Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

Temple placed her hands on the deck rail, like Juliet on her balcony, and shouted down in a Kate the Shrew voice, “If you guys tear out the stitches from his bullet wound, I’ll see that you’ll be drinking your Hamm’s out of your shoes.”

“Bullet wound?” Keith reared back to regard Matt with astonishment. “You have a bullet wound?”

“Nothing major,” Matt said. “It was a while back.”

“Bullet wound,” Tom of the Timberwolves repeated. “How on earth that’d happen, man?”

“From a semiautomatic. Actually a Walther PPK.”

“A James Bond gun. Cool,” Hank of the Wild said.

“What’s a talk show host doing catching a bullet wound?” Bruce of the Swarm asked.

“It’s complicated. Your sister is overreacting.”

“Tell us about it, Matt,” Keith said. “No kidding. Somebody shot you? Why the hell?”

Matt was amused he could make points with them without uttering a single lie. “I do my radio shrink gig at a Vegas radio station, WCOO . You know crazies abound in Vegas. And on live media if you do call-ins, you can attract the occasional fringe person. A stalker. It’s all in the ethernet…but occasionally a crazy gets through the security and breaks in.”

“At the radio station? Someone came in and got a shot off?”

“Like I said, rare. And the shot went wide of doing permanent damage, by an inch, I’m told. Crazy-proof security has now gone in. Not to worry, guys. I’ll survive to marry your”—he thought for a second—“your little sister.”

Temple booed him from the deck, but her brothers grinned.

“What the heck?” Tom rubbed his balding buzz-cut. “ WCCO is our big radio station. Kinda weird coincidence.”

“World’s full of them,” Matt said.

“You seem pretty tough about getting shot,” Hank mused.

“What’s tough is being a celibate priest,” Keith said. “I just don’t see that going with our little sister and a bullet wound.”

Matt got inspired. “You’ve seen movies with martial arts monks, haven’t you, guys? Shaolin kung fu monks?” They nodded, puzzled by his drift. “The Catholic church has had monks and brothers for centuries too. ‘Brothers’, that’s what they’re called in the West. So. Nobody asks questions about their private lifestyle; nobody who lives.” Matt lifted his hands in a praying position and then separated them as he took a throwing stance. “We gonna toss a football around or not?”

“Yeah, sure. Brother,” Tom said just before the football slapped Matt’s open palms and he took off running, ducking, and shouldering anyone in his way.

Matt had played enough basketball and touch football with the parish high school teams to know how to keep it interesting, but not injuring. The Barr boys kept their moves at the same level now that they knew he was playing hurt. And that Temple was watching.

So everybody worked up a light sweat and looked good and they all were soon relieved to hit the deck for a second round of food and drink. Or mostly drink for the brothers.

“That ring is breathtaking.” Temple’s mother came to sit beside Temple and Matt on the long traditional sofa in the living room while Roger and the boys finished off the cooler contents from the deck. Hamm’s, the beer refreshing.

Temple formally presented the ring on her left hand to Karen. “It’s vintage. I don’t think you had a chance to really study it at that large, noisy dinner table in Vegas.”

The “boys” hadn’t even noticed the rubies and diamonds glittering on their sister’s knuckle. And now they were downstairs watching ESPN on the recreation room’s sixty-inch TV.

“Of course, it’s vintage,” Karen said. “You were begging for dress-up clothes since you were three.” Karen smiled at her husband, who’d taken the big brown leather recliner after depositing three crystal lowball glasses of straight Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit on the coffee table. Sipping whiskey. “Who picked it out?”

“Guilty,” Matt said.

“I’m impressed.” Karen glanced at her husband.

Roger Barr grunted, a content paterfamilias at the moment. “That’s a large bunch of bling for my baby girl’s tiny finger.”

“Dad, if my finger is strong enough to hold my always overloaded tote bag by one strap, it sure can support a high-carat bunch of Art Deco.”

“As you can support yourself,” he said. “We get it.” He glanced at Matt. “You know, these liberated days there isn’t anything for parents to do anymore but foot the bill.”

“Dad, I’m a big girl. I’ll foot the bill for my own wedding.”

“We will,” Matt said.

“Then the only question is where and how,” Karen said, blue eyes glittering like sapphires.

“My family is in Chicago. And very extended.” Matt shrugged his resignation. “They’re threatening the Polish cathedral.”

“The cathedral is magnificent and its aisle is endless. I could have a train, a long, long train,” Temple told her mother. “I’ve always wanted to wear taller clothing.”

“Remember, dear,” Karen countered, “we have a lovely woman minister at our Universal Unitarian congregation, and you could hold it anywhere, at the Historical Society in St. Paul or the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.”

“The Swedish Institute mansion is gorgeous,” Temple told Matt.

“You could have a train here too,” her mother mentioned, adding a tempting point.

“What about Las Vegas?” Roger suggested. “Tons of fancy places.”

“Possibly the best solution.” Karen sat forward. “Destination weddings are the thing these days, and the sports bars and casinos would keep your brothers busy and out of our hair.”

“To us, Vegas is…” Temple sounded hesitant.

So Matt finished her dropped sentence. “Old hat when you live there. Although Temple’s hotel client there would be sure put on the Ritz for us.”

“Oh, the Crystal Phoenix is spectacular,” Karen agreed.

“And,” Temple said, “we live at the Circle Ritz condos and our terrific landlady is a Justice of the Peace and has a wedding chapel on-site. Electra would be in Seventieth Heaven if we got married there.” She looked at Matt. “You played a Bob Dylan wedding march on Electra’s organ when we first met, remember?”

“A Bob Dylan wedding march?” Karen was dubious.

“You’d have to hear it on an organ to see what Temple means,” Matt said. “It’s ‘Love Minus Zero, No Limit’.”

Karen shuddered. “Sounds hippy-ish.”

The conversation lapsed into a generation gap silence.

“I know!” Temple said, revving up PR sell-mode and sitting taller to present her pitch. “They used to have progressive dinners in the seventies, each course at a different house. We could have progressive weddings.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Karen. “First, the bridal shower here in Minneapolis with your old girlfriends, then a simple UU wedding—”

Temple took up the narrative. “And then the groom’s dinner in Chicago with Matt’s family and a full-regalia Catholic ceremony so we’re not living in sin in the eyes of the church.”

“And then—” Karen was getting as carried away as Temple, “we all go to a lavish reception at your hotel in Las Vegas.”

“After,” Temple says, “a brief civil ceremony in Electra’s Lovers’ Knot wedding chapel so her feelings wouldn’t be hurt. And it’s not ‘my’ hotel,” she said modestly, “although the owners make me feel like that.”

“Oh,” her mother cooed. “Aldo’s brothers,” she told Roger. “The Fontanas are the large Italian family that ran to boys, too, and they look out for Temple. I’d love to meet and thank each and every one of them.”