We hurried into the supermarket, and I blinked when we got inside, since everything—the white floors, the fluorescent lights overhead—seemed very bright. I was suddenly very aware that we were much too dressed up for the supermarket. There didn’t seem to be many people in the Food Mart—maybe not surprising, considering that it was eight o’clock on a Saturday night. Even the piped-in music seemed quieter than normal, right now playing a Muzak version of an old Rush song. I saw a woman pushing a cart past the dairy case and two people in the snack aisle, arguing about popcorn, but that seemed to be it. Even most of the lights on the registers were off, and the one that was on was staffed by a bored-looking guy who was currently leaning over his conveyor belt and flipping through a magazine.
The bakery department was equally deserted—just a woman wearing a white smock and a white Food Mart baseball cap, standing behind the counter and scrolling through her phone.
“Hi,” I said as we approached the counter, and I saw her eyebrows rise as she took in me and Bill in our formal wear.
“Hi,” she said, setting down her phone. “Can I help you?”
“I called earlier,” I said, wishing I’d remembered to write down the name of the person I’d been speaking to. “I’m Charlie Grant. I mentioned that we needed something that could work as a wedding cake? And—”
The woman nodded with recognition. “The three sheet cakes, right?”
I nodded, hugely relieved that in the last half hour, there hadn’t been a run on their cakes. “Yes! That’s right.”
“Just give me a second,” she said as she headed toward the door behind the counter, the one marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “I’ll be right back.”
I turned to Bill, who looked as relieved as I felt. “Thank god.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I was worried at the last moment that something would have gone wrong. . . .”
Bill shook his head. “I feel like we’ve had enough of that for one wedding.” Then he paled and reached out to quickly knock on the wooden paneling on the bakery case. “Hope I didn’t just jinx us.”
“I’m not even sure what that would look like,” I replied honestly. At this point, what else could go wrong? The tent collapsing on everyone? Linnie realizing she’d actually made a huge mistake and running off with Olly? As these possibilities—and more—started to fill my head, I realized Bill might have a point, and I quickly reached out and knocked, in almost the exact same spot as him, and he smiled at me.
“Maybe we ordered too fast,” he said, nodding at the pictures displayed on top of the case, which showed all the custom cakes the bakery could make. “Would Linnie and Rodney prefer a themed cake for their wedding? Superheroes or robots or princesses?”
I laughed. “I think the guests might be confused if their piece of wedding cake had a robot on it.”
Bill smiled too. “Well, maybe,” he said. “But—” He stopped suddenly and tilted his head to the side, like he was listening for something.
“What?”
Bill gave me a smile and pointed up. “Hear that?”
After a moment, I realized the Rush song had ended and the piped-in music was the same song that Olly Gillespie had played when he’d tried to convince Linnie to jilt Rodney at the altar. I shook my head. “Well, that—” But whatever I was about to say got stopped halfway to my lips when I realized Bill was holding out his hand to me, a half smile on his face.
“Want to dance?” he asked. And even though there were lots of reasons to say no—we were in a supermarket, we didn’t really have time for this, Jesse was waiting for me back at the wedding—but I found that none of these reasons really seemed to matter that much as I looked at Bill, his hand extended toward me.
I didn’t reply, just took his hand, his fingers warm against my cool ones. He held my hand lightly in his, and we stood there for just a moment, looking at each other. And then he twirled me around and then away from him. I felt my shoes turn easily on the waxed supermarket floors, and I spun, the produce section and the bread aisle whirling around me for a moment before Bill spun me back. Bill clearly knew how to dance, which, amazingly, seemed to mean that I knew how to dance too. He spun me in and out and then around again as the yacht rock poured through the speakers, singing about turning the radio up for that sweet sound. I didn’t care that I was wearing a silk dress in the supermarket, or that we were dancing in a place where, usually, people didn’t dance. As we turned in a circle together, there under the fluorescent lights, I had a sense of rightness—of calm—that I hadn’t felt all weekend. Maybe even before that.
