“I’m sorry this Dan Jeffrey was murdered, Gussie, but I won’t be able to help the police. I didn’t see anything that will help their investigation. I’m here to help you and Jim with your move and your wedding. I’ve got my marching orders: pack closets, and when directed, help unpack at the new and brilliantly improved Aunt Augusta’s Attic.”
Gussie raised her arm and saluted. “Exactly!” She reached out her glass. “Is there a little more of that champagne? Between the move and the wedding, and now a murder, I think I could use another glass.”
“Filling up, Captain!” Maggie topped off both of their glasses. “And now I need to hear about that wedding. Somehow we’ve managed to put it off long enough. The happiest day in a woman’s life and all that, you know.”
“That’s what people say, don’t they?” Gussie smiled, a little lopsidedly. “Well, like I told you when I called in August to tell you the news. We planned a small wedding. After all, I’m not exactly a blushing bride. It’ll be my second wedding, and although Jim’s managed to escape the joys of matrimony so far, he’s a typical man. The simpler the better for him. We invited our friends from Winslow, of course, and you and Will, and a few of my antiques friends. Jim’s family is in Georgia and South Carolina, and he’s an only child, so we didn’t think any of them would come except his mother, and maybe a stray cousin. I have Ellen and Ben and a couple of relatives near Boston who might decide to drive down and see who I finally decided to marry. Add everyone together and we thought, maximum, maybe fifty people. Since we were sure we’d have the house fixed up by then,” here Gussie rolled her eyes, “we planned a catered reception there, sort of a combination wedding and housewarming. Then, when it was clear the house wouldn’t be in party shape, we moved the reception to the Winslow Inn. And that would be it. You and Ellen would be my attendants, and Jim’s invited Ben, and Andy Sullivan, his best friend and law partner, to stand up with him. So that covers the wedding party.”
“All sounds great so far,” said Maggie. “Just large enough. Manageable. Festive. Perfect! And how sweet of Jim to ask Ben.”
“Wasn’t it?” said Gussie. “Ben’s thrilled, of course. Now that he’s twenty-one he’s been invited to a few weddings of people he grew up with, but it’s been a little hard for him. He’s never had a girlfriend, and he talks about girls all the time. Other than that he seems happy to live at home with Ellen and work for me at the shop and at shows. Ellen and I’ve talked about whether it might be better for him if he spread his wings and lived in a halfway house, with other young people who have the same challenges he does. Maybe he’d meet a young woman who has Down’s, like he does, or find other friends.”
“Are there any group homes near here?”
“Only a few on the Cape, and those have long waiting lists.”
Maggie shook her head. “I can see the issues. Well, that’s Ben. And you’ve told me what you and Jim wanted your wedding to be like. So I assume something happened to change your plans. Talk!”
Gussie sighed. “It’s Jim’s mother. She’d met me once, about two years ago, so she knew about the PPS. Jim was worried she’d feel he shouldn’t marry someone with a disability, so he didn’t even tell her about the wedding right away. He waited until we had our plans made. He made reservations for her at the nicest B and B in town, the same place you’ll be staying after I move into the new house. Then he told her.”
“She was upset?”
“Turned out my PPS wasn’t an issue. She was delighted! Finally her baby boy—Jim’s fifty-two, Maggie—is getting married, and she’s thrilled. Jim was so relieved he didn’t see the flags flying when she started asking about my family.”
“Your family? You and Ellen?”
“That’s it. Ellen and Ben and I are about it. When Jim told her my parents had died years ago she went into overdrive. She set out to help us. She sees herself as the mother of the bride.”
“What?”
“Turns out she’s spent the last fifty years dreaming of her baby boy’s wedding day, and she’s dying to make sure it turns out just right. The way she’s always dreamed it would be. She wanted to come here in September, as soon as she heard. Jim’s held her off because of our moving. But she’s been calling Jim or me four or five times a day, always with new, helpful, ideas. And doing things, like sending the dresses, as ‘surprises’! If I hear the word ‘surprise!’ one more time…!”
Maggie tried not to laugh. She held up the bottle of champagne and poured what was left into Gussie’s glass. “Keep talking. I assume you and Jim explained to her, like the grown-ups you most assuredly are, that this was your wedding, and it was arranged the way you both wanted it.”
“That would be about the time she started crying.” Gussie grimaced. “For the first time. That woman is a master manipulator. How Jim emerged as a sane adult is beyond me.”
“Let me guess. You and Jim decided to compromise. Let her contribute a little to the wedding.”
“Exactly. It seemed the kindest thing to do. And after all, we were so tied up with the construction on the house, and the store, and moving, and Jim can’t exactly put his law practice on hold, even for a wedding. We decided to turn over some of the details to her, since most of the wedding was planned anyway. What harm could she do? We’d tell her what we’d decided, and let her make some of the minor decisions.”
“And?”
“It’s gone downhill from there.” Gussie drained her champagne glass. “You saw the dress she rented for you. She thought it was awful that I’d told you and Ellen you could wear whatever you’d like, and that I’d decided to wear a pale yellow dress. Horrors! All on her very own, believe me, she found a place in Georgia that would deliver overnight and ordered two dresses like the one you saw, for you and Ellen, and a flower girl dress, since every wedding must have a flower girl. She’s still calling around to relatives Jim didn’t even know he had trying to find one who’ll fly in and play that role. Her alternative suggestion, I swear, is for me to go to the local elementary school and find ‘a cute little miss with curls’ to fit the costume.”
“She really wanted Ellen and me to wear Gone With the Wind sorts of dresses in a New England Congregational Church in the twenty-first century?” Maggie asked, still fixated on the vision she’d seen earlier.
Gussie nodded. “Believe it. You should have seen Ellen’s expression. She took one look at her dress and asked if we were changing the date of our wedding to Halloween. And by the way, Lily even made you both dressmaker’s appointments with a woman in Provincetown. Bless the Internet.”
“But at least she left you alone? You already had a dress you’d chosen.”
Gussie chortled until the tears rolled down her face. “No, Maggie. Not a chance. She ordered a dress for me, too. Open the door of the closet in back of you.”
Maggie got up, a bit unsteadily, and threw open the door, more dramatically than she’d planned.
Inside was hanging something that appeared to be an enormous white balloon, above which was a small tight bodice. Maggie looked again. The balloon was supported by the largest hoop she’d ever seen.
She turned back to Gussie. “What is it?”
“Lily’s choice for my wedding dress,” Gussie explained. “It has a hoop, which Lily somehow felt I could wear by putting the hoop over my scooter. She also sent a veil, which Jim’s great-grandmother wore, so I could carry on a family tradition.”
Gussie and Maggie looked at each other, and looked at the dress.
“We have to burn it,” said Maggie. “Not the veil. That would be mean. But the dress? Definitely.”
Gussie started to giggle. And then they both burst into hysterical laughter.
Chapter 6
Cinnamomum Cassia Blume.Chromolithograph from Kohler’s four-volume Medizenal Pflanzen, Germany, 1887, showing a sprig of the plant and details of the flower. These four volumes picturing plants used for medical purposes (Cassia was said to relieve flatulence, vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea, and decrease the secretion of milk in nursing mothers) were considered an authority when they were published. During the nineteenth century Cassia, also called “Bastard Cinnamon” or “Chinese Cinnamon,” was also used as a substitute for Cinnamomum zeylanicum from Ceylon, which it closely resembles. The stronger flavor of the inside of its bark (where the “cinnamon” is) was preferred by chocolate makers in Germany and Russia. Cassia’s buds, similar to small cloves, were often used in potpourri. 9 x 11.5 inches. Toned edges. $55.