Christmas Wedding (4 page)

“
I was sitting out on the porch, waiting for you to drive up. I happened to notice a red convertible pull in at The Verandas.”

I live in a restored Queen Anne style house on Nun Street, across the street and a few doors east of the popular bed and breakfast.

“
The top was down. Can you believe this weather? Almost Christmas and people are driving around in open convertibles! Must be global warming.”

“
Ashley, calm down. You’re babbling.”

“
I am, aren’t I? Sorry. Anyway, Melanie was driving. Ray was on the passenger side. And before he got out, they kissed. And I don’t mean a friendly little peck on the check. Or even a brief kiss on the lips. I mean a long, lingering, makes you weak in the knees, soulful K-I-S-S.”

“
Oh, no. I’ve seen your sister pull some crazy stunts, but this is so selfish and thoughtless. Has she said anything to you? Are she and Cam having second thoughts?”

He answered his own question. “No, he wouldn’t be. As far as Cameron Jordan is concerned, there is only one woman on this earth, and that is Melanie. I agree with you. He is the best thing that has ever happened to her. He’s a great guy and I count him as my best friend.

“
So, has Melanie hinted that she is getting cold feet?”

“
Not a peep. But then all we ever talk about these days are the wedding plans. As if the reason we are having this wedding has gotten lost in the quest for perfect roses, perfect menus, perfect music. You know. And to tell you the truth, Jon, she has been hard to reach since Sunday, which is coincidentally when Ray arrived. She never picks up when I call her on her cell. And often she fails to return my calls. Claims she is too busy with the wedding.

“
And she is doing the same thing to Cam. He called me this morning looking for her. She was not answering her cell when he called to verify that she was meeting us at the airport.”

“
You think she was with Ray?” Jon asked.

“
I’m worried that she was with him all night, and that when I saw her she was returning him to the B&B.”

Jon shook his head. “I just wanted us to have a simple, sweet wedding surrounded by the people we love. We don’t need these theatrics in our life.”

“
I’m with you. But to answer your question, no, I don’t think she is going to cancel the wedding because Ray has turned up in her life again. But it seems to me that she is hell bent on having herself one last torrid fling before she settles down.”

Jon exited onto Airport Boulevard. “I sure hope she does not break a few hearts in the process. Including her own.”

We arrived at ILM in plenty of time and found Melanie and Cameron waiting for us in the Tailwind Bar just outside of Security Screening. They were having iced tea and Jon and I ordered tall frosty glasses as well. It wouldn’t do for us to meet Melanie’s new mother-in-law with alcohol on our breaths.

Melanie must have driven straight here after dropping Ray off at The Verandas. She is the world’s speediest driver who could teach Kyle Petty a thing or two. She knows every traffic cop in New Hanover County on a first name basis, but because she has sold many of them their homes, they usually let her off with a grim warning about the consequences of a crash at a high speed.

“
Most of the guests are arriving today and tomorrow,” I said brightly, telling Melanie and Cam what they already knew. “But Kiki and Ray flew in from New York on Sunday and are all settled at The Verandas. You remember Kiki and Ray, don’t you, Melanie?” I knew just how well Melanie remembered Ray, I just wanted to see her reaction to the mention of his name.

As usual my older sister looked stunning in an olive green and cream sweater set and flirty skirt with high heeled pumps. Her long auburn hair was loose and wavy. I had on straight-legged jeans and loose-knit white sweater.

You could see how much Cam adored Melanie by the admiring glances he cast her way. For an internationally successful television and motion picture producer, Cam was an unassuming, sweet kind of guy who wore his heart on his sleeve. I don’t know if he was inexperienced with women or if it was simply that Melanie had knocked him off his feet.

He had on a navy suit and a green and blue tie, and although his clothes were nicely tailored and obviously expensive, Cam always had this rumpled quality about his attire, plus it seemed impossible for him to keep his tousled hair neat.

