Ann Martin - Kristy's Big Day

Charlie gave up. He looked like he might sulk for a while, though.

"Well," Mom said cheerily, "we've set the date."

"What date?" I asked. I twirled a huge mound of spaghetti onto my fork, raised it, and watched the spaghetti slide off.

"The date of the wedding."

"Oh, yeah?" said Sam. He sucked a mouthful of spaghetti in through pursed lips. Andrew watched with interest. Sam never looked up from his plate. "When's the big day?" he asked.

"The third Saturday in September," Mom answered proudly. She was about to make

goo-gooeyes at Watson. I've gotten so I can tell when this is going to happen.

"What's a wedding?" asked Andrew suddenly. He had not touched hispasketti .

Mom's goo-goo eyes changed to surprised eyes. She looked from Andrew to Watson and back to Andrew.

"Yow know," Karen told Andrew. "I showed you a whole wedding. Remember when I put on the long white dress and kissed Boo-Boo?" (Boo-Boo is the Brewers' cat.)

Andrew nodded.

"We've talked about the wedding, Andrew," Watson added. "And everyone here is going to be a part of it."

It was my turn to act surprised. "We are? 1mean , I am? I'm going to be in the wedding?"

"If you want to be," said Mom. "I'd like you to be my bridesmaid."

"Your bridesmaid?"I whispered."Really?Like in a long, fancy dress with flowers in my hair?" I was awed.

"Since when do you like long, fancy dresses and flowers?" asked Sam.

"Since right now," I replied."Oh, Mom!"

"Is that a yes? You'll be my bridesmaid?"

"It's a YES-YES-YES!" I jumped up and ran around the table to hug my mother.

When I was sitting down again, she went on. "And Charlie, I'd behonored if you'd give me away."

"Sure," said Charlie eagerly. (He must have forgotten about the wine.)

"Sam," Watson spoke up, "I'd like you to be my best man."

"And David Michael to be the ring bearer," said Mom.

"What about me?" criedKaren.

"How would you like to be the flower girl?" asked Watson. "You'd walk up the aisle in front of Elizabeth and me, carrying a basket of rose petals."

"Oooh," breathed Karen.

"And Andrew can escort you," said Mom. "That means he'll walk beside you."

"What does that make him?" asked Sam."The flower boy?"

Everyone laughed.Everyone except Andrew. When we calmed down, he said softly, "I don't want to be in the wedding. And I mean it." (I wasn't too surprised. Andrew is terribly shy.)

Watson and Mom looked at each other. "When he means it, he means it - usually," said Watson. He turned to Andrew. "Well, think it over. We'd like you to be in the wedding, but it's up to you, okay?"

"Okay."

I didn't give another thought to Andrew all evening. The only thing I could think about was the wedding. I, Kristin Amanda Thomas, was going to be a bridesmaid.

Chapter 2.

I have usually found that, in life, good things are followed by bad things. One day you get an A-plus on a spelling test, the next time around you get a C (or worse). A run of good luck is followed by a run of bad luck. Good news is followed by bad news.

It was that way with the wedding.

On Saturday we had all that good wedding news. Mom and Watson had settled on the September date. They'd asked us kids to be part of the ceremony. Mom had even told me later that my wedding shoes could be my first pair of shoes with heels. I couldn't believe it.

That was Saturday.

On Wednesday, just four days later, came the bad stuff. The whole wedding fell apart.In oneglump .

My first due that something was wrong was that Mom was at home when I got there after school. She's almost never home before six

o'clock.She has this important job with a big company inStamford and she works very hard. My brothers and I are used to looking out for ourselves after school.

Needless to say, I was surprised to find Mom sitting at the table in our kitchen at three-thirty in the afternoon. She wasn't doing anything - just sitting there.

"Mom?"I said, as I set mybookbag on the counter. "Are you sick?"

"No, honey, I'm fine," she replied.

"How come you're home? Is David Michael sick?"

"No, no. Everyone's fine. But, well, I just can't believe what happened today."

"Uh-oh," I said. "What?"

"For starters, the company wants to send me on a two-week business trip to Europe."

"Europe!" I shrieked. "Europe? What's wrong with that? London! Paris! Rome! Oh, Mom, can I come? Please? Are you going over the summer? I promise I'll be good. I'll stay out of your way. I won't ask you to buy souvenirs or anything.Just food. Please?"

Mom gave me a wry smile. "I'd like nothing better than to take you to Europe, sweetie," she said, "but unfortunately the trip is scheduled during the school year."

It was June. There wasn't much left to the

schoolyear. "You mean you're going now?" I cried. "Who'll stay with us?"

Morn shook her head. "I'm not going now. The trip is scheduled for September." She let that sink in. "I'm supposed to be in Vienna on the day of the wedding."

"Oops," I said.

"Oops is right."

"So have an October wedding," I suggested. "Think of it - a fall wedding with the leaves turning. It would be really pretty."

"I did think of it, actually," said Mom. "I was sitting at my desk, mentally adding sleeves to our gowns and changing the flowers from roses to chrysanthemums, when the phone rang. Guess who it was."

I'm not good at guessing games. "I'll never guess, Mom. Who was it?"

"The real estate agent.And guess - wait, I won't make you guess again. Believe it or not, she's already got a buyer for our house."

"Already!You just put the house on the market two days ago. You thought it would take months to sell it. That's great news, Mom!"

"Sort of great.The buyer is desperate. He's in a rush. He's willing to pay what we asked for, which is more than we thought we'd actually get for the house. Here's the catch:

He's in such a big hurry that he wants to move his family in by July fifteenth."

"Mom, no!That's next month. It's impossible. Sell the house to someone else."

"I don't think anyone else will pay us this much money."

"Well, what do we need money for? You're marrying Watson."

"Honey, Watson and I and Watson's ex-wife and your father all have various ideas about how to spend our money. It's quite complicated, but for the time being, let's just say that I don't want Watson to feel obliged to finance four extra college educations. The money from the house, half of which, first of all, is your father's, goes toward college for you and your brothers. So the more wemake, the better."

"Mom, I'm trying as hard as I can to follow all of this, but what exactly are you saying?"

"I'm saying that Watson and I are going to have to get married at the end of the month so we can move into the Brewers' house two weeks later."

I was stunned. I stared at Mom with my mouth hanging open. David Michael came home, let Louie (our collie) in, sat down in Mom's lap, and still I wasopenmouthed and speechless.

The phone rang. Mom answered it. It was a friend of hers. They had a long, chatty conversation which ended with Mom saying, "So the upshot is that the wedding will be in two and a half weeks."

"Two and a half weeks," I moaned.

"What's going on?" asked David Michael.

"Ifs a long story," I told him.

Mom hung up the phone. She seemed awfully calm - too calm.

The next thing I knew, she was going crazy. She leaped to her feet (David Michael jumped out of her lap just in time), held her hands to her head, and cried, "Oh, my lord! How can I plan a whole wedding in two and a half weeks? Two and a half weeks! Planning a wedding is like having a baby. You need time to prepare things! You have to talk to the florist, the minister, the dressmaker, the caterer. You have to tell the relatives. You have to rent chairs! I can just picture the caterer when I order crab crepes for three hundred. He'll say, 'And what month is the wedding? December?' and I'll say, 'No, it's this month/ and he'll laugh at me!"