Bride & Groom

Gabrielle, Buck would not only have managed to attend my bridal shower, but would have done so dressed for a hunting expedition and accompanied by a large pack of dogs. As it was, she’d contrived to leave him in Maine, the state slogan of which is, of course, “Maine: The Way Life Should Be.” When it comes to my father, that’s my slogan, too, more or less: “Buck Far Away: The Way Life Should Be.”
    All this is to say that one reason I adored Gabrielle was that she possessed what I’d previously believed to be the exclusive power of Alaskan malamutes: the enchanting ability to make everyone feel special. Like Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy the pup, she was observant, intelligent, and responsive. Her energy was theirs. At eleven o’clock on Sunday night, for instance, Gabrielle was still talking away, examining every wedding present Steve and I had received, asking about Paris, and deepening her relationship with Sammy the puppy, who was no more eager to let me go to sleep than she was. We were in my guest room, which served as Wedding Central. My gown hung in the closet, and presents were everywhere.
    “Now, I know that you need to get to bed,” said Gabrielle, sipping from a glass of wine I’d just refilled for her. “This is going to be the busiest week of your life. But I want to reassure you that even though your father and I will get here on Friday, we aren’t going to be underfoot. Are you sure you want Buck and me to stay here? We could easily find a hotel. Or maybe Rita would put us up. She seems happy to have me use her guest room tonight, although there does seem to be something a little off with her. She seems fragile. Trouble with a man?”
    “Of course you’re not going to a hotel! The beds on the third floor aren’t too bad. Steve had them in storage, but they’re all set up. You and Buck are going to be in one room, and Twila Baker is going to have the other. Buck is going to be so crazy about one of her dogs, North, that we’ll be lucky if he remembers the wedding. Steve’s dogs will be in that apartment, too, at least some of the time, but Buck obviously won’t mind, and Twila won’t, either. She’s used to teams of malamutes. She’ll have her whole team with her, but except for North, they’ll be outside in her dog trailer. Steve’s three dogs and the two you’re bringing won’t bother her at all. She’ll probably harness them up and put them to work. Actually, she’ll be staying here all week, until she goes to mushing boot camp. Are you and Buck still...?”
    “Your father promises me that the accommodations are nothing short of luxurious,” Gabrielle said. “He may be exaggerating a tiny bit. He and I do, after all, have rather divergent opinions of what constitutes luxury. But I simply didn’t have the heart to crush his enthusiasm, especially after he’d reconciled himself to having you and Steve go to Paris instead, not to mention the matter of Althea’s performing the service.”
    If I’d tried to enlighten Gabrielle about the true nature of mushing boot camps, we’d have been up for another few hours. By the time I crawled into bed, it was midnight. Steve was asleep, and eager though I was to talk to him about Judith Esterhazy, I couldn’t bear to awaken him. We had no chance to talk in the morning, either. Gabrielle ate breakfast with us, and then Steve left for work. For the rest of the day, I was frantically busy. Gabrielle left for Maine at nine. After that, I stowed all five dogs in crates and supplied them with giant black rubber Kong toys that I’d stuffed with goodies and placed in the freezer. Having bought silence, I did two radio interviews that Mac had set up for me, one with a local station, the other with a station in California. Both so-called interviews consisted mainly of my listening to weather reports, station identification information, and news updates. The local station’s news made no mention of the serial killings. The California weather sounded enviable. Our Cambridge weather was sunny and warm, too, so I was able to wash and groom Rowdy and Kimi outdoors. Mac had arranged to have a reporter from a small local paper do an article about my book. The reporter was going to get here at three, and I wanted the dogs looking their best because she was going to be accompanied by a photographer. The newspaper wasn’t the Globe or the Herald, but promotion was promotion, and I wanted the dogs to create a good impression. Once they looked