Молли Харпер - Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men

—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were

After so many tours of bridesmaid duty, I didn’t feel I needed to attend wedding rehearsals anymore. I was so, so wrong.

Zeb and Jolene were marrying in a clearing a respectable distance away from the house but very near the barn. With fairy lights strung in the trees and luminaries in the nearby pond, the night took on a sort of cozy Lord of the Rings quality … or maybe it was Lord of the Flies.

The bride’s side was eager to get through the rehearsal as it put them one step closer to eating. The groom’s side was sparse. Mama Ginger had apparently told most of her relatives that the wedding was canceled after Jolene was committed to a hospital for the criminally insane.

The first surprise of the evening was Dick’s arrival with Andrea on his arm. She looked cool and composed in her floaty dawn-colored sundress, not giving any hint of being held hostage or blackmailed. I could only assume that Dick had finally charmed her into submission. Of course, Dick was still Dick. He wore a vintage “fake tuxedo imprinted on a T-shirt” shirt. But he seemed ecstatically happy as he seated Andrea on the groom’s side and took his place with the gathering bridal party.

I winked at him. “It’s good to know that occasionally, love—or relentless, unremitting courtship bordering on harassment—will win out. I take it she’s coming to the wedding, too?”

“I think she’s waiting to see how it goes. She said she’d let me know after the dinner,” Dick said. Gabriel snickered, making Dick consider his words. “You know, it sounds sad when I say it out loud like that.”

“So, it’s like an audition date. It’s Shakespearean, sacrificing yourself on the altar of dignity,” I assured him.

“I’ve been with hundr—” He shot a speculative look at me. “Well, a lot of women. I like women.”

“Obviously,” Gabriel muttered.

“I like them. I like the way they dress, the way they smell, the sound of their voices, their laughter. But if a woman doesn’t like me, I’m fine with that. Plenty of fish in the sea,” he said. “I don’t know why this one woman’s not liking me has made me crazy.”

“I think it’s nice,” I said. “I just wish I was gorgeous with a rare blood type. Then I could make men my bitch puppets.”

“I’m no one’s bitch puppet,” he growled.

“Yes, you are.” Gabriel laughed.

He groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, I am.”

“I’m glad Andrea’s giving you a chance. I think you’re just different enough to work. Do I have to give you the ‘Hurt my friend, and you will wake up with my foot lodged in your nether regions’ speech?” I asked.

“No,” he promised. “But I think you need to retitle some of your speeches. They’re starting to sound sort of repetitive.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“No, thanks, I’m seeing someone,” he snarked.

A slightly frantic Jolene appeared and arranged us into our marching order. Zeb was calm, even happy, making Jolene laugh as he helped her work out where we would stand and how we would hold our arms. (Seriously, bouquet grip was a five-minute debate.) I hoped that his strange behavior over the last few months had been just cold feet and that now that the wedding was here, he would be the old lovable Zeb again.

Just as Uncle Creed, the oldest male in Jolene’s pack, who’d been ordained through a mail-order company, was about to run through the ceremony, a rust and blue minivan rolled up to the main house in a cloud of dust.

An “uh-oh” line formed between Jolene’s brows. “Um, I don’t know who that is.”

“That’s Eula with the cake!” Mama Ginger trilled.

Between her family’s open hostility toward Zeb and Mama Ginger’s finding fault with everything from the nautical decorations to the fact that the outdoor wedding site had a dirt floor, Jolene’s last nerve was frayed. I squeezed her shoulder, told her I would take the delivery, and negotiated the yard as best I could in three-inch heels. Smoke rolled out in a choking cloud as Eula opened the back of the van.

“Where do you want this?” she asked, without bothering to remove the Marlboro Light dangling from her lip.

“Oh … no.” Jolene’s cake was an exercise in “yikes.” The icing gleamed greasily, actually oozing essence of Crisco through the cardboard fruit crate Eula was using to cart it around. Jolene had planned to have twisted fondant ropes around the bottom of each tier, which looked like a toddler’s Play-Doh craft. Instead of the subtle hints of navy and ice blue, everything was an electric Cookie Monster shade that must have required most of the bottle of food coloring.

The tiers were assembled at a forty-degree angle. And the whole thing reeked of cigarette smoke. Jolene crossed the yard and was at my side in a blink. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to want to—” I waved toward the van. Jolene’s jaw dropped as she took in the sight of the cake. “Yeah.”

I made a quick exit, because my support as best maid only went so far.

“What’s going on?” Zeb asked as he watched Jolene try to absorb the sight of her wedding cake. Mimi followed Jolene’s high-pitched cries to the van, where she had a similar reaction to the cake.

“She may be a few minutes,” I told Zeb.

Zeb watched as Jolene, Mimi, and Eula had a very loud “discussion.” “Should I go …”

“Jane, honey, why don’t you just stand in for her?” Mama Ginger suggested, to Zeb’s horror.

“Mama, I don’t think that’s—”

“You can’t do that!” Uncle Creed cried.

“We can’t have the rehearsal without the bride,” I insisted.

“No, don’t be silly,” Mama Ginger warbled, pushing me into the spot next to Zeb. “There, that looks so much better anyway! Just like I always said, you and Jane are like two peas in a pod.”

Zeb’s brow furrowed. He was wearing his “trying to remember something” expression, or possibly his “I smell something funny” expression. Either way, the way he was looking at me was disquieting. His eyes were unfocused as he stared at me, dazed. “I can’t marry Jolene.”

Mama Ginger gave a victorious squeal as I spluttered, “S-say what now?”

Zeb clasped my hands in his, despite my repeated attempts to yank them loose. “I can’t marry Jolene. I can’t live a lie, Jane. I can’t be with anybody but you.”

A symphony of gasps and angry growls rippled through the bride’s family. My knees turned to jelly. The wedding party was silent and aghast, besides Gabriel’s shocked “Beg pardon?”

“No no no no no no. You and I have never felt that way about each other,” I said in my slow and deliberate voice. I turned to Gabriel as Zeb kissed the back of my hand. Dick stared at us, slackjawed, unsure whether to laugh or, well, laugh. I asked, “Is it some sort of thrall or whammy? Please tell me it’s a whammy.”

Zeb wrapped his arms around me, looking into my eyes with a level of tenderness only seen when politicians are publicly apologizing to their wives. “I’m sorry I let this go so far, Jane. Jolene’s a nice girl, but I wanted to get back at you for spending so much time with Gabriel, for not loving me back. We have such a long history together, Janie. Friendship and companionship, that’s what’s going to keep us happy for the rest of our lives. It’s always been you, Janie. You were always the girl I’ve wanted to spend my life with. You were always the girl I wanted waiting for me at the end of the aisle.”

This was all starting to sound horribly familiar. Mama Ginger “awwwed” and demanded that Floyd get up and use the disposable camera to record this beautiful moment. Jolene, who had left the Great Cake Debate to investigate why the groom was snuggling up to another woman, cried, “Zeb, honey, what the hell are you doing?”