Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [100]
“Richard,” Cici said wearily, “what are you still doing here?”
“He’s staying over, Mom,” Lori declared cheerfully.
“We don’t have any extra rooms,” Cici told her flatly.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa.” Richard smiled.
“Fine.”Neither Cici’s tone or expression changed. “You’re in my chair.”
He politely stood up and offered her the rocking chair.
“Whose chair am I in?” Paul wanted to know.
“Mine.” Lindsay sat on his knee and leaned back. “What a night.”
“I made seventy-five dollars in tips,” Noah said, practically chortling as he counted it. “And that was just for thirteen cars! Wait till tomorrow.”
Bridget sat down thoughtfully in one of the folding chairs that had been set up for tomorrow’s guests. A gust of wind blew her hair across her face and she absently pushed it back. “I think I’ve figured it out,” she said.
“Thank God,” muttered Cici, with no idea what she was talking about.
“No, I mean about Ida Mae.” She leaned forward earnestly and lowered her voice. “I think the problem is—she can’t read.”
“How can that be?”
“That’s not possible!”
And then Lindsay said, looking interested, “No, a lot of illiterate adults spend their lives hiding the fact that they can’t read. They get quite good at it.”
“It would explain everything,” Bridget went on, her voice growing excited. “All her problems began when we started the business, and everything was written down—recipes, instructions, shipping labels. And then tonight—the mistakes she made were on recipes she didn’t know, don’t you see? She had to read them!”
“Are you talking about that old lady in the kitchen?”
The voice belonged to Traci, who was standing inside the screen door, head down, futilely pushing buttons on her phone. “She can’t see. I asked her to help me pin on my veil this afternoon and she couldn’t even find the bobby pin. My granny was like that before she had her cataract surgery. Are you people ever going to get telephone service?”
Lindsay, Cici, and Bridget looked at each other in dawning amazement. “Cataracts,” Cici said.
“Of course,” Bridget agreed with a slow shake of her head. “Of course.”
“I’m going to make an appointment with the ophthalmologist first thing Monday,” Lindsay said.
Bridget turned in her chair to beam at Traci. “I guess it took a stranger to see what we were all too close to her to notice.”
Traci pushed open the door and came outside. “There’s no television in my room.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Lori said, a little apologetically. “They moved it downstairs to mine.”
Traci gave her a somewhat incredulous look. “What do you people do at night?”
“This, mostly Lindsay said, relaxing back against Paul’s shoulder.
“We do have telephone service, by the way,” Cici pointed out. “It’s called a landline.”
Traci looked at her for a moment as though she had just said, “Telegraph.” Then, “I need to call my maid of honor and tell her to bring my overnight bag out here.”
“Oh, honey, don’t make her turn around and drive all the way out here tonight,” Bridget protested.
“I’ll loan you a nightshirt,” Lori volunteered.
“It’s her job,” Traci replied, folding her arms as she leaned against one of the columns and fixed her gaze on the darkened lawn. “She’s the bridesmaid and I’m the bride.”
Another stiff gust of wind made a flapping sound against the plastic of one of the tents and Cici said, “We might get a little storm.”
Paul asked worriedly, “Noah, you did stake down the tents, right? Maybe we should have waited until morning to put up the scrim.”
Traci turned on him accusingly. “It had better not rain on my wedding day!”
And although everyone on the porch, it seemed, drew a breath to reply, only Bridget actually spoke. “Honey, are you sure you want to go through with this?”
Cici stared at Bridget in disbelief. So did Lindsay, so did Paul, and even Lori. But in the end all they could do was wait for Traci’s reply. It was brief and sharp. “Why shouldn’t I?