“You didn't have to wait for us in the lobby,” my mother said. “We would have come up.”
“I'm not waiting for you,” I said. “I'm on my way out. I'm sorry, but I have to work this morning.”
“What are you doing?” Grandma wanted to know. “Are you tracking down some insane killer?”
“I'm looking for Eddie DeChooch.”
“I was half right,” Grandma said.
“You can find Eddie DeChooch some other time,” my mother said. “I have an appointment for you at Tina's Bridal Shoppe.”
“Yeah, you better take it,” Grandma said. “We only got this one on account of there was a last-minute cancellation. And besides, we needed an excuse to get out of the house because we couldn't stand any more galloping and whinnying.”
“I don't want a wedding gown,” I said. “I want a small wedding.” Or none at all.
“Yes, but it doesn't do any harm to look,” my mother said.
“Tina's Bridal Shoppe rocks,” Mooner said.
My mother turned to Mooner. “Is this Walter Dunphy? My goodness, I haven't seen you in ages.”
“Dude!” Mooner said to my mother.
Then he and Grandma Mazur did one of those complicated handshakes I could never remember.
“We better get a move on,” Grandma said. “We don't want to be late.”
“I don't want a gown!”
“We're just looking,” my mother said. “We'll only spend a half hour looking, and then you can be on your way.”
“Fine! A half hour. That's it. No more. And we're just looking.”
TINA'S BRIDAL SHOPPE is in the heart of the Burg. It occupies half of a red-brick duplex. Tina lives in a small apartment upstairs and conducts business in the bottom half of the house. The other half of the duplex is rental property owned by Tina. Tina is known far and wide as being a bitch of a landlady, and the tenants of the rental almost always leave when their year's lease expires. Because rental properties are scarce as hen's teeth in the Burg, Tina never has a problem finding hapless victims.
“It's you,” Tina said, standing back, eyeballing me. “It's perfect. It's stunning.”
I was all decked out in a floor-length satin gown. The bodice had been pinned to fit, the scoop neckline showed just a hint of cleavage, and the full bell skirt had a four-foot train.
“It is lovely,” my mother said.
“Next time I get married I might get myself a dress just like that,” Grandma said. “Or I might go to Vegas and get married in one of them Elvis churches.”
“Dude,” Mooner said, “go for it.”
I twisted slightly to better see myself in the three-way mirror. “You don't think it's too . . . white?”
“Definitely not,” Tina said. “This is cream. Cream is very different from white.”
I did look good in the gown. I looked like Scarlett O'Hara getting ready for a big wedding at Tara. I moved around a little to simulate dancing.
“Jump up and down so we can see how it'll look when you do the bunny hop,” Grandma said.
“It's pretty, but I don't want a gown,” I said.
“I can order one in her size at no obligation,” Tina said.
“No obligation,” Grandma said. “You can't beat that.”