Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness (The Bubba Mysteries Book 7) Page 3

  “Bubba dearest,” Miz Demetrice said. She sat at the small table in the kitchen and regarded him with aplomb. Precious had taken her Milk-Bone bounty and retreated under the table in order to correctly digest her treatly prey, and also to be out of the direct line of fire.

  “Ma,” he said because uh, urg, and meh weren’t things a proper Texan said to his mother. Plus she still knew how to use a wooden spoon on his backside.

  “You don’t look hungover,” she said. “I’m rightly happy that you don’t look like death eatin’ a cracker this morning.”

  “I drank two beers last night and he’ped most of the others get in the taxi. Bert Mullahully said he’ll never do a bachelor’s party ever again and that he dint think he would ever get the smell out of his minivan.” Bubba found his mug again and finished off the carafe of coffee.

  When he turned back to his mother, he observed that she had a sheen of perspiration marring her delicate forehead. Furthermore, her snowy hair was mussed. Finally and most condemning, she was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt with jeans, which were items of clothing that Bubba hadn’t previously known she had possessed. Both were slightly stained as if she had been digging in the dirt. (Digging had been his father’s penchant, and Miz Demetrice had never really believed there was Union gold on the property.)

  Bubba touched the side of his head with his hand. The vein there was suddenly throbbing. “What are you up to, Ma?”

  Chapter 2

  Bubba and His Mother and Bubba

  and the Wedding Brekky

  Saturday, April 27th around sometime

  in the morning but well before the wedding

  Once, it was said rhetorically and where it could not be overheard by the person being implicitly discussed, Miz Demetrice Snoddy vowed fervent revenge on a local politician. The politician later voluntarily checked into a mental health facility on the Eastern seaboard almost at the tip top of the country without actually entering Canada, rather than put up with any more of her shenanigans. The politician also swore that he would never return to Texas, and thusly, he was never seen in those parts again. The paltry reason of Miz Demetrice’s reprisal had to do with the snubbing of one of Miz Demetrice’s heartfelt causes, the name of which has faded into the woodwork. It was also said that she regularly checked on the politician’s location as to make certain that he hadn’t reneged on his declaration to never return. (Scout Leader Marlon Tarterhouse and the politician would have had a great deal to agree upon when it came to the subject of what the safest minimum distance was from the immediate vicinity of a Snoddy, be it Brownie or Demetrice.)

  Bubba had often wondered if the politician thought the tradeoff was a good one or not. But Bubba himself couldn’t bring himself to leave again. He’d done it once when he’d joined the military. It had been both a good and bad experience, and he’d learned a hard lesson about himself. The plain old truth was that he was a Snoddy, born and bred. Snoddys stayed in Texas. Furthermore, Snoddys supported their family while staying in Texas.

  “Spit it out, Ma,” Bubba said.

  “What, can’t an old woman get a little exercise on a Saturday morning? Have you seen the news this morning?” Miz Demetrice smoothed back her hair, trying to gather all the strays up. Bubba happened to know that she used Dippity-Do regularly, so whatever she had been doing had ruffled her gel-contained feathers good and properly. “Also Willodean said she couldn’t reach you on your cellphone or the house phone this morning. Unfortunately, the landline is an issue best left to Verizon on account that something isn’t working properly.”

  “I don’t remember what I did with my cellphone. Kin you tell Willodean everything is fine and dandy. Hopefully she’s fine and dandy, too.” Bubba took a breath. Whatever his mother was doing, not doing, planning to do, not planning to do, or other just didn’t matter. It couldn’t be good. It likely didn’t have anything to do with the wedding. It was unimportant. “It’s not a dead body, right?” he found himself asking. Damn you, paranoia, he thought.

  “Goodness no, dearest,” Miz Demetrice said immediately. “If only I had money in the bank and you had a feather up your butt, we’d both be tickled.”

  “That’s cute, Ma,” Bubba said, “but you’re avoiding the issue. Is it something illegal again? Am I going to be leading the FBI, the DEA, or the Secret Service out on a goose chase later today? On my wedding day? Perhaps it’ll be the day for the National Guard to appear en masse. Or possibly Mossad, although I’m danged if I can guess what you might have done to irritate the Israelis.”

  “Incidentally, Willodean is fine. She says her father has pink lemonade burps from the bachelor party, but she’s not even heaving today. The poor little vomit comet.” Miz Demetrice tittered and then answered his question. “Oh heavens no, the FBI came last week and we cleared that all up. And the Secret Service hasn’t been out here since that little incident with the vice president.” Miz Demetrice shook her head sadly. “A waste of gov’ment funds, if you ask me.”

  “And the DEA?”

  “They still come around occasionally,” Miz Demetrice admitted. She quickly blinked. “I might have invited them to the wedding.”