Melanie reached out to smooth down his hair in a motherly sort of way before she replied sharply to my question. “Kiki and Ray? Of course I remember them. Who could forget that weird woman, with her outlandish flowing garments, and that gruff voice? You’d never think that they were brother and sister. Ray is polished, and handsome, a real go-getter.”

“
Then you haven’t seen them yet?” I asked sweetly.

“
Sorry. Can’t say I’ve had that pleasure,” she replied with her mouth set in a grim expression.

So that was how she was going to play it. Melanie was admitting to nothing. Yet less than an hour ago I had seen her kissing Ray passionately outside The Verandas. Now here she was sitting innocently, holding hands with her fiancé.

Oh, Daddy, why aren’t you here when I need you? Well, somebody had to save her from ruining her life. And as usual I guess that person would have to be me. With Jon’s help.

6

Back in the fifties, Nelda Cameron was known as America’s sweetheart. Star of stage and screen, she had won an academy award in 1956 for her starring role in a suspense thriller directed by Cam’s father, Harvey Jordan. After his death, she had never remarried.

Although, according to Melanie who got it from Cam, she had not lacked for male companionship. She was just too savvy to marry one of her younger leading men, and thus saved Cam from the consequences and the embarrassment of having a step-father his own age.

That Cam had turned out to be such a nice guy was nothing short of a minor miracle, according to Melanie.

At age seventy, Nelda still had the looks and presence to make heads turn. She swept through the concourse dressed in one of her long, flowing signature outfits. She was still featured as a fashion icon in ladies’ magazines. But with a figure not quite as willowy as in her youth, she had adopted silky pastel outfits with flowing fingertip jackets, silky wide-leg trousers, and attractively draped scarves.

“
Cameron!” she called in her rich contralto voice as she hurried to throw her arms around her son so fiercely it was if they had been separated at his birth. It was a touching scene. They embraced and it was clear to us as we stood apart and watched that Cameron was delighted to be reunited with his mother.

After hugging and kissing, they stepped back to hold each other at arm’s length and gazed adoringly at each other. “I swear, Mother, you never age. You have discovered the fountain of youth.”

“
Only the Trevi fountain,” Nelda declared with a rich, deep laugh.

To me she came across in real life exactly as she did on the Turner Movie Classics channel. Her hair was still golden blonde, her eyes still pale blue with attractive laugh lines at the outer corners. She still looked like America’s sweetheart. So was she acting? Or was there no difference between her silver screen persona and her real life persona as Cam’s mother?

Then she reached up and brushed back Cam’s unruly lock of tousled light brown hair, exactly as I had seen Melanie do only minutes earlier. Uh oh. That gesture was a sign of ownership, a public display of “I can touch him but you cannot” privilege.

For a fraction of a second her gaze turned brittle as she sized up the rest of us. Her eyes swept over Jon, then me, than alighted on Melanie. The look she gave Melanie was critically appraising, but for only a half-second. Then her academy award-winning training reasserted itself, and she smiled and exclaimed, “And you must be Melanie. I’d know you anywhere, my dear. Cam has described you perfectly.” She seized Melanie’s hands in her own and stood gazing benevolently at her.

Jon and I exchanged guarded glances. Nelda and Melanie had never met. On their trips to New York, Cam had suggested they all get together but Nelda had always had some reason why they could not meet. A prior commitment, a little virus she’d picked up on the plane flight from Rome, a sudden but important trip to Los Angeles. Thus, Melanie had never met her future mother-in-law. Until this moment – three days before the wedding.

Cam introduced Jon and me and she greeted us charmingly. Everything about Nelda Cameron was charming. Everything was sweet and light. But I did not fall for her act for one moment. This was a woman with nerves of steel, with determination and drive, who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.

For once, Melanie was outmatched.

