“What was she wearing?”
“Silk georgette slipdress with shirring detail.”
Pandemonium was growing huge in the rooms.
Carlo asked, “She have a pretty shape?”
“Oh, yeah. And Iona?”
“Wore this flimsy little thing. Silk charmeuse camisole over low rise, bootcut jeans.”
“Sure wish I woulda been there.”
The skinny cook closed his eyes in contemplation. “I do enjoy seeing a pretty shape.”
Closing his eyes as well, Owen said, “Precious memories. How they linger.”
And then Owen and Carlo opened their eyes. Stern Mrs. Christiansen and Owen’s Aunt Opal were in the hallway in front of them, arms folded, seething.
“Or, you can lose ’em in an instant,” Owen said.
29
On Main Street outside Mrs. Christiansen’s, twenty townspeople were in robes and pajamas, gazing up at the fully lighted house. They heard hollering and protests in French and English. A child asked, “Is this a dream?” One guy was eating popcorn from a paper sack and sharing it all around. Mrs. Slaughterbeck poured hot kettle water into tea cups and a little girl carried them to others. She collected money to help repair her father’s Buick.
Bert Slaughterbeck asked Orville, “You don’t s’pose it’s poltergeists, do ya?”
Orville stated, “It’s the hobgoblin company of love.”
The townspeople paused to stare at him.
Inside the house, Iona’s bedroom door flew open and Opal hauled in Owen by his ear. Mrs. Christiansen grandly entered, and Dick escorted Natalie, a hand gently riding her shirred lower back. When Carlo slunk in, he held his shirt collar high to hide his face, like a criminal avoiding cameras on his way to jail. And then, for no good reason, Onetta and old Nell walked in. Pierre watched the parade with mystification and was about to shut the door to insure that no one else would crowd in when the Reverend Picarazzi crowded in, wearing a purple stole over his party clothes and toting his Extreme Unction kit.
Silence.
Looking around, he took off his stole and muttered, “I must’ve been misinformed.”
Pierre glanced at his Piaget watch and saw it was three in the morning. He stood on his tiptoes to see over everyone’s head, and waved to his fiancé
e, who was wedged between Carlo and Owen. Because of the hubbub he had to yell. “I have only one thing to say to you!”
She yelled back, “What?”
“Nine hours!”
Onetta surprised the crowd by shooting a starter’s pistol out the screenless window and shouting, “Quiet!” Shredding gunsmoke straggled out on a gentle August breeze.
Mrs. Christiansen nodded thanks to Onetta and became teacherly. “Hands out of pockets,” she instructed, and Carlo and Pierre complied. “Nell, is that gum?”
Old Nell spit her Wrigley’s into a tin wastepaper basket. It clanged.
Mrs. Christiansen delivered her first chastisement by turning to the cattleman. “And you, Dick Tupper! I’m surprised at you!”
“You know, Mrs. Christiansen, I’m sorta surprised at myself.”
“Men! On the second floor!”
All the males hung their heads in shame.