Love Letters from Ladybug Farm Read online

  It was at that moment that a Mustang convertible came screeching up the driveway, top down and belching the thrum, thrum, thrum of woofers from the back speakers. It stopped with a spray of gravel in front of the house, dislodging a bevy of drunken young men, one of whom, wearing a mis-buttoned Hawaiian print shirt and baggy shorts and a silver paper crown, appeared to be the groom. He staggered and grinned with a goofy two thumbs-up as he clambered over the closed doors of the car.

  “I have work to do,” she said, and walked away.

  It was the arrival of the groom, everyone agreed, that signaled the downward turn of the event. Before he had even stumbled completely out of the car, Traci burst out of the house and started to scream at him. “Jason, where have you been? You’re late! I told you we were starting at five and I told you not to be late! Where’s the cake topper? Did you bring the cake topper? Don’t you dare stand there with all your drunk friends and tell me that you didn’t do the one thing I asked you to do!”

  At which point Jason, who had been struggling to look suitably chastened, suddenly burst into laughter, and was supported by his groomsmen with a rousing chorus of “Here Comes the Groom.” Traci dissolved into tears and ran into the house, followed by her mother and all six bridesmaids.

  Margaret, Jason’s mother, arrived in a print silk suit and three-inch spiked heels, which sank immediately into the soft ground of the lawn when she tried to cross it. She did, however, bring the missing cake topper, and insisted upon inspecting the dining room setup to make certain her instructions for the evening had been carried out. So while Lindsay tried to comfort the hysterical bride and Paul took charge of the groom, Cici was left to escort Margaret on her tour of inspection.

  “Really Mrs. Thornton,” she insisted, “why don’t you just have a glass of wine and enjoy your evening? Leave everything to us.”

  To which she merely snorted, surveyed the dining room arrangement, and demanded, “Where are the place cards? I sent silver-framed place cards and a seating chart. What did you people do, pawn them?”

  Cici, whose temper had already been tested to the breaking point, drew a sharp breath for a reply. But, fortunately for her, before she could release it, Bridget, looking like an executive chef in a black straight skirt and high-collared white shirt, came through the swinging door with a bright smile and a box of silver-framed place cards in her hands.

  The mother of the groom was mollified, the bride, having been informed of the arrival of the cake topper, was persuaded to leave her room, and Paul somehow managed to get everyone to the garden for the rehearsal. Margaret did not like the location that had been set aside for the string quartet, so four chairs, a potted fern, and two silk dogwoods were moved from the center of the fan-shaped rows of seats to the front, near the podium. Catherine thought there should be a microphone for the officiant, and wondered how much trouble it would be to round one up before tomorrow.

  Nonetheless, Paul, with his clipboard and precisely orchestrated schedule of events, managed to keep everyone on task until Margaret started complaining about the heat, and why no one had thought to erect a shade canopy to keep the guests out of the sun, and whose idea was it to have an outdoor wedding anyway? Then the videographer realized that—speaking of sun—at two o’clock in the afternoon, he would be shooting directly into it, and Cici pointed out that if they moved the wedding arch they would lose not only the frame of the mountain and sheep meadow background that Traci had insisted upon, but the entire line of the bridal procession.

  It was at this point that one of the groomsmen started baaing to the tune of “Here Comes the Bride.” Traci was in the middle of screeching at her mother that this was all her fault, that she was the one who wanted a sheep-farm wedding and that she should have known where the sun was—and when she heard the baaing, she went suddenly stiff. She turned, eyes blazing and cheeks flaming, and marched over to the offender—who by this time had smothered both his singing and his giggles and was trying to look innocent—and told him flatly he was out of the wedding.

  As it turned out, the sheep imitator was not just a grooms-man but the best man, and also the groom’s brother. Jason informed Traci that if his brother was out of the wedding, so was he, to which Traci retorted that that suited her fine, at which point Margaret turned on Catherine and demanded that she control her daughter, and after that, it was pretty much a free-for-all.

  “After all this work,” Cici muttered to Paul, “she is marrying that jerk if it’s the last thing she does on this earth.”

  “And I am not moving a single chair,” warned Paul darkly.