“Grant!” I looked over and saw that the woman behind the bakery counter was back and that there were three large cakes in boxes on the counter in front of her. “Order’s ready.”
“Coming,” I called. Bill spun me once more, and I just let the world whirl around me for a moment before I came to a stop and smiled at him. He kept his hands where they were for a moment, touching my waist lightly. Then he stepped away and we were back in a supermarket again.
“Okay,” the woman behind the counter said, punching some numbers into the register. “That’s three sheet cakes. . . . Did you need utensils?” I shook my head, and when she told me the total, I handed her my “in case of emergency” credit card. I had a feeling my parents would more than understand the necessity for it when I told them. “Do you need help out?” she asked as I scrawled my signature on the receipt and looked over at the cakes. They were big, in cardboard boxes with clear plastic lids, presumably so you could see what you were getting—so that if you needed a replacement wedding cake, you didn’t end up with one covered in robots. I thought I could handle one, but before I could reply, Bill appeared at my side, stacking two of the boxes on top of each other and giving her a smile.
“We’ve got it covered.”
We headed out of the supermarket, neither of us going fast. We were slowed down a little by the fact that we were both carrying very large cakes. But I had a feeling Bill might be walking slowly for the same reason I was—the fact that if these cakes didn’t make it home in one piece, we were pretty much out of options. The automatic glass doors slid open, and both of us winced simultaneously as we stepped outside. We couldn’t have been in Food Mart very long, but it was as though we’d been gone hours. It was now fully dark out, and the wind was blowing strongly enough that I gripped my cake hard, trying to keep my balance in my heels.
Bill headed over to the truck, and I followed, not even caring that my skirt was blowing every which way—I was just focusing on getting this cake inside. We were halfway across the parking lot when I heard it—a low rumble of thunder, followed immediately by a flash of lightning illuminating the sky for just one moment before disappearing. “Uh-oh,” Bill said, and I saw him pick up his pace. He beeped the truck open—the headlights coming to life—just as thunder sounded again and I felt the first drop of rain on my shoulder.
“Oh no,” I muttered, moving as fast as I felt I could without dropping my cake. The rain was coming down steadily harder, splashing on my head and arms and leaving faint watermarks on my dress. It was falling in droplets that were bouncing off the plastic top of the cake box, then running down the sides, and I just hoped, as I hurried across the parking lot, that the box was watertight and we weren’t going to show up with soggy supermarket cakes to my sister’s wedding.
Bill made it to the truck first, and he balanced the cakes under one arm as he opened the back door of the cab. He leaned down to place them inside just as I caught up with him. It was pretty much pouring now, the sky dark except for the occasional lightning bolts that would fork across it, the wind howling. It felt more like October than April, and I could feel myself shivering as I held on even tighter to the cake box.
“Got it,” Bill said, reaching for my cake. He placed it on the floor next to the other two, then slammed the door. He ran for the driver’s side, and I ran around the hood to the passenger seat, and we both threw ourselves into the car and closed the doors at almost the
exact same moment.
It was much warmer, and quieter, inside the cab of the truck, and I looked across at Bill as the rain beat down on the windshield and the roof, all around us.
“Wow,” Bill said, looking out through the windshield as he ran a hand through his hair.
“I know,” I said, watching the rain run over the glass, then turned to look at Bill. There were still droplets of rain clinging to his tuxedo jacket and on the side of his neck, and I felt the impulse to reach out and brush them off before I caught myself. “Shall we?”
“Let’s.”
We were almost home when Bill glanced over at me and took a breath. “So,” he started, then cleared his throat. “Charlie. I—”
But I never heard what he was about to say, because at that moment a police car, sirens on and lights flashing, zoomed around us to pull into the driveway of my house.
CHAPTER 23
Or, DUUUUUUUCK
* * *
BILL PARKED ON THE SIDE of the street, and as soon as he’d cut the engine, I jumped out. Two officers were already out of the patrol car and heading around to the back of the house. They’d turned the sirens off but left the lights on, a kaleidoscope of red and blue swinging in arcs and flashing against the garage door.
