Jaine Austen 7 - Killing Bridezilla (23 page)

I looked around for Walter, but he wasn’t there yet.

Neither were Denise or Cheryl. Which didn’t surprise me. Denise had surely outgrown her hometown classmates. And I seriously doubted Cheryl would want her fellow grads to see how low she’d fallen.

One person I did see, however, was Principal Seawright. His hair had gone silver, and he walked with a cane, but other than that he looked pretty darn good for a guy who had to be in his eighties. He was chatting with a bunch of alums, honor roll kids, no doubt. Cringing at the memory of our last encounter, I vowed to avoid him at all costs.

236

Laura Levine

I headed over to the buffet table and helped myself to a mini-quiche. Gooey with cheese and studded with chunks of ham, it was absolute heaven. I could not possibly allow myself to eat more than one.

As I stood there shoveling it down, I heard snippets of conversation around me. Everyone was buzzing about Patti’s death.

What a way to go.

Impaled on a statue of cupid.

Ugh! How gruesome!

I plucked another mini-quiche off the platter—

this was the last one, absolutely—and popped it in my mouth just in time to hear:
They say that one of the guests turned up at the
wedding with a paid escort and tried to pass him off
as her fiancé.

You’re kidding!

I’m serious. Turned out the guy was really a male
stripper.

My God. Who would be so desperate?

Before they could look around and wonder if the woman with the quiche in her mouth was the desperado in question, I scooted down to the other end of the buffet table. Where the hell was Walter, anyway?

At last I saw him scurrying across the room.

As he got closer I tried not to gasp. I know it defies rational belief, but his new toupee was even worse than his old one.

His last one had looked like a dead hamster.

This one looked alive. I swear, I thought I saw it wink at me.

“So how do you like my new hair?” he asked, with a pathetically hopeful smile.

KILLING BRIDEZILLA

237

Somehow I managed to choke out the words,

“Very nice.”

“Who says you can’t get a good hairpiece for $29.99?” he beamed.

“Look.” He took out another equally hideous hank of animal fur from his jacket pocket. “I brought a spare. Just in case you get anywhere near a match, haha.”

I smiled weakly as he shoved it back in his pocket.

“And see what else I brought,” he said, holding out a box.

I just hoped it wasn’t Cheerios.

“A corsage!”

He took out a corsage the size of a funeral wreath.

“Why, thank you, Walter. That’s very sweet.”

And it was sweet of him. I just wished it didn’t look like he’d picked it off a grave site.

“Let me pin it on you.”

“No, I’ll do it,” I said, not wanting him anywhere near my chest.

With some difficulty I managed to pin it on my shoulder strap. I’m surprised it didn’t break the strap.

“Gosh, you look pretty,” he said. “Want to dance?”

Along with Principal Seawright, dancing was high on my Must Avoid At All Costs list. The last thing I wanted to do was revisit the scene of my prom night humiliation.

“I don’t think so, Walter.”

“Oh.” He was disappointed, I could tell, but nothing was going to get me out on that dance floor.

238

Laura Levine

“Okay, then,” he said. “How about a drink from the bar?”

Now he was talking. At last my eyes lit up with genuine enthusiasm.

“Oh, yes, thanks. A white wine would be lovely.”

“Don’t go away,” he said, shooting his finger at me like a gun, in a gesture that was considered passé back in high school. “I’ll be back.”

And then he trotted off to get on line at the bar.

I was standing there, debating about whether I should go back for my third (okay, fourth) mini-quiche, when I heard:

“Jaine Austen! Is that you?”

I turned to see a handsome dark-haired guy in a tweed jacket.

“It’s me. Dylan Janovici.”

Oh, Lord. My druggie prom date. I had to admit, I was surprised at how good he looked. I would’ve thought by this time he’d have ingested so many illegal substances he’d be incapable of speech.

But no, he had an intelligent gleam in his eyes and turned out to be perfectly articulate.

“How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Interesting corsage,” he said, nodding at my chest.

“Yes, I think in a former life it was a centerpiece at a Bar Mitzvah.”

