Stud Rites

hap-pen.
    Leah, the A student, rose in her chair. ”Oh my God! I’ve got it! Holly, that’s why his sister is coming here! She’s coming to sue—”
    ”Whose sister?” Tiny’s face was avid with curiosity.
    ”James Hunnewell’s,” Leah said impatiently. ”The police told Holly. Supposedly, his sister was coming to make sure he got a Christian burial, but that doesn’t make sense, because she could have his body shipped back to Missouri and give him any kind of burial she wants, so—”
    ”I don’t see what Missouri has to do with anything,” Pam said crossly.
    ”Missouri,” Leah told everyone, ”is where James Hunnewell’s sister lives. Her name is Gladys Thacker, and she lives in Missouri, and she runs a puppy mill.” Before anyone could interrogate Leah about these revelations, a hullabaloo broke out a few table-lengths away from us. Craning my neck, I saw that towering above the otherwise unexceptional collection of puddings, pies, and yet more fruit salads on the dessert buffet was an immense multitiered cake heavily frosted in pale apricot and richly decorated with ornate flowers, both real and confectionery. Jabbing a finger of outrage at the bird-of-paradise blossom perched atop this tropical masterpiece of the pastry-maker’s art was a woman I recognized as Crystal’s mother. Flanking his wife on the opposite side of the cake was Crystal’s father. Completing the tableau were the hotel manager and Freida Reilly. Freida wore a floor-length black skirt and a dressy black jersey top elaborately embroidered in gold with the immense head of guess what breed of dog. She and the manager held themselves formally upright and faced the festive cake from several yards back, as if determined to proclaim themselves attendants at this ceremony, the best man and the matron of honor, perhaps, and not its central figures. Freida and the manager must have been murmuring: Crystal’s parents leaned toward them. Then, as if on cue, the father began shouting at the manager, and the mother started yelling at Freida Reilly. I wished that they’d take turns so I could hear them both, but I caught enough to understand the cause of their rage.
    ”... screw up the entrees,” the father bellowed, ”and stick us with your goddamn cheesy London broil for the rehearsal...”
    And the mother:...,” my Crystal’s beautiful, beautiful Hawaiian wedding cake for her... and it’s too late now, because one of your rotten dog people has gone and taken a slice right out of the middle!”
    At the word ”dog,” the father whirled away from the manager, took a threatening step toward his wife, and, almost punching her with his upraised fist, shouted, ”Dog! Dog! Dog! You know, Mavis, anyone who listened in on this wedding would think that Crystal was going to marry one of the Christ damn things and present us with—”
    Stamping a foot, the wife screamed: ”Harold-shut-up!”
    ”Jesus Christ Almighty, Mavis!” Blasphemy? To my ear, the poor man uttered a plea of genuine anguish.
    But the only response Harold got came from his desperate wife, who had flushed a panicked shade of crimson. ”Now, Harold, you know as well as I do that—”
    Without waiting for her to finish, Harold made a stupendous effort aimed, I think, at salvaging the situation.
    Or at least at salvaging the Hawaiian cake. Barging into his wife, the manager, and Freida Reilly, and shoving past several hotel employees who’d gathered, I suppose, in the hope of offering some assistance, Harold stomped up to the cake, loomed over it, spread his arms, got a grip on whatever tray or giant platter supported it, and, with a massive show of muscle, succeeded in dragging the confection forward and raising it upward until it cleared the table. Maybe his fingers slipped on the icing. As the huge cake began to tremble and slide from his grasp, he lunged ahead and, like a desperate parent snatching for a plummeting child, wrapped his arms around the cake and attempted to hold the crumbling mass in a gigantic bear hug. Instead of mercifully dropping with one thud, the cake slowly peeled itself apart layer by layer and chunk by chunk. The icing, as I’ve said, was a pale apricot color intended, perhaps, to suggest orange blossoms. The interior, however, proved to be dark chocolate. Gobs of cake glued themselves to Harold’s suit. The icing must have been exceptionally adhesive. His sleeves bloomed with little sugar flowers. The bird of paradise tarried in