The Wedding Party

“You’re in for a fun surprise—just wait and see who walks down the aisle. Don’t miss this zany wedding.”

—Catherine Coulter

All the stuff she thought she had handled began to come back one at a time. The Samuelsons, Stephanie, Dennis and Dr. Malone, Peaches—and Jake, his timing as bad as ever.

“Charlie!” Jake yelled. “Hold up, will you? I need to ask you something. I need a favor.”

“In your dreams,” she muttered to herself. If I am afraid of commitment, she thought, Jake Dugan would be a good enough reason.

A flashing red light throbbed over her head and she turned to see that her ex-husband had attached his portable police beacon to the top of his car. He followed her at a safe distance, slowly, so that if a car approached from behind, she wouldn’t be mowed down. But then again, she wouldn’t need this service if he hadn’t shown up in the first place, which was the cause of her walking home in the mud and rain.

She made the right turn into her neighborhood. The flashing red light disappeared and Jake’s headlights strafed the houses as he made a U-turn and departed.

She stepped into her house and stepped into sanity. The lights were dimmed, the table set, candles lit, fire in the hearth and two cups of something steaming sat on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. Dennis, having heard her come in, appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a dish towel. The sight of all this peaceful domesticity warmed the heart of the drowned rat, and without stopping to consider the ramifications, Charlene heard herself say, “Dennis, do you still want to get married?”

The Wedding Party

Robyn Carr

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Sharon Buchholtz Lampert,

for all the years.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Charlene Dugan started her day as usual—single. Not just unmarried, but autonomous, independent, free. She was forty-five, in excellent health and shape, attractive, successful in the practice of family law, the single mother of a grown daughter, the single daughter of a widowed mother, the significant other of a handsome, charming man and devotedly nonmarried.

Though she had been with Dennis for five years, they did not live together. They each had their own homes and liked things as they were. Well, perhaps Charlene was a tad more committed to remaining uncommitted; Dennis had proposed a couple of times. But she had been married once, only long enough to produce one daughter, Stephanie, who was now twenty-five, and she had not been even slightly tempted to marry again in the twenty-four years since. She was content. Satisfied. Fulfilled, even.

On this ordinary unmarried day there were events that, taken singularly—no pun intended—were quite manageable. But when combined, they so rocked Charlene’s world that by day’s end she was not only ready to consider marriage, she was inclined to do the proposing.

One

Charlene entered the law offices of Phelps, Dugan & Dodge innocent of the trouble the day would bring. She smiled at the young receptionist and nodded as she passed cubicles where clerks and junior associates labored. She stopped in the break room to grab her customary morning cup of coffee and a bagel. Then, as she proceeded toward her office, she heard the muffled roar of her first clients. There was no mistaking the hostile tones of Mr. and Mrs. Samuelson, two of the most objectionable people Charlene had had the displeasure of knowing. She had been selected by family court to arbitrate the Samuelsons’ divorce settlement. This was to be their third meeting. The first two had been complete and dismal failures.

Charlene loved her legal specialty. There were very few people who could make the traumas of divorce and custody bearable, and Charlene prided herself in taking families who walked into her office wounded and terrified, and sending them out as people who could cope, people with options.

The arguing achieved fever pitch as she neared her office. Briefcase under her arm, bagel in one hand and coffee in the other, she closed in on the noise. Her assistant and close friend, Pam London, was standing behind her desk, arms crossed and toe tapping impatiently as she glared at the conference-room doors. A disgusted frown twisted her otherwise handsome features.

Charlene was a little confused. “What’s going on?” she asked. The Samuelsons were not supposed to be in the same room until the arbitrator arrived, for obvious reasons. Plus, they weren’t due for another hour.

“They both had an idea they could get to you first, before the other arrived,” Pam explained. “I put Mrs. Samuelson in the conference room and asked Mr. Samuelson to have a seat in the foyer waiting room. But they found each other out and have been in there fighting ever since. I’ve tried to separate them, to no avail.” She smiled evilly. “Let’s bolt the door from the outside and let them kill each other.”

Charlene handed her briefcase to Pam. “Was he threatening?”