“You know, Jaine,” he said, flashing me a most disarming smile. “I really owe you an apology for the way I behaved on our prom date. What a jerk I was back then. I’m so sorry for showing up at your house stoned.”

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“I still can’t believe those crazy dance moves KILLING BRIDEZILLA

239

of mine. Do you know I threw my back out that night? I guess it must have happened when I tried to flip you over my shoulder.”

Oh, great. The poor guy broke his back trying to lift me and my mega-thighs.

“I had to spend three months in traction.”

“That’s awful, Dylan. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Trapped in bed, I started reading.

I never did get around to Nietzsche,” he said, smiling at the memory of the phony “book”

where he stored his stash of weed, “but I did read James Joyce and Edith Wharton and P. G. Wodehouse. And all of Jane Austen, I might add.”

This said with another most disarming smile.

“Now I’m an English professor at USC. And I owe it all to dancing with you.”

An English professor! My high school fantasies of Dylan as a sensitive intelligent guy had actually come true.

“So what about you?” he asked, as if he really wanted to know. “What’s going on in your life?”

I told him I was a writer, carefully omitting the fact that I spent much of my working life writing about Toiletmasters’ fine line of Ever-Flush commodes.

“You married?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“Nope.”

“Me, neither.”

“Oh?” I tried not to break out in a happy little jig.

“In that case,” he grinned, “I’d like to make up for my bad behavior at the prom by taking you to dinner. Can I call you some time?”

Before I could shout a resounding
yesyesyesyesyes!
, we were interrupted.

240

Laura Levine

“Hi, hon!”

I turned to see Walter and his hamster hair.

“I got your drink.” He handed me my wine and at the same time clamped his arm around my waist in a steely grip.

“You two together?” Dylan asked, his smile stiffening.

“No, no,” I said, wrenching myself free from Walter’s grasp. “We’re just friends.
Right, Walter?
”

“That’s right,” Walter said, with a suggestive leer. “Just friends. Wink wink. Nudge, nudge.”

“Well, catch you later,” Dylan said weakly, and before I could stop him he disappeared into the crowd.

The minute he was gone I whirled on Walter and shot him a look so smoldering, I was surprised his toupee didn’t spontaneously combust.

“For crying out loud, Walter. I thought we agreed. This night was supposed to be strictly platonic. We are
just friends
. No arms around my waist. No wink wink, nudge nudge. Understand?”

“I understand,” he said softly, looking down at the floor.

“Really, if you tell one more person we’re a couple, I’m leaving.”

He looked up, alarmed.

“Don’t do that. I’ll be good. I promise.”

And he was.

He spent the next hour or so doing a reasonable impersonation of a human being. He didn’t touch me once as we circulated among the crowd.

Nor did he leer or call me “hon.” We stopped to talk with the few people I remembered (Joey Romano, the class clown, I was interested to learn, was now a funeral director) and spent a stultify

KILLING BRIDEZILLA

241

ing twenty minutes chatting about the good old days solving equations with the members of Walter’s old math club.

“Want to get some chow?” Walter asked when we’d run out of former acquaintances.

He didn’t get an argument from me on that one. It had been a while since my mini-quiches and I was feeling a bit peckish.

I restrained myself, however, from piling my plate with food in case Dylan came back to join us. Just a few Swedish meatballs and some macaroni salad. I did not want him to think I was the kind of woman who needed a forklift to carry her buffet plate. I am that kind of woman, but Dylan didn’t need to know that.

Walter and I grabbed two seats at one of the tables scattered around the gym, and I spent the next half hour dutifully listening to him yak about the wacky world of insurance actuaries.

True, my mind wandered a tad as he yammered on. Every once in a while I’d see Dylan out of the corner of my eye, making the rounds. For a few disconcerting moments I saw him deep in an animated discussion with a most attractive blonde. I kept hoping he’d stop at our table, but he never did.

Somehow I managed to keep my eyeballs propped open as Walter droned on.

At last, I was put out of my misery when the president of the alumni association, Peggy Chapman, stepped up to the mike. Peggy had been one of those terminally perky kids in high school, the kind of kid who showed up at every pep rally, brimming with school spirit and, I suspect, just a few amphetamines.

