The Marriage Agenda

“You’re late,” she muttered.

He shrugged. “Air travel is not what it used to be. I sat at O’Hare for ten hours.”

“Your cell phone—”

“Needs recharging. Sorry. I tried to call you.”

“At my house?”

“Right. From a pay phone, this morning around eight.”

“I left at seven-thirty.”

“And I also called here. Twice. Got a busy signal both times.”

She wasn’t surprised. The house had been full of people all day and the phone had been in constant use.

“Dek!” Sam shouted. He let go of Joleen’s neck and reached for the man in the doorway.

“Whoa, big guy.” Dekker stepped up and took him.

About then, DeDe stopped sobbing long enough to glance across the room. “Dekker! You made it!”

The three Tilly women broke from their huddle and rushed for the door. Joleen got out of their way again. They surrounded Dekker and Sam, all of them talking at once.

“Where were you?”

“We’ve been waiting for hours.…”

“We were so afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Is everything—”

He chuckled. “Everything’s fine. There was just a little matter of a long delay between flights. But I am here now.” He had Sam on one arm. He wrapped the other around DeDe, who looked up at him through shining eyes. “And I am ready to give away this gorgeous bride.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, down in the backyard beneath the pecan trees, the wedding march began. A blessed breeze had actually come up, so it wasn’t quite as stifling as it had been for most of the day. The ceremony went off without a hitch. And when Wayne Thornton kissed his bride, everyone could see that this was a true, love match.

Joleen had had her reservations, when DeDe and Wayne first announced that they would marry. After all, DeDe was only twenty. It seemed young to Joleen.

But looking at the two of them as they repeated their vows, Joleen let go of her doubts. Wayne was a good, steady man. And DeDe adored him almost as much as he worshipped her. In the end, Joleen supposed, the two had as good a chance as any couple at lasting a lifetime side by side.

She was pouring more ginger ale into the punch bowl, feeling kind of misty-eyed and contented for the first time that day, when Dekker appeared at her side.

“What the hell are the Atwoods doing here?” He spoke low, for her ears alone.

She gave him her most determined smile and whispered back, “I invited them.”

“Damn it, Jo. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me, too—and would you go in and get me some more of this ginger ale?”

Midnight-blue eyes regarded her steadily. “I wish you had listened to me.”

“I did listen—then I did what I thought was right.” She waved the empty bottle at him. “Ginger ale? Please?”

Shaking his head, he turned for the back door.

The afternoon wore on.

Camilla, on something of an emotional roller coaster this special day when her middle baby was getting married, had a little too much sparkling wine and flirted blatantly with anyone willing to flirt back.

“You probably ought to say something to her, hon,” advised Aunt LeeAnne as Joleen was putting the finishing touches on the buffet.

Joleen shook her head and took the lid off a chafing dish. “My mother is a flirt. Always has been, always will be. I have enough to worry about without trying to fight a person’s nature.”

“When your father was still with us—”

“I know. All her flirting was for him then. She never looked at another man. But he’s been gone for so long now. And she is still very much alive. She will never stop lookin’ for the kind of love she had once.”

“So sad…” Aunt LeeAnne looked mournful.

Camilla’s musical laughter rang out as she pulled one of the groom’s uncles from a chair and made him dance with her.

“I don’t know,” said Joleen. “Seems to me that she’s having a pretty good time.”

Aunt LeeAnne picked up a toothpick and speared a meatball from the chafing dish. “Mmm. Delicious. What is that spice?”

“Cumin?”

“Could be—or maybe curry?”

“No. I don’t think there’s any curry in those meatballs.”

Aunt LeeAnne helped herself to a second meatball, then shrugged. “Well, I suppose you’re right about Camilla.…”

Uncle Hubert Tilly staggered by, yet another beer clutched in his fist.

Aunt LeeAnne clucked her tongue. “Now, there is someone to worry about. He has been drinkin’ all afternoon, and in this heat…” Aunt LeeAnne frowned. “He looks peaked, don’t you think?”

“True,” said Joleen. “He does not look well.”

“Someone really should talk to him.…” Aunt LeeAnne gazed at Joleen hopefully. Joleen refused to take the hint, so her aunt added with clear reluctance, “Someone of his own generation, I suppose.”

