Drowning In Christmas Part 1

Drowning in Christmas.

A Kate Lawrence Mystery.

by Judith K. Ivie.

Introduction.

I was born and raised in central Connecticut, and I raised my own children here. We have always considered ourselves fortunate to have the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, America's oldest public art museum, right here in Hartford and to be able to enjoy its amazing collection of American and European art during innumerable visits over the years.

For as long as we can remember, the Wadsworth's Festival of Trees & Traditions has anch.o.r.ed our holiday season, as I know it has for thousands of others. Beautifully orchestrated by the Women's Committee of the Atheneum, the Festival showcases the best of our Connecticut community. Hundreds of breathtaking holiday creations crafted by local artists, school children, and volunteers are enhanced by the musical offerings of local choirs and musicians. Together, these talented community members transform the first floor of the Museum into a magical holiday wonderland. It's really something to experience.

What better setting for a Christmas murder mystery?

That's what I thought, too. Enjoy.

Judith K. Ivie.

Dedicated with Appreciation and Affection to.

Dr. Linda Dupont, Cindy, Beth, Jana, Natalie, Mary Jean, T.J., Jude, Dr. Braun, and all of the other staff members of Catzablanca Cat Clinic & Hospital in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, who have contributed immeasurably over the years to the health and well-being of the feline members of our family... and the peace of mind of their owners.

Drowning in Christmas.

One.

"I wouldn't ask you," said my ex-husband, "but I'm desperate. I really need your help here."

"No," I said.

"Did you hear the desperate part, Kate?" Michael wisely refrained from whining, which he knew would only make me crankier. Instead, he allowed sufficient time to pa.s.s for his surprising request to replay in my mind. Yes, the man had to be on the edge.

I sighed heavily and closed my partner Strutter's copy of A Homemade Holiday, which was supposed to be giving me great ideas on how to cook a Christmas goose. Something told me that my goose was pretty well cooked already. As ex-husbands go, mine was about as agreeable as they get, but this conversation sounded like big trouble to me. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the headache that began to throb through my temples.

"You know I don't even attend weddings anymore, Michael, let alone organize one. Not now, not ever again. I endured enough family weddings, birthdays, anniversary parties, and holiday gatherings in the twenty-two years we were married to last me the rest of my life. I just send a lovely gift and decline the invitation. I'm done, through, finished. Am I getting through to you?"

"The fact that I'm even asking you should give you some idea of my state of mind." Michael dropped his voice several decibels, the better to keep our conversation private from his present wife, I presumed. "Sheila already has her hands full with her teaching and the holiday pageant at the school, plus her mother will be spending Christmas with us this year." He paused to let the full horror of having Sheila's ditzy maternal relative as a houseguest sink in. "Having a wedding in this little apartment would be impossible under the best of circ.u.mstances, but right now..." He trailed off miserably.

Grudgingly, I admitted that he had a point. After years of working and saving, he and Sheila were finally on the verge of seeing their dream house, currently under construction on Lake Pocotopaug, become a reality. Having been lucky enough to sell their previous house sooner than expected in the current crummy real estate market, they were waiting out the final months of construction in a one-bedroom rental, not the ideal setting for a family wedding.

"So rent the church hall or the V. F. W. or a room at the community center," I countered weakly, knowing that would never do. Schmidts were married at home. It was a family tradition with which I was well acquainted. Michael and I had been married in his parents' living room nearly thirty years ago, and we had hosted our share of nuptials for cousins and nieces in our own home in the ensuing years. Still, I wasn't caving in without a fight this time. I had quite enough on my plate already.

Michael regrouped and tried another approach. "We just need your house for the afternoon. Well, maybe the evening, too. There has to be a little party after the ceremony. You and Armando wouldn't even have to be there, if you didn't want to be. The caterer will do absolutely everything, including the clean-up. It's just family and a few friends." He played his ace. "Come on, Kate. I wouldn't ask you, but you are Jeff's G.o.dmother, after all. If you won't do it for me, do it for him."