  Cici waded into the melee, shouting for attention. “Ladies! Gentlemen! This is a wedding! We should be cooperating, not fighting!” She looked for help to the officiant, who, well into his third apricot-tini, merely smiled beneficently. “What if,” she suggested to Traci, “the videographer shot from behind the podium, which means he would be away from the sun? And you’ll be doing the wedding photographs in the morning, so you’ll still have your shot of the mountains and sheep, just like you wanted, with no sun in the way.”

  The videographer agreed that he could shoot from behind the screen where the musicians were stationed, which would make him as unobtrusive as possible, and Traci reluctantly conceded accord.

  They lined up again, boys on one side and girls on the other, all of them glaring across the lawn at each other, looking more like the Jets and the Sharks from West Side Story than the friends and family of a happy couple about to be united forever in the sacrament of marriage. The groom was persuaded to take his place at the head of the aisle, joking with his best man and sipping from a bottle of beer, as Traci, in jeans, a T-shirt, and a shoulder-length tulle veil, made her way down the aisle on the arm of her father, whom Cici could not have picked out of the crowd until that moment.

  All proceeded smoothly until the officiant rehearsed the vows, beginning with “Do you take this woman?” And the groom, grinning, nudged his best man and replied, “Let me think about it.”

  Traci turned to him, snatched the beer bottle from his hand, and poured it over his head.

  In the stunned silence that followed, Cici muttered, “I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her with my bare hands.”

  Paul laid a soothing hand upon her arm. “Don’t be ridiculous, darling. You have a child. Let me do it,” he said grimly, and strode forth to place himself between the warring bride and groom.

  “Dinner,” he announced loudly, hands upraised, “is served.”

  As the official wedding planner, friend of the bride, and unabashed celebrity, Paul’s place for the evening was at the table, serving as host. Lindsay and Cici were the designated servers, and Richard, with his customary elan and unflappable self-assurance, had appointed himself homme de maison, telling jokes as he poured the wine and seated the ladies. Cici found reason to be grateful, for once in her life, that Richard had never met a woman he didn’t like.

  Bridget ran her kitchen with an efficiency the top chefs in the world would admire. The menu was taped on the wall above the stove and the recipes for each dish were encased in clear plastic holders and propped up in sequence around the prep station. Ida Mae was on sauces and sautés; Bridget finished and plated each dish; Lori was stationed at the “pass”currently the kitchen table—to garnish and polish each plate before it was placed on the serving tray to leave the kitchen. Noah was responsible for loading the two dishwashers as the courses were cleared, and for keeping the workstations clean and free of clutter as food was plated. The kitchen was hot and steamy, redolent with the flavors of garlic, butter, herbs, and roasting meats, and—for the time being anyway-running like a well-oiled machine.

  Lindsay burst through the swinging door. Her hair was starting to escape its neat bun and catch in curls in the sweat on her face, and her eyes had a slightly wild look to them. “Okay,” she said. “The groom just announced that he’s ordered a foosball table for the honeymoon suite. We need to get the first course out there now.”
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br />   Bridget thrust two fruit-filled martini glasses into her hands. “Get these to Lori and help her sprinkle gorgonzola and toasted walnuts on top. Lori!” she exclaimed as she watched Lori dip a spoon into one of the glasses she had just garnished and take a bite. “What are you doing?”

  “No good chef lets a dish leave her kitchen without tasting it,” Lori said.

  Lindsay delivered two glasses of fruit to the table and went back for two more. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Food Channel.”

  “Hey,” Noah complained, “sounds to me like you got the best job. When do we get to eat, anyway?”

  “Well?” Bridget demanded, handing off two more glasses. “How is it?”

  Lori shrugged, and that was all it took for Bridget to snatch up her own spoon and taste the fruit. She whirled on Ida Mae. “This is syrup!” she cried. “You dressed the fruit in syrup!”

  Ida Mae scowled at her. “So? You always make your fruit salad with a sugar sauce, just like I do.”

  “Not this time! This time it’s a vinaigrette! Didn’t you read the recipe?”

  “Do you want my help or not?”

  But Bridget was already dumping the contents of the glasses into a colander. “Quick,” she commanded Lindsay, thrusting the fruit at her, “rinse this off while I make the dressing.”

