9. Her Wedding Day #4
“Five-fifteen,” answered Abbie, right behind her with the last of the bundles.
Atop the stacked packages, she placed the cardboard box with its pretty ribbon.
“We have plenty of time, but let’s not waste it.
” She looked around. “Debbie, work by the window to get the rest of the sunlight. Kizzy, you sit here on the edge of the bed, so you don’t wrinkle your dress, and be careful of your petticoat.
It might want to pop up.” The matron guffawed.
“You don’t want anyone seeing those bloomers except your bridegroom. ”
“Of course not,” agreed Kizzy with a grin.
“He’s going to love them,” chuckled Lucille with a sly smile, pushing her down to sit, and brushing her hair with long, careful strokes. “But they won’t be on you for long.” She laughed just like her mother. “That fancy corset, either.”
Uh oh, sex talk. Clem was a man, she had to remember that.
“Lucille!” snapped her mother. “Your baby sister’s in the room.”
“I’m married,” Lucille explained with a pained look. “Debbie’s only fifteen and still not interested in boys. She doesn’t understand, yet.”
“Understand what?” asked Kizzy, pretending a curiosity she never felt. “What is there to understand?”
Mother and married daughter howled with peals of raucous laughter, and Kizzy shook her head at Debbie, who shrugged back. That only made the other two laugh harder, and it spread throughout the room, a lusty reference to her imminent passage into womanhood.
“Maybe you can explain it to me, tomorrow?” asked Debbie as the surrounding merriment grew.
“Or I will, little girl,” said Abbie, with a fond pat to her youngest daughter’s shoulder.
“It’s time you knew the facts of life anyway, so’s you don’t find yourself,” a brief pause and glance at her older sister, “in a family way before you’re ready.
” Her lips firmed, but she was smiling. “Speaking of which, where is my granddaughter?”
“With her daddy visiting his parents for the night.” Lucille’s deft fingers twisted Kizzy’s hair into an elegant chignon atop her head. “He’s good with her that way.” She smiled at Kizzy. “Are you planning on starting a family right away?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “we haven’t talked about it.” No reason to.
“Oh,” said Abbie with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t advise morning sickness on the trail. Did your mother talk to you about how to keep from getting…?” She winked and nodded at Debbie, who was busy fastening the veil to the top of her hair.
“Oh, yes, yes,” Kizzy hurried to assure her. “There’s a tea to brew, and a poultice to use if I’m late, and she wrote some other things down for me, too.”
“Oh, good,” said Mrs. Blair, seeming a bit disappointed. “There are ways for women to prevent pregnancy that don’t need a tea, but maybe your mother went over those, too?”
Kizzy did not know what she meant, but nodded with as much assurance as she could muster. She raised one eyebrow and nodded, first at Abbie and then at Lucille, both of whom smiled back with a knowing twinkle in their eyes. She’d have to ask Clem if she knew what they were talking about.
Gabby knocked on the door and, without waiting for an invitation, burst in, tossing a small bag inside the door. “These are Mr. Dennison’s things. Mrs. Bates says they’re ready to start downstairs, and I should find out if you are, too, Miss Walker?”
Kizzy stood and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“As I will ever be,” she said. “I’m beautiful, thanks to you.
” She smiled and turned to Gabby, dressed in an outgrown white dress, short at the wrist and showing her ankles, wearing a pretty wreath of flowers knotted in her hair.
In the mirror’s reflection, Kizzy spied the blue ribbon tied in a pretty bow around the cardboard box.
With a few steps, she plucked it free, causing Abbie to have a sudden conniption.
“No, don’t! Wait…” the seamstress said, arms up and rushing toward Kizzy.
When she saw all she’d been after was the ribbon, she stopped in mid-stride.
“Oh, good.” She took a breath. “Mr. Copperbottlebopper,” she laughed, “was most insistent that box be tied up for you to open after the wedding.” She smiled.
“And no, I’ve been sworn to secrecy, so I won’t tell you what’s in it. ”
That made Kizzy’s imagination run wild as she tied the blue ribbon around Gabby’s waist in a pretty bow.
Her eyes twinkled as she said, “Now we’re both wearing blue, and your flowers will match mine.
That makes you an official member of the wedding party.
Now, you go wait beside Clem at the bottom of the stairs.
He’ll give you my bouquet to carry as you walk in front of us.
When we get to the judge you hand it to me, and then go sit where Mrs. Bates tells you. ”
“Okay, that’s easy. They said you should wait for the fiddler to play before you come down.”
“I will.”
Mrs. Blair and her girls each gave Kizzy a hug and went down with Gabby.
She locked the hotel room door and stood on the landing, tucking the room key in her palm before tugging on her fancy gloves.
Waiting out of sight, she listened to the sound of enthusiastic voices in the hotel lobby below as they faded away, filing into the parlor.
As silence descended, all her doubts and worries faded into a growing sense of wonder and excitement.
At the fiddler’s first notes, she danced to the top of the stairs on light feet. Her next few steps would change her life forever.