“Someone would have to take him seriously to be threatened. He’s just a pip-squeak. An obnoxious little horse’s ass. And she’s no better.”

“Hmm. If anyone was threatening, we could call the police. Well, call building security to begin with, but give me three minutes before you send anyone in.”

Charlene and the other senior partner, Brad Phelps, had the two expansive offices in the back, separated by their large conference room, while Mike Dodge was on another floor of the building. Charlene and Brad had private bathrooms with showers and two doors apiece; one to outer offices and their respective executive assistants and the other to the conference room. Charlene placed her coffee and bagel on her desk and retrieved something from the top drawer. She stood in the frame of the conference door to watch. And listen.

The Samuelsons faced each other, fists clenched at their sides, their faces red to their scalps. If only they knew how ridiculous they looked. Mr. Samuelson, the shorter of the two, appeared to shout into his wife’s heavy, pendulous breasts, and she sputtered obscenities onto the top of her husband’s shiny little scalp. How could they not know they sounded so revolting, cursing each other in voices loud enough to carry through these professional offices? Forty years of marriage and five children, come to this.

“I bought that goddamn boat after you walked out!”

“You bought the goddamn boat after I walked out, using the money left in our mutual fund…and you paid for jewelry for your floozies with our IRAs!”

“Since I was the only one who ever put anything in the goddamn IRAs or mutual funds, I figured they were mine to do with as I damn well pleased!”

“And that’s why I left! Because you put no value on anything anyone else ever does! I stayed home and raised five kids! I moved fifteen times! I hostessed twenty-five company Christmas parties. I—”

“Played tennis, bridge and golf, got manicures and pedicures and facials, had to build a room onto the house just for your clothes…And you had the goddamn Christmas parties catered!”

The loud report, like that of a gun, caused the Samuelsons to shut up abruptly and bolt apart, turn and…. And it was only Charlene, in the doorway with a party popper. Confetti drifted lazily to the floor, a curling piece of lavender streamer hanging off Mrs. Samuelson’s large bosom, while Mr. Samuelson’s bald head had collected a few glitters.

They both recovered from the sudden fright and looked with some relief toward the arbitrator. This was a couple dissolving after four decades; there were bound to be issues. A certain amount of rage was expected in this field. But as Charlene knew only too well, they must not be allowed to run amok. A little chaos could lead to a lot of tragedy. Domestic discord was the most volatile and dangerous of all.

“You may leave now,” Charlene said. “I will ask Pam to get Judge Kemp on the line for me. I’ll tell him that arbitration is not possible in your case, and suggest you be bound over for a full divorce trial. You will each have to secure private counsel. I wouldn’t consider taking on either of you as a client even if I could. And don’t be too surprised if you find the judge considering a hefty fine.” Mr. Samuelson, “the only one who put any money in the goddamn mutual funds,” became especially ashen. “As an officer of the court,” she told them, “I’m obligated to tell him that you were nothing but discourteous and uncooperative, wouldn’t consider the simplest of requests—like taking a seat in the waiting room—were a continual disruption to the entire office building and have made no progress at all in two meetings. There is very little question, this divorce will cost you more than a boat. Probably more than a boat, a car and a house.”

“Now just you wait a minute—”

“And,” Charlene barked with heat. She was small of stature but should never be mistaken for slight in any other way. “If you speak to me in a tone that carries even the slightest disrespect…” she began. The door to the conference room slowly opened and Ray Vogel stepped inside. Charlene had convinced the whole office building to agree to her choice of security service for this very reason. Ray, like his fellow security officers, was big, young, muscled and armed. When he frowned, he looked positively lethal. “Give me a moment, Ray.” She turned back to the angry-faced couple. “The slightest tone of disrespect will be accompanied by a contempt and perhaps assault charge. And naturally another hefty fine.” This wasn’t true, but one look at Mr. and Mrs. Samuelsons’ faces said they believed her thoroughly.

