Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 32 of 70

Eight days out, Lymber heard the name at the checkout line. A woman ahead of her said a girl from the old class was telling people she'd bring her camera to the park Saturday after next and film the whole thing. The woman said the girl called it a public gazebo and a free country. Lymber paid for the milk and diapers and walked to the car. She strapped Jett in and buckled Violetta and sat with her hands on the wheel until they stopped shaking. Then she drove home to the small brick house across the road from her mother's. She called Polly from the kitchen. Polly said, who. Lymber said the name. Polly said, the one with the phone. Lymber said yes. Polly said, come over. Bring the kids. I'll put coffee on. At Polly's table Lymber laid it out. The girl had a following now. She'd post the vows before Lymber walked back to the car. Paul stood by the window with Violetta on his hip. He said, we move it. Lymber looked up. He said, backyard. Yours. Fence and a gate. Polly set the mug down and did not argue. She said, twenty chairs fit on my grass. I've measured worse. She said, I'll call the nineteen tonight. New address, same time. Anyone posts the new spot, they're off the list. Lymber said, the gazebo is where you asked me. Paul said, I asked you. The place didn't. He said it and stopped. Violetta pulled his collar and said, gazebo, like it was a word she'd just learned. The puppy scratched at the back door. Polly let it in and it ran to Violetta and sat on her foot. Lymber picked up the guest list from her purse and read the nineteen names aloud while Polly wrote them in her own hand on a fresh page. Polly called the first number before Lymber left. Lymber heard her say, change of plan, and then, no, don't tell her. By the time Lymber carried Jett to the car, four names were crossed and checked. The girl with the camera would show up at an empty gazebo on Saturday and film chipped paint and a wasp nest. There would be nothing to post. At home Lymber stood in the kitchen and felt the date settle again. Eight days. New venue. Same vows. She looked at herself in the dark window over the sink and did not like what she saw around her middle. The dress was still the problem. She had traded one spectacle for a smaller room, and the smaller room had a full-length mirror in the hall she would have to walk past in white.