Isn't It Romantic?

“Well, I’ve got a trade-last for ya.”

Dick was a trifle slow on the uptake.

“You have to trade me some good gossip first.”

“Oh, yeah. Um, Orville told me your coffee’s just about as fresh and tasty as anything out there.”

Carlo sighed. “It’s the water.”

“Well, I’m not very good at this,” Dick said.

“Hokay,” Carlo said. “Your trade-last is a certain mademoiselle is mighty interested in you.”

There was a pause while the cattleman suppressed his glory and delight, and then Dick frugally conceded, “She seems real nice.”

“Maybe you should reciprocate.”

“Oh jeez.”

“How’s this? I’ll buy a yellow rose and say it’s from you.”

“All right,” Dick allowed. “My sis always liked that brand called Summer Sunshine.”

“I’m thinking King’s Ransom. More fragrant.”

“Or an Eclipse would be good.”

“King’s Ransom it is then.”

“Appreciate it, Carl.”

“Old habits die hard, don’t they.”

“Carl-o,” Dick said.

Hanging up the phone, Carlo fell back onto his green chintz sofa and pulled his scrawled-in wedding planner into his narrow lap. So much yet to do, and she’d given him no clue about the invitations. With the weight and texture of the paper stock he felt confident, but although he’d slyly offered Iona plenty of po

st–lunch hour chances to indicate a favorite font in his printer’s guide, she’d only regarded his inquiries strangely, as if Bodoni were interchangeable with Palantino or Fairfield italic. All he had was the wording. “The honour of your presence is requested in the marriage of Miss Iona Christiansen to Carlo Bacon, Saturday, the ____ of _________.”

To be filled in later.

The affair itself would be al fresco, around noontime and under the shingle oak shade trees beside Saint Bernard’s Church over there on Third Street, the Reverend Picarazzi officiating. Chantilly lace gowns, layered organza, or tiers of tulle with little pearl beading. And for him a stroller or morning coat, with striped pants and a four-in-hand tie.

The hitch in his scheme was that Iona had no clue of it and she really ought to be involved—or so his Modern Bride hinted. And then there was the problem of the newly available Dick Tupper. She’d been trying to hide it since high school, but Iona was crazily in love with him, had been goofy about the older man since she was a little girl, even high-tailed it to Omaha because she thought she’d do injury to his wife over how she was mistreating him. So it was fortunate, Carlo thought, that Natalie and Pierre so glamorously waltzed into town. The mademoiselle was the kind of independent, educated, put-together lady Dick would be enchanted by, and Pierre, he was sure, was one of those wealthy, suave, and handsome louts that even smart women went ga-ga over. Carlo felt sure he need only play the spaniel, the pert and nimble spirit of mirth, and when Dick’s attentions were wildly misdirected, and Iona’s foolish choice became crushingly clear, Carlo would be there to commiserate, to superpraise her parts, to hold Iona as she cried, to offer forgeries of grief and insult, to agree that men were heels, lechers, scoundrels, and skunks—but not you, Carlo, you’re different, Carlo, you’re so generous, gentle, and good.

The liquor of such thoughts intoxicated him and it would be six before Carlo got into his Revels costume as the Marquis de Sade.

In Owen’s living room, fourteen opened bottles of mixed shapes and sizes stood upright on the red carpet and, affected by drink, Pierre crawled on his hands and knees from one to another, sniffing inside with his scholarly nose as Owen talked on the telephone. “Orville? Owen here. Say, that wine-tasting day after tomorrow? Don’t ask me how, but I came up with a genuine French négociant to be there. . . . Négociant. . . . A merchant. . . . Means he sells wines. . . . Uh huh. All the way from Paris. . . . No, not Texas; France. . . . On a bus. . . . Well, I s’pose he flew across the ocean. . . . A lot of people do. . . . You ask him that on Friday. And get the word out. . . . Okay. Au revoir.” Owen hung up the phone. “Low-brow. Works on a snowplow in winter.”

Pierre slunk against an ottoman, thinking. “Are these use-ed bottles?”

Owen nodded. “I get ’em for a nickel a piece from the café and the Last Chance Saloon over there in Three Pillows.”

“The bouquet that I first thought so strange, he comes from the bottles, not the Big Red. You must sterilize.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Owen said.

“And always, always the Bordeaux bottles; never the Cutty Sark; never the Aunt Jemima.”