Chapter 15
The best move, in Peter’s opinion, would have been to throw Rydell out. But Rosemarie considered that unwise—“it’s just the sort of drama he wants”—so they retreated to Peter’s house to come up with a workaround.
“Try again tomorrow,” Lydia suggested.
“No, he’ll be counting on that,” he said, scowling. If not for the infernal Rydell, they would have been married by now.
“But in the morning, before he thinks to show up—you could take a half-day, Bee—”
“I can’t.” Beatrix sighed. “There’s too much to do. Two more states have committee votes this week, and Maryland’s House votes tomorrow—I know that’s the easy one compared with the Senate, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance and wizards.”
“Early morning, then, before work,” Lydia said.
Beatrix gave a mournful shake of the head. “Pastor Hattington can’t string two words together before eight, according to his wife. Besides, Mr. Clark’s shift starts at six, so he’d be at work already.”
Peter slouched in his chair. “If only I’d said, ‘Saturday, Saturday’s the wedding,’ he never would have shown up tonight.”
“If you had, he could truthfully call you a liar. That would never do,” Rosemarie said, and he couldn’t argue with her logic.
“All right,” he said, “let’s get married here. In this house.”
“No,” Rosemarie said firmly. “You will get married in a church. Think how it will look—and in any case, the pastor wouldn’t conduct the ceremony, otherwise.”
There was something deeply ridiculous about the situation, though he didn’t feel like laughing. “Another church, then, in a different county.”
Beatrix crossed her arms. “I won’t be run out of my own church. And I refuse to wait and wait for the magic half-hour that we’re available and Rydell isn’t there. I’d rather grit my teeth and go ahead with him sitting in a pew, acid pen and all.”
Peter winced at the thought of exchanging Vows while the man watched, the two of them knowing that every lovely detail would later be twisted into something unrecognizable—mostly at Beatrix’s expense.
He couldn’t do it. And he resented that they couldn’t invite whomever they wanted just because someone might let the news slip.
Of course, under normal circumstances they probably would have felt obliged to invite everyone in town, to avoid hard feelings. Basically all of Ellicott Mills’ residents could fit in that capacious sanctuary.
Wait …
“I’ve got it.” He laughed. “I know what we can do.”
March 16, 2021
Roger Rydell Dishes the Dirt
‘ROMEO & JULIET’ WEDDING IMMINENT: Guess who spotted the star-crossed lovers dashing out of the courthouse yesterday with a newly inked marriage license?
They refused to say when they plan to wed. But you know, rabid readers, that closed lips can’t deter me. Oh, no, my sources are too well-placed for that. When Peter Blackwell and Beatrix Harper arrived at the chapel that night, I’d beaten them there.
There’s no way to know, of course, whether they actually would have married that night — had I not spoiled their hopes of keeping the deserving public out of it — or whether they were simply putting the wedding-white lilies in place for another day.
Either way, there’s a definite shotgun feeling to this affair.
Maybe that’s why Omnimancer Blackwell plans to marry this Miss Harper and not the other one …
March 17, 2021
Roger Rydell Dishes the Dirt
‘ROMEO & JULIET’ WEDDING WATCH: Peter Blackwell and Beatrix Harper still refuse to reveal when they plan to Mendelssohn March it, but I’m hearing from all sorts of little birdies that the big day is set for a week from Saturday.
I’ve interviewed dozens of people in Ellicott Mills, and they all have one thing in common: Romeo and Juliet have not requested the honor of their presence.
“No, we haven’t been invited,” said Tamara Croft, wife of the mayor. “I don’t know a soul who has!”
For years, all that stood between Miss Harper and starvation was Mayor Sam Croft’s kindness.
He employed her at his general store, even though “there were men wanting a job who would have been more of a help to him,” Mrs. Croft disclosed.
“He was sorry for her, you see. Her father owned the store before he died.”
Now Miss Harper is the famous Juliet. Mrs. Croft, shaking her head, told me, “It breaks my heart to see how high and mighty she’s become.”
March 17, 2021
Md. House Boosts Typic-Rights Campaign
By Helen Hickok
Star staff reporter
Maryland’s House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved its “typic rights” bill last night, part of an effort across the country to boot out the half-century-old constitutional amendment requiring all candidates for national office be wizards.
The vote of 130-11 sent a sharp message. But it’s unclear whether the Senate — seen as far more wizard-friendly — will echo it. That vote is scheduled Monday.
Nine states have passed similar measures as of yesterday evening. But advocates will need twenty-nine more to call a constitutional convention, the first since 1787. Activists have managed to get bills introduced in forty-five states, leaving just seven they can afford to lose.
To date, two states have voted the measure down.
“It’s a high bar,” said Tam Rannon, a constitutional scholar at the University of Maryland. “The odds are stacked against them. But if I were a wizard, I’d be worried the activists might pull it off.”
