Bride & Groom

second the offer. I was still sitting behind the table of books, as was Mac, who now had Uli with him. The Bernese mountain dog has an average life span of seven or eight years. Uli was twelve. He showed his age. He was bigger than my Rowdy, who weighed eighty-five pounds, but both dogs had the sturdy build and heavy bone typical of working breeds. Bernese mountain dogs have long, silky coats and are tricolored: black with rust and bright white. Uli’s markings were symmetrical. He had the desirable “Swiss cross” white mark on his chest and a white tip on his tail. The expression in his dark, clouded eyes was soft and loving. Although Uli was with Mac, those gentle eyes kept seeking out Judith.
    As Olivia was suggesting that Steve and I inquire about a wildlife refuge in Lexington that was a wedding site especially suitable for a veterinarian groom and a dog-writer bride, a familiar voice spoke a name I’d never heard before. “Nina Kerkel!” said Ceci Love. Then she said it again. “Nina Kerkel!”
    The younger sister of my elderly and revered friend Althea Battlefield, Ceci never settled for just two words; it was inevitable that she’d immediately babble hundreds more, as she rapidly did. “Nina Kerkel! I haven’t thought of her for years. To think she’s dead! I wonder if Greta knows. That’s Greta Kerkel, whose son Hal married that Nina it must have been thirty years ago, although I must say that Greta—well, no, on the contrary, I mustn’t say it, must I? Not with the poor girl dead. What did she die of? Holly, did you like the cake? I see that the dog is still left, the picture on the cake, not Rowdy and Kimi, naturally they’re still left. Althea is so terribly sorry that she couldn’t be here even though it would have been impossible given her age and condition, but you are our favorite honorary niece, now that I think of it, our only one, and we decided to send the cake, do you like it? Althea wants you to know that I am fully authorized to represent her here and to convey her congratulations on your delightful book, which it is— delightful—it’s obviously a book, isn’t it? And there was something from Sherlock Holmes that Althea made me promise to quote to you, but I’ve forgotten what it is.”
    Ceci was, as usual, a vision in champagne. Her hair was tinted that shade, and she wore a pale linen suit with matching pumps. Her actual age was not public knowledge, as I know for certain because I’m the person who had it removed from AnyBirthday.com. I’ll tactfully report that Ceci not only could have passed for sixty-five, but frequently did, especially when she had a say in the matter. According to Althea, Ceci’s daintiness and lifelong prettiness were, in part, responsible for her apparent frivolity. Also, Althea claimed that Ceci had been indulged first by their father and subsequently by the doting man she’d married, Ellis Love, who was already dead by the time I met the sisters. For whatever reason, Ceci continued to indulge herself in the matter of her appearance and also in the matter of her chronic babbling, which grated on her sister’s scholarly nerves. Althea was a devoted student of the entire Canon of Sherlock Holmes. Ceci, in contrast, was a successful student of Messieurs Dow and Jones; her late husband, a stockbroker, had trained her in investment strategies. No one, however, had ever succeeded in training Ceci to apply her intelligence to speaking simply and coherently.
    After excusing myself to Judith and Olivia, I hugged Ceci and thanked her for the cake. After repeating her congratulations about my book and offering an unnecessary explanation of why Althea wasn’t there, Ceci returned to the topic of the newly deceased Nina Kerkel and the horror felt thirty years before by her friend Greta Kerkel when Greta’s son had married a person Ceci consistently called “that Nina.” Ceci, I might mention, could pack more damnation into the word that than most other people expressed with dozens of explicitly denunciatory terms; I hoped that she never had reason to refer to me as “that Holly.” She and I were now standing by the refreshment table, where I was sampling the cake. As she continued talking in her usual jumbled fashion about Nina Kerkel, the cake, her elderly Newfoundland, her sister, Althea, Althea’s wheelchair, and my wedding, we were joined by Mac, Judith, Olivia, and some people I didn’t know. A few were evidently friends of Mac’s. Some