“Hi,” I called to them over the sound of the wind as I hurried to catch up. “Um. Officers? Is there a problem here?”
They turned to look at me, and even though I was getting soaked by the rain and holding my skirt down against the wind, I gave them my best responsible, non-lawbreaking smile. This faltered a little, though, when I realized I recognized the older one of the officers—he was the one who’d told me and Mike to move when we’d turned down Grant Avenue.
“We’re responding to a call,” the older officer—Ramirez—said just as Bill hurried to join me. He looked between the two of us, me in my dress and Bill in his tux, and raised an eyebrow. “Is it prom night already?”
“It’s my sister’s wedding,” I said as I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, trying to get some feeling back in them.
The officers exchanged a look I didn’t understand. “Well, that explains it.”
“Explains what?” Bill asked, looking between the officers, his hair getting steadily wetter.
“We had a noise complaint,” Officer Ramirez said, starting to walk around to the back of the house again. “Wedding this way?”
“In a tent in the backyard,” I said, following behind them, still trying to wrap my head around this. “You said a noise complaint? But . . .” All at once I realized, with a flash of white-hot fury, just why I was currently talking to two police officers in the rain. “It was our neighbor, Don Perkins. Wasn’t it?”
“We can’t disclose that information,” Officer Ramirez said as he continued around the house and to the backyard.
“Look,” I said, my heels slipping on the slick grass as I struggled to keep up with him. “I think this is all just a big misunderstanding. Our neighbor Don is nursing a personal grudge. There’s a whole garden thing involved. I’m sure he called you out here just to wreck my sister’s wedding.”
“That may be so,” Officer Ramirez said as he continued across the backyard to the tent. “But we still have to check out these calls. We don’t have the luxury of deciding what is and isn’t a problem before we even investigate.” The younger officer—I could see now that his name tag read HOPPER—nodded seriously at me as he passed, like he was trying to underscore this point.
“But,” I said, talking louder now, and faster, as I tried to keep up with them, brushing my sodden hair out of my face. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I couldn’t let them go into the tent. What would that do to Linnie’s wedding, if the police suddenly burst in? Enough had already gone wrong. I couldn’t let this happen too. “Look,” I called, as Officer Ramirez reached for the handle of the door to the tent. “I promise you it’s all fine. And that there’s really nothing to see—” But whatever I was about to say died partway to my lips as Officer Ramirez opened the door to the tent, because I could now see there was a screaming fight going on in the middle of the dance floor.
Everyone was sitting at their tables, and from the plates on them, and the hovering, frozen presence of the catering staff, it looked like dinner was being served. Up by the stage, the members of Any Way You Want It were all standing stock-still, staring at what was happening in front of them.
And what was happening was Jimmy and Liz, and their long feud apparently coming to a head—right now.
“Don’t pretend with me,” Liz spat at Jimmy, who threw his hands up theatrically. “You know what you did. Or have you forgotten what happened in 1982?”
“Why are you bringing that up?” Jimmy yelled back. “Who cares what happened in 1982?”
“Well, not you, obviously!”
Officer Ramirez took another step inside, with Officer Hopper following behind him. Bill and I came in behind them, but nobody seemed to notice us, let alone the presence of two uniformed officers.
“You always do this,” Jimmy yelled, and I noticed that he and Liz were edging closer together, no longer staying in their separate corners. “And I’m sick of it!”
“What, you think I like it?” Liz yelled back. The elegant woman I’d gotten used to seeing was now totally gone—her hair was escaping from its chignon, and strands were standing up in the back. But more than that was her expression—like all the steely control I’d seen from her earlier was gone, and she was letting it all out now.
“Yes, I think you do, Elizabeth,” Jimmy said, a snide tone in his voice. “You just love playing the victim, don’t you?”
“Unlike you, James, I’m not too much of a coward to face up to what I’ve done.”
“What did he do?” Bill whispered to me, eyes wide as he followed the unfolding drama.