March 20, 2021
Frenzy builds as ‘Romeo & Juliet’ wedding approaches
By J.T. Moore
The Associated Media
ELLICOTT MILLS, Md. — Walk into this hilly little town, and the first thing you notice is the man in the screaming-yellow hat. He’s sitting in a chair outside the dressmaker’s shop, directly across from the Episcopal church.
Roger Rydell, the country’s most famous gossip columnist, is not about to let the country’s most famous couple wed without him as a witness. He’s been in this chair since Tuesday, buttonholing townspeople for interviews.
“He’s paying people to sit here overnight in his place,” said Joe Sederey, a local farmer. “Has the world gone mad?”
First came the morning “call your senator” rally in Baltimore, then the meeting with the Informed Voters Council in Annapolis, and finally, with an hour and a half to go before the church supper, Beatrix and Lydia rushed into their parents’ bedroom—bugged only with audio equipment, unlike theirs—to prepare for what she ardently hoped would be a surprise wedding.
She shimmied into Sue’s ivory wedding dress, lacy and a bit too short.
(Rosemarie had looked long and hard the day before at the hemline, which swept the floor for Sue but exposed Beatrix’s ankles, and finally decided that it would be less shocking than marrying in a red dress.) That was the “something borrowed,” and Lydia helped her latch their mother’s sapphire necklace, the “something blue.” Mary Blackwell’s engagement ring on her finger was the “old,” and the simple gold band Peter had bought would complete the rhyme.
Lydia worked on Beatrix’s hair for what seemed an unreasonable amount of time. Then she raised a hand mirror to show off the results and Beatrix saw how intricately her sister had braided it.
“That’s … beautiful,” she whispered.
Lydia came around the front of the chair Beatrix was sitting in, little glass jars in her hand. They were filled with substances that could only be one thing, and it was all Beatrix could do not to laugh.
She leaned in to murmur in Lydia’s ear: “Rosemarie will have a fit.”
“Watch and see,” her sister said, smiling.
The rouge was rubbed onto her cheeks and chin so artfully that she wouldn’t have believed it was anything but good health if she hadn’t witnessed its application herself.
The color Lydia added to her lips was equally subtle.
Then her sister fussed with her eyebrows and eyelids, and when Beatrix could finally look, she had to admit that nothing gave her away as a painted woman—she simply looked far more impressive than normal.
Wow, she wrote to her sister, underlining the word.
The next time Rydell comments on your appearance, Lydia wrote, remember that you can look like this whenever you want.
Beatrix imagined adding an hour to her brisk morning routine (an hour, for heaven’s sake), and almost snorted.
But she didn’t want her sister to think she didn’t appreciate it.
Lydia was beaming, her eyes shining, and a rush of feeling hit Beatrix in that moment: gratitude and love and loss, because her relationship with her sister would change now.
That was inevitable, and they had only just begun to regain a bit of the closeness they had had when she was her sister’s age and her sister was a student in Rosemarie’s schoolhouse.
And Rosemarie—Beatrix had shortchanged herself of years and years of a mother-daughter relationship because she had instead seen her as a rival whose advice Lydia preferred to her own. All along, Lydia had understood Rosemarie, and she had not.
She gave Lydia a long hug, careful not to wipe any of the makeup onto her sister. She slipped on her coat—long enough to cover every inch of the dress—and walked downstairs to find the rest of her family so she could hug her, too.
Rosemarie was on the couch in the sitting room, surrounded by the results of Rydell’s increasingly pointed columns.
All the early hate mail had gone to Peter, but now it was arriving here, addressed to Beatrix.
What had begun as a trickle on Tuesday filled up four boxes at Rosemarie’s feet.
(“I’ll read them, thank you very much,” Rosemarie had said, snatching a particularly ugly letter from Beatrix’s hands—saving her from a depressing and occasionally disturbing task.)
As Rosemarie glared at the letter in her grasp, fully absorbed by whatever it said, Beatrix looked at the tally on Rosemarie’s lap.
The “Insults” column had too many marks to count at a glance, clearly hundreds.
The “Support” column was up to a dozen. And in the final column …
five, ten—eleven. The same number of threats as before, at least.
Lydia had received hate mail on occasion over the years and shrugged it off. It was harder to do than Beatrix had presumed as an outraged onlooker.
She peeked at the opened letters sitting beside Rosemarie, catching snatches of messages intended for her: “should be ashamed of yourself,” and “Peter Blackwell could do far better” and “ruined one man’s life by leading him on, and another’s by persuading him to join your cockamamie crusade.”
STOP. Rosemarie slapped that terse message on top of the letters, written in all caps. Then, moving her pen so fast that her normally beautiful handwriting went cramped and messy, she added, If you listen to idiots, what does that make you?
Beatrix really couldn’t do anything but laugh. Rosemarie was right, of course. She leaned in and kissed her on her forehead, thankfully leaving no telltale trace of red.
“Ready?” she murmured.
Rosemarie sighed. She added one more sentence to the page: I will miss you terribly, my girl.