“Now wait a minute,” Mr. Samuelson tried again, but in an entirely different tone. “There’s a lot of emotion here, and I admit we got a little carried away, but we can still work this out—”

“No, you’re entirely too late,” Charlene said. “We’re all done listening to you curse each other, demean each other and make a mockery of a system designed to protect and respect the family.” Mrs. Samuelson smirked and crossed her fleshy arms over her chest. “And before you get all smug, Mrs. Samuelson, let me remind you that when push comes to shove, he will probably still have the financial advantage in a trial. You might succeed in hurting him, but not without doing substantial economic damage to yourself.”

Her mouth dropped open even as her arms un-crossed and fell to her sides. Charlene lifted one corner of her mouth. “Perhaps one of the children will take you in.”

Mrs. Samuelson looked stricken.

“Okay, let’s go,” Ray said, holding the door open.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute—”

“Go!” Charlene commanded. Then she turned around, went back into her office and closed the door. She leaned against it and listened to the murmurings that came from the conference room. She could hear Ray’s occasional deep voice urging them to leave. The voices carried a decidedly different timbre than what she had greeted this morning. She looked at her watch—8:07. She went to her desk, took a sip of her coffee and a bite of her bagel. A person shouldn’t have to endure this kind of reprehensible behavior first thing in the morning, she thought. She often wished she could just get a glimpse of what these two were like in marriage, because it was difficult not to assume that the divorce was long overdue.

There was a tapping at the door. She checked her watch—8:11. Another fact that never failed to fascinate her—the worse the couple, the quicker they could modify their behavior if money was involved.

Pam stuck her head in the door. “They’d like to know if you’d consider giving them another chance,” she said.

“Ask them if they understand this will be the last time.”

Mr. Samuelson’s glittering head and halo of thin, frizzy yellow hair popped into the door opening. He came to Pam’s shoulder. He grinned triumphantly while Pam looked down at him with obvious distaste. “We understand,” he said.

“Good,” Charlene said. “We’ll start with the boat.”

Three hours later, the Samuelsons departed quietly. Not happily, not even politely, but at least quietly. They had worked through part of their settlement, and had kept their rancor under wraps. The pressure for them to behave had been so intense that Mrs. Samuelson was messaging her temples with her fingertips as she walked out and Mr. Samuelson was holding his oversize gut with both hands, lest it explode.

Charlene went into her private bathroom and splashed cool water on her cheeks. It was a professional coup to be chosen by the court to arbitrate any kind of settlement. Having made a name for herself in the practice of family law meant that usually Charlene was going to be dealing with divorce property or custody—two areas rife with explosive emotions. But this was hard. It took its toll of a morning.

She heard the intercom on her desk buzz, but she ignored it, remaining in the bathroom. She sat on the closed toilet lid, leaned back, kicked off her shoes and held a cool cloth over her eyes, dampening her short brown bangs in the process.

After twenty years in the business, there were very few surprises. It was always about the boat and the savings account, about who brought home the bacon and who didn’t. Even in the new century, when most marriages were made up of dual working partners, it always boiled down to who did the dishes and who earned the highest salary.

She unhooked her bra and let her rib cage expand briefly. She wiggled her toes into the thick carpet beneath her feet. She could not have borne more than three hours with those two. They gave divorce a bad name.

But she had pulled it off, gotten them to sit down and begin dividing things. A few more meetings and it would be done. The judge who had assigned her would be impressed. So what if it took her a while to recover. It was worth it to win the further admiration of the courts. The city was overrun with sleazy divorce lawyers, but there were only a pocketful of respectable unsharky family lawyers, of which Charlene was one. That is not to say her clients wouldn’t get what they deserved; she took very good care of them. More important, they would leave the proceedings with their self-respect.

The intercom on her desk buzzed again. “Okay, okay,” she said to herself, tossing the washcloth into the sink, slipping her feet back into her shoes and hooking up her bra. She applied some makeup to her cheeks, a little lip gloss to her lips, and squinted critically into the mirror. She looked tired even though she’d slept quite well the night before. She knew what that meant. It was time to seriously consider having her eyes done. A little nip, a little tuck, not a new face, but one that just didn’t seem to age at the speed of light.

Charlene didn’t give herself much slack; she was a perfectionist from nose to toes, professionally and personally. You don’t become successful by relaxing your standards. It was taxing, but nothing worth having came easy.