“Did you just call me a coward?”
“I did,” Liz said, raising her voice. “But I should have called you a chicken!”
“I am not a chicken!”
“Oh? Is that so?” Liz whirled around to the server who had the unfortunate luck to be standing behind her. She picked up a chicken breast off the plate and hurled it at Jimmy, and it landed right on the lapel of his blazer.
“I cannot believe you did that,” Jimmy said, reaching for the nearest plate. “You’re—”
“Hey!” Officer Ramirez yelled, his voice carrying across the tent. Both Jimmy and Liz stopped yelling abruptly, and it seemed like every head in the tent swung over to look at the two police officers who’d suddenly appeared. “I’m going to need everyone to just calm down, okay? Sir? Please step away from the steak.”
Jimmy looked down at the plate in his hands and immediately set it down.
There was the sound of a chair scraping, then falling over, and I looked across the tent to see Max, his face pale, backing toward the exits as he stared in horror at the cops. “I’m just going to . . . check on something . . . ,” he muttered, before turning and fleeing full out toward the door.
“Um,” Rodney said, rising from his seat at the head table. “Is there a problem?”
“We received a noise complaint,” Officer Ramirez said. “We’re here to check it out.”
“A noise complaint?” my dad asked, standing up and heading our way. “From who?”
“Whom,” J.J. said, also coming to join in the conversation. We all just stared at him, and he shrugged. “What? It’s correct.”
“We don’t disclose the names of citizens who submit noise complaints,” Officer Hopper said, like he was reciting something from a textbook. “For their own protection, and ours.”
The officers started toward the dance floor, and my dad, Bill, J.J., and I followed Linnie as she also got up from the head table. “What’s the trouble here?” Officer Ramirez asked Jimmy and Liz, both of whom had their arms folded and were looking at the ground, like they were trying to pretend they hadn’t just been throwing food and yelling at each other a moment earlier.
Jimmy and Liz glared at each other, but neither spoke. I glanced around the tent. The guests were still all sitting at their tables, although it looked like the videographer was filming, as though he thought we’d really want a reminder of this. The catering staff had clustered by the back of the tent, like they weren’t sure what the protocol was about serving the entrées now that the police were involved, and the band was still standing onstage like they were watching a particularly interesting TV program.
I looked over and saw that Linnie and Rodney, as well as Danny and my mom and the Danielses, were all coming over.
“Officers, I’m sure all this can’t be necessary,” my mom said, as she stood next to my dad, looking from the police to Jimmy and Liz.
“When we see a domestic disturbance, we have to investigate,” Officer Hopper said, again sounding like he was reading lines he had memorized. “It’s procedure.”
“Why don’t you just tell us how this began?” Officer Ramirez said, pulling a small notepad out of his pocket. “And we can go from there.”
Jimmy and Liz just looked at each other again, then away. “Surely something caused the fight that just happened?” he prompted, beginning to sound frustrated, like his patience was finally cracking. “It didn’t come out of nowhere.”
“It’s been going on for a while,” General Daniels said, coming to stand next to Rodney. “We usually try to make sure they don’t attend events together.” Both Jimmy and Liz scoffed in unison at this, then looked uneasy, like they just accidentally agreed on something and didn’t like it much.
“Well.” Officer Ramirez flipped his notebook closed as he looked between Jimmy and Liz. “I take it that you’re not going to continue yelling at each other? The food stays on the plates?” They both nodded. “Good.”
“So that’s it?” Rodney asked.
“That’s it,” Officer Ramirez confirmed. “We were called in on a noise complaint, but . . .” He gestured around the tent—now that nobody was speaking, it was almost totally silent. “I think we can say that’s no longer an issue here.” He looked over at the band, and it was like I could practically see him counting the number of amps. “Maybe just don’t play at top volume?” Glen nodded and gave him a salute. “Then in that case, I think our work here is done. And congratulations,” he said to Rodney and Linnie, with the first smile I’d yet seen from him.