’t you, Mrs. Keyes?”
Evie nodded, not buying anything yet.
“But I do want a wedding that will make people sit up and take notice,” Maria said, looking at Brenda. “I want a wedding that says, Look at us, we have arrived, we belong. Right, Grandma Brenda?”
Brenda looked up at her, and for a moment she looked hungry, even vulnerable. Agnes thought, She wonts to belong, she feels as alone as I do.
Maria moved between Brenda and Evie. “That’s what I want my wedding to be, tradition and innovation, the best of both worlds, having it all!”
The two older women looked at each other, united in confusion.
Agnes frowned. It was a nice picture, Maria uniting the two fighting houses, but she was Lisa Livia’s kid, and her cake, her flowers, and her dress had just been canceled, and now Brenda and Evie were trying to hijack the whole damn thing to the fucking country club.
Language, Agnes.
To the gosh-darned country club.
Agnes pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, I think that’s wonderful, but you can just forget the country?—”
“We’ll have it all,” Maria said, thrillingly. “My wedding in my grandpa’s house, which Agnes will get painted?—”
Agnes started at the steel in Maria’s voice and then nodded.
“—and Taylor’s brilliant food, and Agnes’s wonderful cake, and Maisie Shuttle’s gorgeous flowers, which Grandma Brenda will get back for us?—”