She flushed the toilet even though she hadn’t used it. She just didn’t want anyone to think she had locked herself into her bathroom to recover from the Samuelsons. No one should think she needed recovery. Not even Pam.

That was Charlene. Always in control. And perfect in every way—without breaking a sweat.

The intercom was buzzing wildly as she headed for her desk. “What?”

“Thank goodness, I thought you’d fallen in. It’s Stephanie.”

“Put her through.” Click, click. “Steph, honey, I’m really—”

“Mom, I hate him!”

Charlene sank into her chair. Sacramento could be crumbling around them in the throes of a six-point-eight shaker and still Stephanie would assume that the current state of her love life was of paramount concern to everyone. Stephanie didn’t even bother to say hello or ask Charlene if she had a few minutes. “Hmm,” Charlene hummed, noncommittal.

“I have tickets for Grease. Do you know how hard they were to get? How much they cost? And he promised me, promised me he’d get the night off. How often do I ask him to do that?”

Probably very, very often, Charlene thought, but she held her tongue.

“Is there absolutely no one in the state of California, in the city of Sacramento, who can stand behind the bar and sling a few drinks so he can go to a musical with me?”

“Stephanie, I doubt it’s as simple as that.”

“Mom, I’ve had it with spending every night alone. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life like this.”

“Honey, I sympathize with you, but you’re going to have to work this out with Grant,” she said.

“You could hate him too,” she whined.

“It’s hard to hate Grant. He’s such a doll.”

“Mom.”

“He is. He’s good to you. And patient. And smart. And he makes a nice living while putting himself through school. There’s a lot to admire about his hard work.”

“At the bar. Every night. With drunk women coming on to him all night long. Begging him to take them home.”

“My gosh,” Charlene mocked. “That must be nearly irresistible for him.”

“That’s not the point,” Stephanie said. “You can imagine where this leaves me. With two fifty-dollar tickets.”

“Is there no one else who would like to go see Grease with you?” she asked.

“That’s not the point either!”

“Then, Stephanie, what is the point?” Charlene asked tiredly.

“The point is, I don’t want to be alone all the time. I want my partner, the man of my heart, to spend time with me. To come home to me before I’m asleep!”

Charlene took a deep breath and did not say all the things that came to her mind. Like, You cannot expect the man of your heart to entertain you all the time. And, Didn’t you know he was a bartender when you suggested you move in together? Or even, Oh my darling, my dearest child, you are so rotten spoiled.

Stephanie was bright, adorable, funny and sensitive, but she had an overblown sense of entitlement not entirely rare in a twenty-five-year-old. Especially a twenty-five-year-old only child.

“Mom? Are you there?”

“Yes, Stephanie. Look, you knew all about Grant’s hours and commitments before you—”

“I might want to move back home, Mom,” she said.

Charlene bolted upright. “What?”

“I’ve been giving some thought to moving in with you, Mom.”

“Stephanie, think about what you’re saying. You’d be getting a roommate who would nag you to keep things tidy all the time. You would live with someone who is driven almost homicidal by dust bunnies! And you’re…how can I put this kindly? Simply not up to the job.”

“You don’t have to be mean,” she said.

“And you don’t have to be sloppy, but you are. We’ve been over this before, Steph. I love you more than my life, but I won’t take you on as a roommate again until I can be sure you can hold up your end of the deal. If you’re serious about wanting to live with me, you’d better go home and clean that apartment from top to bottom and prove you can keep it that way.” She sighed. “Honey, I suspect you’d be better off trying to work things out with Grant. I know you love him very much.”

“I don’t want to waste my life waiting around for a man who’s…who’s…”

“Who’s working?” Charlene asked sharply. “You’d better think about this, Stephanie. You made a major commitment to him. The two of you have been together a long time. This bartending, this was part of his plan. It’s an excellent income for a student. Isn’t he almost finished with school?”

“Ha! That’ll be the day. He’s already talking about getting a master’s. And that’s only the beginning of my nightmares. He says he’s going to test for the police academy.”

“Really? Well, I’m not surprised he’s taking that direction. He’s been real interested in forensics and constitutional law and—Are you so completely surprised?”

