“Oh, no. It’s black."
The woman in the doorway didn’t even look at me. Towel poised at her
throat, she stared past my shoulder at my limousine parked in her circular
drive, as if it were a junker with crumpled fenders and a bumper sticker advertising
mud wrestling.
“Pammi will not be pleased.”
This was a first. No other client of my new limousine service had
objected to black. “What color did Pammi have in mind?”
“White, of course. White is the only color for a wedding.”
“Pammi is the bride?”
“Yes. Pamela Gibson. My stepdaughter. This is a joyous occasion, and
black is much too, oh, you know, funereal.”
I’m not sure what hackles are, but I immediately felt mine rise
defensively. The freshly washed limo, sleek and elegant as a black jewel, gleamed
in the August sunshine. I felt like rushing out and draping myself protectively
over its long hood. There, there. What do
we care what picky Pammi thinks?
“Perhaps it would be best if
Pammi engaged some other limousine service then,” I said stiffly.
I didn't want to lose a customer, but this wasn’t a big job. My friend
Keegan “Fitz” Fitzgerald had said that all it involved was driving the bride
from the house to the wedding, then ferrying the newlyweds to the Vigland
marina, where they would board Fitz’s son’s charter sailboat for their
honeymoon.
The woman shook her head. A blue headband held back an impressive
tousle of blond hair. She’d apparently come to the door from a workout session,
because she was still in Spandex shorts and a skimpy top exposing a midsection
taut enough to bounce chocolate chips. Which is probably as close as she ever
came to a relationship with chocolate chips. Unlike some of us.
“No, we can’t do that,” she said. “There have already been two limo
services from Olympia that didn’t work out.”
The license plate her unlucky numbers? Upholstery the wrong material?
Or perhaps Pammi the Picky Princess’s demands made them simply decide, no way.
The woman tilted her head, and her expression brightened. “But by the
time we decorate with flowers and streamers, I think we can make it do.”
It would “do”? My hackles were still stiff as porcupine quills. I was
ready to say that as far as I was concerned Pammi could ride to her wedding in
a wheelbarrow, when the stepmother said the magic words that made me swallow my
retort.
“We have numerous guests flying in who’ll need to be met at Sea-Tac and
driven back later for their flights home. Plus various local trips. So what I
need is to engage you full-time for at least five days. I assume you have an
hourly or daily rate?”
A five-day job?
Whoo-ee! My limousine service hadn’t been up and running long, but I’d never
had any gig like this.
“In fact, I’m thinking it would be best if you stayed here at the house
so you’d be available whenever you’re needed. There’s a room next to our
cook/housekeeper’s room. Would that be possible?”
For a five-day job, I'd sleep in the backyard in a pup tent. With a pup
in residence. But I controlled any crude display of eagerness and said, “Yes, I
could arrange that.”
“Good.” She gave me a warm smile and held out a hand with short but
shimmery nails. “Forgive my manners. I’m afraid this wedding has me to the
point where I don’t know if I’m coming or going. I’m Michelle Gibson. As I
said, Pammi’s stepmother.”
“Andi McConnell. Andi’s Limouzeen Service.”
The firmness of her handshake belied the delicate appearance of the
slim hand.
“What Pammi has in mind is the wedding of the century, you know. I just
wish she’d given me more than a few weeks to plan it.” She rolled spectacular
blue eyes. “Sometimes I get a bit overwrought, I’m afraid.”
I could understand that. Big weddings often take months of preparation.
Another woman has already reserved limo time with me for her daughter’s wedding
six months off.
“Come inside and we’ll discuss the details. Can you give me a minute to
go shower and throw on some different clothes?”
“Certainly.”
“You can wait in the Africa Room.”
She led me through a wide entry hall, where windows looked out on a
lush expanse of grass sweeping down to the long inlet that connected Vigland
Bay with Puget Sound, and past a staircase winding to the second floor.
The Africa Room had all the office necessities: computer, printer, fax,
copier, a couple of file cabinets, and a small leather sofa, but African masks
and spears flanked a leopard skin on the wall. The skin had the head attached,
open mouth showing a lot of teeth. Beautiful, but a little jungle-creepy for my
taste.
“Would you like iced tea or a soft drink?”
“Thanks, no, I’m fine.”
“I’ll be back in a minute then. Make yourself comfortable.”
I’d been inside this house before, long ago, when my former husband and
I sold new and antique furniture. It had been occupied then by eccentric
sisters who needed to dispose of several rooms of old furniture. The exterior
was still vintage, with a wide front porch, two huge dormer windows above, and
a gothic-type tower on one corner, which was where this Africa Room was
located. The interior had been considerably remodeled. The dark rooms I
remembered were now lightened by big windows and white walls and woodwork.
Nice, but a certain old-fashioned warmth and charm had vanished with the
remodeling, replaced by a chilly, lightbulb-in-the-refrigerator feeling.
