Bride & Groom

Gus’s objection that he wanted to stay with Steve and Judith’s offer to set a place for him, Claire led him off. When she returned, the rest of us had taken our seats at the table near the big windows. Mac sat at the head of the table, with Judith at the other end. I was on Mac’s right, and Ian was on my right, with John Berkowitz between Ian and Judith. To Mac’s left was Olivia, then an empty seat for Claire, and then, to Judith’s right, Steve. The table was set with bright place mats and napkins. Rita had educated me to recognize the good china and silver as such. The centerpiece combined flowers with candles. There were no place cards; rather, Judith had directed us to our places.
    Mac, with typical warmth and conviviality, opened two bottles of wine and had just finished pouring it when Claire appeared, glanced around, and said playfully, “Olivia, you’re in my seat!”
    Olivia matched the teasing tone. “Next to Daddy is my seat. You’re stuck with me, but you get to sit next to Steve.”
    To no one’s evident surprise, Claire executed a nimble little dance and sang the chorus of that old song called “Daddy’s Little Girl.” Her voice was pretty good. Everyone laughed. When she’d finished the performance, she took the place that Judith had meant for her. If the table had been mine, I’d have been tempted to remove the chair and feed her a dinner of moldy leftovers in a dog bowl on the kitchen floor. Judith, however, displayed great sangfroid in serving Claire the same first course that she and Olivia had prepared for the group, namely, individual ramekins of truffle flan in Parmesan broth. A truffle custard in cheese soup might not sound like something to die for, but I spoke the truth when I said, “Judith, one reason I try to be good in this lifetime is that if I get to heaven, the food will taste exactly like this.”
    “I copied it from a restaurant,” Judith said. “But thank you.”
    “Judith is amazing,” her husband said. “She throws these things together in no time.”
    Olivia and Ian exchanged glances.
    “Right,” Olivia said. “No time at all. It also took her no time to make Ian’s special food.”
    Only then did I notice that Ian’s ramekin contained something other than the flan.
    “Fruit salad,” Judith said. “That really did take no time.”
    “Ian is a vegan,” Claire said. Although her voice carried no hint of ridicule, the bare statement somehow sounded like a taunt chanted in a schoolyard. “He lives on seeds and nuts.”
    “With the occasional tuber and root thrown in,” Ian said mildly.
    “Daniel,” Claire said, “would you go check on Gus?” Daniel excused himself and left the room.
    “Now we can tell lawyer jokes,” his wife said. "Only kidding.” To me, she said, “He’s a lawyer. Obviously.”
    I wondered whether she knew that Steve’s vile ex-wife, Anita, was also a lawyer, albeit a disbarred one.
    Soon after Daniel returned, Judith and Olivia cleared the table. Steve and I offered to help, but Judith and Olivia seemed to prefer to work as a team. They soon served the main course, which consisted of a leg of lamb, a fricassee of wild mushrooms, a fancy version of mashed potatoes, and, as I was disconcerted to learn, brussels sprouts. I hate the damned things. Rather, I’d always hated them until I tasted these, which were chopped into a sort of puree and were bright green, buttery, and in all other respects, entirely unlike the smelly little cabbages I’d avoided throughout my life. Mac made a show of playing the carving knife on a sharpening steel and did a capable job of carving the lamb. As probably goes without saying, Judith once again unobtrusively served Ian a special meal.
    “The mushrooms are from the store,” Olivia said. “They’re wild, but you can relax. We didn’t gather them ourselves and pick poisonous ones by accident.”
    It was, I think, Olivia’s casual reference to unnatural death that triggered the subsequent discussion of the serial killings. The topic would have arisen anyway; everyone in Massachusetts was obsessed with the murders. With three veterinarians at the dinner table, the explicitly veterinary nature of the crimes made the subject inevitable. In any case, the mention of mushrooms somehow led to a conversation about the pharmaceuticals injected into the victims.
    “Acepromazine was an odd choice,” Claire said. “Injectable. Mac? Steve? Would you ever send a client home with it?”
    Steve