After a highly fictional speech about our 242

Laura Levine

golden years at Hermosa High, she gave a moving tribute to Principal Seawright, seated at one of the ringside tables. Then door prizes were awarded—as well as a special prize to the person who’d traveled the farthest to come to the reunion.

“Linda Ruckle,” Peggy announced, “flew in all the way from London, on her corporate jet.

In case you guys didn’t know it, Linda is chairman and CEO of her own cosmetics company.

C’mon up, Linda, and get your prize.”

And then the attractive blonde I’d seen talking with Dylan stood up. She strode to the mike in a nosebleed expensive cocktail dress, the picture of poise and grace. Was that Linda Ruckle, the same acne-ridden outcast from my gym class? If only Patti could see her now!

I guess the meek really could inherit, if not the earth, at least a corporate jet. And, from the way I’d seen them chatting together, what should’ve been my dinner date with Dylan.

The official ceremonies having come to a close, the band started up again, and Walter begged me for a dance.

“Please, Jaine,” he pleaded. “Just one, before you go.”

The combo was playing a slow tune. I figured my odds of being hurled across the room were minimal.

“Okay,” I said, “but no dipping, no spinning, no twirling. No fancy moves of any kind.”

“I promise. No fancy steps.”

He guided me in an uneventful foxtrot, and as we shuffled around I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself. I’d made amends for setting Walter’s toupee on fire and for showing up with KILLING BRIDEZILLA

243

another guy at the prom. I’d atoned for my sins and could now head off into the world a guilt-free woman.

Yes, I had paid my dues, and I was just about to call it a night when Walter looked into my eyes and said:

“So how about it, Jaine? Will you give me a chance? Will you go out with me again?”

No, absolutely not. I had to end this thing here and now. I could not let him guilt me into one more date.

“I’m sorry, Walter. But it’s not going to work for us.”

“Oh.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped back his disappointment.

I felt like heel of the year, but I couldn’t weaken, otherwise I’d still be dating this guy when I was on Medicare.

“There are lots of other women out there, Walter. And I’m sure one day you’re going to meet someone special to have a relationship with.”

“Oh,” he said, “I already have. Min Lin.”

“Min Lin?”

“My mail order bride from the Philippines. I haven’t exactly met her yet, but in her picture she’s really hot. We’re getting married next month in Vegas.”

“Wait a minute,” I squawked. “You’re getting married next month and you want to have a relationship with me?”

“Oh no, Jaine. I don’t want to have a relationship with you. I want to have an
affair
with you!

What Min Lin doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Wink wink, nudge nudge.”

Can you believe the colossal nerve of that 244

Laura Levine

guy? I came
thisclose
to nudge nudging him in his privates. Instead, I took the high road and stomped off in righteous indignation.

And that’s where fate stepped in and pulled one of her dirty tricks.

Because I hadn’t stomped very far when I tripped over something. Something soft and furry and exceedingly slippery. Omigod! It was Walter’s spare toupee! The damn thing must’ve slipped out of his pocket while we were dancing.

The more I tried to regain my balance, the more I stumbled, and before I knew it, I was reeling across the dance floor and heading straight for Principal Seawright.

Holy Moses! It was prom night all over again!

All eyes were glued to my tush as I crash-landed in the poor man’s lap.

The courtly octogenarian looked up at me with a wry smile.

“Ah, Ms. Austen,” he said. “We meet again.”

Any shards of dignity I’d had in high school had been scattered to the winds.

I leaped up from Principal Seawright’s lap with a strangled cry and raced from the gym, my reputation as the Class Idiot cemented for all eternity.

Cursing myself for ever agreeing to go to the reunion, I sped all the way home, stopping only for red lights and an emergency pint of Rocky Road. I planned to eat it propped up in bed, hoping to calm my shattered nerves with chocolate and sitcom reruns.

Home at last, I trudged up the path to my apartment.

KILLING BRIDEZILLA

245

The minute I opened the door, I realized something was amiss.

The first thing I saw was Mamie’s toy cell phone on floor. What was it doing here in the living room? Last I saw it, it was behind a firmly shut door in the bedroom.