“Be my guest.”

So Aunt LeeAnne DuFrayne trotted off to try to convince Uncle Hubert Tilly that he’d had enough beer.

Uncle Hubert didn’t take the news well. “What?” he shouted, leaning against the trunk of the sweet gum in the southwest corner of the yard. “I’ve had enough? What’re you talkin’ about, LeeAnne? There ain’ no such thing as enough.”

Aunt LeeAnne tried to whisper something into his ear. He shrugged her off and stumbled away. Aunt LeeAnne pinched up her mouth for a minute, then shook her head and returned to the buffet table.

“Well, I guess you are right, Joly. There is no savin’ that man from himself.”

“You tried your best.” Joleen handed her aunt a plate. “Taste those buffalo wings. And the pasta primavera is pretty good, too.”

Aunt LeeAnne took the plate and began to load it with food.

Out of the corner of her eye, Joleen could see Robert Atwood, standing at the edge of the patio, Antonia, as always, close at his side. Robert wore a look of aloof disdain on his distinguished face as he watched Uncle Hubert’s unsteady progress toward the coolers lined up by the garden shed.

“Joly, is that pickled okra I see?”

Joleen turned her widest smile on another of her father’s brothers. “You bet it is, Uncle Stan. Help yourself.”

“I surely will.”

With the buffet all ready to go, Joleen went to check on the punch table again. The bowl needed filling. She took care of that. Then she went back inside to look for those little frilly toothpicks that everyone kept using up the minute she set them out.

She got stalled in the kitchen for several minutes. Burly had a traveling-salesman joke she just had to hear. Once he’d told it and she had finished laughing, she found the toothpicks and headed for the back door once more.

Outside again, she discovered that her mother was dancing with yet another of the guests from Wayne’s family. And Aunt LeeAnne whispered in her ear that Uncle Hubert had gone behind the garden shed to be sick.

Joleen suppressed a sigh. “I’ll go see to him.”

“I think that would be best. I’d do it, of course, but you saw what happened the last time I tried to give the poor man a hand.”

When Joleen got to the other side of the shed, she spotted two little DuFraynes and a small niece of Wayne’s peeking around the far end. Uncle Hubert sagged pitifully against the shed wall, his head stuck in among the dark pink blooms of a tall crape myrtle bush.

She dealt with the children first. “You kids go on now.”

The three stared for a moment, then began giggling.

“I mean it. Do not make me get your mamas.”

The giggling stopped. Three sets of wide eyes regarded her. Joleen put on a no-nonsense glare and made a sharp shooing gesture with the back of her hand.

The three vanished around the end of the shed, giggles erupting again as soon as they were out of sight. The giggles faded away.

Uncle Hubert groaned. And then his thick shoulders shook. Joleen swallowed and pressed her lips together as she heard splattering sounds behind the bush.

She waited until that attack of sickness had passed. Then she dared to move a few steps closer. “Uncle Hubert…”

Her uncle groaned. “Joly?”

“That’s right.”

“Go ’way.” He spoke into the crape myrtle bush.

Joleen edged a little closer. “Uncle Hubert, I want you to come in the house with me now.”

“I’m fine.” He groaned again. “Go ’way.”

“No. No, you listen. It’s too hot out here. You can lie down inside.”

“No.” He made a strangled sound. His shoulders shook again, but this time nothing seemed to be coming up.

Joleen waited, to make sure he was finished. Then, with slow care, she moved right up next to him. “Come on, now…” She laid a hand on his arm. “You just come on.”

“No!” He jerked away, half stumbling, almost falling, bouncing with a muffled gonging sound against the metal wall of the garden shed. “Leave,” he growled. “Go…”

Joleen stepped back again, unwilling to give up but unsure how to convince him that he should come with her.

A hand clasped her shoulder.

Dekker. She knew it before she even turned to see him standing right behind her. She felt easier instantly. Between them they would manage. They always did.

“Need help?”

She nodded.

He raised a dark brow. “You want him in the house?”

She nodded again.

He stepped around her. “Hubert…”

“Ugh. Wha? Oh. Dek.”

“Right. Come on, man. Let’s go…”

“Ugh…”

“Yeah. You need to stretch out.”

