Wedding Bell Blues - [25]

of Mike’s chair. A low growl issued from its black, curled-back lips.

“Mordecai!” Big Ben hollered. “Down, boy!”

The rottweiler didn’t budge. Mike’s face, so recently aflame with anger, was now frozen in terror.

“Mordecai!” Lily called. “Down, boy”

Mordecai wagged his stump of a tail at Lily and moved his bulk to rest in front of her and Mimi,creating a physical barrier between them and the Maycombs.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Mike rose from his chair. His plaid pants looked suspiciously damp to Lily.

“You invite us down here so you can make a mockery of us. You sic your dog on us —”

“Now hold on a minute, buddy,” Big Ben interrupted. “We didn’t sic our dog on you. He was shutin the bedroom upstairs.”

“He musta heard you yelling at Lily,” Jeanie said. “Ever since Lily got here, Mordecai’s just tookto her. It’s like he’s her protector —”

“My knight in shining flea collar,” Lily said, hoping a joke would lighten the bleak situation. Itdidn’t.

“Well...” Ida was holding her purse in her lap. “It’s getting awfully late.” She looked at Charleshopefully.

He picked up his cue. “Yes, it is, and we’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Thank you for dinner—”

“Wait,” Ben said. Everyone’s head turned toward him. “My wife and I asked you here tonight inhopes that we could settle our differences outside a court-room. Now, Lily and I have talked about this alot, and we both agree that you can see Mimi as often as you like— as long as you agree to respect theterms of Charlotte’s will.”

“I loved my daughter,” Charles began. “But no matter what my feelings for Charlotte were, I can’tuphold her will. We...just feel that Charlotte was under some ... undesirable influences” — Lily feltCharles’s disapproving stare. “ — when she wrote the will. And it was bad enough for those influences toaffect my daughter. There’s no way I’m going to let them affect my granddaughter!”

Lily was seething. They always made it sound as though Lily had converted Charlotte...corruptedher into leading an “undesirable” lifestyle. Charlotte had known she was a dyke since she was twelveyears old! “Charlotte was a grown woman —”

“I think what Daddy is saying,” Mike interrupted as he headed for the door, “is that we alreadyhave a lawyer. Maybe you should think of hiring one, too.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, funny boy.” Big Ben was making no effort to hide his anger.

“We’ve got us a lawyer. We was hoping we wouldn’t have to use him, but there’s just no talking to somepeople. I believe you can find your way back to the interstate exit. And I reckon the next time we’ll seeyou will be in the Faulkner County Courthouse.”

Mike glowered at Big Ben. “Fine. This seems like a decent town. I’m sure they’ll do the rightthing.”

Big Ben grinned. “I’m sure they will, too. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, now.”

After the Maycombs’ car had backed out of the driveway, Big Ben said, “Okay, who wants a beernow that the Baptists is gone?”

Everybody but Mimi raised a hand.

CHAPTER 9

“Ganny!” Mimi squealed when Lily opened the front door for Granny McGilly, who was weigheddown with a heavy-looking cardboard box.

“Here, let me take that for you,” Lily said, relieving the old woman of the box’s weight.

“That’s just a few little ole things I thought you could use to brighten the place up a little ... apicture or two, a few little gewgaws. I’m getting to the age where little things like that just look likeclutter to me. I thought maybe you could use ’em.”

“Well, thank you.” Lily looked at the framed picture that was sticking up out of the box: aVictorian print of a golden-haired female angel guiding two dimple-faced children across a bridge. It waskitschy, but Lily kind of liked it. “Nice picture.”

“That pitcher’d been hanging in my bedroom for years, but yesterday, I got to looking at it, and itput me in mind of Mimi — in all this trouble you’re having, it seems like she needs her a guardian angel.”

Lily was touched. Since the disastrous dinner with the Maycombs, all the McGilly clan had ralliedaround Lily, telling her those awful people had no right to treat her that way and that they’d live to regretthe day they crossed a McGilly. Their support made Lily feel reassured and guilty at the same time —

guilty because she knew the McGillys would feel differently if they found out her and Ben’s marriage wasa fraud.

“Mimi definitely needs all the help she can get,” Lily said. “Buzz Dobson’s working on setting upa date for the hearing. I’m a nervous wreck about the whole thing.”

“Don’t you worry,” Granny McGilly said. “There ain’t never been a McGilly to lose in court inthis county.” She nodded toward the door. “I got somethin’ else for you out in the truck, but I don’t knowhow excited you’ll be to see it.”

Lily picked up Mimi and followed Granny outside. There, in the bed of the green Chevy truck,was Mordecai, panting and wagging his stump of a tail.

“Mookie!” Mimi exclaimed.

“Uh ... what’s Mordecai doing here?” Lily asked. It was a question she feared she already knewthe answer to.