As Milt was standing up in front of the crowd explaining that he had no idea where the groom could be, Barry was several hundred miles away and still moving. The farther away he could get from Petra, the better he liked it. Those guys were scary! He had been about to take them up on the idea anyway, but the money made it easy.

He had really been having some doubts about marrying her anyway. Petra’s mother had been enough of a pain in the ass the last few days to really make him wonder about the wisdom of marrying her, but to get away with the twenty-five grand made him feel a lot better about the whole thing. He also had his freedom back!

He had no idea of where he was heading, or what he would do when he got there, but at least that twenty-five grand would buy him some time to figure that one out. He’d realized early on that there were things going on he had no idea of – otherwise how would that mob guy have known about him balling that good-looking girl back on spring break?

What was that all about, anyway? Clearly, it had something to do with the mob, but he had no idea what it could be, and he was just as glad that he wouldn’t have the chance to find out. If Petra was mixed up with it somehow, or her family was, that could have been dangerous – especially if he’d decided to go out and have a little fun with some other girl. He didn’t think he’d like going swimming wearing cement overshoes, not one bit. It was better to be gone now.

He knew that he could be traced if he used his credit cards. He had two of them, one pretty full, but the other one new and nearly empty to use for the honeymoon that would not take place now. There was no way that he could dare to use them; maybe it would be best to just cut them up and lose them.

As to where he was going, he had no idea. In the first few minutes he’d considered going to Florida to see if he could track down that gorgeous chick he’d had in the hotel room, but he hadn’t gotten very far out of town before he realized that it was a really stupid idea. She had to have been there on spring break, and he remembered that she had mentioned something about Western Kentucky. Was that where she was from? Would there be any chance to track her down, not knowing her name? It seemed pretty doubtful. Maybe it would be best to avoid Florida.

How about New Orleans? It sounded like a good idea, since that was supposed to be a fun town. But no, he might be too easy to track to a fun town. Well then, how about Baton Rouge? It would be close enough to New Orleans to have some fun if he was interested in it, and who would think of looking for him in a nowhere place like Baton Rouge? At least it was down near the coast, where it would be warm in the winter. That was something to think about.

But there were other possibilities, and so long as he had that briefcase, he could explore around and find a good place to light. Somewhere along the way he might be able to find an interesting girl, and not one who was tied in with the mob somehow. He felt he was lucky to escape, in more ways than one.

Once Royce was outside the church, he hung around just long enough to confirm that it had been Maxine hauled off in the ambulance, although the rumors he heard weren’t specific enough to tell him what had happened or how bad it was. No one seemed to have any idea of what had happened to Barry, although he heard one young man, presumably a groomsman, say that he’d taken all his stuff out of his motel room. The young man said that meant he must have wanted to leave, rather than being drunk in some alley or something, or maybe having been mugged.

Royce heard two or three other theories, but decided that he’d better clear the scene. He especially didn’t want to go near the reception, where he might leave some indication that he knew what had happened, and got the impression that other people were giving it a pass, too.

He was trying to maintain a glum and impassive expression, but he sure had to smile inside. He’d wanted to block the wedding, and he had, and in a spectacular fashion that would really twist Maxine’s tail. Oh, it would have been possible to show the video to Petra months ago, but there was no guarantee that it would have had the desired effect.

At least Petra wasn’t going to have the heartbreak of finding Barry cheating on her; she probably would get over this debacle, it was a heck of a lot harder if you were married and had children; he knew that from experience.

He had deliberately parked his car well away from the traffic jam near the church, so he was soon in it and heading home, feeling a lot lighter than he had in a long time. Besides, the best was yet to come.

It was good to be back home. He got out of his suit and into shorts and a T-shirt. Once again, he thought a drink would have tasted nice, and for the first time in a decade he thought he was in a position where he could dare to drink one. But there was nothing in the house, so he settled for a soft drink.

The ringing of his phone broke the silence. That could be anything, he thought, although the odds favored something to do with the wedding that hadn’t happened. He was going to be hearing about that a lot in the next few days, he was sure. He was just going to have to act like he had no idea what had happened.

To his surprise, it was Maria on the phone. “Hi, how are you doing this afternoon?” she asked.