That one hit the mark. When it comes to family ties, I'm notoriously unsentimental. I firmly believe that you can choose your friends, but your relatives are thrust upon you without your having any say in the matter. I have no great fondness for my mother's and father's numerous kinfolk, so I have aunties and first cousins I literally wouldn't recognize on the street; but for Michael's nephew Jeff, I have a soft spot. He's the youngest of the three sons of Michael's late brother and his wife, who were taken in an automobile accident several years ago.

Jeff's quirky outlook and lightning-quick wit endear him to me, as well as to my son Joey and daughter Emma, above all of their less-interesting cousins. Besides, as Michael pointed out, I am Jeff's G.o.dmother, however reluctantly I had agreed to a.s.sume that role upon his birth. I had performed my duties casually in the twenty-five years since, but now that Jeff's parents were no longer among us, who else was there to help him out with his wedding? My heart softened.

I carried the phone and my coffee mug to the back windows of my freestanding condominium unit and gazed at the gray December landscape. My elderly cat Jasmine was perched on the back of the sofa. She stared fixedly at three wild turkeys pecking contentedly on the snowless lawn. No doubt they were grateful to have dodged a bullet now that Thanksgiving was safely past.

"When is this wedding in my house that I don't have to attend supposed to take place?"

Sensing that he still had a shot, Michael brightened. "The twenty-seventh, which is the Sunday after Christmas. Jeff has to leave for North Carolina two days later, which is why he and Donna decided to move up their wedding date. The University offers housing for married graduate students only. Hey, you won't even have to decorate, since even you must leave your Christmas stuff up until New Year's Day."

I ignored this slur on my holiday spirit. "Great. You do realize that Emma is bringing her new boyfriend here on Christmas Eve to meet us. Jared, I think this one is named, and I'm expected to do the whole Norman Rockwell bit. Chestnuts roasting, pumpkin pie, etcetera etcetera. She's gone a little nuts over this guy, and she's taking me with her. When you called, I was looking at recipes for roast goose."

"You're cooking a goose?" The disbelief in Michael's voice was evident. Then, straying from the point as he often did, "Why not turkey?"

I considered my feathered friends, now making their leisurely way toward the marsh that bordered The Birches. They strolled the grounds of our Wethersfield, Connecticut condominium community daily and roosted in the surrounding trees at night. Before I'd come to live here, I hadn't known that turkeys can fly. Now I regularly watched them helicopter up to their favorite branches as the sun slipped beneath the horizon.

"Too much like pets, I guess." Truth be told, I wasn't much looking forward to roasting a goose either. The things we do for our children. "So the situation is that I'm entertaining Emma's steady on Thursday evening, and three days later, I'm throwing a wedding." I sighed again. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, and it was for Jeff and his absolutely darling fiancee Donna, whom he had been dating since high school.

I could almost hear the grin of relief breaking across Michael's amiable face. "I'm telling you, this caterer is incredible. You won't have to lift a finger, Kate. He and his staff will do everything ... food, flowers, music, photographer. They bring everything in and take everything away afterwards. Sheila's friend Millie used him for her daughter's wedding last summer."

The headache teased behind my eyes again, and I interrupted Michael's rhapsodic litany. "Okay, okay, I get it. I won't have to do a thing." Yeah, right."So send out the invitations, and let's get it done," I said rashly. "Now can I go to work, please?"

"You bet, sure! Thanks a million, Katie. You're the best. We'll talk again in a couple of days." He was gone before I could take back my words.Not that I would, I amended my thoughts guiltily. I swallowed the last of my tepid coffee and watched the turkeys melt into the marsh, becoming one with the colors of the dried undergrowth. Now you see them, now you don't.Invisibility has its appeal, I thought wistfully. At the moment, I was feeling far too visible, not to mention vulnerable, on several fronts.

