Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [10]
Bridget sighed. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
But just then the phone rang, and the fun, such as it was, had just begun.
3
Opportunity Knocks
Bridget grinned as she reached for the telephone. “It’s probably the Today show.”
Cici held out her hand for the telephone with an air of resignation. “It’s Lori,” she said. “Doesn’t that child ever attend classes?”
But the voice on the other end of the telephone was not Lori’s.
“Paul!” she exclaimed. And to the others, “It’s Paul! Wait, you’re on speaker.”
She pushed the button and Paul’s voice, over a hundred miles away, declared, “Well? Now was it worth the trouble?”
Paul and his partner Derrick had been neighbors of the ladies when they all lived on Huntington Lane in Maryland, and had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into support of the Ladybug Farm project. It was Paul, the author of a popular syndicated style and fashion column, who had suggested an article on Ladybug Farm to his friend, an editor at Virginians at Home. The idea had been met with initial resistance from the members of the household who actually knew what it would take to prepare the old house for a photo session. But they had eventually been worn down, if not entirely overruled, by Lori. Eight months later, the fruits of their labors had seen print, but as to whether or not the herculean feat of preparing for the article was worth the effort...
“The verdict is still out,” Cici told Paul.
“But it was a great article,” Lindsay added.
Bridget closed the oven door. “Eighty-seven comments on the blog!” she announced happily. “No, wait—ninety!”
“Ninety-one,” Paul said. “I just sent a comment.”
Ida Mae harrumphed at the sink, wrapped the dandelion greens in paper towels, and stalked to the pantry.
“The phone has been ringing all day,” Lindsay told him. “Everyone in town thinks we’re celebrities.”
“That’s because for the past three months you’ve been telling everyone we know the exact day the magazine was going to hit the stands,” Bridget said.
“Like you haven’t?”
“The photos were great,” Paul said. “You all looked beautiful:”
“Lori is convinced this is the beginning of a whole new enterprise,” Cici said, laughing a little.
“Well, you never know.”
“I just got your comment,” Bridget exclaimed. She paused to read it. “What do you mean, do we ever do special events?”
“Well...” The careful excitement in Paul’s voice caused an escalation of alertness in his listeners. “As a matter of fact, something very interesting has come up. Do you remember my editor’s sister’s mother-in-law’s best friend, the one who has the place in the Hamptons that Derrick and I visited last summer?”
“No,” said Cici, “but if this is an invitation to join you this summer, we accept.”
“It’s better,” Paul said.
Lindsay drew close to the phone. “You’ve got my attention.”
“As it turns out,” Paul went on, “she has a niece who’s getting married in June and there’s been some kind of disaster with the venue for the reception—flooding or mice or crabgrass or something.”
“Crabgrass?” Bridget interrupted, eyebrows lifted.
“It was supposed to be a garden ceremony” Paul explained, “and of course trying to find a replacement at this late date is out of the question, and the whole family is half hysterical about it, naturally.”
“Naturally” Cici murmured.
“So, Julie, my editor, happened to be in my office this morning when my copy of the magazine came in, and we were admiring the pictures of the house and garden, and Julie happened to mention what a perfect place for a wedding that would be, and I remember that you had actually talked about opening the place up for weddings at one time ...”
“For a minute!” Cici corrected, alarmed. “We talked about it for a minute!”
“That was before we had a vineyard to take care of,” Lindsay added quickly.
“And wine jams to make,” Bridget said.
“And long before we knew how much trouble it was just to get this place ready for a magazine reporter, much less a stranger’s wedding.”
Paul was silent for a moment. “What a shame.” There was