Buried In Buttercream

oversized antique vase that was only half wrapped in padding. She began to tug the cover around it, securing it with a stretchy cord.
    “Sure, Madeline was getting sloppy and Celia Barnhart probably didn’t get all she paid for,” she said, “but still ... You have no idea what we put up with in this business. There are a lot of controlling, nasty women out there, and when they’re about to get married, it all comes to the surface. They bark and expect everybody to jump. They tell you they want one thing and then throw a temper tantrum when you get it for them and they don’t like it quite as much as they thought they would.”
    “It’s a lot of stress, putting a wedding together,” Savannah said, feeling the need to stand up for her sister brides everywhere.
    “Yes, and a lot of that stress can come from indecisive, bossy brides. Celia Barnhart’s one of them.”
    “Do you think she’d hurt Madeline?”
    Odelle shrugged and walked over to a wall niche that held a beautiful bronze statue of a mermaid combing her hair with a sea shell. Lovingly, as though attending a baby, she started to wrap it as well.
    “I suppose she could have. I don’t know. Does she have an alibi?”
    “Sort of,” Savannah said. “Not a very solid one.”
    “Well, then, I guess you’d better keep her on your short list, huh?” Odelle paused, ran her fingers through her hair, and then wiped her hand across her face, as though refusing to see what was abundantly clear ... herself moving out of her beloved home.
    “We’ll leave you alone now, Ms. Peters,” Dirk said. “Thank you for your time ... and I’m sorry about your home.”
    Odelle gave him a mildly surprised look, as though not expecting comfort from that quarter. “Okay,” she said. “I appreciate that.”
    “I’m going to be moving soon myself,” he told her.
    “I hope you’re moving up in the world, not down, the way I am.”
    Dirk gave Savannah a sweet smile and said, “Oh, I am. I most certainly am.”
    “Then you’re a lucky man,” Odelle told him.
    “Oh, you have no idea how lucky.”

Chapter 17
    “ D o you really have to do this?” Dirk asked Savannah as they pulled up in front of her house. “You can come back to the trailer with me and hide out.”
    “I do. I really do. They’re my family, and they’ve come all this way to visit me. I can’t keep avoiding them forever,” she replied, staring at her yard, which was littered with toys. Her hedge was draped with a Minnie Mouse beach towel. Her bougainvillea had sprouted a pair of Mickey ears. A couple of Toy Story dolls were lying in the middle of her lawn. She wasn’t sure if Woody and Jessie were doing something naughty or wrestling.
    Dirk noticed her looking over the carnage. He shook his head. “Did it occur to Vidalia when she let the kids buy all that stuff that she’s going to have a helluva time getting it all into a suitcase when she goes home?”
    “She won’t bother,” Savannah replied. “I’ll be the one packing it into cardboard boxes and standing in line at the post office to mail it back to them.”
    He reached over and took her hand. “Has it ever dawned on you ... um ... how can I put this nicely ... that you do a bit too much for your family?”
    “You mean, has it ever occurred to me that I’m a doormat, an enabler of bad behavior, a flunky, and a pushover?”
    “That would about sum it up.”
    Savannah rolled her eyes. “Of course it has. I’ve read the self-help books about setting boundaries and all that good stuff. I may be codependent as hell, but I’m not stupid or ill-informed.”
    “Then why do you do it?”
    Savannah thought about it a long time before answering. It was a good question and deserved an honest answer. “It isn’t what people think. It’s not because I’m too weak to stand up for myself.”
    “Knowing you, that never occurred to me.”
    “I guess more than anything else, it’s a habit ... a habit that started years and years ago, and I’ve never changed it. When I was little, my mom was always saying, ‘Watch the kids, fetch Vidalia a bottle, change Macon’s diaper, get Waycross out of that mud puddle before he drowns hisself.’ And, of course, if I didn’t watch them close enough, and they got into trouble—which was bound to happen ten times a day with so many of them—I’d get a whoopin’.”
    Dirk was quiet for a long time. And when she turned to look at him, she saw what could only be described as fury on