The Bride-In-Law

Once more Tucker read the brief note. Swearing softly, he crumpled it in his fist.

Bernice. The name didn’t ring any bells. Damned if he wasn’t tempted to say to hell with the whole mess. To hell with old gaffers who didn’t have sense enough to keep their zipper zipped and their annuity safe. To hell with ex-wives who played dog-in-the-manger games with vulnerable kids. To hell with the feds and all the petty bureaucrats whose sole purpose was to hamstring small businessmen in red tape.

While he was at it, he tossed in a few choice words for the weather, and for whoever decreed that a man’s responsibility was to work his tail off while everyone else in his family was off having fun.

Tuck’s fourteen-year-old son, Jay, was away on a fly-fishing trip in Colorado with a school group. His ex-wife, Shelly, was busy squandering her settlement while she looked for another sucker. His father was wearing earrings and love beads and letting himself be reeled in by some bimbo named Bernice.

Loathing self-pity, he briefly considered straddling the old Harley and eating some dust and mosquitoes while he worked the frustration out of his system.

Trouble was, he was a worrier. Always had been. He worried about his son, who was at a vulnerable age. He worried about his partner, who was a great salesman, if little more.

And yes, dammit, he worried about the old man. Here he’d thought they were rocking along in a pretty comfortable rut, with Harold cooking breakfast and Tucker picking up pizza or barbecue on the nights when Harold wasn’t going out.

Tonight, as tired as he was, Tucker had planned to stop by and pick up a six-pack, a pizza, rent a movie and indulge in an evening of quiet debauchery. Just him and the old man.

But first the truck wouldn’t start, which meant he’d had to hitch a ride home, which meant no beer, no video, and no take-out supper.

And now this.

Damn.

He read the note again. Honeymooning? Shacking up was one thing, but honeymooning?

He swore. And then he reached for his leather jacket, stepped into his boots and swore some more.

It took a lot to ruffle Annie’s composure. She prided herself on her even disposition, although lately it hadn’t been as easy to maintain. But then, duty was her middle name.

Actually, it was Rebecca, but her parents used to brag on her sense of responsibility, making her all the more determined not to disappoint them. To that end she’d been valedictorian of her high school class, graduated with honors from college, which had pleased her family enormously. Personally, she’d taken more pride in never having had zits or a bad hair day, but that was something she tried not to think about, as it was both immodest and unbecoming and might even invite an attack of both.

Pride Goeth Before a Fall. She’d heard that little homily all her life. It was one of the pitfalls of being a preacher’s kid. Sometimes she wondered how she might have turned out if her father had been a baker, a banker or a bartender.

Probably just as dull. James Madison Summers had been a well-respected Methodist minister. His wife, equally respected, had taken her role as a minister’s wife seriously. Both of them had prided themselves on being perfect role models for the daughter who’d come along at a time in their lives when they’d given up all hope of ever having a child.

They’d been wonderful parents. Strict, but only because they loved her and wanted the best for her. An obedient child, Annie had worked hard to earn the approval of both her parents and whatever community they happened to be living in at the time, by being a credit to her upbringing.

She’d heard that one, too, more times than she cared to recall. “That Annie Summers is a credit to her folks. Might not be much to look at, but she’ll be a comfort to them in their old age.”

Not until years later, after both parents were gone and Annie, still unmarried with no prospects in sight, had moved into the shabby Victorian house her father had bought after he retired, did she begin to wonder if being a credit was all it was cracked up to be. Unfortunately, at this stage of her life, it had become a habit. She didn’t know how to be anything else.

Cousin Bernice was her own personal plague of locusts. If ever two women were born to clash, it was Annie and Bernice Summers. It wasn’t only the age difference. Annie at thirty-six was a mature, levelheaded, responsible woman who wore a lot of beige, who drank one percent milk, ate whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables and flossed every day of her life.

Bernice, at seventy-one, was a ditzy, certified flake, who dyed her hair orange, padded her bra and thought saturated fat was one of the major food groups. She wore purple-framed glasses with turquoise eye shadow, reeked of gardenia cologne and arthritis-strength linament and considered Jerry Springer the epitome of educational TV.

When Bernie’s dilapidated old apartment building had been demolished to make way for a new stadium, Annie had insisted on taking her in because Bernice was a senior citizen and Annie knew her duty. Besides, they were both alone in the world except for each other, and heaven knows, there was plenty of room in the old three-story house on Mulberry.

Since then, Bernice had done everything she could think of to get Annie to set her up in another apartment, which was out of the question. It wasn’t only the money, although that was a definite consideration. The truth was, Annie wasn’t at all sure Cousin Bernie could look after herself, what with all the scams being perpetrated against senior citizens these days. You heard about things like that on the news all the time.

Which was another thing that drove her up the wall. Television. Annie wasn’t an addict. Far from it. She turned on the set after dinner for whatever was being offered on PBS or the History Channel, or occasionally the Discovery Channel.

