Page 93 of Hushed

Momma peers at the new arrivals, swiveling the phone away from her mouth. “Either you’re here to work or here to stand around doing nothing. Either of you know this town?” she snaps at them.

Cara turns away from Bastien. “Yes. We’ve been here for three years. We know it pretty well.”

“You good with flowers?”

“He’s the gay one. Ask him,” Cara says, pushing her friend forward.

“Jesus Christ, Cara!” he says.

She scowls at him. “You were the one who was like, help me set my closet on fire. Well, here it is. Help with the goddamned flowers.”

“You’re the worst best friend ever,” he grumbles. “What do you need?” He sits at the table.

“Yes, I’ll hold,” Momma says into the phone. “When was the cancellation? No! How sad. All that expense. What time did you say?” Momma says. “Thursday at eleven!” She looks at Annette rather than me, and she does not disguise her glee. “Yes! We will be there! Thank you, Pastor Robert!” She hangs up. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a church!”

“Well done, Helen!” Annette says, and the crowd cheers.

“I’ll put on some food,” Michel says.

“Maman, what about this one?” Bastien says from the stairwell, dangling a brown tweed over the banister. “Why is everybody shouting?”

“Go back and bring back the black,” Annette says.

“Maybe we should rent a tuxedo like for the prom,” I say.

“So, what do you think about the events of the past few days?” Cara asks me. “How did you two meet?”

“Levi,” Momma says, “I want to talk to you. Reporter girl. You’re local. Tell me where we can do a wedding reception this Thursday for about fifty people.”

“Umm,” she says. “That’s a big order. Maybe the VFW Hall?”

“Good start. Call them.”

Baffled, the journalist sits down at the table, and Michel appears with a plate of food in his hand that he places in front of her. He pours wine without asking. The photographer sets aside his camera gingerly and, prompted by Bastien’s mother, starts looking up flowers.

Daddy is parked in front of the television with the sound up, watching a football game between two teams he has no stake in. April has been going around asking people if she can help and getting told no, so she has found the chips and a jar of salsa and put them out on the coffee table, where nobody is going to eat them.

Delphine, meanwhile, has opened the wine that Annette brought and has poured it suspiciously into a glass. She takes a hesitant sip. “Canadian wine,” she says, and makes a noise that says, Well, I’ll be goddamned.

“Française?” Annette says.

“Parisienne,” Delphine says, and they chatter happily in French.

“English!” Momma says, glaring at the one person in the family who is not going to be related to her.

“Non, Madame,” Delphine says. “It was French. But a very worthy guess.” She picks up the wine bottle and peers at it. “Ice wine. Is that a joke?” She pulls up her phone and looks it up.

“C’est du Québec,” Annette says with clear pride.

Momma’s mouth thins to a line that says that she’s about at the limits of her tolerance. She casts one disapproving look at Delphine and my future mother-in-law and then she narrows her eyes at Bastien, who is now dangling a brown suit over the banister. “Can we get back to the matter at hand?” she asks, snapping her attention back to the women. “Our sons, like it or not, have made a decision, and I did not drive from Tennessee to be part of some French knitting circle.”

“Momma, stop,” I say.

“It’s okay,” Bastien says, coming down the rest of the stairway.

“Not that suit. It’s even worse on the second viewing,” Annette says. “Why would you even buy it?”

“It’s very lovely with a green vest,” Bastien says. He threads the hook of the hanger on the banister railing and then turns his attention to the table. He crouches down, ignoring everybody but Momma. “I understand that this is a very difficult thing for you. Believe me when I say how much I appreciate the hard work that you are volunteering to make this wedding a success.”