“Uh-uh…”

Dekker took Uncle Hubert’s arm and wrapped it across his broad shoulder. Uncle Hubert moaned. He kept saying no and shaking his head. But he didn’t pull away. Slowly Dekker turned him around and got him moving.

Joleen went on ahead, warning the other guests out of the way, opening the back door, leading the way through the kitchen and into the hall. Uncle Hubert would probably be most comfortable upstairs in one of the bedrooms, but she didn’t know how far he’d be willing to let Dekker drag him. So she settled for the living room.

“Here,” she said, “on the couch.” She tossed away her mother’s favorite decorative pillows as she spoke, then spread an old afghan across the cushions. It would provide some protection if Uncle Hubert’s poor stomach decided to rebel again.

Dekker eased the other man down. Uncle Hubert fell onto his back with a long, low groan.

“Let’s get his shoes off,” said Dekker, already kneeling at Uncle Hubert’s feet. Before he had the second shoe off, Uncle Hubert was snoring. Dekker set the shoes, side by side, beneath the coffee table. “They’ll be right here whenever he needs them.”

Joleen stood over her uncle, shaking her head. “It seems like we ought to do something, doesn’t it? We shouldn’t let him go on hurting himself this way.”

Uncle Hubert had lost his wife, Thelma, six months ago. The heavy beer drinking had started not long after that.

“Give him time,” Dekker said. “He’ll work it out.”

“I hope he works it out soon. A man’s liver can only take so much.”

“He will,” Dekker said. “He’ll get through it.”

They were good words to hear, especially from Dekker, who had never been the most optimistic guy on the block. “You sound so certain.”

He winked at her. “I oughtta know, don’t you think?”

They shared a long look, one full of words they didn’t really need to say out loud.

Three years ago, Dekker’s wife, Stacey, had died. His mama, Lorraine, had passed away not long after. Dekker had done quite a bit of drinking himself in the months following those two sad events.

Dekker said, “Maybe you ought to start whipping up a few casseroles.”

It was a joke between them now, how Joleen had kept after him, dropping in at his place several times a week, pouring his booze down the drain and urging him to “talk out his pain.”

He wouldn’t talk. But she wouldn’t give up on him, either. She brought him casseroles to make sure he ate right and kept dragging him out to go bowling and to the movies. Good, nourishing food and a few social activities had made a difference.

It had also brought them closer. She was, after all, five years younger than Dekker. Five years, while they were growing up, had seemed like a lifetime. Almost as if they were of different generations.

But it didn’t seem that way anymore. Now they were equals.

They were best friends.

She said, “You still have not bothered to tell me why you thought you had to fly off to Los Angeles out of nowhere like that.”

“Later,” he said. “There’s a lot to tell and now is not the time.”

“Were you…in danger?”

“No.”

“Was it something for a client?”

“Jo. Please. Not now.”

On the couch, Hubert stiffened, snorted and then went on snoring even louder than before.

Dekker said, “I think we’ve done all we can for him at the moment.”

“Guess so. Might as well get back to the party. We’re probably out of frilly toothpicks again.”

Dekker grinned. “DeDe grabbed me a few minutes ago. Something about cutting the cake?”

“No. It’s too early. They’re still attacking the buffet table. But it is a little cooler now. Safe to get everything set up.”

“Safe?”

“That’s right. We can chance taking the cake back outside.”

“This sounds ominous.”

“A wedding can be a scary time.”

“Tell me about it.”

She took his big, blunt-fingered hand. “Come on.”

They left Uncle Hubert snoring on the couch and went out to the kitchen, where they enlisted Burly to help Dekker carry the cake back out to the patio.

* * *

Once the cake was in position for cutting, Joleen went looking for Niki and Sam. She found them on the front porch, building a castle out of Duplo blocks.

“Mama. Look.” Sam beamed her his biggest, proudest smile.

“Wonderful job, baby.” She asked Niki, “Did he eat anything yet?”

Niki nodded. “He had some corn. And that fruit dish—the one with the coconut? Oh, and he ate about five of those little meatballs.”

“Milk?”

“Yeah—and what’s with those Atwood people?”

What do you mean? Joleen wanted to demand. What did they do?

She held the questions back. Sam might be only eighteen months old, but you could never be sure of how much he understood. And she didn’t want Niki stirred up, either. She gestured with a toss of her head. Niki got up and followed her down to the other end of the long porch.