Work was one of them. For the past two years, since meeting at the downtown Hartford law firm where we all worked at that time, my friends and partners Margo Harkness, nee Farnsworth, and Charlene "Strutter" Putnam, nee Tuttle, had owned and operated MACK Realty in Wethersfield's historic district. Starting our own business had been an adventure, to say the least, and the hot real estate market had taken us on a wild ride.

A couple of months ago, the financial market had crashed, taking real estate and every other kind of sales down with it. Temporarily, at least, MACK Realty operated out of Margo's dining room, where she and Strutter had hunkered down to weather the storm. Our receptionist Jenny had opted to return to UConn Law School full time. Because I had administrative and computer skills, I decided to put them to good use in a temporary position in the local office of Unified Christian Charities, situated in Hartford.

"We need you!" had been Sister Marguerite's opening salvo. Sister Marguerite is the CEO of Unified Christian Charities, and she is one smart cookie. Notwithstanding the fact that I haven't seen the inside of a church in more than a decade, she and I have worked together on several charitable endeavors over the years and become firm friends in the process. She is unlike any other nun I have ever met, not that I've met many. In fact, her lack of sanctimony and earthy sense of humor have seen me through more than a few dreary fundraising dinners. Almost before the moving van carrying MACK Realty's office furniture to a storage facility had disappeared over the horizon, the wily sister had left a message on my answering machine, shoring up my wounded ego with a job offer. "Mary Alice is expecting her fourth baby, saints preserve us, and this time, her doctor insists that she take to her bed for the last two weeks, although how a woman who already has three little ones manages that is beyond me. So here I am, a rudderless s.h.i.+p sinking fast in a sea of meetings and paperwork, plus the holiday fundraiser at the Wadsworth that's hard upon us. Can you help me out, Katie? It's not forever, just for a couple of weeks until the child is born and Mary Alice's mum arrives to take charge of the household," she wheedled.

I knew I was being manipulated, which was always a good bet when dealing with Sister, but her offer did seem to be the answer to a prayer, no pun intended. Without MACK Realty taking up sixty hours a week of my time, I was feeling more than a little rudderless myself. My housemate and longtime love, Armando Velasquez, had just departed to San Diego on an a.s.signment for his employer, TeleCom International. So what with one thing and another, time stretched emptily ahead of me. A temporary a.s.signment would be just the thing to fill the gap, and a little money coming in wouldn't hurt. What better way to use my time than helping out my old friend Sister Marguerite?

Today was to be my first day on the job, and I hurried to get myself together. Without the wild turkeys to offer entertainment, Jasmine trailed after me down the hall to my bedroom. She was missing Simon, her feline companion of more than fifteen years. He had recently succ.u.mbed to a combination of health issues rooted in old age, devastating our household. I knew Jasmine was lonely, but Simon had been my devoted old boy, my best buddy. I still grieved for him and couldn't face bringing a newcomer into the house.Not yet, but as soon as I can, I promised Jasmine silently. As I rushed about from bedroom to bathroom to closet, she settled herself on the foot of my bed, where she knew the mid-morning sun would fall, and was soon snoozing. This afternoon, she would return to the living room, where the west-facing windows would make the most of the wintry suns.h.i.+ne on the sofa.

After a fast shower and five minutes in front of the mirror with my blow dryer and minimal make-up, I hurried into a navy blue pantsuit and tucked a gauzy scarf with a wild floral print into the neckline. I jammed my feet into low-heeled pumps and blew Jasmine a kiss on my way to the front-hall coat closet, not that she noticed. Two minutes later, I was backing my Jetta out of the garage.

