“The seating chart’s in the dining room,” Bill said as we both stepped inside. I nodded and headed there, carefully walking around the wedding cake on its rolling cart (presumably to get it out to the tent) in the center of the kitchen. One of the caterers was putting finishing touches on it, and I could see the little bride and groom figurines standing up on the kitchen counter, like they were waiting for the cake to be ready for them.
“It looks great,” I said to the man working on the cake, who shot me a quick, hassled smile that disappeared almost instantly. As I looked around, I realized that we’d chosen probably the worst moment to invade the kitchen—the caterers were prepping the plates of appetizers, and there was a buzzing, busy energy that certainly hadn’t been there before. I was halfway across the kitchen, nearly to the dining room, when I heard the sound. “What is that?” I asked, stopping short. It was like I could hear the sound of scratching on the wood floors and a faint yowling sound.
Bill stopped too, frowning, just as Max burst into the kitchen, out of breath, looking around a little desperately. “Maple Syrup?” he called. “Where’s Maple Syrup?”
“Hey, Max,” I said, taking a tentative step toward him, wondering just what kind of munchies he was currently having. “What’s up?”
“I have to find Maple Syrup,” he cried, looking around the kitchen. “He’s gone!”
“He?” Bill asked, just as the yowling got louder.
“What are you talking about, Max?”
“Maple Syrup is my cat,” Max said, his shoulders slumping. “I’ve been hiding him in my room.”
“There’s been a cat here this entire time?” I asked. Max nodded. “No wonder Linnie keeps sneezing! She’s allergic.”
“I’m so sorry, but my cat sitter bailed, so I thought it would be fine, but I went upstairs to . . . um . . .” I nodded, since we all knew what Max had been doing. “And anyway, he got out? So I just need to find him, and—”
With a yowl, a white blur burst into the kitchen, followed closely by a brown-and-white blur that I realized was Waffles. “What—” I started, since I had no idea how the dog had gotten out as well.
The caterers shrieked, and one of them dropped the tray she’d been holding as a cat—and then a dog—ran around her legs. “Hold on,” I yelled, though I didn’t know if I was talking to the caterers, or the animals, but I jumped into action anyway, and I saw Bill do the same. “Let’s just—try—” I yelled, attempting to intercept the dog and cat, who were still racing in circles around the kitchen, zigzagging back and forth as the cat changed direction and Waffles gave chase. He was barking as he ran, a loud, insistent sound, the cat screeching as it tried to get away from him.
“Here, Maple,” Max yelled, running for his cat and getting a swipe on the arm as a result.
“Why are there animals in this kitchen?” the caterer who’d dropped her tray yelled as she picked up what looked like sliders off the floor. “We’re preparing food here!”
“I’m sorry,” I yelled back as I ran around the kitchen island, narrowly missing Waffles’s collar, just as the cat shot through Bill’s hands. “Max—” But before Max could grab his cat, Maple Syrup jumped up onto the kitchen counter, causing all the catering staff to yell once again.
“I’m so sorry,” Max said, grabbing for his cat, who hissed at him while keeping his eyes on Waffles, who was full-on howling now, staring up at the cat in frustration as he ran back and forth.
What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion, like maybe fear of imminent disaster slows things down, just in case you really want to remember it. Waffles jumped for the cat just as the cat leaped for the kitchen island but fell short, and both of them collided with the rolling cart at almost exactly the same time—the cart with the wedding cake on it.
I watched helplessly as the cart tipped over, taking the wedding cake with it. The three tiers seemed to separate as they fell, the top tier sliding off the bottom two as they all landed on the kitchen floor with a muted splat.
The animals raced around the destroyed cake and out the kitchen door, while the rest of us just stood, frozen in horror.
“Well,” Bill finally said, looking from the cake on the floor to me. “That’s not great.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, I looked across the cab of the Where There’s A Will truck. Bill was driving us to the Food Mart—we were en route to try to save the situation, and pick up replacement wedding cakes.
After we’d all just stared at the destroyed cake on the floor for what honestly felt like five minutes, everyone had jumped into action. Max was put in charge of corralling and separating the animals—history had proven that he probably wasn’t the best person for this job, but he was all we had at the moment. Bill made sure everything was still on track in the tent, while the caterers had tried to salvage as much of the cake as they could. This wasn’t for eating—I had a feeling that the five-second rule really didn’t count when it came to things like wedding cakes—but so that Rodney and Linnie could at least have something to pose for pictures with. But we still had the issue of the hundred and fifty people in the tent who would be expecting to eat something for dessert. I’d taken over trying to find someone who could provide that, starting to make calls and fire off e-mails.
After a few attempts, I found out pretty quickly that no bakery or catering company could provide a three-tier wedding cake in an hour (which was not, in retrospect, really that surprising). But the bakery department of Food Mart, the local supermarket, was open and they had three sheet cakes with white icing in stock. And that looked like the best we were going to do.
My car had been too blocked in with guests’ cars and all the equipment vans, but Bill’s truck was parked away from the glut and down the street—“It’s WTAW policy,” he’d told me—and since AAA had come out that morning to jump his battery, we were good to go.
Even though it was only a ten-minute drive to get into town, I kicked off my heels immediately—they hadn’t really started to hurt yet, but I could feel the incipient pain that would be arriving shortly, and I figured any chance to give my feet a break would be a good thing. I tucked my legs up underneath me and looked across the truck’s cab at Bill. The two of us were back in a car, driving around like we’d been doing just this morning. Only now we were both in formal wear.
“What?” Bill asked, glancing over at me as he paused at a stop sign.
“Just this,” I said, gesturing between the two of us. “I bet we’ll be the most dressed-up people in the supermarket.”
Bill laughed. “After my senior prom, we stopped at a convenience store, and everyone in there was staring at us—this whole group in dresses and suits, suddenly taking over the snack aisle.”
I nodded, smiling. “That’s just like—” I stopped myself. I’d been on the verge of telling a story about a prom limo running out of gas, and pumping gas in formal wear. But I’d realized just a second too late this wasn’t one of my stories, or even one of my siblings’ stories—it had happened in Grant Central Station, to Cassie Grant and her ill-fated prom date, and had only ever existed in ink and paper.
We found parking right in front of Food Mart, and even though it wasn’t a long walk to the entrance, the second I stepped out of the car, I started to shiver. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped, and I was starting to realize that sleeveless silk dresses are not necessarily the best choice of outfit when it was getting colder by the second and clearly about to storm.
We hurried into the supermarket, and I blinked when we got inside, since everything—the white floors, the fluorescent lights overhead—seemed very bright. I was suddenly very aware that we were much too dressed up for the supermarket. There didn’t seem to be many people in the Food Mart—maybe not surprising, considering that it was eight o’clock on a Saturday night. Even the piped-in music seemed quieter than normal, right now playing a Muzak version of an old Rush song. I saw a woman pushing a cart past the dairy case and two people in the snack aisle, arguing about popcorn, but that seemed to be it. Even most of the lights on the registers were off, and the one that was on was staffed by a bored-looking guy who was currently leaning over his conveyor belt and flipping through a magazine.