“What do you mean about the Atwoods?” Joleen kept her voice low and her tone even.

Niki shrugged. “I don’t know. They sure stare a lot.”

“Have they…bothered you?”

“I don’t know, Joly. Like I said, they just stare.”

“They haven’t spoken to you at all?”

“Well, yeah. Twice. They tried to talk to Sam, but you know how he is sometimes. He got shy, buried his head against my shoulder. Both times they gave up and walked away.”

So. They had tried to get to know their grandson a little and gotten nowhere. Joleen found herself feeling sorry for them again.

“No real problems, though?”

“Uh-uh. Just general creepiness.”

Joleen reached out, brushed a palm along her sister’s arm. “You’ve been great, taking care of Sam all day.”

“Yeah. Call me Wonder Girl.” Niki was good with Sam. She took her babysitting duties seriously. In fact, Niki was doing a lot better lately all the way around. She’d given them a real scare last year. But Joleen had begun to believe those problems were behind her now.

“Want a little break?”

“Sure—Can I get out of this dress?”

Joleen hid a smile. Rose-colored satin was hardly her little sister’s style. Niki liked black. Black hip-riding skinny jeans, equally skinny little black T-shirts, black Doc Martens. Sometimes, for variety, she’d wear navy blue or deep purple, but never anything bright. Certainly nothing rosy red.

“Go ahead and change,” said Joleen.

Niki beamed. “Thanks.”

They rejoined Sam at the other end of the porch. “Hey, big guy,” Joleen said. “I need some help.”

Sam loved to “help.” He considered “helping” to be anything that involved a lot of busyness on his part. Pulling his mother around by her thumb could be “helping,” or carrying items from one place to another.

Sam set down the red plastic block in his fist and leaned forward, going to his hands and knees. “I hep.” He rocked back to the balls of his feet and pushed himself to an upright position.

Joleen held out her arms.

He said something she couldn’t really make out, but she knew he meant he wanted to walk.

So she took his hand and walked him down the front steps and around to the backyard. When she spotted the Atwoods alone at a table on the far side of the patio, she led him over there.

Okay, they were snobs. And they made her a little nervous.

But it had to be awkward for them at this party. They didn’t really know a soul. Joleen had introduced them to her mother and a few of the guests when they first arrived. But they’d been on their own since then.

All right, maybe Robert Atwood had given her cold looks. Maybe he didn’t approve of her. So what?

She was going to get along with them if she could possibly manage it. They were Sammy’s grandparents and she would show them respect, give them a little of the slack they didn’t appear to be giving her.

And besides, who was to say she hadn’t read them all wrong? Maybe staring and glaring was just Robert Atwood’s way of coping with feeling like an outsider.

When she reached their table, Joleen scooped Sam up into her arms. “Well, how are you two holdin’ up?”

“We are fine,” said Robert.

“Yes,” Antonia agreed in that wispy little voice of hers, staring at Sam with misty eyes. “Just fine. Very nice.”

Joleen felt a tug of sympathy for the woman. A few weeks ago, when the Atwoods had finally agreed to come to her house and meet Sam, Antonia had shown her one of Bobby’s baby pictures. The resemblance to Sam was extraordinary.

What must it be like, to see their lost child every time they looked at Sam?

All the tender goodwill Joleen had felt toward them when she saw the newspaper photos of them at Bobby’s funeral came flooding back, filling her with new determination to do all in her power to see that they came to know their only grandson, that they found their rightful place in his life.

“Mind if Sam and I sit down a minute?”

“Please,” said Antonia, heartbreakingly eager, grabbing the chair on her right side and pulling it out.

Joleen put Sam in it. He sat back and laid his baby hands on the molded plastic arms. “I sit,” he declared with great pride.

Antonia made a small, adoring sound low in her throat.

Joleen took the other free chair at the table. As she scooped her satin skirt smooth beneath her, Robert Atwood spoke again.

“Ahem. Joleen. We really must be leaving soon.”

Protestations would have felt a little too phony, so Joleen replied, “Well, I am pleased that you could come and I hope you had a good time.”

Robert nodded, his face a cool mask. Antonia seemed too absorbed in watching Sam to make conversation.