  The swinging door swooshed as Lindsay rushed to the sink with a colander full of fruit, and Cici demanded, “What’s the holdup? If these people get any drunker we’re going to have a riot!”

  “Wrong dressing,” Lori informed her. And she grinned. “Hey, Mom, it’s kind of nice to have Dad around again, isn’t it?”

  “I love you beyond all measure,” Cici replied distractedly, and rushed to the refrigerator. Noah helped himself to the fruit that clung to the bottom of the colander when Lindsay dumped it into a bowl.

  Bridget was frantically chopping garlic when Cici whirled with a bottle of store-bought vinaigrette in her hand and dumped the contents over the berries Lindsay had just transferred to a big bowl. “Problem solved,” she declared to Bridget’s horrified look. “Now for heaven’s sake hurry up.”

  Bridget, with no time to argue, took the cheese biscuits out of the oven as Cici let the door swing closed behind her. “Two on each serving plate,” she told Lori, “with a sprig of rosemary.” And then, with only a moment’s hesitation, she picked up one of the biscuits and tasted it. Almost immediately she started to cough and choke, fanning her mouth with her hand.

  Ida Mae gave her a quelling look, and Lindsay rushed over with a glass of water.

  “Cayenne!” gasped Bridget. “It was supposed to be roasted red pepper puree, but it’s cayenne!” She turned an accusing gaze on Ida Mae, who was oblivious. “Could she be trying to sabotage me?” she whispered to Lindsay.

  Lori took a small taste of the biscuit. “I kind of like it,” she said. Then she took a quick sip of water. “Maybe one per plate, though.”

  Bridget ran to the pantry and was back in an instant with a jar of strawberry champagne jam. “Quick,” she commanded, tugging Lindsay into the chair beside Lori. “Spread jam on each of the biscuits, it will cut the heat. Lori, back to staging. Gorgonzola, walnuts, move, move!”

  The ten-minute delay in serving the first course was far more excruciating to those in the kitchen than it was to those in the dining room—with the possible exception of Cici, who returned after serving the fruit cup to report in a dull, stunned tone, “Richard is telling the story about Harrison Ford and the chimpanzee. Is there anyway under heaven we could serve dessert and coffee now?”

  “I like that story,” Lori protested.

  To judge from the burst of laughter that came from the dining room, so did everyone else.

  The good humor lasted through the soup course, when Lindsay reported that the best man—the groom’s brother-had just presented the groom with two tickets to a baseball game in Richmond tomorrow night as a wedding present. The bride objected that she did not intend to spend her wedding night at a baseball game, to which the groom replied that was just fine because he was taking his brother. High fives and laughter all around, and Lindsay was extremely concerned about the fate of the glassware within the bride’s reach.

  Bridget discovered that the cherry conserve was, in fact, cherry sauce, but managed to rescue it with mustard, horseradish, chopped spring onions, and a prayer. Similarly, the green beans lacked thyme and the almonds hadn’t been roasted, but—Lori declared—they tasted fine.

  “Believe me,” Cici assured her as she left with her tray loaded down with entrées, “the last thing anyone in there is interested in is food.”

  Lindsay noticed Bridget’s heartbroken look as she picked up her own tray. “But they loved the cheese biscuits,” she assured her. “And thought the fruit cup was wild!”

  Noah, leaning against the counter as he helped himself to a plate of sliced turkey and potatoes, added, “What they don’t eat, I will.”

  Bridget rallied herself for a smile and gave Noah a quick kiss on the head in passing as she went to place the strawberry crumble in the oven.

  Cici returned with her empty tray and sank down at the table beside Lori. “They’re discussing politics,” she said. “The groom thinks we should invade China.”

  “What for?” Lori wanted to know.

  “Spite.”

  Lindsay came in and deposited her empty tray on the counter with a loud clatter. “The father of the bride,” she reported furiously, “just pinched my butt.”

  “Ya’ll need to try this,” Noah said, going for more turkey. “It’s great.”

  Bridget sat down at the table beside Lori and Cici. “This marriage,” she declared unhappily, “doesn’t exactly sound as though it was made in heaven.”

