Mom shows up at the rehearsal dinner. And she brings a date that she didn’t mention. Some guy with dyed hair and a Ferrari. Can you stand it? They drove up from Santa Monica together, but did she tell any of us? We didn’t have a place for him. It was just rude.
“And then she started in about Violet. Melinda tried to intervene. She’s such an idiot sometimes. And Daddy says, ‘Stay away from me, Mel,’ real coldlike. Mom smirked and Melinda looked like she was going to cry. And then Mom says, ‘He gets like this every time he starts up with Violet. I should know.’”
“Did Violet break up your parents’ marriage?” I asked, wondering if Renee still held a grudge.
“Well…no.” Gigi sounded disappointed that she had to tell the truth. “They were split up a long time. But it still upset Mom when Daddy and Violet got together and we all moved away from Los Angeles.”
“Was there any thought of staying with your mother at the time?”
“I don’t know what this has to do with anything,” she muttered, looking away.
I took that as a no. “But it sounds like Renee blamed Violet for a lot of what happened in your family.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I could tell I was losing Gigi, so I said, “So, your father disinvited your mother to the wedding and reception.”
“The Ferrari guy got real upset. Told my dad he was no kind of man. They’d driven all the way here, they’d been invited, well, Mom had, anyway. Who did he think he was? Blah, blah, blah. It was a real scene. If I’d been sober I would have been even more mad, but we were knocked out by those Italian punch drinks they serve there. They got Campari or something in them? Makes them red? We drank tons of them. It was really the only way to get through that night, though Daddy did make a nice toast to me.” Fresh tears filled her eyes. “He said how I was his little girl.”
I smiled encouragingly, thinking that was pretty standard stuff for the dads of brides.
Gigi stabbed a piece of cheese with one of the ruffled toothpicks, then twirled it thoughtfully around. I wondered if she was rethinking putting it in her mouth. “I was kinda hungover in the morning, but by noon I was okay. The mimosas sure helped.”
“Hair of the dog,” I said.
“Huh?”
I shrugged, not wanting to sidetrack her with an explanation about why more alcohol was supposed to cure a hangover. I’m not sure I believe it anyway. Gigi went on, “I guess I was still hoping Daddy would show and we’d get a few pictures, maybe after the ceremony. People started arriving. It was just awful. I mean, it was getting close to four. Where was he? We told the caterers to open the champagne, so we started drinking some more. We even called my mother then, and she and the Ferrari guy came right over.”
“Did you try to call Violet?” I asked.
“We’re not stupid. Of course we did. She never picked up.”
“Okay.”
“People kind of moved around the grounds, staying out of the way. I think they were embarrassed. Deenie and I were crying and nobody knew what to do. Finally, we had to say there was an accident and the wedding was postponed. Emmett’s parents, Dave and Goldy, were upset.” Her lips compressed, and she started to say something, then cut herself off. I got the feeling it might have been something not all that nice about Emmett’s parents. She went on instead, “We didn’t really believe something bad had happened to Daddy. Not then…but then Emmett found Daddy and called his dad. He didn’t want to tell me over the phone.” She swept in a breath. “It was David who told everyone Daddy’d been in an accident. He didn’t tell me the truth until everyone had left.”
I heard a car engine and looked through the window to see a dark blue Mercedes convertible pull into the driveway and park. Emmett Popparockskill climbed from the driver’s seat, removing a pair of Ray-Bans. He glanced toward the heavens, but the rain had briefly abated and rays of sunlight stabbed downward through black-bottomed clouds. Emmett was lean and dark like Gigi, and I watched him run a hand slowly alongside his hair, then do it again, a narcissistic habit that said a lot about him. Then he tucked his hands together in that way golfers do, as if they have an actual club in their palms, swept his arms back and made a deep swing. He finished, arms upward, staring in the direction the “ball” had gone. His clothes were golfers’ togs: tan chinos, collared black T-shirt with three-button placket.
“There were just a few of us at the end,” Gigi went on distractedly. She, too, was watching Emmett’s swing. “I remember Melinda making a point to try to be nice to my mom even though she’d been such a bitch the night before. Renee was really quiet. I think she was scared. Like she knew something really bad had happened. I guess we all knew, just didn’t want to face it.”
Emmett entered the house and Gigi suddenly broke into action, running to him, juggling her wine. She managed to keep from sloshing, but after planting a smack on his mouth, she slurped some more from her glass. Emmett regarded her with a look threaded with both indulgence and annoyance, as if she were a bratty child, which wasn’t that far from the truth. “Watch the wine,” he said.
“Oh, pooh. Let me get you a glass.” Gigi twirled back into the kitchen and grabbed another Lismore. She filled it full, saw that the bottle was empty, and after placing the stemware in Emmett’s somewhat reluctant hand, plucked a new bottle from the fridge.
Emmett clearly hadn’t expected visitors and his expression was long-suffering.
I stuck out a hand. “Jane Kelly.”
“Emmett Popparockskill.”
What a mouthful. He shook my hand and it was a decent handshake.
“She’s here ’cause I invited her,” Gigi said quickly. I shot her a look, not sure if she was hiding my true agenda for reasons of her own or not. “Have some cheese.”
Emmett popped a couple of squares of pepper jack into his mouth and started drinking with more enthusiasm. “I quit my job today,” he said.
Gigi’s mouth dropped open, then shut, then dropped open again. She looked like a beached fish. “What? Why?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” Which was couple-speak for “after the guest leaves.”
But Gigi was having none of it. “How’re we supposed to pay our bills? Oh my God. You’re kidding, right?”
“It’ll all be okay.”
“Oh my God…”
“Nobody knows what they’re doing there. The other salesmen don’t know fuel injectors from wiper blades.” He flicked a look my way. “I work—worked—at Miller-Kennedy, the Mercedes dealership. Mike Miller’s my uncle and there is no Kennedy anymore.”
“A family-owned business,” I said politely.
“You got that right. My dad’s the account manager.” Something about his tone suggested he thought his father wasn’t much of an employee, either. I got the feeling Emmett thought the place would fall apart without him.
Gigi was going through a rapid thought process. “She’s still there, I take it.”
“Everybody’s
