Just as I was about to stand up to go check on Alice, the doorbell rang. Glancing at her watch, Betty frowned. She’d probably been hoping to have us all gone in time to sit down with her feet up, a plate of leftovers on her lap, and American Idol on the tube.
“Rosalee, were you expecting another guest?” Betty asked.
Slipping off the blindfold, Mama did a quick survey of the room. “I invited my nephew Henry so Sal wouldn’t be the only man. He said he couldn’t make it until later, though.”
Sal cleared his throat. “It … it … might be C’ndee.”
Mama’s brows shot up.
“She called this morning to say she’d taken a little trip to the coast. She said she was really sorry she missed dinner with you and her nephew at the Speckled Perch. I told her to stop by tonight so she could tell you in person.”
“Well, isn’t that nice.” Mama gave Sal one of her looks. Translation: She’d like to hand him that blindfold and stand him up at the wall of a firing range.
He tugged at his collar. “Sorry I forgot to mention it.”
“I’m sure you are.”
The bell ding-donged again, an impatient sound. As Betty hurried to get the door, every other pair of eyes in the room watched Mama and Sal to see what would happen next. Even Alice seemed to shake off her sleepwalking state to attend to the pre-wedding drama.
Maddie started humming the theme from Jaws.
“Oh, my Gawd! That cake is absolutely GORGEOUS!” C’ndee’s big voice blasted from the dining room. “I have to visit the little girl’s room, but be sure to save me a slice.”
“Cake,” Maddie and I chorused.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Marty called out, in a voice brimming with artificial cheer. “Mama, why don’t we go into the other room and cut the cake?”
A murmur of assent went around the room. Mama cast one more withering glance at Sal, who seemed to shrink a little under the glare.
“Poor guy,” I whispered to Maddie. “He better man up if he wants to go mano a mano with Mama.”
“You know it. She likes a challenge. If she can walk all over him, he won’t last long enough to board the Maid of the Mist on their honeymoon.”
“They’re not going to Vegas?”
“Nope, Niagara,” Maddie said. “She has bad associations to Vegas, what with Husband No. 2. Then again she’s been to Niagara Falls, too. Was that with No. 3 or 4?”
Marty hissed under her breath, “Hush, the both of you! You’ll jinx the wedding.”
The party relocated to the dining room, where all of us attempted to stay on our best behavior. Mama’s snit was quickly forgotten, and she was already laughing and kidding again with Sal. She dabbed her finger in a bit of stray icing, and got on her tiptoes to put a dollop on his lips. Then she kissed it off.
Sal beamed as the two of them shared the process of cutting, plating, and passing pieces of cake. The thick white frosting was decorated with dark purple roses, no surprise. Best Wishes, Sal and Rosalee, was written in cursive, in a lighter shade of purple.
I was working on an exit strategy that would allow me to eat cake, and still get out the door before that shower game where guests squeeze a nickel between their knees and try to walk. Whoever drops her nickel first is definitely not a virgin. Considering the afternoon I’d spent, I doubted if I could squeeze my legs around a basketball, let alone a nickel.
Our plates full, my sisters and I returned to our positions in the living room. As Maddie savored a jumbo-sized icing rose, Marty said, “Are you going to talk to C’ndee, Mace?”
“You bet I am. If she ever makes it out of the ‘little girls’ room.’ What in the world is taking her so long in there, I wonder?”
Maddie shuddered. “Maybe she got some bad seafood over there on the coast.”
My older sister had once eaten some bad raw clams in Vero Beach. She’d been convinced ever since that the only good seafood was frozen, deep-fried, and served with a side of hush puppies.
Knowing Maddie’s taste for retelling the Revenge of the Clam story, in detail, Marty changed the subject. “I called the park today, Mace. Rhonda said you’d left with Carlos.” Her eyes sparkled with curiosity.
I ignored Maddie’s tongue clucking. “He asked me to go with him to question that lowlife, Darryl. We took a boat from the fish camp, but we never made it to Osprey Bay Island.”
“That’s because they took a little detour.” Maddie was wearing her know-it-all look.
“Well, we started taking on water. Carlos went overboard, and nearly drowned. And we barely escaped being eaten by a giant gator. So, I guess you could say we were detoured.”
“What!??” My sisters gasped.
Mama walked up with Sal, hands entwined like teenagers. “Did I miss something?” she asked.
As they sat, I launched into the tale of the Missing Drain Plug and How I Saved the Day. I was savoring the contrite look on Maddie’s face, when a hubbub arose and interrupted me.
“Get your hands off me, you hick!” The voice was loud, angry, and pure Joisey.
“Don’t call me a hick, you hussy!” That one was rural and shrill. Alice.
The voices were coming from the hallway, near the powder room. We all looked at one another. Then we leaped off the purple couch, plates of cake forgotten. We heard a loud thump, like a body getting shoved into the wall. Then slap, the sound of an open hand hitting skin. Just as we rounded the corner into the dining room, Alice and C’ndee came staggering out of the hallway. Each had a handful of the other’s hair.
“Let go!” Alice screeched.
“You first!” C’ndee countered.
Betty started clearing her souvenir shot glasses and Princess Diana plates off an accent table. Sal roared, “C’ndee! Stop it right now.” The two women circled, round and round.
“She started it.” C’ndee landed a kick with her red stiletto on Alice’s shin. “Bitch!”
Alice hopped on one foot. “Whore!” she yelled, connecting with a solid punch to C’ndee’s left breast.
“Ouch!” C’ndee cried, as everyone but Sal cringed.
He bulled his way through the moving mass of shower guests turned fight fans. He almost made it to the battering duo, even had one beefy arm stretched out to separate them, when C’ndee gave Alice a mighty shove. Alice grabbed at her opponent’s left shoulder and held on as she fell backward.
The two of them toppled together onto the dining room table. The punch bowl tipped, spilling a juice mixture of cranberry and pineapple, with lemon-lime soda. A fruity smell rose in the room. Globs of lime sherbet dotted Betty’s carpet, like green islands in a lilac sea. Then the cake slid from the table, splat onto the wet carpet. The two women went next, coming off the table only to lose their footing in frosting, sherbet, and bridal shower punch.
Mama clutched her hand to her throat. “Make them stop, Sal!” she wailed. “They’re ruining my shower.”
As I watched Alice and C’ndee tumbling across the floor in white frosting and pink punch, I had to disagree with Mama. This was the best bridal fete ever.