  “He’s a Neanderthal,” Lindsay said, kicking off her shoes as she dropped into the chair opposite Bridget, “and she’s an idiot. You tell me.”

  “We worked so hard for this.” Bridget’s gaze, as she turned it toward the closed door to the dining room, was more than a little resentful. “I can’t believe it’s all going to waste.”

  “Don’t think of it like that,” Cici said, trying to comfort her. “Think of it as ... a dress rehearsal for the next time.”

  Bridget looked glum. “Like I would ever do this again.”

  “Come on, Aunt Bridget,” Lori said, “I might get married one day, you know. And I wouldn’t let anyone cater the wedding but you.”

  “You,” Cici informed her, pointing sternly, “are going to elope. Promise me.”

  Ida Mae slapped plates down in front of each of them. “Better eat fast,” she advised sourly.

  Cici picked up her fork and added casually, “Speaking of which, you never told me—how is Sergio?”

  Lori smiled at her mother. “That was the sweetest thing ever, Mom. Thank you. Sergio thanks you, too. And we’ll keep in touch. I really like him. But...” She examined her plate thoughtfully before cutting into her turkey. “Sergio is a fantasy, you know. And since I’ve been home I’ve come to realize that even that kind of fantasy has a hard time competing with my real life.” She grinned and waved her fork to indicate the room beyond. “Besides,” she added, “I invited Mark to the wedding tomorrow.”

  “Mark?” Lindsay asked.

  “He’s the boy who ran her down,” Cici explained with an approving smile toward her daughter.

  Lindsay raised her palm for a high five. “You go, girl.”

  Lori slapped Lindsay’s hand, and Bridget tasted her turkey. “This is delicious,” she said, looking surprised.

  “Told you,” Noah said.

  Bridget took another bite. “Those people are Philistines.”

  Richard pushed open the door. “So, this is where the help comes to eat,” he said. Lori, with her mouth full, pointed happily to the chair across from her, and he took it. Cici avoided his eyes. “If there’s coffee,” he said, “I’d serve it if I were you. The bride’s mother just called the groom’s mother pretentio
us and tasteless, and the bride refused to drink to the toast her future brother-in-law just made.”

  Cici swallowed quickly and wiped her lips with her napkin, getting to her feet. “Make out your bill,” she instructed Bridget.

  “But we haven’t even cleared the table!”

  “We’re clearing it now.” She caught Lindsay’s arm. “Serving dessert. And no one is leaving this house until the bill is paid.”

  “So,” Richard observed, pulling Cici’s unfinished plate in front of him and taking up her fork, “this is what you girls do for fun?”

  The table was cleared, the dishwashers were running, and the bill was paid—surprisingly, without comment. The last bit of drama had come when Traci had refused to get into the car with the groom, or with her mother, or with the bridesmaids who had delivered her. “I can’t even look at your ugly face right now,” she told her betrothed. And she expanded her vitriol to include everyone who was gathered in the spill of porch lights upon the gravel drive in front of the house where Noah had lined up their cars. “I can’t look at any of you! You’re ruining my wedding! My one day, and you’re ruining it!”

  “Ah, come on, honey,” the groom offered weakly, perhaps beginning to realize he had gone too far. “We’ll go back to the hotel, have a few drinks ...”

  “And if you,” she declared, pointing a furious finger at him, “have one more drink I’m not marrying you. You’re going to be all hungover for the wedding pictures!”

  “Well, maybe there just won’t be any wedding pictures!” he told her.

  “Maybe there won’t! Maybe there won’t even—”

  And that was when Bridget stepped forward, touched Traci’s arm gently, and said, “You know, it’s really bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony anyway, so why doesn’t Traci just stay here tonight?”

  Of course Traci’s mother objected to that, and the maid of honor complained that it would mean they would all have to get up early to have their hair and makeup done, and Traci, apparently pleased with the amount of inconvenience she was causing everyone, declared that she was, in fact, spending the night at Ladybug Farm—and this despite the fact that Lindsay and Cici practically tied their eyebrows in knots trying to signal Bridget to retract the invitation. Finally the groom drove off with a spray of gravel and the bride screaming after him, “You’d better be here at eleven thirty in the morning for pictures if you know what’s good for you!” and Traci stomped up the stairs to her room.