That became even more obvious as our party moved through the concourse toward the baggage claim area. Although Nelda’s tone was sweet and undemanding, without a trace of rancor, still the gist of what she told Cam was out-and-out criticism. “Cam, darling, I simply don’t understand why you and Melanie could not come to Rome to be married. Why are you getting married in this quaint little town, which is perfectly darling I am sure, but still we are among strangers, and I don’t know a soul?”

Before Cam could reply, she went on, “Now darling, your old mother still has a bit of influence, and a word or two in the right ears and you and your wedding party will be staying at the Hotel Hassler – that’s where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes stay when they are in Rome – and the wedding ceremony will be held in one of Rome’s oldest and most elegant palazzos. All of Roman society will attend, and you’ll get international media coverage. Instead, you, the son of Hollywood giants, are marrying in a little town no one has ever heard of.”

Nelda had linked arms with Cam and the two of them walked ahead but her words carried to the three of us who trailed along behind like peasants following a royal procession.

“
Oh, I’m sure it is all quite lovely here,” she continued, “but not at all on our social level and not what your father and I raised you to choose.”

Melanie’s face was growing red with suppressed fury.

Nelda stopped and faced Cam squarely. “It’s not too late, darling. One word from me and there are people in Rome just waiting to spring into action. We could have the wedding on New Year’s Day.”

She smiled brightly as if he would jump at the chance to cancel his wedding here and fly off to Rome with or without Melanie. And wasn’t Melanie precisely at the heart of her criticism? Any fool could see the problem for Nelda was not the town. The problem was that her darling little boy had grown up and was getting married. No woman would be good enough.

Cam’s eyebrows scrunched together into a straight line and his face grew dark.

Jon gave me a mystified look. What is wrong with her, he seemed be asking.

“
You wait here, mother,” Cam said after we had stacked her luggage on the sidewalk. “I’ll just get the car.”

“
Hurry, dear,” she said. “I can’t wait to see your house.”

She turned to us, “My son has been living here in South Carolina for almost two years and he has never invited his mother to see his home.”

“
This is North Carolina,” Jon said evenly.

Nelda reached into her handbag and withdrew large dark sunglasses. “My, it is bright here,” she said. Then added airily, “North Carolina? South Carolina? What difference does it make?”

Cam said, “Mother, I have invited you to visit my home. Many times. But you wouldn’t come. Don’t say I didn’t ask you here.”

“
Oh, well, I’m in my dotage, son. Don’t pay any attention to what I say. I do get things mixed up. I’m not so young anymore, remember?”

“
Oh, mother,” Cam said with a groan.

Out of Nelda’s view, Melanie rolled her eyes heavenward. Then she too donned huge sunglasses and said, “My car is off in the other direction. And I have an appointment.” For a moment the corners of her mouth lifted. She was pleased about something. Either her appointment or being rid of, if only temporarily, Cam’s mother. “Ashley, I’ll see you later at the bridesmaids’ dinner.”

“
Mother,” Cam said, “you are not staying at my house. It’s way out of town and inconvenient. Besides, I’m in the midst of packing so you wouldn’t be comfortable there.”

“
Oh, are you moving, dear?” Nelda asked absently.

“
Yes, mother. Of course, I’m moving. Melanie and I bought a hunting lodge together. Ashley and Jon have restored it for us, and we’ll be settling in after the honeymoon. I’ve told you all this.”

Nelda lifted a finger to her lips. “Yes, I had forgotten.”

“
So Mother, we are putting you up at the Wilmingtonian Inn, which is right downtown and close to the church and to the Bellamy Mansion where we’re holding the rehearsal dinner.”

“
And I’m not staying at your house with you?” Nelda asked in a pathetic little voice. “Well, uhmmm, I didn’t realize it would matter to you,” Cam said apologetically.

You could see he was torn.

“
Well, I’ll just be off,” Melanie said eagerly. “It was so lovely meeting you, Mrs. Cameron.”

“
Call me Nelda,” Nelda said absently. “No, wait, Melanie. Get your car and bring it around. I’ll drive into town with you. And you come too, Ashley.”