Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [69]
The porch was decorated with four round tables covered in multicolored calico topped with Battenberg lace. All four tables displayed centerpieces of roses fresh from their garden in various containers—a silver teapot, a china bowl, a coffee urn—and set with an eclectic mix of Limoges and Haviland. White Irish linen napkins trimmed with hand tatting were rolled inside twig napkin rings, each one accented with a rose bud. Even though it was two o’clock in the afternoon, candles flickered in crystal water glasses, and the flames were reflected in the cut glass wineglasses at each place setting. Only one table had chairs around it, and on that table was a tray of four sparkling mimosas in champagne flutes.
Lindsay and Bridget looked cool and collected in light summer dresses, with their hair swept back and their makeup touched up at least twice in the past hour. Rebel was in the barn with a padlock on the door. The gate to the chicken yard, likewise, was latched and locked. The goat and the deer were in separate stalls inside the barn. And the smell of fertilizer was, for the most part, but a distant memory. They were ready.
Their guests arrived an hour and a half late in a big white Lincoln Town Car with a blue convertible roof. Catherine, in a crumpled linen pants suit that still managed to look safari stylish, was driving. Lindsay waved at her as she got out of the car, and she took off her sunglasses and lifted a hand to them regally. From the passenger seat emerged a plump, dark-haired woman in a black skirt and navy cotton blouse that they assumed was the mother of the groom, followed by Traci, scowling at her cell phone and looking disheveled and discontented. And then both back doors opened and out poured six other young women of various coloring and description, all of them stretching and groaning and all talking at once.
“Good God, Traci, could it be any closer to the end of the earth?”
“There’s no signal on my cell phone!”
“No one is ever going to be able to find this place, you know that.”
“I don’t see any sheep. Do you see sheep?”
“Oh, wait, there they are. Pul-leeeze tell me we don’t have to hike all the way over there!”
“Well, at least it’s not as bad as Kayla’s wedding, remember that? We had to walk two blocks to the beach!”
“Carrying her train!”
“Will you people shut up?” This was from Traci. “I almost had a signal!”
Lindsay and Bridget stared at the bejeaned and ponytailed crowd that was spreading across their front lawn. “They brought the whole wedding party,” Lindsay said, disbelieving.
“Four people.” Bridget’s voice was little more than a squeak as she tried to keep the smile plastered on her face, and to keep from being overheard. “The bride, the mother of the bride, the mother of the groom, the wedding planner. There were supposed to be only four people!”
Lindsay shared with her a look of dismay. “Guess we should have taken time to read all those e-mails after all.”
“I have to make more soup!”
“Forget that. Make more mimosas.”
Bridget hurried into the house, and Lindsay went down the steps, plastering a welcoming smile on her face. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand to the woman in black. “I’m Lindsay.”
The woman did not smile, and did not take Lindsay’s hand. She tilted up the oversized white-framed sunglasses just enough to get a good look at Lindsay, and she said, “Well, this could hardly be more inconvenient, could it? Giving up my entire Sunday to drive into the middle of godforsaken nowhere. I certainly hope you people are better equipped at keeping your commitments on the day of the wedding.”
Lindsay’s smile faded. “As I explained to Catherine,” she