All things considered, I was feeling pretty chipper. Armando might be gone for a week or so, but I had never minded solitude. Part of me was looking forward to having some of it for a while. Still, it was good to have somewhere to go and useful work to do. Now that I was once again gainfully employed, however temporarily, I would be alone only in the evenings, and there was always the telephone. Armando has a wonderful telephone voice, a warm baritone touched with a Spanish accent. In the early days of our relations.h.i.+p, some six years ago, I had looked forward eagerly to his evening calls. Now that I knew all of the other s.e.xy qualities that went along with the voice, I found myself smiling in antic.i.p.ation once again.

The drive into Hartford on I-91 wasn't quite as frightening as I had remembered. Perhaps the truly suicidal commuters got on the road earlier in the morning. For whatever reason, I was allowed to lollygag along at a mere ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit without being hara.s.sed, which gave me an opportunity to absorb the changed city skyline. The Travelers tower, which along with the Old State House had been Hartford's most identifiable structure during my growing-up years, had been encircled by newer, taller structures. These included the Phoenix Insurance building, an oddly boat-like structure; the Gold Building, which housed United Technologies and more than twenty additional floors of corporate offices; two buildings of pink stone that overlooked the Connecticut River; and the newest additions to the city scene, a modern convention center and adjoining Marriott Hotel. Several blocks removed from this cl.u.s.ter, but still tall enough to be seen from the highway, were CityPlace, whose slanted green roof resembled a beret, and the CIGNA building at the corner of Church and Trumbull Streets. Standing cheek-by-jowl with the old brownstones and more conventional downtown structures, the new additions had transformed a fairly humdrum skyline into one that invited admiration.

I eased off the highway onto the sharply curved ramp that led beneath an overpa.s.s bearing the image of the Charter Oak, then swooped into Pulaski Circle with the rest of the traffic. As Sister Marguerite had instructed, I swung around the circle to Elm Street, which ran between Bushnell Park and the block anch.o.r.ed by the Bushnell Memorial Theater. It was a place that held magical memories for me and most other Connecticut theater-goers, as well as visitors who came by the busload. Armando and I had shared many wonderful evenings there together.

Pausing at the light, I gazed straight ahead at the gleaming dome of the State Capitol. The Legislature must be in session, I surmised from the packed parking lot and plethora of Capitol Police in the area. No doubt the lawmakers were in a last-minute flurry, trying to get pending legislation pa.s.sed before the lawmakers could adjourn for the holidays.

The light changed, and I swung left past the Capitol building and right onto Capitol Avenue, which I followed several blocks past the State Library, Legislative Office Building, and a.s.sorted residential and commercial structures. A right onto Flower Street took me up the grade leading to Farmington Avenue and the area of Hartford referred to by the locals as Asylum Hill. It had been so nicknamed for the Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons that had commanded the hill until around 1920. Then the inst.i.tution was moved to West Hartford and more appropriately renamed the American School for the Deaf.

Today, the king of the hill was The Hartford Insurance Group. No, it was now The Hartford Financial Services Group, I reminded myself. It was one of the many huge insurers, including The Travelers and Aetna, that had given Hartford its national ident.i.ty as the Insurance City.

Another lengthy traffic light gave me a chance to check out the current landscape of the Hill. I had never really paid much attention before, but now I took note of the churches that competed for pride of place. Among the older edifices were Emanuel Lutheran, which I had already pa.s.sed on Capitol Avenue, Asylum Hill Congregational, and Trinity Episcopal, but there could be no question that The Cathedral of St. Joseph dominated the area.

When the light finally changed, I headed west toward the small building in the shadow of the Cathedral, which housed the administrative staff of United Christian Charities. The organization was entirely ec.u.menical, Sister Marguerite had hastened to a.s.sure me, and served people in need throughout the region without regard to religious affiliation "or not," she had twinkled at me, well aware of my lack of religious convictions. "We welcome even the heathens among us, Katie, so fear not." Although she had spoken in jest, I wondered if that was how she secretly thought of me.

