to forget that Gretchen was a woman and simply think of her as the partner who was going to help him crack the Raven Hunter case. He hoped something enlightening would happen very soon.
“Gretchen, are you sure the dress is going to fit by the time the wedding takes place? Maybe you should just come in for one more fitting just to be certain. The wedding’s still a few weeks away.”
Gretchen heard the rising panic in her friend Pamela’s voice and did her best to try and put herself in her friend’s shoes. No dice. Gretchen had been a bridesmaid more times than she had fingers and toes, but she never had been a bride and never would be, just as she’d told David yesterday. Still, she did want Pamela to be happy…
“Pam, I promise you this dress is absolutely going to fit. It fits right now and I’m the same size that I’ve been for the past ten years. Everything’s going to be okay, hon. Really.”
“Oh, Gretch, I’m sorry. It’s just…I want everything to be so perfect. You know?”
“I know, Pam.” And she did know that much. Enough of her friends and cousins and sisters had gotten married in the past few years for her to be very familiar with this need for the most beautiful, perfect day of all eternity. “And, Pamela?”
“Yes?”
“Everything is going to be just wonderful. You love Raymond, don’t you?”
“Gretchen, you know he makes my sun rise every morning.”
“And he loves you more than he loves anything else. More than baseball and basketball, which is saying quite a lot for a sports nut like Raymond.”
Her friend giggled on the other end of the line. “All right, all that’s true.”
“Then what more can you ask for, Pamela? The day is going to be perfect even if it rains elephants from the sky. You’re marrying the man of your dreams.”
A long silence hung on the line. A nice silence.
“Pam?”
“You’re right, Gretchen. It’s going to be a wonderful day. Only one thing could make it more perfect.”
Uh-oh. Gretchen had heard this line before. She knew just where her friend was headed.
“It’s not going to happen, Pam. I’ve told all of you, I just don’t want to get married.”
“Not even if you met a special guy?”
“If I meet a special man, we’ll date, we’ll share our thoughts, we’ll probably make love, but in time it’s going to end. I’m just not cut out for husbands and babies. I like my job. I like my life. That’s just not going to change. Nothing’s going to change.”
She was right about that. But it still meant that every time someone asked her to stand up in a wedding or to attend a wedding or even mentioned the words wedding or marriage or husband or children, all her friends and loved ones were going to wish she were different. They were going to try their best to get her to settle down and make them feel that at last she’d fit herself into the world the way they wanted her to fit.
But Pam wasn’t talking. Perhaps she was getting the message. Finally.
“You’re thirty-two, Gretchen. You want to be alone all your life?”
Gretchen couldn’t help chuck ling at that. “Pam, hon, I have seven brothers and sisters, more cousins than is probably legal, and friends all over the country. Almost all of them are generous and loving. Like you, Pamela. They share their lives, their homes, and their children, and I absolutely love that. How could I be lonely? And why do I need to raise my own family when I can just share in everyone else’s whenever I feel the need?”
“Gretchen—”
“Pam, stop. Right now. I’m so happy for you and Raymond. I’m glad you’re getting married and living the life you want. Be happy for me, too. I have everything I could ever need or want.”
More silence.
“Okay, Gretchen, I am happy for you. I’m truly happy if you really do have everything you want.”
Gretchen felt herself relax a bit. She and her friend talked a few minutes longer, but when they finally hung up, a frown formed on Gretchen’s face.
“I do have everything I want,” she whispered. “But just once, just one time, I wish I could show up at a wedding with a man on my arm.” She wouldn’t, of course. Asking a man to travel any distance with her to a wedding implied a closeness that she just didn’t want to encourage. She had enough trouble with men who thought dating a female detective meant a lot of things it would never mean. But wouldn’t it be great to show up with a date? Maybe then all her friends and family would believe that she was truly happy living a life with no ties outside of work. All she needed was a little help from the right kind of man.
Unfortunately the right kind of man didn’t exist in White horn. The only way she was going to find a date for this wedding would be if one fell from the sky and disappeared just as quickly the day after the wedding.
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