Robert said, “I would like a few words with you, before we leave. In private.”

That got Antonia’s attention. A look of alarm crossed her delicate face. She actually stopped staring at Sam. “Robert, I don’t think it’s really the time to—”

“I do,” her husband interrupted, his voice flat. Final.

Antonia blinked. And said nothing more.

Joleen felt suspicious all over again—not to mention apprehensive. What was the man up to? She honestly wanted to meet these two halfway. But they—Robert, especially—made that so difficult.

She tried to keep her voice light. “Well, if you need to talk to me about something important, today is not the day, I’m afraid. I think I told you, this party is my doing. I’m the one who has to keep things moving along. There’s still the cake to cut. And the toasts to be made. Then there will be—”

“I think you could spare us a few minutes, don’t you? In the next hour or so?”

“No, I don’t think that I—”

“Joleen. It is only a few minutes. I know you can manage it.”

Joleen stared into those hard gray eyes. She found herself thinking of Bobby, understanding him a little better, maybe. Even forgiving him some for being so much less than the man she had dreamed him to be. Joleen doubted that Robert Atwood knew how to show love, how to teach a child the true meaning of right and wrong. He would communicate his will—and his sense that he and his were special, above the rules that regular folks had to live by. And his son would grow up as Bobby had. Charming and so handsome. Well dressed, well educated and well mannered. At first glance, a real “catch.” A man among men.

But inside, just emptiness. A lack where substance mattered the most.

“Joleen,” Bobby had said when she’d told him she was pregnant. “I have zero interest in being a father.” The statement had been cool and matter-of-fact, the same kind of tone he might have used to tell her that he didn’t feel up to eating Chinese that night. “If you are having a baby, I’m afraid you will be having it on your own.”

She’d been so shocked and hurt, she’d reacted on pure pride. “Fine,” she had cried. “Get out of my life. I don’t want to see you. Ever again.”

And Bobby had given her exactly what she’d asked for. He’d walked out of her life—and his unborn child’s—and never looked back.

She thought again of Dekker’s warnings.

Forget the Atwoods. They have too much money and too much power and given the kind of son they raised, I’d say they’re way too likely to abuse both.…

She rose from her chair. “Come on, Sam. We’ve got to get busy here.”

Robert Atwood just wouldn’t give it up. “A few minutes. Please.”

Sam slid off the chair and grabbed her thumb. “We go. I hep.” He granted Antonia a shy little smile.

“Joleen,” Robert said, making a command out of the sound of her name.

Lord, give me strength, Joleen prayed to her maker. She reminded herself of her original goal here: to develop a reasonably friendly relationship with Sam’s daddy’s parents. “All right. Let me get through the cutting of the cake. And the toasts. Then we can talk.”

“Thank you.”

“But only for a few minutes.”

“I do understand.”

* * *

Joleen kept Sam with her, while DeDe and Wayne cut the cake and after, as the guests took turns proposing toasts to the happy couple. Then she handed Sam back to her sister, who was now clad comfortably in her favorite black jeans.

By then it was a little past seven, and growing dark. The breeze had kept up, and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. It was the next thing to pleasant now, in the backyard. Joleen went around the side of the house and plugged in the paper lanterns that she and a couple of cousins had spent the day before stringing from tree to tree.

There were “oohs” and “aahs” and a smattering of applause as the glow of the lanterns lit up the deepening night. Joleen felt a glow of her own inside. She had done a good job for her sister. In spite of more than one near disaster, it was stacking up to be a fine wedding, after all.

Camilla had a decent stereo system in the house. And yesterday, after the lantern stringing, Joleen and her cousins had wired up extra speakers and set them out on the patio. So they had good, clear music for dancing. DeDe and Wayne were already swaying beneath the lanterns, held close in each other’s arms. So were Aunt LeeAnne and her husband, Uncle Foley, and a number of other couples as well—including Joleen’s mother. Camilla moved gracefully in the embrace of yet another middle-aged admirer.

“You did good, Jo.” Dekker had come up beside her.

“Thanks.”

“Welcome.” He was staring out at the backyard, his eyes on the dancers.

Joleen thought of Los Angeles again, wondered what had happened there. She was just about to make another effort at prying some information out of him when she remembered the Atwoods.