I parked and locked the Jetta up tight, mindful of Sister Marguerite's warning that this was no longer the safest of neighborhoods, and made my way to the back entrance of the humble building that had once been a two-family house. I pressed the electronic doorbell and faced the monitor, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. "Can I help you?" a woman greeted me in a British accent that not even this system could distort completely.

"Kate Lawrence here to see Sister Marguerite," I offered obediently. "She's expecting me." I was promptly buzzed through the outer door and climbed a half-staircase to the interior door, where I paused, suddenly weary. Here I was, facing yet another new job in a new location, my third such transition in as many years.It could be worse, I told myself firmly.I could have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Sister Marguerite needs my help, and at this particular moment, that feels pretty darned good.I took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face, and turned the doork.n.o.b. Nothing happened. Then more buzzing led me to understand that this door, too, was locked electronically and had been similarly released by the receptionist.

"Goodness," I joked, approaching her desk. "I must be pretty s.h.i.+fty looking to require all these security precautions. I'm Kate Lawrence. I believe Sister Marguerite is expecting me this morning."

"It's not you," the pleasant-faced brunette apologized. "It's become an unfortunate fact of life that we have to keep both doors locked at all times, whether we're in the building or not. Too many bad experiences, I'm afraid."

"Wow, do you mean you've actually been robbed?"

She shrugged. "A couple of break-ins. Nothing at gunpoint or anything. I'm s.h.i.+rley, by the way. Please hang your coat over there on the rack. Coffee's fresh. I'll tell Sister you're here." She waved in the general direction of a coat rack and a tiny kitchenette behind it where a coffee urn and mugs stood waiting on the counter. I hung my parka on a hanger and decided against more coffee. Instead, I admired s.h.i.+rley's impressive array of potted plants, which thrived in the suns.h.i.+ne streaming through a window beside her desk.

Although small and somewhat cramped, the reception area had a friendly feel to it. The murmur of Monday-morning conversations among congenial coworkers met my ears, a poignant reminder of other Monday mornings at MACK Realty. I quickly turned the page on that thought and perched on one of the three chairs which, along with a small corner table, const.i.tuted the anteroom's entire furnis.h.i.+ngs. I struggled to get myself into a serene frame of mind, suitable for interaction with these kindly, gentle people who were about to become my temporary colleagues.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

My mouth dropped open, but s.h.i.+rley didn't turn a hair at this surprising outburst from some interior office. Sister Marguerite appeared from behind a door at the end of a short hallway. She shoved it open energetically and hustled out to greet me. "What kind of a knucklehead takes up busy people's time on a Monday morning trying to sell them things over the phone, I ask you?"

s.h.i.+rley calmly continued festooning a rather dusty plastic fir tree that occupied the tabletop next to my chair.

"Sorry, m'dear," Sister Marguerite apologized to me. "Telemarketers have driven more pious women than I to bad language and strong drink. s.h.i.+rley, how many of these trees have you got in this place, for the love of G.o.d? I feel as if I'm suffocating in tinsel." A twinkle in her eye softened her words. s.h.i.+rley merely grinned and went on decorating the already overburdened tree.

"Come in, come in," Sister Marguerite urged me and reversed direction. I scrambled after her down the short hallway, which was crowded with filing cabinets and overflowing bookshelves. Sister bustled into her office and addressed her guest chair. "Off with you now." She made shooing motions, and a fat poodle, which I had mistaken for an overstuffed pillow, lumbered to the floor. "Go to your bed, Aloysius." The dog wagged his stub of a tail to show there were no hard feelings and made his way arthritically to a snug pet bed behind his mistress's desk. "I shouldn't allow him on the furniture, I know, but he's quite an old fellow now," Sister explained. "Sit, sit!"

I sat. My eyes welled with grief for my own old pet, and I blinked the tears away. Two lines rang simultaneously on Sister Marguerite's phone, which she ignored. A tiny woman with gray hair stuck her head in the door. "Is this a good time to get some things signed, Sister? Oh, sorry," she amended, spotting me. "I didn't see you sitting there. Another time." And she was gone.