“I’m horrified! Straight from spending every night at the bar to spending every night on the streets getting shot at.”

“Well Jesus, Stephanie,” Charlene said, out of patience, “what the hell do you want him to do? Win the lottery?”

“I just don’t want to…you know…”

“No I don’t know. What?”

“I don’t want to end up like you!”

Charlene couldn’t get a breath. She didn’t want to hear any more.

“Mom, you know what I mean. Don’t you? I mean, it figures, with what you do for a living, you’d be pretty suspicious of marriage. Bitter about it.”

Oh boy, this was only getting worse. Bitter? Like a dagger. “Stephanie, I have a call on another line. Can we talk about this later?”

“Oh, God, now you’re mad. Mom, look, I can understand why you’d want your kind of life, and it’s right for you and everything, but that doesn’t mean that I—”

“Steph, I’m sorry, honey. I have to go! I’ll talk to you later.”

As she clicked off the line, she felt the rare prickle of tears sting her eyes.

Charlene needed something to shift her emotions back to the stable side, and Dennis came to mind. She decided to surprise him by showing up at his E.R. for lunch, something she made time for only rarely. It was not the nastiness of the Samuelsons that had jolted her—she was used to that sorry business. But Stephanie’s remark about her life—or the lack thereof—threatened to ruin her day. What could she have meant? That Charlene didn’t need anyone? That was entirely untrue. She needed a lot of people, mostly Stephanie, even when she was the worst brat. And her mother, Lois, who had named herself Peaches for her only grandchild. And of course, Dennis, the most dependable man in the world. In thinking about it, the only thing she didn’t have in her life was a marriage. And in the presence of all that she did have, she didn’t need that.

It was true that Charlene was secure as a single woman, had taken to living alone quite easily and felt no desire to have a man’s rowing machine stored under her bed. But did that make her bitter about marriage? No! Certainly not!

The best way to drive out any plaguing doubt was to see her man, her Dennis, to feel his arm around her shoulders, to look into his warm, reassuring brown eyes and have him tell her for the millionth time that she was an incredible woman.

It was really Dennis who was incredible. Almost too incredible to be believed.

When Charlene had reached forty, after twenty years of backbreaking labor as a studying and then working single mother, she had met Dennis—the perfect man. While hiking along the American River she had twisted her ankle and was rescued by the tall, handsome physician’s assistant. His hands on her sprain were gentle, his smile comforting. He helped her to his car and took her to the emergency room in which he worked, where he had her ankle X-rayed. Then he wrapped it himself. Then he took her to dinner. The whole thing had brought about a belief in fate once more, for who could have predicted that she would meet a man so in tune to her every whim. They shared similar tastes in music, in food, in leisure activities. They had both been married once when much younger, though Dennis had no children.

Even though Charlene had declined Dennis’s proposals of marriage, she had not done so because of any doubt about their ability to remain perfect partners, but rather out of the common sense of a family law practitioner. “I don’t want to screw up a really good thing by overindulgence,” she had told him. “Let’s not mess with it, especially since it works absolutely perfectly.”

And Dennis always said, “You must be right, because I have nothing to complain about. I just thought we could check and see if it could get more perfect.”

During their five years together, Charlene and Dennis had set a kind of schedule for their relationship, something that appealed to a woman as strictly organized as Charlene. One night a week they had dinner at her house and Dennis would usually stay over. One night a week they dined at his house, but she rarely stayed the night because she loved her little house in the suburbs. Saturday nights they went out, Sunday mornings they had brunch, and the rest of the time they checked in by phone. They had both togetherness and plenty of time to catch up on work, family, or fulfill other social obligations—he for the hospital, she for the legal community and professional women’s groups. Or, they simply spent time alone, something middle-aged professionals who lived demanding, hectic lives needed.

Dennis was, above all, a treasured friend…and when life threw a few curves at Charlene, he was the one for whom she reached.

Charlene was already feeling more secure just thinking about Dennis and their flawless relationship as she pulled into the St. Rose’s E.R. parking lot. She was soon distracted by evidence of a recent commotion. A Sacramento Fire Department engine was just departing and a paramedic van was still parked outside. A couple of firefighters in full turnout gear stood talking outside the E.R. doors, and the ambulance was backed up to the dock, doors open, a serious cleaning-up going on.