“Not too bad,” he replied, not wanting to tell her he was in the best mood he’d been in for years, because she might want to know why. “I was just giving some thought to going out and reading a book in the lounge chair beside the pool.”

“That’s why I was calling you,” she replied. “It’s a nice afternoon, and Ramona and I thought if you weren’t doing anything we’d like to come over and try it out.”

“No reason why not,” he replied. He’d been seeing Maria at Parker’s Corners about once a week, and they’d gotten together with Ramona present a couple of times since she’d bought her car. “I haven’t got anything going on, not now. Would you like for me to order some pizza?”

“Maybe not yet. I’m not sure about that old saw about not going into the water for an hour after eating, and I don’t think this is the time to find out. We can do it later.”

“Fine by me. With you and Ramona to keep me company, I think I can put pizza off for a while.”

“All right, we’ll be there in a while,” she said.

Royce hung up the phone, more than a little pleased. Having her and her daughter there this evening would keep his thoughts from straying to the non-wedding, or what was going to be happening in the next few days. Both of them were pleasant to be with, and he figured that it would be a lot more fun than if he’d decided to hang around the reception.

The line of people waiting to get out of the church was dwindling now. It had moved slowly, since everyone wanted to offer their condolences to Petra, and that all added up to time. Finally, the last person left, and she could heave a sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry that had to happen, Petra,” Milt said; he’d been nearby most of the time, trying to help her with the crowd. “I don’t have any idea what could have happened to Barry. All we know is that he grabbed his stuff and split. No note or anything, just gone.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” she spat, her sorrow now changing to anger in an instant. “If he’s got any sense he’ll stay far away from me, because if I see him again I plan to have his nuts nailed to the mantle. Jesus, what a hell of a thing to do to me.”

“I can’t say I was all that impressed with him myself,” Milt shrugged. “I guess I can say that now. He seemed a little, well, like an unreliable young punk to me. Let’s just say if I had him working in a store for me I would have been a little careful making sure he wasn’t dipping into the till.”

“I guess I didn’t see that, but the one bright side to this is that at least he showed what kind of a gutless bastard he is before I got married to him.”

“I hate to say it, but that’s probably a good point. So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. At least, I don’t know about tomorrow. For now, I’m going to get out of this damn wedding dress and throw it in the nearest dumpster along with his goddamn engagement ring. Then I’m going to go someplace where nobody knows me and drink myself shit-faced.”

“Actually that sounds like a plan to me,” he agreed. “I’d go with you, but I think I’d better get over to the reception and see how bad it is over there, then go to the hospital and see what’s up with your mother.”

“Well, I’m not going either place. I’m not going to the reception, since I’ve made the brave face more than I can stand already. As far as Mom goes, I don’t care if I see her again for a while, and especially not today. This whole damn debacle is her fault. She wanted me to have a big wedding, and look how it turned out! It’s the worst possible disaster I could imagine. You can tell her for me that when I get married, and that’s assuming if I ever get married, the only people I want there are me, my boyfriend, and the Elvis impersonator who’s going to marry us. And it sure as hell will not be to Barry.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way, Petra. Not one damn bit.”

It was close to forty-five minutes before Maria and Ramona showed up, which was good; it gave Royce time to get the cover off the pool, check and balance the chemicals, and skim at least some of the crud out of it. He hadn’t bothered with it all spring, at least partly because he rarely used the pool in the first place, but partly because he’d had other things to do.

When Maria and Ramona finally showed up, they were both wearing shorts and tops. “It took us a little while to find you,” she told him. “This is a smaller house than I’d imagined you having.”

“It’s big enough for me,” he shrugged. “In fact, it’s more than big enough. When Maxine and I got divorced we had to sell the house so we could split the money, and I certainly didn’t want to live there again. There were too many memories, good and bad. I thought I was going to have Petra with me at least some of the time, so I decided that I needed something better than a small apartment. Besides, the pool was here, and I thought she might like to use it. As it worked out, she only used it twice, and that was a long, long time ago.”

“Maybe we ought to talk about that sometime,” she replied soberly. “I know you’ve hinted that you had a rough time of it, but I don’t think this is the time.” She nodded at Ramona, who seemed oblivious; she was excited at getting to use the pool.