An hour later, I sat in a cramped conference room with the organizers of the annual UCC holiday fundraising event, a c.o.c.ktail party and auction scheduled for this very Thursday evening. I had been introduced as Mary Alice's temporary replacement, warmly welcomed, and promptly buried in an avalanche of logistical details concerning the annual gala to be held at one of the crown jewels of Hartford's cultural community, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

The castle-like building was the oldest public art museum in the United States and the largest one in Connecticut. The Museum was particularly beautiful at this time of year. Thousands of additional visitors were attracted to its annual Festival of Trees& Traditions, a huge display of Christmas trees, wreaths, and other decorations constructed by local organizations and individuals and donated to be sold for the benefit of the Museum. That made the UCC gathering a fundraiser-within-a-fundraiser, so to speak.

The pet.i.te woman who had stopped by Sister Marguerite's office earlier turned out to be Lois Billard, the committee chair. She gave brisk updates on the budget, catering, entertainment, raffle contributions, and RSVPs received to date, which I struggled to take in. My head was spinning. It was clear that this was a major social occasion of the Hartford social season, and despite the downturn in the economy, this year's turnout was going to be a record setter. As Lois outlined the schedule for the evening, it was apparent that the major players from every segment of the business community would be present, as well as leading clergy from all of the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish denominations in the region.

The plan was to gather everyone in a prominent location, dazzle them with ambience, mellow them out with heavy hors d'oeuvres and spectacular wines donated by some of Connecticut's finest eateries and vineyards, then begin the auction. "Liquor them up and get those wallets open," was Lois's candid plan of action. "Then, just when they may be feeling they've overspent a tad, we'll bring in Santa Claus to distribute the goodie bags filled with gift certificates and enough electronic toys to thaw the tightest wad among them." She grinned at the a.s.sembled committee members, who chuckled appreciatively. Obviously, these people were not nearly as strait-laced as I had imagined them to be.

I had to admit that I quite looked forward to Thursday evening. "Who plays Santa?" I couldn't help asking. Sister Marguerite was quick to reply.

"Why, our very own Santa, of course," she smiled, gesturing to the bespectacled, middle-aged gentleman beside her who had sat quietly throughout the meeting and resembled Kris Kringle not at all. "Meet James O'Halloran, our chief financial officer, Kate. He's been playing Santa for us for nearly thirty years now. Says it makes a nice change from counting our beans the rest of the time."

"After all these years, I'm beginning to look the part," O'Halloran joked along, patting his flat belly as if it were round. "I believe I know one of your business partners, Ms. Lawrence. My wife and I bought a house in Wethersfield a couple of years back, and she had the listing. Cheryl? Sharmaine? Anyway, a delightful lady. Made the experience relatively painless, as I recall."

"Charlene Putnam," I smiled, "and yes, she is."

"James'wife Mary is a mainstay of the Wadsworth Atheneum's Women's Committee, which was how we managed to book that amazing s.p.a.ce for our most important fundraiser of the year-and during the Festival of Trees, no less," Sister Marguerite beamed. "Of course, it took even Mary two years to pull it off," she added wryly, and everyone chuckled.

On that note, the meeting adjourned, and the staff quickly scattered to pursue their various last-minute a.s.signments. Mine was to keep track of all of the other a.s.signments and serve as the focal point for all gala-related communications in addition to answering Sister Marguerite's phone, screening incoming requests, and a.s.sisting with the daily business of the UCC, which was helping local people in need to cope with their current crises.

With Connecticut's unemployment rate threatening to become the highest in history, the stream of requests for help continued unabated throughout the afternoon, which whirled by in a blur. Just before five o'clock, the steeple bell of Asylum Hill Congregational Church rang out. "Two minute warning!" Sister Marguerite called out cheerily, and the staff members scurrying in and out of each other's offices and cubicles heaved a collective sigh of relief. "Quitting time, don't you know," Sister explained, "but that bell is a little off."

"Does it ring all day?" I asked in amazement. Until this moment, I had been unaware of it.

"Every hour on the hour," she a.s.sured me, "and two minutes early for every blessed one of them. Well, that's it for me, Katie girl. Come along, Aloysius, you spoiled dog. Time for us to get our supper and see if we can still manage a little walk between us." The poodle, who had been waiting patiently by Sister's briefcase, thumped his stubby tail on the carpet and creaked to his feet. She snapped a leash on his collar and picked up the briefcase, which bulged with paperwork to be attended to after dinner, no doubt. "Thanks for everything, m'dear," she said, patting my shoulder in pa.s.sing as they headed for the door. "Can we expect you back tomorrow?"

"I'll be back," I a.s.sured her.

I let myself out into the parking lot, making sure that the door locked firmly behind me, as I had been instructed to do. The early darkness never failed to surprise me on these December evenings, but the lot was well lit. I joined the other going-homers in the late afternoon traffic and crept from traffic light to traffic light, reflecting on the events of the day.

Now that I had the time to notice, I realized how weary I was. A few days ago, I had been sitting in my recliner planning my next career move. Now I was orchestrating a Martha Stewart Christmas Eve for Emma's new beau, hosting my nephew's holiday wedding, and juggling the myriad details of the UCC's gala fundraiser. It wasn't surprising that I felt as if I were drowning in Christmas.

What I didn't know was that I was about to go under for the third time.

Two.

"I can't believe Jeff is getting married." Emma, on the phone with me before work on Wednesday morning, was obviously jolted by the news. "He's younger than I am."

"What's that got to do with anything?" I wanted to know. "Is it a compet.i.tion?"

She was rea.s.suringly scornful. "I could have gotten married about six times since I turned fifteen, as you well know. It's not his age. I'm just astounded that he's getting married at all. He's such a maverick, and he and Donna have been doing just fine the way they are, like you and Armando, you know?"

I swallowed guiltily. Despite my determination never to marry again, about which I had been vociferous, Armando and I had had several conversations over the past year on the subject of marriage, specifically, the possibility of ours. Never say never."Well, we can't know what prompts these things. Maybe Donna needs health insurance, and Jeff's employer won't provide coverage for domestic partners. Circ.u.mstances back people into corners sometimes."

She considered that possibility. "I suppose. Do you think that might ever happen to you and Armando?"

"The way this real estate market is shaping up, I wouldn't discount the idea altogether," I hedged. "People have gotten married for worse reasons, and if they're committed to each other anyway, why not?" I cleared my throat. "Of course, plenty of people still seem to want to get married for more romantic reasons, you know, stand up in front of their friends and families, say the words, take the vow."

Emma digested this surprising commentary from me in silence but forbore to grill me further on the subject. "Whatever. So Jeff's getting married, and Daddy has volunteered you to host the big event. Is that about the size of it?"

I hastened to soften her father's part in this scenario. "Pretty much, but you know he would have had it at his place if he could have. It's just not possible. Plus, there's a terrific caterer who's agreed to do most of the work."

Emma laughed. "Yeah, right. He'll sail in forty-five minutes before the ceremony, unload a bunch of food, and go outside to have a cigarette. What about the table set-ups and the drinks and the decorations? How about flowers, photographs? Who's sending out the invitations and tracking the responses? Are Jeff and Donna registered someplace so people will have a clue about gifts?" She paused for breath.

"Good grief, are all of those things up to me to arrange?"

She chuckled mirthlessly. "You know that movie where Katherine Heigl has been a bridesmaid a couple of dozen times? Well, I'm thirty, and I have a lot of girlfriends. Take my word for it. There's a ton of work involved here. The good news is, a lot of the arrangements should be taken care of by the maid or matron of honor. Who's that going to be?"