Was the office hers or her husband’s? I resisted an urge to peek at the
contents of the papers scattered across the desk. I was no longer in detective
mode, I reminded myself sternly, as I had been when I first acquired the limo
and found myself tracking down a murderer. Although peeking was still tempting.
Reading upside down, I deciphered a letterhead that read Steffan Productions,
with a Los Angeles address.
Good thing I hadn’t gone further than that minuscule peek, however,
because Michelle was already returning. She was in dark blue sweats now,
barefoot, damp hair tied back in a swingy ponytail, accompanied by a whiff of
some heady perfume. Thirties had been my original guess on her age, but now I
noted some lines around her eyes and decided that determined exercise and a
diet regimen had probably preserved her nicely. Fortyish, then.
“Now, about the dates.” She sat down at the desk and put on glasses,
small, no frames, and flipped pages on a calendar. “The wedding is Friday
evening, the twenty-fourth. So you should be here on the twenty-first and stay
until at least the day after the wedding. I’ll arrange for someone from the
florist’s shop to decorate the limo on Friday.”
“Where will the wedding be held?”
“Right here. They’ll set up the tent the day before. One end will be
arranged with seating for the ceremony, the other will be set up for the
reception and dinner. Sit-down, of course. Prime rib and lobster, catered by a
company from Tacoma. With live music and dancing afterwards.”
Prime rib and lobster. Too bad I’d be relegated to waiting outside in the
limo.
“You won’t actually be needing the limo for transportation to the
wedding then.”
“Oh, yes indeed! Pammi and I can’t walk from the house over to the tent in our gowns.”
Michelle shuffled through a drawer with a familiarity that said this
was her desk, not the husband’s. She brought out a thick file. “Then there’s
the ice sculpture. . . . But they’ll be delivering that in a refrigerated van,
of course.”
I pictured a swan floating in a punch bowl, a graceful image dispelled
by Michelle’s next words.
“It’s a life-sized bride and groom. A sculptor is creating it
especially for Pammi’s wedding.”
I’ve heard about some extravagant weddings, but none that included a
life-sized ice sculpture. That would leave some puddle, wouldn’t it? I wondered
how the husband/father was feeling about the cost of Pammi’s wedding of the
century.
Michelle went through more plans, checking off items. The wedding gown,
which was being flown in from a designer down in LA. The cake, six tiers, with
bridges to side cakes and a sterling silver ornament of bride and groom on top.
Hair and makeup people. Photographer. The fog machine, which would deliver an
ethereal mist around the bride as she walked down the aisle.
I wondered why she was telling me all this, then decided she wanted to
make sure I realized this was
the Wedding of the Century. “Her father will be escorting Pammi down the
aisle?”
“Unfortunately her father passed away several years ago. I’ll be giving
the bride away.”
Unusual but nice, I decided. So Michelle herself must be footing the
bill. Very generous of a stepmother, especially with a stepdaughter making
demands on the scale of a Hollywood production number.
“There are a few other details, but that’s it for the moment.” She
removed the glasses and rubbed her temples. “I can count on you for nine
o’clock on the morning of the twenty-first?”
“You certainly can.” I realized we hadn’t discussed price yet. I had a
daily rate, although so far I’d never had a job lengthy enough to use it. I
calculated a reasonable amount for overnight and named a five-day figure,
although I was prepared to negotiate.
She didn’t bother. “Yes, that’ll be fine. I’ll give you a deposit now.”
She wrote out a check for a fourth of the amount while I did another
silent Whoo-ee! My daughter, Sarah, and
granddaughter, Rachel, were both starting at the University of Florida. Now I’d
be able to send them something to help out. Hey,
God, thank You!
Check firmly in hand, I started toward the door.
“Oh, and if this works out,” she called, “I’ll need you again in
September. I think arrival by limo would be appropriate for the grand opening
of my new health club. Maybe you’ve seen the sign? The Change Your World
Fitness Center.”
“That’s where they’ve been remodeling the old Penny’s building?”
“Right. The new sign just went up yesterday.”
An impressive sign it was, the name written in glittery silver, with an
icon of a lightning bolt branding a symbol of the earth, the whole thing
dwarfing any other business sign in Vigland.
“I can reserve the date for you now, if you’d like.”
“Yes, let’s do that.” She handed me a sheet from a memo pad with a date
in September scribbled on it. “So far I haven’t been able to devote as much
time to the grand opening as I should, what with all the wedding details to
take care of. But things should calm down after Pammi and Sterling are on their
honeymoon.”
Outside, I congratulated myself on my good fortune. The bride might be
a charter member of Bridezillas, Inc., but a five-day job—!
I was halfway down the wide steps when I spotted a figure leaning over
the back of the limo. My first instinct was to yell, Hey, get away from there! But
then I realized this couldn’t be someone just wandering by, not with that
security gate at the end of the driveway.
So I held my yell and approached with a more cooperative attitude.
Until I saw what she was doing.