Bernice watched all day long. She was hooked on MTV and daytime sleaze shows. She bought herself a cheap boom box, and when she wasn’t watching TV she played the thing at full volume with the bass turned all the way up—or down, as the case may be—claiming her hearing wasn’t what it used to be.

Small wonder.

Lately, with the noise going full blast, she’d taken to doing something with her body she called the macaroni. Annie thought it looked as if she were counting off her body parts to be sure nothing was missing.

And she had a cat. A house cat. The Reverend and Mrs. Summers had never allowed Annie to own a pet, claiming a parsonage was no place for animals. Annie had been meaning all along to get herself a nice, quiet cat from the shelter, but that was before Bernie. Before Zen. Bernie’s tomcat, Zen, was a fat, smelly, evil-tempered beast, half Persian, half coon cat, who delighted in doing his business in the indoor window boxes that lined the sun parlor and sharpening his claws on the upholstery.

Now that it was too late, Annie realized she should have laid out a few house rules right from the first, but she hadn’t. Sweet, docile, dutiful Annie had been taught to respect her elders, and with all her eccentricities, Bernice was still an elder.

So she politely fumed in silence, thought bad thoughts about Zen, who obviously thought them right back at her, and wallowed in guilt over her own uncharitable nature.

But this was too much. Annie didn’t know whether to believe Bernie or not. She was obviously up to something, but marriage?

Absurd. It was probably just another attempt to force Annie to find her an apartment and help her pay the rent. Merciful heavens, it was all Annie could do to keep up with the maintenance and repairs on her own house. She’d have sold the thing long ago except for the niggling feeling that it would be disloyal to her father, who’d been so thrilled at finally owning a house of his own, even if it was a relic in a declining neighborhood.

“Oh, Bernie, why did you have to go and do something so foolish?” she asked the cat, who stared unblinkingly from a pair of malevolent yellow eyes.

She would have to go after her, that was all there was to it. After a long day at school, dealing with the usual bureaucratic headaches, Annie had counted on leaving Bernie to her MTV and settling down in her bedroom study with a pot of tea, a little Mozart and a plate of whole-wheat crackers spread with tahini.

Being head of a family was no easy job, even when that family consisted only of a couple of cousins who had nothing in common except for a single ancestor. So far, she hadn’t even found a way to explain Bernie to her fiancé and his mother.

Four and a half years ago, Annie had gotten herself engaged. Since then she’d been waiting for Eddie to work the wanderlust out of his soul, come home and find a teaching position so they could settle down and raise a real family.

Annie read the note again, ignoring the is dotted with tiny hearts. Ignoring the instructions for looking after Zen, who liked pink salmon, not dry cat food, and four percent milk, not one percent.

Somewhere upstairs a loose shutter slammed against the side of the house. Zen whipped his bushy yellow tail around her ankles and smirked at her. “No wonder you’re such a fat slob,” she told the creature. “I hope you get hair balls.” She still hadn’t forgiven him for uprooting her twelve-year-old geranium.

The Blue Flamingo was north of town on Highway 52. Miles and miles north of town. And it was raining. Annie hated driving in the rain. So did her car. Trust Bernice not to make this easy.

Prove you love me.

Is that what she was saying? Like children acting out in wildly inappropriate ways to get attention? To see if anyone cared enough to haul them back into line?

She’d read reams on the subject of behavioral problems, but as assistant principal she’d never actually been called on to deal with them in person. Mostly she dealt with the mountains of paperwork necessary to the operation of a private day school.

Almost everything Bernie did was wildly inappropriate for a woman of her age. She knew exactly how to get what she wanted, which was probably what this whole exercise was all about. It had taken her less than a day after moving in to learn how to play on Annie’s overgrown sense of responsibility.

“One of these days,” Annie muttered as she backed down the driveway and headed north into the teeth of a cold, blowing rain, “I’m going to do something seriously irresponsible, I swear it.”

The motel was even worse than she’d expected. Totally dismal, practically deserted, it made her want to cry. If there was anything more depressing than wet concrete blocks and scraggly, dead azaleas, she didn’t know what it was. Especially when seen in a drizzling rain under the flickering light of a broken neon sign.

There were six units in all. Bernie’s elderly red convertible was pulled up in front of unit five. Annie took a deep breath and reminded herself once more that when children acted up, more often than not it was to gain attention. And as she hadn’t been as attentive as she might have been, Annie accepted at least part of the blame.

With both her temper and her anxiety tamped down to a manageable level, she swung open the driver’s side door and stepped out just as a motorcycle roared into the space beside her.

“Would you please watch where you’re going?” She glared first at the rider and then down at the muddy water he’d splashed on her coattail and pantyhose.

“Lady, I’m not the one who opened a door without looking to see if it was clear.”