CHAPTER 23

Or, DUUUUUUUCK

* * *

BILL PARKED ON THE SIDE of the street, and as soon as he’d cut the engine, I jumped out. Two officers were already out of the patrol car and heading around to the back of the house. They’d turned the sirens off but left the lights on, a kaleidoscope of red and blue swinging in arcs and flashing against the garage door.

“Hi,” I called to them over the sound of the wind as I hurried to catch up. “Um. Officers? Is there a problem here?”

They turned to look at me, and even though I was getting soaked by the rain and holding my skirt down against the wind, I gave them my best responsible, non-lawbreaking smile. This faltered a little, though, when I realized I recognized the older one of the officers—he was the one who’d told me and Mike to move when we’d turned down Grant Avenue.

“We’re responding to a call,” the older officer—Ramirez—said just as Bill hurried to join me. He looked between the two of us, me in my dress and Bill in his tux, and raised an eyebrow. “Is it prom night already?”

“It’s my sister’s wedding,” I said as I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, trying to get some feeling back in them.

The officers exchanged a look I didn’t understand. “Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?” Bill asked, looking between the officers, his hair getting steadily wetter.

“We had a noise complaint,” Officer Ramirez said, starting to walk around to the back of the house again. “Wedding this way?”

“In a tent in the backyard,” I said, following behind them, still trying to wrap my head around this. “You said a noise complaint? But . . .” All at once I realized, with a flash of white-hot fury, just why I was currently talking to two police officers in the rain. “It was our neighbor, Don Perkins. Wasn’t it?”

“We can’t disclose that information,” Officer Ramirez said as he continued around the house and to the backyard.

“Look,” I said, my heels slipping on the slick grass as I struggled to keep up with him. “I think this is all just a big misunderstanding. Our neighbor Don is nursing a personal grudge. There’s a whole garden thing involved. I’m sure he called you out here just to wreck my sister’s wedding.”

“That may be so,” Officer Ramirez said as he continued across the backyard to the tent. “But we still have to check out these calls. We don’t have the luxury of deciding what is and isn’t a problem before we even investigate.” The younger officer—I could see now that his name tag read HOPPER—nodded seriously at me as he passed, like he was trying to underscore this point.

“But,” I said, talking louder now, and faster, as I tried to keep up with them, brushing my sodden hair out of my face. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I couldn’t let them go into the tent. What would that do to Linnie’s wedding, if the police suddenly burst in? Enough had already gone wrong. I couldn’t let this happen too. “Look,” I called, as Officer Ramirez reached for the handle of the door to the tent. “I promise you it’s all fine. And that there’s really nothing to see—” But whatever I was about to say died partway to my lips as Officer Ramirez opened the door to the tent, because I could now see there was a screaming fight going on in the middle of the dance floor.

Everyone was sitting at their tables, and from the plates on them, and the hovering, frozen presence of the catering staff, it looked like dinner was being served. Up by the stage, the members of Any Way You Want It were all standing stock-still, staring at what was happening in front of them.

And what was happening was Jimmy and Liz, and their long feud apparently coming to a head—right now.

“Don’t pretend with me,” Liz spat at Jimmy, who threw his hands up theatrically. “You know what you did. Or have you forgotten what happened in 1982?”

“Why are you bringing that up?” Jimmy yelled back. “Who cares what happened in 1982?”

“Well, not you, obviously!”

Officer Ramirez took another step inside, with Officer Hopper following behind him. Bill and I came in behind them, but nobody seemed to notice us, let alone the presence of two uniformed officers.

“You always do this,” Jimmy yelled, and I noticed that he and Liz were edging closer together, no longer staying in their separate corners. “And I’m sick of it!”

“What, you think I like it?” Liz yelled back. The elegant woman I’d gotten used to seeing was now totally gone—her hair was escaping from its chignon, and strands were standing up in the back. But more than that was her expression—like all the steely control I’d seen from her earlier was gone, and she was letting it all out now.

“Yes, I think you do, Elizabeth,” Jimmy said, a snide tone in his voice. “You just love playing the victim, don’t you?”

“Unlike you, James, I’m not too much of a coward to face up to what I’ve done.”

“What did he do?” Bill whispered to me, eyes wide as he followed the unfolding drama.

“Did you just call me a coward?”

“I did,” Liz said, raising her voice. “But I should have called you a chicken!”

“I am not a chicken!”

“Oh? Is that so?” Liz whirled around to the server who had the unfortunate luck to be standing behind her. She picked up a chicken breast off the plate and hurled it at Jimmy, and it landed right on the lapel of his blazer.

“I cannot believe you did that,” Jimmy said, reaching for the nearest plate. “You’re—”

“Hey!” Officer Ramirez yelled, his voice carrying across the tent. Both Jimmy and Liz stopped yelling abruptly, and it seemed like every head in the tent swung over to look at the two police officers who’d suddenly appeared. “I’m going to need everyone to just calm down, okay? Sir? Please step away from the steak.”

Jimmy looked down at the plate in his hands and immediately set it down.

There was the sound of a chair scraping, then falling over, and I looked across the tent to see Max, his face pale, backing toward the exits as he stared in horror at the cops. “I’m just going to . . . check on something . . . ,” he muttered, before turning and fleeing full out toward the door.

“Um,” Rodney said, rising from his seat at the head table. “Is there a problem?”

“We received a noise complaint,” Officer Ramirez said. “We’re here to check it out.”

“A noise complaint?” my dad asked, standing up and heading our way. “From who?”

“Whom,” J.J. said, also coming to join in the conversation. We all just stared at him, and he shrugged. “What? It’s correct.”

“We don’t disclose the names of citizens who submit noise complaints,” Officer Hopper said, like he was reciting something from a textbook. “For their own protection, and ours.”

The officers started toward the dance floor, and my dad, Bill, J.J., and I followed Linnie as she also got up from the head table. “What’s the trouble here?” Officer Ramirez asked Jimmy and Liz, both of whom had their arms folded and were looking at the ground, like they were trying to pretend they hadn’t just been throwing food and yelling at each other a moment earlier.

Jimmy and Liz glared at each other, but neither spoke. I glanced around the tent. The guests were still all sitting at their tables, although it looked like the videographer was filming, as though he thought we’d really want a reminder of this. The catering staff had clustered by the back of the tent, like they weren’t sure what the protocol was about serving the entrées now that the police were involved, and the band was still standing onstage like they were watching a particularly interesting TV program.

I looked over and saw that Linnie and Rodney, as well as Danny and my mom and the Danielses, were all coming over.

“Officers, I’m sure all this can’t be necessary,” my mom said, as she stood next to my dad, looking from the police to Jimmy and Liz.

“When we see a domestic disturbance, we have to investigate,” Officer Hopper said, again sounding like he was reading lines he had memorized. “It’s procedure.”