“Yeah, not now,” he agreed. “Let’s go see the pool.”

He led the two of them out the back of the house, where there was a patio next to the small pool. It really wasn’t big enough for him to swim comfortably in, although he did occasionally for the sake of exercise but it meant he was continually turning off the walls. “It’s not real warm,” he said, “but we ought to be able to stay in for a while before we get too chilled.”

He was already wearing swim trunks and a polo shirt; while he stripped the latter off both Maria and Ramona pulled off their shirts and shorts, to reveal that Maria was wearing a small black bikini, not quite a string bikini, but close. He’d already known she was a pretty well-built woman, but the bikini hid nothing, and he had to admit to himself that he liked what he saw.

Ramona had on a bikini as well, more of a little girl’s thing but it revealed enough for him to tell that she was starting breast development, although there was just a hint of it so far. If her mother was any indication, in a few years she was going to really be something else. At least she didn’t seem aware of that now, but knowing how girls were from having the experience of Petra at about that age, she probably wouldn’t be long in figuring it out.

The next hour was fun. Ramona had no experience swimming, although at least the water was not over her head anywhere, so Royce gave her a quick lesson, and she proved to be a quick learner. Maria was a little better off, although she told him that it had been many years since she had a swimsuit on, or had been in a pool. In any case, they did a lot of splashing around, did some yelling and carrying on, tossed a ball around, and generally had fun.

Eventually the adults got a little tired of it and repaired to the edge of the pool, while Ramona continued to splash around, tossing a ball and then chasing it. It seemed to Royce that she was getting comfortable in the water and not scared of it, which as far as he was concerned was half the battle with new swimmers. “So what did you do today?” she asked.

“I went to my daughter’s wedding, or at least non-wedding,” he reported.

“Non-wedding?”

“Yeah, the groom chickened out and never showed up.”

“Oh, the poor dear! How come you aren’t there comforting her?”

“Mostly because we don’t get along very well. We are the next thing to estranged. Today was the first time I’d seen her since Thanksgiving, and it was only a few minutes then. Look, I don’t want to get into the details right now, but my ex-wife played fast and loose with the visitation rules, and then did her best to turn my daughter against me. She succeeded all too well. She pushed a big, big wedding on my daughter, and it blew up in her face today. I’m a little curious to see how my daughter is going to react when everything sets in.”

“I thought there was some reason why you were shy around women,” she smiled. “And that explains a lot to me. I’m just glad that I didn’t have to go through that. I really hated to lose Reuben, but something like that causes a lot of pain. You’re not the first person I’ve heard that from.”

“Maria, I’m going to be honest and tell you that I’ve come to like you a lot, but I think you’re going to have to understand that I have a lot of history I’m going to have to work out.”

“I sort of figured that. Royce, I think you’re a kind and warm and gentle man, and, well, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m willing to wait you out if you’ll let me.”

“Believe me, I can think of worse things,” he grinned. “My ex-wife for a start. You’re nothing like her, and well . . . I’m not ready to make any promises, not just yet. I’ve still got a few things to work out.”

“Well, work them out, since I think you’re worth waiting for,” she smiled. “Ramona seems to be winding down a little so maybe it’s time to think about ordering the pizza.”

It turned out to be pretty good pizza; the three of them sat around, talking and playing games until it started to get dark and too cool for swimsuits; Ramona was acting tired. “I think we better get going,” Maria said. “Thank you for having us over.”

“Thank you for being here. I enjoyed it. Let’s do it again sometime.”

The women changed back into their street clothes while Royce did the minimum amount of cleanup then went to the front door to tell them goodbye. “Thank you again, Royce,” Maria smiled. “I enjoyed that. You’re fun to be with, and you’re very good to both of us.” With that she put her arms around him and gave him a big kiss – not just a little peck on the lips, but a deep one that went on and on, carrying a load of meaning with it.

That kiss told him more than just words, even considering that it had been a long time – over ten years – since he’d had a kiss anywhere near like that. Even as he held the warm woman in his arms, he realized just how much he had missed it.

Petra had the full intention of finding a nice, quiet bar somewhere and drinking until she didn’t care anymore. She drove around for a while looking for a good place to do it, but she couldn’t find a place that seemed right; one bar seemed too busy, another too quiet, another too seedy.

