Cutler 03 - Twilight's Child

she sat regally in her blue-patterned chintz chair with her small hands resting palms down on the heavy, dark mahogany frame, behaving very much like a queen, greeting the service people and tradespeople, photographers, printers and decorators. She summoned a number of them to present their ideas, products and prices, and then she made her choices like a monarch relegating those who were rejected to a beheading. Once she had made a decision to go with one or the other, the others no longer had access to her, even by phone.
    "You know, Dawn," she said to me one day, "I still have my wedding dress, and with only the most minor alterations it would fit you like a glove. It would make me so happy if you would wear it. Will you? I assure you it's quite stylish, even by today's standards."
    I was reluctant to do so, but in the end I agreed, knowing it would make her happy. Although I hadn't forgiven her for all her lies and weakness, I permitted her to plan the ceremony and reception. After all, I had to give the devil her due—she knew more about such things than I did. She had grown up in fine society. She knew what was considered elegant; she knew protocol. She knew how to plan an important social occasion, right down to how the napkins were to be folded.
    I suppose it all didn't strike me as real until she called me into her suite to show me the proofs for our invitations. The card was designed in the shape of a cathedral with the figures of the bride and groom embossed. She had decided that wedding-dress white was an elegant color. I opened the invitation slowly and read:
     
    Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Boyse Cutler
    Cordially Invite You to the Wedding
    of Their Daughter Dawn to James Gary Longchamp
    on Saturday, October 26th at 11 A.M.
    at the Cutler's Cove Hotel
    Reception to Follow
     
    Mother studied my face to see how I would react to her having used Randolph's name, implying he was my father. In his confused mind, poor Randolph probably still thought he was, I mused. And he and Mother were paying for the wedding.
    Practically every day during the weeks preceding Jimmy's and my wedding Mother held a meeting with those people on the hotel staff who would be in charge of different aspects of the affair: Nussbaum, the chef, Norton Green, the headwaiter, Mr. Stanley, and others. I often heard them whining to one another about how many times she changed her mind about things like the hors d'oeuvres for the cocktail party or the main dishes for the dinner and then reverted back to the original ideas—in short, how much harder "Little Mrs. Cutler" was making things for everyone.
    It amused me that even though Grandmother Cutler was gone, the staff still referred to Mother as "Little Mrs. Cutler." She would never overcome the lingering shadow and presence of Grandmother Cutler as far as the hotel staff was concerned, no matter how flamboyantly she conducted herself in the hotel.
    Randolph was of little or no value during any of this. He had never really recovered from his deep melancholy over Grandmother Cutler's death. One night, as I was walking past Grandmother Cutler's old room, I thought I heard weeping from within and stopped to listen. I was sure it sounded like Randolph, and I knocked softly. The weeping stopped, but he never came to the door. Yet I hadn't realized how bad things were with him until he came to see me one day.
    I was working in the office. I heard a gentle knock and looked up to see Randolph open the door tentatively to peer
    "Oh, you're here. I thought you might be. Are you busy?" he asked.
    "Busy? No," I said, smiling. "What is it?"
    "Oh, it's nothing serious," he said, coming in quickly, clutching a paper bag to his chest, "but I've been going over and over this, and you were right," he said.
    "I was right? Right about what?" I sat back, a smile of confusion on my face. Randolph had the excited look of a little boy who had discovered a cache of toy soldiers in the attic.
    He turned the bag over and dumped a half dozen or so paper-clip boxes.
    "What is this?" I asked when he had stepped back, smiling as if the mere emptying of the bag was a major achievement.
    "Just what you said. You were right about these people. They cheat us in little ways. You see what I've discovered," he said, pointing to the paper-clip boxes. "Each one of these is supposed to contain one hundred clips, but every one I've counted out so far is five or six short. Five or six! And we order them by the case. Do you realize how