My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

The Wedding of Wylda Serene Esther M. Friesner

It has been said that God makes marriages, but the Devil plans weddings. I know this has been said, because I said it. I coined the aforementioned bon mot upon the occasion of my elder sister's third wedding of a career-best total of six. The nup­tial rut that dear Katherine wore into the aisle of St. George's Angli­can is one reason for my own continued bachelorhood. If one cannot learn from the mistakes of others, one might as well become a Democrat.

One would presume that when a woman has gone through the same ceremony so many times (not counting an ill-considered elope­ment with one of the pool boys during her fourth honeymoon on Maui), the mechanics of a wedding, if not the subsequent marriage, would go more smoothly as experience was garnered along the way.

Ah, but when has logic ever refused to defer to human stupidity? Our dear Katherine somehow managed to turn each wedding into an even greater display of obsessive perfectionism, spectacular tantrums, and alienated bridesmaids. By the time she embarked upon Marriage VI she hadn't a female friend left with whom she was on speaking terms, let alone one who would be willing to stand up for her in a cloud of mint green tulle at the altar of St. George's.

Thus my sister made a virtue of Necessity and struck up an in­stantaneous friendship with one Nora Scruggs. La Scruggs was a part-time employee at the florist's shop that had provided Katherine with so many wedding bouquets, boutonnieres, pew decorations, al­tar flowers, and table centerpieces that the proprietor had to be forcibly restrained from falling to his knees and covering my sister's hands with kisses every time they met.

Miss Scruggs was an attractive, well-meaning young woman of gentle mien and biddable disposition. She seemed to have about as much self-determination as a tablespoon of tomato aspic. When, within the space of twenty minutes, my sister took their conversation from, "I'm getting married in May," to, "Your bridesmaid dress fit­ting will be this Saturday at ten A.M.. I'll pay for it, of course," the poor girl was thrilled.

Katherine's sixth wedding proved to be an historic occasion for many reasons, not the least of which being that it was her last. Ap­parently her latest husband, Bryce Calhoun III, took exception to a torrid Internet romance that Katherine initiated in a cybercafe on St. Bart's during their first Christmas together. As they flew home to­gether in one of Bryce's smaller private planes, they had a dreadful falling-out about it. For my sister, the falling-out was quite literal, helped along by a hearty push from her exasperated spouse. By a re­markable stroke of luck, Bryce was both defended (well) and prose­cuted (weakly) by two of Katherine's former husbands, although I hope for our family's sake that there is little or no truth to the rumor that my late sister also had dated nine out of the twelve jurors.

Katherine's hymeneal excesses aside, her final wedding was also significant in that it provided her makeshift bridesmaid, the bewitch-ingly blue-collar Miss Scruggs, with unexpected entree to the higher strata of Society. It happened at the reception, which of course took place at The Club. It was there, in an earthly paradise of scrupulously groomed lawns, tastefully decorated function rooms, and perfectly chilled champagne, that the winsome florist's assistant made the acquaintance of young Frederick Austin-Cowles. The rest was history, as written by Cinderella.

Frederick came from an American lineage so old, rich, and re­spectable that defending its age, wealth, and honor was his parents' sole preoccupation. The burden of nigh four hundred years of an­cestral obligation had made them into blue-blooded martinets of the first order, intent on raising their only child to be nothing more than top-grade mulch for the family tree. The lad spent the first twenty-five years of his life firmly compressed beneath their totali­tarian thumbs. Each aspect of his existence—eating, sleeping, clothing, schooling, playing, and more—was regimented with a strictness to make the ancient Spartans look like fifth-string yoga instructors.

No one but a confirmed masochist or a member of Yale's Skull and Bones club would doubt for an instant how deeply Frederick abhorred his micromanaged childhood and the parents who had en­gineered it. At the age of five he resolved to find some way to put their patrician noses well and truly out of joint the moment that he came into full possession of the trust fund his grandfather had left him. Wisely averse to any act that would mortify his parents but harm himself in the process, Frederick could not take any of the more conventional paths to rebellion, such as substance abuse, sexual excess, decorating his skin with blobs of ink and globs of metal, or mail-ordering a ready-made polyester men's suit from Montgomery Ward. He was at what passed for his wit's end when he met Miss Scruggs and the angels sang.

They sang something by Patsy Cline, to be sure, something so down-home, simple, honest, and salt-of-the-earth as could not fail to send Frederick's parents into fits. Oh, how that thought left him gloating! Moreover, Miss Scruggs herself was so sweet, meek, and pleasing to the eye that it would be no great hardship for him to em­ploy her as his bedmate as well as his implement of vengeance. He put the astonished girl through a whirlwind courtship, a hasty wedding flight to Las Vegas, and got her in the family way before my sis­ter Katherine and Bryce came back from their honeymoon.

Alas for Frederick, he did not live to relish the fruits of his filial re­taliation. He left his pregnant bride in their Central Park West pied-a-terre and was driving hell-for-finest-New-Zealand-lambskin-leather to Connecticut, to drop the proverbial bombshell on his parents, when his Mercedes lost an argument with a lawn furniture delivery truck somewhere east of Greenwich. Hilliard and Margot Austin-Cowles learned that they were childless, in-laws, and incipient grandparents at almost the same time that poor Nora found out she was a widow.

Of course The Club was soon buzzing with the details of what followed, to no one's surprise. The Club is a veritable beehive for ru­mor. My sister's last wedding, Frederick's ill-motivated pursuit of the unsuspecting Miss Scruggs, the new widow's genuine agony at the loss of her beloved young husband, all these juicy morsels of gos­sip quickly shriveled to mere dessicated jerky-bits of tittle-tattle on that crisp October evening when Preston Bedford came rushing into the bar and breathlessly announced:

"They've taken her in!"

And so they had, they being Frederick's parents and she being their pregnant daughter-in-law. This news was startling enough to anyone who knew the Austin-Cowleses' stringent outlook as to who was and was not socially acceptable. (They regarded the Pilgrim Fa­thers as pushy immigrants, the Johnny-Alden-come-lately embodi­ment of all that was dragging America down into the populist mire.) But this was as nothing when compared to what followed, namely, the intense, immediate, and profound change we all observed in Margot and Hilliard the moment that little Wylda Serene was born.

She was a lovely child, for someone who had begun her existence as a means of petty payback. Her mother's reliable bread-and-butter comeliness had given a much-needed anchor to Wylda's father's frailer caviar-and-cabernet attractions. Her infant prettiness was but a faint harbinger of the glorious beauty she grew to be. Fiery red-gold hair, luminous skin, and eyes the color of newly unfurled leaves adorned a lithe and vibrant body of unquestionable appeal. She car­ried herself with the poise and elegance of a young gazelle, and her curves put the corniche at Monte Carlo to shame.

Her besotted grandparents gave her everything. Unlike their be­havior toward their late son, every benefit they conferred upon his posthumous child was innocent of any agenda save her happiness. When she became an articulate being, she had but to voice a wish, however fanciful, and all the social and financial clout of the Austin-Cowles family would be brought into play for the sole purpose of fulfilling that desire.

Overindulgence of the young is a perilous thing. Children spoil more readily than oysters in July. Her grandparents' inexhaustible worship might have caused little Wylda's life to go very bad very quickly if she had entertained any unsuitable desires, but she had none, none! She accepted all the gifts and benefits with which her adoring grandparents showered her, doing so with a quiet gracious-ness fit to make the Queen of England look like a mule skinner by comparison, yet not one of these was ever her idea. She requested nothing.

Shame on that jaded soul who would leap to the cynical conclu­sion that Wylda's behavior was sly in the extreme, that she was mis­tress of the ancient art of acquisition through the Request Indirect. It was not so. She never dropped a hint, never sighed over high-ticket gewgaws, never wondered aloud how much was that doggie, dress, or Daimler in the window. She never so much as wrote a letter to Santa Claus.

If it is truly more blessed to give than to receive, young Wylda was sanctified in spades. Her grandparents gave her worldly gifts, but she gave them something infinitely more precious: the sincere, bone-deep docility that her father had died withholding. She had not a single rebellious bone in her body, neither mutinous heart nor insub­ordinate mind.

In this she took after her mother. The Austin-Cowles manner of living was quite literally stunning to a woman of the former Miss Scruggs's social class. In the twenty-three years between Wylda's birth and wedding, the erstwhile florist's assistant dwelled in nigh-nunlike self-effacement in the shadow of her dynamic in-laws. Apart from the occasional command appearance at family functions, one would hardly guess she was there. This suited all parties concerned admirably.

I was in The Club bar discussing the finer points of bespoke golf balls with ten of my fellow members on that February day when Hilliard Austin-Cowles made the grand announcement. He drifted into our midst like a curl of bourbon-laced tobacco smoke, beck­oned the barman, conveyed his desires in a whisper, then sat down in the leather armchair most removed from the rest of us. Within mo­ments we knew that something was afoot, for through the bar­tender's particular sort of magic, there now appeared at our several elbows bottles of a buxom Veuve Clicquot champagne, served up in The Club's best crystal flutes.

We maintained the silence proper to the occasion. When a gentle­man sets drink of such quality before so many, it would be uncivil to rush him into an explanation. However, etiquette did not forbid us from sampling that effervescent nectar, and so we sipped and waited, waited and sipped. We knew that Hilliard was acutely aware of our painful curiosity and that, being human, he relished our mounting discomfort even more than we savored his champagne.

At last he spoke: "My friends, thank you for joining me in a mod­est drink. It's not every day that one's only grandchild becomes en­gaged to be married."

A politely muted clamor of congratulation went up from all our vintage-moistened lips. Bit by bit, we teased further details out of Hilliard's rock-ribbed old Yankee reticence. The name of the prospective bridegroom—one Miles Martial—was universally unfa­miliar and, once uttered, required a fair portion of explication.

"Do you know, it was the strangest thing," Hilliard said. "At first our Wylda was abnormally secretive when Margot and I asked her how she met the gentleman. When we pressed her—we do have the right to know everything about our grandchild's life—she became vague."

"Good heavens!" cried Middleton. He was not quite our Oldest Member, but well enough advanced in years. "Was there something unsavory in the man's background, or was some aspect of their in­troduction . . . improper? Hilliard, I'm astonished that you'd give your blessing to any of this."

A brief frown flittered across Hilliard's patrician features. "And I am astonished at your level of self-deception. Really, Cadby"—long acquaintance permitted him the employment of Middleton's Chris­tian name—"your attraction to my granddaughter is common knowledge, as ill considered as it's ill concealed."

Middleton blushed and sputtered. "I resent your allegations deeply, Hilliard," he said. "Of course I'm fond of the child. I'm only concerned about her future happiness. If the circumstances sur­rounding her introduction to the man she intends to marry"—here he could not prevent his voice from breaking just a bit—"are so ir­regular that she withholds them even from you, perhaps you should stop this from going any farther. Purely for Wylda's sake, of course. She's young. With matters of the heart, the young tend to get. . . ideas, frivolous ones. In the long run, she'd benefit from the guidance of older, wiser heads."

"Tchah!" Thus Hilliard dismissed Middleton's clumsily veiled agenda. "My granddaughter hasn't had a frivolous idea in her life. As it happened, they met at a dog show last May. Martial's pedigreed mastiff, Champion Caesar Alexander's Philippi of Austerlitz-Manassas, took Best in Class. Her little school chum, Solana Winthrop, intro­duced her to Martial when Wylda remarked how much she would like to have a closer look at the winning canine. From that most proper introduction, mutual affection bloomed."

"Solana Winthrop ..." I mused aloud upon the name. "How could she have been in attendance at a dog show last May? We were told that she would be studying art history in Paris from April through December."

"Er, yes," said Elwood Porter, who had married Solana's elder sis­ter Meredith. "It turned out that her need to study art history was a false alarm."

"So you see, Wylda's reticence was motivated by discretion, not deception," Hilliard added. "Until Solana's family might find a tact­ful way to announce her reappearance in Society, Wylda chose to shield her friend. Once there was no further need for confidentiality, she was suitably frank with her grandmother and me. Of course we also made our own inquiries. Miles Martial's bona fides are impecca­ble. He comes from an ancient family with unimpeachable connec­tions in the worlds of finance, industry, and politics. The bulk of his fortune is derived from munitions, with prudent diversification in aviation technology, shipbuilding, and applied biochemical research."

"In other words, he's worth a mint," Hasbrook whispered in my ear. "And likely to stay so. You don't go broke catering wars."

"Have the happy couple set a date for the wedding?" Porter asked our host.

"As a matter of fact, our Wylda has decided on a June wedding."

Here Hilliard spared a moment to glare at us en masse, in case anyone would have the supremely bad taste to begin counting the months between now and June. A natural but unnecessary reaction on the part of that devoted grandparent: We had no need to resort to spiteful calculations in order to conclude that the girl was quite out of the family way. This was February. If Wylda had been in a condi­tion delicate enough to oblige either marriage or the abrupt study of art history, a June wedding would display her indiscretion for all the world to see, even if she glided down the aisle in an oversized Empire-waisted bridal gown.

"Well, well, a June wedding!" Middleton affected a cheery air that fooled no one. "How nice to see that there are still some young people who value tradition. And where will the event take place?"

"Why, right here, of course," said Hilliard. "At The Club."

Elwood Porter gave a little cry of distress and dropped his cham­pagne.

It was about a month later, as the caterer flies, that I was approached by Porter and Middleton on a matter of some delicacy. Rather than discuss the matter over drinks at The Club, they instead invited me to join them in New Haven for a private dinner at Morey's. There they laid matters on the table.

"You must speak with Hilliard," Middleton said. "You must make him see that what Wylda has in mind is out of the question. There must not be a wedding at The Club."

"Who knows what will happen if there is?" Porter shuddered and darted his eyes to left and right, as though the physical embodiment of Dire Consequences somehow had managed to procure a neigh­boring table. (An impossibility, of course: Access to Morey's is re­served for carefully selected Yale men and—reluctantly I concede it—women. Dire Consequences and the Ivy League simply do not mix socially.)

"My friends," I said, "I understand your trepidation. I, too, feel somewhat less than sanguine at the prospect of such an event taking place at The Club, and with good cause: I have been a member since well before that dreadful day when Simpson turned our world upon its head."

"Ah yes," said Middleton, who had been a member of The Club for even longer than I. "Simpson." He pronounced the ill-starred name with the same intonation that medieval folk might have re­served for remarking, Ah yes, the Black Death.

To understand the enormity of harm that Simpson perpetrated upon The Club, it is best if first you comprehend The Club itself and all that it entails. Set amid the greenest of PGA-worthy golf courses, it is a monument to exquisite sophistication and understated luxury. It is blessed with a dining room whose innumerable perfections of cuisine send the most fastidious gourmets into gales of frustrated tears when they find absolutely nothing about which to complain. The wine cellar and the bar are stocked and tended by men who are more like high priests in the Holy Brotherhood of Grape and Grain rather than mere names on The Club payroll.

In the past, The Club had been the site of winter balls, summer dances, spring fetes, autumn banquets, debutante cotillions, ladies' luncheons, gentlemen's smokers, high teas, and formal dinners to be­wail or celebrate the outcome of The Game. (The only Game, that glorious struggle for gridiron supremacy between Yale and Harvard, beside which conflict the Hundred Years' War was a mere bagatelle, a historical hissy fit.) Indeed, as I have said already, The Club was the setting for the final chapter in my sister Katherine's matrimonial history.

Simpson changed all that.

He was one of that chancy yet unavoidable subgroup within The Club's membership, a Legacy. Had he applied for admission indepen­dent of his ancestors, his own character, attitude, and finances might not have permitted the Committee to accept him with open arms. As matters and the bylaws stood, they were obliged to do so.

Simpson was a rogue, a wild cannon, a smart aleck whose notion of an excellent jape tended to the exotic. It was this rather outre sense of humor that motivated him to bring back from his European travels a souvenir that changed both the fate and the face of The Club irrevocably.

It was a sphinx.

The sphinx in question was not of the Egyptian breed but Greek. Its leonine body did not stretch at ease upon the eternal desert sands but sat upright, winged like an eagle, poised for action. In retrospect, "it" is quite the wrong pronoun to apply to the beast, for it had a woman's head and pert, naked breasts. Moreover, lest you think that Simpson's sin against The Club was merely the donation of a some­what vulgar statue, allow me to provide enlightenment: This sphinx was real.

None of us at The Club had any idea how Simpson managed to locate such a marvel, let alone transport her through Customs unmolested. We were too well-bred to ask, and Simpson was too much the slyboots to volunteer anything. He was one of those tedious people who believe that sitting on information like a broody hen upon the nest gives the sitter a mystical superiority over those not in the know.

Simpson's sphinx was named Oenone, and she had her breed's taste for blood and riddles. Tradition taught that the monster could not tear you to bloody bite-sized bits unless you failed to answer her sole riddle, so it was all rather sporting, in a ghastly way. Since every­one at The Club enjoyed the benefits of a Classical education, we all knew the answer to the sphinx's riddle from the story of Oedipus: What goes on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, three legs at sun­set? Man. Armed with this smug certainty, we agreed to Simpson's suggestion that Oenone be given prowling space on the back nine. It seemed wholly safe and somewhat piquant to permit her presence. It made The Club different.

"Different" is not an abiding synonym for "better," as we discov­ered to our grief on the day that Oenone learned some new riddles. That was when the disappearances began.

When we finally discovered why so many members were not re­turning from their appointed round of golf, Oenone took off for parts unknown. So did Simpson, but the damage was done: The sphinx's residence somehow had imbued our beloved Club with an otherworldly musk that attracted other mythic entities as capital gains draw tax vampires. These incursions made up for in ferocity what they lacked in frequency, for which we were as thankful as the circumstances allowed. How much comfort can one derive from the phrase Why, yes, we do have bloodbaths here at The Club, but not really all that often? The insecurity was almost as dire as the actual incidents: As with Democratic presidencies, we lived in constant fear, never know­ing when the next one would occur.

This state of affairs tended to make most members think twice before engaging The Club as the setting for a grand-scale private af­fair like a wedding. Of what use the perfectly set table, the superbly prepared meal, if ultimately it would be befouled by an invasion of harpies? Moreover, mythology burgeoned with tales of weddings gone horribly wrong.

The battle of the Lapiths and the centaurs at the marriage of The­seus' bosom chum Perithoos occurred when the caterer neglected to note that creatures half man and half horse cannot hold their liquor in either half. A bit too much of the grape caused one centaur to confuse the bride with a wedding favor. He attempted to carry her off and the melee was on.

The Trojan War began at a wedding. Achilles' parents-to-be, the hero Pelias and the nymph Thetis, imagined they could avoid future marital unpleasantness by not inviting Eris to their nuptials. Eris was goddess of Discord, not Good Sportsmanship, and so took umbrage. Her umbrage in turn took the shape of a golden apple inscribed For the Fairest, which she tossed into the midst of the wedding reception. The beauty pageant brouhaha that ensued among the other god­desses led to the no-win Judgment of Paris, the abduction of Helen, the ten years' siege of Troy, and the eventual death of the aforemen­tioned Achilles. To top off the ironic futility of it all, the marriage of Thetis and Pelias ended in divorce.

We all wanted better things for Wylda.

"I will speak to Hilliard," I said. "I will use all my powers of sua­sion, though for the life of me, I fail to see why this is necessary. The man is no newcomer to The Club. He knows our history. If I made no objection the very instant he declared Wylda's wedding plans, it was only because I was dumbfounded. What was he thinking?"

"He adores his granddaughter," Middleton reminded me. "Love is blind and blinding. Perhaps the sweet child has her heart set on a Club wedding and he didn't have the will to deny her wishes."

"Or the wish to terrify her by letting her know the reason why a Club wedding might not be the best idea," Porter added.

"True," I averred. "She has led a very sheltered life. It is possible to visit The Club and never know the frightful things that happened there unless one is told."

"I suppose there is a chance that Wylda's wedding won't attract the attention of any mythical monsters," Porter ventured, ever the optimist. "She's such a charming girl; I'd hate to see her disap­pointed, and it has been far too long since The Club last enjoyed a celebration that wasn't spoiled by chaos, bloodshed, and forfeited se­curity deposits."

"Are you suggesting that we risk so very much on the chance that nothing will happen? That we gamble with Wylda's wedding?" Mid­dleton demanded, his snowy brows drawn together in an expression of the utmost severity. "I thought that you and I were in agreement, Porter: This marriage must not take place!"

"Don't you mean this wedding!" Porter ventured to correct the elder gentleman.

Middleton crimsoned, though it was impossible to determine whether it was with rage, embarrassment at his too-Freudian slip, or both. "Don't chop logic with me, sir!" he snapped. "None of my fe­male relatives ever needed to go to Europe to study art history!"

I sorrow to report that at this instance Porter felt compelled to de­fend the moral probity of his sister-in-law, which he did by seizing upon Middleton's autumnal passion for Wylda and flinging it in that man's venerable face. From there on, the dialogue between Porter and Middleton degenerated into personal remarks concerning the extended families of both men. The longer I sat there, the stronger grew my conviction that some people did not require the interven­tion of either gods or monsters to make an ugly hash of their lives. When at last I could bear to witness no more of such unsuitable sniping, I made my excuses and left the table, the establishment, and the city of New Haven. I have no idea when Porter or Middleton noticed that I was gone.

I made it my business to call upon the Austin-Cowles family within the week. I might have saved myself the trouble: Middleton was right.

"It was Wylda's idea," Margot told me as we sat taking tea to­gether. She was attended by her husband and daughter-in-law, though the former Miss Scruggs might as well have been an um­brella stand for all the notice her in-laws paid her throughout my visit. "I wasn't happy with it, but she insisted: The wedding and the reception both will take place at The Club."

Hilliard confirmed this. "We both tried explaining the situation to her—Simpson, the sphinx, and the way things have been ever since. She thought we were joking."

A nostalgic look washed over Margot's elegant features. "Do you recall how it used to be, before that dreadful man and his blood­thirsty pet ruined everything?" she asked me. "The Club reception for your own dear sister's final wedding was one of the last sane events to be held there."

At the mention of my sister's nuptials, the former Miss Scruggs gave a deep, heartfelt sigh. "I remember that," she said, her face radi­ant, her eyes luminous with dreams, her voice so soft as to border on the inaudible. "I never saw anything so beautiful. It was the most wonderful day of my life. I still dream about it."

I was about to interject a polite remark in reply when Hilliard forged on as if his daughter-in-law had said nothing at all.

"It's lucky that The Club's budget is firmly founded on dues and the occasional bequest, or by now it would be bankrupt. No one en­gages The Club for personal events anymore. Even though every Club affair doesn't attract mythic undesirables, no one wants to play the odds."

"And yet, you are going to do just that, in three months' time," I pointed out.

Hilliard sighed. "If I could change the situation, I'd do it without a second thought."

Like any properly bred person of a certain social standing, I loathed to soil my lips by speaking of pecuniary matters—off the Trading Floor, that is—but in this case I felt compelled to inquire, "Have you not, then, taken the simple step of refusing to pay for the wedding unless it is held elsewhere?"

Margot blushed and for decency's sake averted her eyes from me the instant such mercantile words left my lips, nor could I blame her. Wylda's mother tensed visibly. Hilliard merely bowed his head.

"Of course I have," he said. "To no avail. For some reason she re­fuses to disclose, it's appallingly vital to our Wylda to have her wed­ding at The Club. After all these years, that sweet, docile child has become a veritable tiger on this one point. She's determined to have her wedding at The Club or not at all."

And there it was, my defeat. All further argument would be futile. There is no fortress more unassailable than the resolution of a hereto­fore submissive woman. Such creatures take all the willpower they have deferred during a lifetime of obedience, compliance, and meek­ness, gather it into one titanic mass, and focus it like a laser beam.

"She's always been such a good girl," Margot said plaintively. "She's never really wanted anything from us until now. How could we say no?"

They could not. We all knew it. The wedding would go on when and where Wylda decreed.

As for how it would go on . . . that remained to be seen.

As the date of Wylda's wedding drew nigh, The Club turned all atwitter. First there was the matter of the invitations. Those mem­bers who were included in the upcoming festivities wore satisfied smiles that were nonetheless somewhat wobbly at the corners. It was a privilege to be included at any fete hosted by that the Austin-Cowleses. No expense would be spared, no luxury be wanting. There would be lavishness without flash, sumptuousness tempered by sophistication.

And yet not a single mouthful of the best Sevruga caviar would pass the lips of any man or woman there without the passing shudder, the momentary frisson of trepidation, and the hasty, sidelong glance in the direction of the nearest exit. In short, my fellow invitees and myself would enjoy dear Wylda's wedding under a cloud, for who knew when or whether the beautiful display would be shattered?

Those members whose association with Margot and Hilliard was not close enough to procure them an invitation consoled themselves with many a goblet of Chateau des Sour Grapes: We wedding guests might dine on oysters, pate de foie gras, filet de boeuf, and truffles, but our excluded brethren were certain that we would be gulping antacid tablets with every second mouthful.

I am convinced that the rumors concerning Wylda's fiance origi­nated with one of those embittered exiles from her approaching wedding. (It also might have been Middleton's doing. His unre­quited ardor for young Wylda had festered badly. Melancholia pos­sessed him, and each day seemed to sap a further measure of joy from his life. On the other hand, given his age, perhaps he simply had acid reflux.) Whoever began it, it spread rapidly. It was quite basic, as ru­mors go. No dark mutterings about the groom-to-be's latent vices, past debaucheries, ongoing addictions, or previous wives kept in fet­ters in the attic, merely this: "Why hasn't anyone seen this man?"

The obvious answer was, of course, that Miles Martial had been seen, and not solely by members of Wylda's immediate family. Had not Solana Winthrop introduced them?

But Solana Winthrop was only one soul, and a soul somewhat be­smirched by the blot of unanticipated art history studies abroad. What, the vile whisperers in corners demanded, what was wrong with the man, that kept him so shrouded in mystery?

It was under these circumstances that I received a telephone call from Wylda's mother, the former Nora Scruggs, entreating me to bring Mr. Martial to The Club for dinner, or at least cocktails. To be frank, there were certain additional conditions in play at the time: My visit to the Austin-Cowles menage had left me somewhat smitten by the physical attractions of Miss Scruggs, and as the lady was not averse, we struck up a relationship of mutual benefit soon thereafter.

"Please say you'll do it," my bourgeois beloved pleaded. "This would be the best way to smash those nasty rumors once and for all."

"Certainly, yes," I replied. "But would it not be more appropriate for Hilliard to escort your daughter's betrothed?"

Nora gave a small, plaintive cry. "He won't do it. He said that an Austin-Cowles doesn't let a bunch of blabbermouth rumormongers make him do anything; it would be surrendering. I tried telling him that this isn't some stupid battle, but he wouldn't listen. Darling, you're my only hope."

My tender feelings for Nora restrained me from pointing out that the social niceties are a battle. It was easier to give her what she wanted.

I met Miles Martial at the train depot on a Saturday afternoon in late May. It was a traumatic encounter. Some people are blessed—if that is the proper word—with the ability to invade the space they occupy. I am not speaking of those theatrical individuals who flaunt, posture, and play to the cheap seats with every move they make. Anyone can draw attention to himself by making a scene.

Miles Martial belonged to a different breed, monumental with­out being melodramatic. He was a tall, brawny, well-built specimen of manhood, but as the polite lie goes, size is not everything. He was also handsome enough to dazzle. The sight of him, bronzed and blond, with steel blue eyes, perfect teeth, and a profile pur­loined from Michelangelo's David, filled my heart with a nauseat­ing swirl of personal inadequacy and overpowering envy. In that moment I knew that no ordinary human being could ever see Miles Martial so much as behold him. There is a difference, as vast as it is subtle.

I also knew, in quick succession, that

1. I wanted to punch him in the face, for no other reason than because it was there.

2. Every man at The Club would share my feelings.

3. Were we fools enough to turn impulse into action, he would sidestep our blows easily and then, with insouciant grace, show us the way it should be done, i.e., accurately and painfully.

4. Every woman at The Club would behold Miles Martial and immediately desire the slaughter of dear, sweet, accursedly lucky little Wylda.

5. This was going to kill poor old Middleton.

Miles leaped into my car the instant that I pulled up at the depot, a grin in my direction his only greeting.

"Mr. Martial?" I said, just in case I might have picked up the wrong person by mistake. (Ah, fleeting hope, swiftly dashed!)

"Bingo," he said, pointing his index finger at me pistol-style and vocalizing a passable gunshot sound effect as he brought the thumb hammer down. He even went so far as to blow invisible smoke from his fingertip afterward.

My attempts to make light conversation during the drive to The Club met with mixed results. When 1 asked him whether the trip from New York City had been pleasant, he replied, "New York? Is that where I came from? Oh, right, right. Hey, buddy, you've gotta excuse me, I'm a little snafued these days. Lots of travel under the old belt. I just flew in from the Middle East yesterday and boy, are my arms tired." He filled my automobile with raw laughter.

It was a relief to rid myself of the man, even if only for the time it took to give my vehicle into the care of a parking valet. Miles Martial did not wait for me but bounded through the front doors and proceeded to take The Club by storm.

As it was a Saturday afternoon, the place swarmed with golfers and tennis players. His effect on the crowd was approximately what I had anticipated and yet, despite the amount of smoldering envy his physical perfections kindled, he somehow managed to create his own admiring bar-room coterie in the short time it took for me to rejoin him.

I should have been pleased to note how readily he had made his so- • cial conquests, but I could not do so with a whole heart: There was something vaguely disquieting about Wylda's beau. Although the tran­quil surface of a pond reflects the silver beauty of the moon, that is no guarantee against it teeming with alligators. A smattering of caution would determine whether you came away from the encounter with a haiku or a bloody stump where your right hand used to be.

I regret to say that, at the moment, I did not express my uneasi­ness to anyone. I had done my duty by pleasing Nora; I needed to do no more.

There is something about weddings capable of thrilling the least ro­mantic heart. Mine was no exception. By the day of her daughter's nuptials, the relationship between Nora Austin-Cowles (nee Scruggs) and myself had reached a certain level of physical intimacy, but that signified little. Ordinary alley cats can claim such amorous familiar­ity. When the lady demurely asked me to act as her escort, that was a truer gauge of my status in her eyes than a score of unclothed, oiled, and raucous hours spent together. It gave me sweet hope that I might yet see the light of matrimony at the end of the somber tunnel of bachelorhood.

The morning of Wylda's wedding dawned bright with sunshine tempered by an understandable miasma of anxiety. Many a guest's neck was wrenched painfully as high-strung souls strove to keep one eye on the nearest exit at all times.

Not everyone present was in an advanced state of nerves. Some were not merely tranquil but downright apathetic. Among these lat­ter was Wylda's aged admirer, Middleton.

"Oh dear," said Nora. We were standing together at the door to the Oak Room, where the preceremony cocktail reception was tak­ing place. "That's Mr. Middleton's third martini! I hope he knows what he's doing."

"He knows exactly what he is doing," I told her. "He is getting drunk."

"Drunk?" Nora's eyes went wide with shock, although there was the hint of a hotter emotion in her voice as she added: "At my daughter's wedding?"

Being a gentleman, I could not reveal Middleton's motivation for seeking solace in liquor. I doubt it would have evoked Nora's sym­pathy. Instead, I offered her the weak consolation that excessive drink rendered Middleton melancholy and silent rather than loud and vulgar. His alcoholic excesses posed no threat to the smooth progress of Wylda's wedding.

Nora saw matters otherwise: "I don't care; he's still being a jerk. What if he gets ugly later on? This is just like something one of my relatives would pull. I grew up thinking that you couldn't have a wedding or a funeral or a baby shower or even dinner without some­one making a scene. When your sister asked me to be her brides­maid, and when I saw how beautifully you people behave, it was like a glimpse of heaven. No arguments, no fights, no cursing, nothing but dignity and refinement and peace. I only wish that Freddie and I could've had a wedding like that, here at The Club, but he was so in­sistent about eloping to Vegas . . . ! Well, maybe I didn't get the wed­ding of my dreams, but Wylda will."

Besotted as I was, I remained oblivious to the true sentiment un­derlying those words, namely: Wylda will get the wedding of my dreams, and God help anyone who gets in the way.

The preceremony reception ended and we progressed to the mar­riage rite itself, conducted in The Club rose garden. The setting was idyllic, the air perfumed, the flowers at that ideal point of maturity, blossoming but not yet blown. The guests sat in rows of white fold­ing chairs decorated with snowy satin ribbons. As escort to the mother of the bride, I sat up front beside her, smiling like a senti­mental ninny. A string quartet played a delicate air by Vivaldi to her­ald the groom. Miles Martial looked striking in his Prince Edward coat and trim gray trousers. As he took his place beside the minister from St. George's (who, at the Austin-Cowleses' behest, had con­sented to make a house call) his grin was brilliant enough to blind legions of paparazzi.

The lone bridesmaid, Solana Winthrop, walked down the aisle to a Mozart sonata, and then it was time for Wylda to make her entrance on her grandfather's arm. As the strings began to play Wag­ner's traditional tripe, we all rose on cue and turned to honor the bride.

"Stop the wedding!" A towering beautiful naked woman appeared out of nowhere and hip-checked Hilliard across the laps of the guests in the back row. As chairs toppled like dominoes, she grabbed Wylda by the scruff of the neck and held the keen point of a foot-long golden projectile against the base of the girl's throat. "Nobody move! This is one of Eros's sharpest arrows, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

A communal gasp of fear and dread arose from all of us. The woman's extraordinary stature and splendor, her utter shamelessness, and her casual mention of Eros, the ancient Greek god of Love, left us no doubt that The Club had once more worked its undesired magic. Alas, this time we had been invaded by a creature more dire than any sphinx, harpy, gorgon, or minotaur, a being who com­manded the most awesomely destructive power in the universe: Aphrodite, queen of Love and Beauty, had arrived.

She had not arrived alone.

"Way to go, Mom! Work that thing!" The vote of confidence came from one of a pair of tall, handsome young men who materi­alized beside the goddess. Their faces, hair, and clothing—tattered loincloths, nothing more—were all lavishly stained with smoke, ashes, gun oil, and blood.

"Don't call me that!" the naked woman snapped. "Just because I screwed your father doesn't make me your mom, Deimos!"

"So what does it make you now that you're not screwing him anymore?" the other one asked snidely.

"Don't worry, Phobos," the woman replied. "That's all about to change."

"Oh, my God!" Nora exclaimed, rising to her feet. "Doesn't this place have any security? You! Crazy naked lady! Get the hell away from my daughter!"

"What did you call me?" The goddess's eyes narrowed danger­ously. She pressed the arrow point even closer to Wylda's flesh. The poor child's moans of terror sent the two ill-clad young men into ecstasies.

I clamped my hand across my beloved's mouth and dragged her back down into her seat. "If you value Wylda's life, be quiet," I whis­pered vehemently in her ear. "This is exactly what I feared might happen." Then, as swiftly and as succinctly as possible, I informed my delectably undereducated sweetheart as to the true nature of our un­invited guests.

For those who know the old Greek tales, there is a special irony to the catchphrase Make love, not war. Though Aphrodite was the wife of Hephaestus, weapons maker for the gods, the goddess of Love could not resist the potent attraction of Ares, god of War. Their adulterous union became, quite literally, the stuff of myth.

Now, for whatever reason, Ares apparently had tired of his divine ladylove. Like many another randy god—including his own sire, Zeus—Ares had disguised his true nature the better to conquer a comely mortal maiden.

"Unfortunately, it seems that Aphrodite is not the sort to deal well with rejection. What is worse, her rage is such that it has attracted Ares' sons, Deimos and Phobos, the gods of Fear and Terror. They are—ow!"

Nora had bitten my hand.

She fought free of my grasp and leaped back to her feet, bristling with fury. "Are you telling me that my baby's wedding is being spoiled because that two-bit toy soldier's been boinking that bimbo behind her husband's back for how long?"

"Hey!" There was nothing wrong with Nora's lungs or the gods' ears. Ares and Aphrodite heard her well enough and objected in cho­rus. The soi-disant Miles Martial strode forth to confront Nora. With each step, another facet of his mortal masquerade blew away like morning mist before the advent of the bronze helmet, breast­plate, and greaves, the bloodred loincloth, the shining spear, sword, and shield, and the iron-soled sandals of Ares. He ignored Aphrodite and Wylda, behaving as if his bride-to-be were not still in peril of her life at the hands of his mistress-that-was.

"What did you just say about me, woman?" he bawled in Nora's face. (Or rather, down upon it, for Ares had regained his divine stature and now towered over her by at least three feet.)

"Great, you're as dumb as she is." Nora jerked her thumb at Aphrodite. "Pay attention and take notes: You've got two minutes to ditch the bitch and the brats; then we're going to get this wedding back on track before the ice-sculpture swans melt, or else. Got it?"

"But Mommy, I don't want to marry him anymore," Wylda whimpered. "He lied to me, and he's got kids, and a girlfriend, and he's not even human, and—"

"Shut up!" Nora stamped her foot. "I spent the past twenty-three years of my life planning this day. You'll marry him and like it!"

"Wow," Phobos breathed, his eyes brimming with admiration as he gazed upon the wrath of Scruggs. "Now that's scary! I think I'm in love."

"I saw her first, loser!" Deimos yelled, and sprang upon his brother. The two of them vanished in a whirlwind of punches, kicks, and obscene name-calling. Fear and Terror might be potent forces in the short run, but they had very little staying power in civ­ilized society.

"Don't you dare talk like that to the woman I love!" Thunder re­verberated over our heads. However, it had nothing to do with the god of War, who had not so much as opened his mouth. The boom­ing command had come from Middleton. The older man swept down upon Nora with a warrior's battle wrath. "If Wylda doesn't want to marry this scoundrel, she won't. She's a grown woman, not your dress-up bride doll, and it's about time you knew that!"

In spite of her stated yearning for sophistication, elegance, and peace, Nora's family heritage could not be suppressed or denied. She had been raised by people who never fled the field of battle except to fetch larger guns, and it showed.

"You're drunk," she spat. "You're drunk and you're old and you'd like it just fine if my daughter were your undress bride doll. Well, guess what, Grampa? Not gonna happen. This wedding is go."

"Never!" Aphrodite protested. The goddess of Love was not used to being ignored and had decided to drag the spotlight back onto herself. "Ares doesn't really want to marry this little jellyfish. He started this whole stupid oooh-I'm-in-love-with-a-mortal thing be­cause I haven't been paying enough attention to him lately. Just be­cause a girl goes to a couple, nine Brad Pitt movies—"

"Who asked you?" Before the astonished eyes of gods and men, Nora stormed up to Aphrodite and slapped her face. The goddess was so startled that she dropped the golden arrow of Eros and lost her grip on Wylda. "Don't blame my baby if you don't know how to hold on to your man."

Aphrodite was still immobilized with shock as Nora grabbed Wylda by the wrist, hauled her down the aisle, and shoved her into Ares' arms. When Middleton tried to intervene, Nora laid him low with an impressive right cross.

Wylda witnessed her mother's summary treatment of the older gentleman and looked ready to burst into tears. The god of War kept darting nervous glances from his bride to his potential mother-in-law. His expression was that of a man firmly in the grip of second thoughts, his feet grown cold enough to bring on a new Ice Age.

"Was she always this big a control freak?" Ares asked his be­trothed.

"Only since I told her we were getting married," Wylda said qui­etly. "I don't know why, but that started it. That was when Mommy . . . changed." Wylda shivered at the awful memory. "She made me ask my grandparents for this huge, silly wedding as if it was all my idea, but I never wanted to get married at The Club."

"I'll tell you what you want and don't want!" Nora declared to her daughter.

"And what if I no longer wish this marriage to take place?" Ares brandished his sword in a menacing manner, but his attempt at last-minute intimidation was crushed the moment he looked Nora in the eye. The poor deity trembled so hard that his armor rattled. "Uhhh, forget I said anything," he said hastily sheathing the blade.

As I sat nursing my bitten hand and observing this heretofore un­known aspect of dear Nora's personality, I realized two things: one, that there are far worse fates than bachelorhood, and two, that while my beloved Club did attract monsters, alas, they did not all derive from Greek mythology. The tantrums of the most outrageous Bridezilla in the world are trifles beside the blazing chaos incarnate of the Mother of the Bridezilla.

Not that you could call sweet, timorous Wylda any sort of 'zilla. The poor thing seemed to be so thoroughly browbeaten by her monstrous mother that I wondered whether Wylda had a stick of striped sugar candy where her backbone should be.

I have since learned that it is possible to kill a man by stabbing him to death with a broken candy cane.

"You don't want to marry me?" Wylda asked her beau.

"Of course I do," Ares replied. But his eyes were still fixed ner­vously on Nora.

"No, you don't," Wylda stated. His mouth trembled. "You don't, and everyone here knows you don't, and the only reason you're say­ing you do is because Mommy's got you so terrified you're going to pee your pants."

"I am not!" Ares maintained. "I'm not wearing pants."

"And I'm not getting married." Wylda tore off her veil and flung it to the ground. "I quit."

Before Nora could reexert her imperious power over her daugh­ter, the girl fled up the aisle. Aphrodite cheered. Nora took to her heels in hot pursuit of the wayward bride, but if she thought that simple escape was Wylda's intent, the girl quickly proved her wrong. At the head of the aisle, Wylda stooped suddenly and seized some­thing from the grass, then whirled around just in time for her mother to collide with her head-on. The two women went cartwheeling over the lawn and fetched up in a thorny heap at the foot of a Mamie Eisenhower rosebush.

"Wylda, you get back to your groom right this minute!" Nora shrilled. "You're ruining my wedding."

"If you want this wedding so much, you have it," Wylda shot back, and stabbed her mother to the heart.

Nora looked down slowly at the slim, glittering shaft protruding from the center of her chest. She touched it lightly, and it crumbled to dust that blew away on the wind. There was no mark to show where it had been, no drop of blood, not the smallest tear in the bosom of her dress. She turned her head slowly from side to side as if she were awakening from a deep sleep with no idea at all of where she was or how she had come to be there.

Cadby Middleton was a gentleman of the old school. Although Wylda's mother had creased his jaw like a championship prizefighter, he could not allow a lady in an awkward public posture to remain unassisted. He stepped gingerly around Wylda—whom he now re­garded not so much with love as apprehension—and approached the fallen Fury.

"May I?" he said calmly. Still dazed, Nora accepted the hand he proffered.

The sky rippled. The earth moved. The birds broke into hosannas of song. The roses exploded like fireworks, shooting fountains of fra­grant petals everywhere. A halo of blinding silver light engulfed Middleton and the former Miss Scruggs, and when the flash faded they were locked in a kiss of such intensity that Aphrodite herself gave them a standing ovation.

It was a lovely wedding. Ares gave the bride away as quickly as he could, with Aphrodite as her maid of honor. Hilliard Austin-Cowles proposed the first toast at the reception. (It was less a toast than an announcement in which he declared he would see us all in hell be­fore he paid for one second of this wedding. The happy groom promptly wrote out a check for the full amount, crumpled it up, and stuffed it in Hilliard's ear.)

Wylda Serene was unable to attend her mother's wedding recep­tion. Ever the altruist, she instead volunteered to drive me to the hospital so that my bitten hand might be treated before infection set in.

We drove in silence until at last I remarked, "What a pleasant sur­prise to discover that a person of your generation is so familiar with Greek mythology. You knew that Love's own arrow would transform your mother's heart to the point where it would overrule her wedding-mad mind, and that the halo effect of Eros's power would enamor the first person with whom she came into physical contact. Brilliant."

"Not really," Wylda replied with becoming modesty. "I just wanted to kill her. But the way it all turned out was pretty good, too."

I arched one brow and gave the girl a speculative look. "It would appear that I have underestimated you, my dear. What other surprises are there beneath your facade of meekness and docility?"

"You're cute, for an older guy. Why don't we find out?" she re­sponded with a smile, and reached over to pat my leg.

That is, I presumed she wished to pat my leg. As to which portion of my anatomy she did pat—

It was a long drive, but another lovely wedding at journey's end. A Las Vegas wedding, true, but at least the drag artiste/minister at the Church of Eternal Glitz was a Harvard man.

Nebula Award-winner ESTHER FRIESNER is the author of thirty-one novels and more than one hundred and fifty short stories, in addition to being the editor of seven popular anthologies. Her works have been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan. Germany, Russia, France. Poland, and Italy. She is also a pub­lished poet, a produced playwright, and once wrote an advice col­umn: "Ask Auntie Esther." Her articles on fiction writing have appeared in Writer's Market and Writer's Digest books. Her latest publications are Tempting Fate from Dutton/Penguin and Turn the Other Chick from Baen Books; the fifth book in the pop­ular Chicks in Chainmail series that she created and edits. She is mar­ried, the mother of two, harbors cats, and lives in Connecticut.