On a couple of occasions she had gone to the E.R. when Dennis was in the throes of triage, and she had been mesmerized by his commanding nature, his confidence and skill. He was impressive to watch.

But today it appeared the chaos was past. There were a few people in the lobby waiting to be seen, all the curtains were drawn around treatment cubicles and there was a grim hush that lay over the room. It seemed things were under control. She saw Dennis standing outside one of the exam rooms, chart in hand, listening raptly and scribbling quickly as a young doctor spoke to him. A young woman.

She seemed awfully young to be a doctor, Charlene observed, but she had to be if Dennis was writing orders; if she wasn’t an M.D., he’d be giving them. She looked about twenty-one and she was very tall. She could look Dennis right in the eye. Charlene, at five foot four, fought down the temptation to feel dumpy. She straightened her spine. She was petite…almost a foot shy of meeting Dennis’s gaze. But this one, with her long legs and long auburn hair…

Dennis stopped writing suddenly to make eye contact with the young woman. She looked down as if shaken by something. He put aside the chart and pen and reached out to touch her upper arm. He gave her a gentle squeeze. Charlene saw that Dennis spoke to her softly but intensely. The doctor leaned forward, rested her head on his shoulder. His arm encircled her, stroking her back, and he murmured to her all the while. Charlene could read his lips: “It’s okay, okay.” The young woman was draped against him, soaking up what Charlene had come for. She wasn’t sobbing or crying, but still obviously upset…and Charlene’s fiancé held her close and secure. For a long time. Charlene made a U-turn and migrated back to the front of the E.R. before Dennis let the young woman go.

Hmm, she thought. She had never before referred to him as her fiancé. Even mentally.

“Hi, Charlene,” Barbara Benn, the E.R. clerk, greeted. “Does Denny know you’re here?”

No, she thought, he didn’t see me because he was busy caressing a beautiful and obviously brilliant fifteen-year-old doctor. “Ah…I don’t think so. You have an exciting morning?”

Barbara leaned over the counter. “Bad accident,” she whispered. “We had a couple of fatalities. Very yucko ones.” Barbara, early twenties with a slight purple tinge to her overly black hair, cracked her gum and rolled her eyes for emphasis. “Denny worked on one for about forty-five minutes. Awful. Just a kid. I bet he’s completely bummed. He’ll be glad to see you. Maybe you can get him out of here for a while.”

At that precise moment, Dennis, who she never called Denny, was there, beside her. He dropped his arm casually around her shoulders, but his gaze drifted down the hall toward the departing frame of the young woman he’d just been holding. “Hi, honey,” he said absently. “I can’t get away. I’m sorry. It’s a zoo.” His lips fell to the top of her head in a perfunctory kiss before he let her go and followed the young doctor. Charlene was filled with a sense of emptiness that was underscored by her earlier conversation with Stephanie.

There will be an explanation later, she told herself. But as hard as she tried, she could not seem to get past the fact that he hadn’t asked her why she had come. Didn’t he wonder if something might be wrong? He was probably still very distracted by the fatality…or by the young doctor….

“Whew, it obviously sucks to be Denny right now,” Barbara said.

“Who’s the doctor? The young, beautiful one?”

She turned to look. “Oh, that’s Dr. Malone. She’s new. Pediatrician. She’s awesome. Everyone loves her. I guess you haven’t met her yet.”

“No, not yet,” Charlene said.

“You’ll like her,” she said. “She’s very cool for a doctor.”

No, I hate her, Charlene thought, then retracted the thought with shame. She had never had thoughts so jealous and immature where Dennis was concerned! Not even when she had witnessed goo-goo eyes directed at him while they were out together. From young nurses to legal colleagues, women took quick notice of Dennis’s classic good looks. Dennis was an absolute gem. And, she reminded herself, completely loyal.

Charlene got herself to the parking lot, into the car, and out of the vicinity before she succumbed to the needy impulse to rush to the hospital cafeteria, where she might catch them in the act of holding hands over the tuna surprise, gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes.