Food. I hoped Eileen and Sally had a tableful. Maybe those sausage and biscuit balls?

My mouth watered while I swapped purses, and when my mother rang the doorbell, I was feeling ravenous.

My mother, Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland, looked aristocratic and slim and cool as ever in a gorgeous royal blue suit. She is a woman dauntingly difficult to criticize. Her clothes and behavior are always appropriate for the occasion. She always thinks before she speaks. Her extensive and successful business dealings are always ethically aboveboard, and her employees have excellent health benefits and a profit-sharing program.

But she is definitely not a woman you would run up and hug without a fair warning and a good reason, and she is not sentimental, and she never forgets anyone who does not deal fairly with her.

Mother gave me a careful, cheerful kiss on the cheek. She was finally marrying me off, enjoying all the mother-of-the-bride things that she'd been denied. And she knew I was happy. And she approved of Martin, though I sensed reservations. Martin was closer to her age than to mine, and that worried her a bit. (She had asked me if I'd seen his company's insurance policy, for example.) And, being my mother and extremely property oriented, she wanted to know how much money Martin had in the bank, what his salary was, how much of that he saved, and what his pension program was. Since it was impossible for her to ask Martin these things point-blank, it had been amusing to hear her try to maneuver the conversation delicately around to what she wanted to know.

"I'm willing to give her a full, typed financial statement," Martin had told me after we'd eaten supper with Mother and John one night. "That would be too direct," I told him. "I don't know why she's in such a lather, anyway." (Though actually, my mother in a lather was pretty unimaginable.) "I have plenty of money of my own, safely invested, well protected."

"She's just watching out for you," Martin said fondly. I had dark thoughts about why everyone seemed to feel I needed "watching out for," but considering my mother had a right to if anyone did, I kept quiet. Now as Mother swept me into her superior car (she'd picked me up because she considered my old Chevette to be too plebeian for The Bride) she checked me over as though I were going on my first date, gave a quick little nod of approval, and asked me if I'd heard from my father lately. "Not since he called me after he talked to Betty Jo about coming," I answered. Betty Jo was my father's second wife, down to earth, plain, and homey as all get out. When he'd fled my mother, Father had certainly run in the opposite direction. He and Betty Jo lived in California now, with their child, my brother Phillip, age nine. I hadn't seen my father or Phillip or Betty Jo in nearly three years.

"He said they were?"

"If he could take his vacation time then. He was going to ask."

"And you haven't heard back," my mother murmured, almost to herself.

I didn't say anything.

"I'll call him tomorrow," she said decisively. "He has to let us know."

"I'd like Phillip to be ring-bearer if they're coming," I said suddenly. It was lucky we were in Mother's big Lincoln, because it was full of thoughts unsaid. Phillip had had a traumatic experience the last time he spent the weekend with me. They'd moved to California in a (to me) mistaken attempt to help Phillip recover, and he'd been seeing a counselor for a year afterward. According to my father's rare letters, Phillip was fine now. Then, as we parked at Eileen's house, I caught a glimpse through the picture window of a table covered in white with white and silver wedding bells hanging from the light fixture, and Eileen carrying in a big tray of something sure to be edible, and Sally Allison, her cohostess, stirring a huge silver bowl of punch. On a table nearby presents wrapped in white and silver and pastels were heaped. Sally and Eileen were dressed to the teeth. As I slid out of the car it hit me smack in the psyche.

This was for me.

I was getting married.

I put one hand out to the roof of the car and the other touched my chest as if I were pledging my allegiance.

I knew a moment of delight, followed by a groundswell of panic.

"Just hit you, huh?" Mother asked.

I nodded, unable to say a word.

We stood in the dark, looking through that window, for a couple of minutes. It was oddly companionable.

"Which way is it going to be?" Mother finally asked.

It was the first time she'd spoken to me as if I were absolutely grown up.

"Let's go in," I said, and started up the sidewalk to the front door.

Chapter Four

MOTHER AND I stood nervously in the foyer waiting to say hello to the first arrivals before being put wherever we were supposed to sit during the present opening. Though Mother was nervous, she looked as composed and cool as she always did, as though she couldn't sweat. But one eyelid twitched from time to time.

One of Mother's friends came in first, and then Amina's mom, Miss Joe Nell, one of my favorite people. And then the guests came too fast for me to talk much to each one; it was like a "This Is Your Life" theme party. The pile of presents rose higher and higher, and the room got fuller and fuller, and older women who had been my mother's friends for years mixed with women my own age whom I'd known all my life—Susu Hunter, Lizanne Buckley Sewell, Linda Erhardt, and several other—and women who had to be asked because of some connection to my life, like Patty Cloud, my mother's office manager, and Melinda, wife of my mother's husband's son, and a couple of women I'd asked just to say "Ha!" such as Lynn Liggett Smith (wife of my former flame Arthur Smith) and Emily Kaye (love of my former flame the Reverend Aubrey Scott). After the usual twenty minutes or so of chatter, during which I answered the same questions six or seven times, Sally made a little speech about my upcoming marriage, including a joke about how long we'd all waited for that day—thanks, Sally—and then the present opening began. I had registered my color preferences in towels and bathroom items with the local stores, and of course I got lots of those, and toothbrush holders and wastebaskets and even a monogrammed towel rack, which left me practically speechless. I could hardly wait to show it to Martin, and picturing his face started a fit of the giggles I had trouble suppressing. I passed each present around the circle of women so it could be admired and its giver complimented on her choice. It was the lingerie, of course, that provoked the most oohs and ahhs. I got a leopard print teddy from Susu, which engendered quite a few risque comments, and some silk pajamas from my mother in a champagne color, and from the shower hostesses a truly gorgeous negligee set in black lace. Showing that to Martin was going to be fun, too.

Sally and Eileen had popped in and out during the present opening, vanishing to the kitchen after commenting on a gift or two, and now they both appeared and took their place at the loaded dining-room table, Sally pouring punch into delicate glass cups and Eileen cutting and serving the cake on her best china at the opposite end. As the honoree, I was expected to go first, one of the other nice things about being a bride. We all made the ritual comments about how good everything looked, and about how we'd just eaten supper so we weren't sure we could jam in another bite, and then we loaded down our plates and stuffed ourselves.

Of course it was all good, but it could have been sawdust and I would still have enjoyed it. Some women reminisced about their showers and weddings, some asked Sally and Eileen for recipes, others talked about ordinary Lawrence-ton happenings, others asked me about the wedding plans, and a few of the older ladies quizzed me about Martin and who "his people" were. As some of the guests were returning their empty plates to the sideboard, a very old lady came to sit in the chair beside me that my mother had temporarily vacated. She had wrinkles like cobwebs gridding her face, her eyes were the color of bleached denim, and her thinning hair was snowy. She was wearing one of those flowered dresses that were the staple of Lawrenceton fashion. This particular example was sky blue with pink flowers, and the lady who wore it was the same thickness all the way up and down. This was Mrs. Lyndower Dawson, christened Eunice, but since childhood called Neecy. "How are you, Miss Neecy?" I asked.