Eventually she decided to skip the bar part of the deal, mostly because she was afraid she would get so drunk that she would wind up in bed doing what she had been expecting to do this evening, anyway. While part of it sounded like a good idea, right at the moment part of it didn’t, either. She wasn’t that kind of girl. How the hell could she have been so blind?

In the end she decided to just go back to her mother and Milt’s house, even though she didn’t want to be there. But she knew where the bottles were, it would be cheaper, and she wouldn’t have to find a way to get home afterwards.

She didn’t waste time once she got in the house – she went right to the kitchen, found a bottle of bourbon, and poured a large glass of it. She wasn’t much of one to drink the hard stuff, but she tossed it down mostly to get it down quickly and taste as little of it as possible. It hit her hard, hard enough to take her breath away, and that was good.

While she was waiting for the drink to take effect – and it wouldn’t take long – she realized that she had to face up to the fact that all of her plans for the future were thoroughly loused up. Nothing remained of what she had been planning this morning, not being Barry’s wife, not going somewhere far away with him to get away from her mother. She had known she was going to have to find a job when they got located somewhere, but hadn’t thought much beyond that.

Now it was gone. All gone. None of it remained, not even a signpost of which way to go.

Well, there was one thing she could think of, and that was to pour some more whiskey.

She was already pretty well looped when the door opened and Milt walked in. “I thought you were going to go out drinking somewhere,” he commented.

She held up the glass, took a look at it, and then drank a pretty good swallow. By now, it was tasting, well, not good but not anywhere near as awful, which was an improvement. “I decided it was simpler to sit here and drink.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” he replied. “Got any more of that? I’ve needed a drink myself for, hell, I don’t know how long.”

“Sure, help yourself. There are more bottles in the cupboard. I just grabbed the first one I came to.”

Milt took a glass and poured himself a good dollop, and tossed it off immediately. He poured a second one, then sat down across the table from her. “I don’t know how bad you want to hear this,” he said, “but your mom didn’t have a heart attack like we thought it might be. I don’t know what they have her flying on, but she’s flying pretty high. She keeps mumbling about how wonderful the wedding was going to be, and doesn’t seem to realize that it never happened.”

“God, what a waste,” she shook her head. She’d drunk enough by now that her brain was still shaking after her head had stopped. “She must have spent ten thousand dollars on this abortion.”

“Shit, ten grand doesn’t even get started,” he snorted. “The florist bill alone is more than that. I think he’s planning on buying a new sports car or something. The total is on the far side of thirty thousand, and not all the bills are in yet. Thirty thousand dollars, just pissed away.”

“My God, I had no idea it was that much,” Petra replied. “I didn’t want anything like that, but no, she had to have her way.”

“Tell me all about it. There was no stopping her. It’s a lot of damn money, but I suppose I’ll be able to pull out of it eventually. Just don’t go having another wedding any time soon.”

“I told you about the Elvis impersonator, and I meant it,” she snorted. “I am not going to give her the chance to do it again. Hell, it would be a lot simpler to just move in with someone and not get married at all.”

“That’s sort of what she and I had planned, back when she broke up with your dad,” he replied. He tactfully didn’t mention why Maxine and Royce had divorced in the first place; Petra knew all she needed to know about that, and had known it for a long time. “But it didn’t work out that way. She seemed to feel that we needed to be more of a family, and I guess she’s always felt like that.”

“I know,” she agreed. “She really made a pain in the ass of herself about it, too. Milt, what do I do now, other than sit here and get petrified?”

“You mean get Petra-fried, don’t you?” he grinned, unable to resist the pun.

“That too.”

“I don’t know, Petra. About all I can tell you is that things often look better on the far side of a hangover.”

It didn’t take long for Petra to get pretty well steamed; she was smaller than Milt and had been drinking longer and harder. The sun was just setting when she stumbled off to the bed she had hoped she wouldn’t have to use again; Milt put a bucket right next to the bed and figured she would need it as much as she had been hitting the bottle. Then, he went back to the kitchen, and poured himself another drink.

With everything that had happened, he didn’t even think to look at the paper or turn on the television, where he might have noticed the big ads for Sandy’s Super Subs, not that there was much that he could have done about them by then.

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