Bride & Groom

nothing but sneer at her, and it might not have been to Nina’s taste, not that she had any, the truth is, not to be snobbish, but she was something out of the gutter, I don’t know where Hal found her, her family simply devoted itself to producing illegitimate children and nothing else... but generosity is generosity, and Greta was making what was meant as a nice offer, and all this Nina did was make fun of Greta for it, and if you ask me, Greta would’ve done better to offer her a keg of beer instead of a champagne fountain. Of course, she was quite pretty, that must’ve been the attraction, drugstore blond, not that there’s anything objectionable about helping nature along if it’s done well, hut she had no bosom and very chapped lips and I remember that she wore one of those... what do you call them? Those wide bracelets. Way up on her arm.”
    A slave bracelet.”
    “That’s it! But in her own way, although Greta doesn’t like to admit it, Nina was quite pretty, like a child really, very young, almost like a young boy, really, but with long blond hair, you don’t suppose... where was I? The champagne fountain! Have you thought of one?”
    “You’re way ahead of us. So far, we don’t have a place for a champagne fountain or anything else. We don’t have a place to get married. But we’re looking. The prospects aren’t good.” In part to keep Ceci from returning to her obsession with Greta Kerkel and the regrettable Nina, I related the story of our visit to the Wayside Wildlife Refuge. In a fashion intended to distract and entertain Ceci, I described the dismal building with its sagging roof and the finding of the dead rat, but I said nothing, of course, about Artie’s Citroen! Francie, or wildlife I’d accidentally witnessed at the refuge; In a peculiar way, I loved Ceci, but my primary attachment, as Rita would say, was to her sister, Althea, whom I’d met when she was in a nursing home where I took Rowdy for therapy-dog visits. Our friendship had continued and deepened after Althea had moved in with Ceci. Rowdy, Kimi,; and I made social rather than therapeutic visits to the elderly sisters, who shared Ceci’s lavish suburban house with Ceci’s Newfoundland, Quest. Ceci and I shared a passion for dogs, but she was not someone whose advice I ever sought about important questions.
    Indeed, when Ceci ended our phone conversation with entirely uncharacteristic abruptness, I wondered whether she’d sensed my desire to consult with Althea and had felt slighted. I was wrong. About a half hour later, Ceci called back with what might be termed a marriage proposal. After we’d hung up, Ceci had awakened Althea from her nap, and my honorary aunts had swiftly resolved to pop the question: Would Steve and I do them the honor of holding our wedding and reception at their house?
    Would we ever!
     

CHAPTER 15
     
    Partnership with a good dog has millions of advantages over partnership with even the best human being. If a generous friend, Ceci, for instance, had extended an invitation invitation to my dogs and me, I’d have been free to accept without quizzing Rowdy and Kimi about their feelings. As it was, although I was almost positive that Steve would be as relieved as I was to have secured a suitable site for our nuptial show, I couldn’t give Ceci a definite yes until I’d checked with him, as I dutifully did on the way to my Tuesday evening signing. Mac McCloud, I might mention, had a habit of dragging his friends to his signings and talks whenever he suspected that attendance would be sparse. He’d recommended the practice to me. It was one piece of advice from Mac that I meant to reject. For one thing, I had no intention of going to any book event without Rowdy or Kimi, so I felt assured of always having a devoted and attentive audience. The prospect of having no human audience and no book buyers didn’t bother me as it did Mac. In other words, I was the real dog person. If Mac had sat alone in a bookstore with no one but Uli, his Bernese mountain dog, he’d have felt all alone, in part because Uli’s deep allegiance was to Judith rather than to Mac. With Kimi, I, in contrast, would be in excellent company. I’d thus planned to go to the signing with Kimi and hadn’t intended to haul Steve along. He’d insisted. I’d said that he’d be bored. He’d countered that on the contrary, he’d enjoy himself. He’d also mentioned the two murders and my safety.
    As it turned out, the drive