  Bubba felt his mouth open and his jaw pop as it fully extended. For a long moment, he couldn’t think of anything at all. A great gray mass blurred out his brain. (It might have even been the same grayity graying grayish gray color of his suit, but he wasn’t thinking about that.) “You invited the DEA to the wedding?” he asked finally, proud that his voice didn’t crack. “You actually invited Drug Enforcement Administration agents to our wedding?”

  “It seemed like the polite thing to do,” Miz Demetrice said as she examined her fingernails. Bubba noticed absently that they were dirty and one was broken. (More evidence of her chicanery to be sure.) “That Agent Smith was so upset about the whole mistake about the flour. He was almost demoted. The higher ups didn’t look upon such a mistake with fondness.”

  “Ten pounds of self-rising, whole wheat flour,” Bubba corrected, “which happened to be wrapped up in the same way that a drug dealer would wrap up a brick of cocaine or heroin. Plus someone anonymously left…a…tip…with…an…untraceable…disposable…cellphone.”

  “Whoever would know how to do that?” Miz Demetrice asked and sipped her coffee.

  Bubba looked at his mother. “Whoever. I have to know. Are there any more illegal or legal orphans coming through?”

  “No.”

  “Poker games?”

  “Not today.”

  “Anyone being nominated for a gubernatorial position?”

  “It’s April, but one might never know what would happen next month. Never say die and damn the torpedoes your great uncle Guthrie always used to say.”

  “Anything else that I cain’t think to ask?”

  “Not that I can think of,” his mother said and tilted her head, “although that statement leaves several large loopholes through which Lawyer Petrie would be able to drive a semi-truck.”

  “Please, Ma,” Bubba said and put his palms together as if he was praying, “just not today.”

  “I’ll try my very best, darling Bubba,” Miz Demetrice vowed and Bubba believed her. He didn’t miss that she was still very much up to something, but it couldn’t be helped. If he continued to worry about this, then his hair would likely fall out in great hunks. He’d have to shave the remainder of his head and start sucking on lollipops while asking lasciviously, “Who loves ya, baby?” Willodean would refuse to marry him unless he got a wig. The wig would look like he was wearing a rat on his head, and she was refuse to marry him that way, too. His child would grow up fatherless because she would move to a country where it was illegal for men to shave their heads. Bubba would die alone and bald. It would be very sad.

  “You really invited those DEA people?” he asked warily.

  “Of course. It’s the South, and most of the town is coming, too. Why not a few more?” Miz Demetrice finished her cup and smiled. “Of course, I invited the FBI, too.
I didn’t invite the Secret Service people because they weren’t very nice the last time they were here. Did you know that one FBI agent still is in a cast from falling in one of the holes? It turns out she had to have three surgeries. Had to invite her.”

  Bubba could feel the vein in his forehead throbbing again. It wasn’t too late to elope. He was certain that Willodean wouldn’t really mind eloping. The problem was that both Celestine and Demetrice had caught the dread wedding bug. (It was unofficially called the Oh-my-God-my-child-is-getting-married-it-must-be-wondrous! bug.) They weren’t bridezillas but mother-of-the-bridezillas. There had to be a scientific category for that affliction and a special page in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. He just knew it.

  “I need a valium,” Bubba muttered.

  “I have some Xanax,” Miz Demetrice offered, “although you might do better with a nice cup of chamomile tea or a dose of St. John’s Wort.”

  “Don’t you have to change for breakfast?” Bubba asked as his teeth ground together. He’d be ice skating with the devil in hell before he would either take one of his mother’s tranquilizers or even ask why she had them.

  Miz Demetrice smiled fondly at him. “I am a muss. Ya’ll don’t be late for breakfast. All kinds of family there.”

  “Willodean?”

  “Still ascribing to the bad luck to see the bride before the wedding aspect,” his mother said, standing.

  Bubba saw her to the door and went back to the kitchen to see if Willodean had any chamomile tea to drink. He was also thinking of chugging Pepto-Bismol while he was at it.

  * * *

  Bubba didn’t exactly know the time when Brownie knocked on the door and cautiously poked his head inside. “Hey, Bubba,” Brownie said. “Great-Auntie D. sent me over to tell you to come be sociable. Also that the breakfast is about to go. She said you could use some carbs.”

  “Did they make bacon?” Bubba asked.

  Brownie nodded.

  “Biscuits with gravy?”

  “Sausage gravy. Miz Adelia is right happy,” Brownie said and licked his lips. “She slapped my hand when I tried to poke my finger in the gravy.”

  “She’ll do that,” Bubba said. He adjusted his shirt. He’d changed into a white button-down shirt. The cuffs were French but he wouldn’t share that unless he was under threat of death, and possibly not even then. He stopped in the tiny hallway and looked into the mirror by the front door. His hair was combed. The bruises from the dynamite explosion at the Dogley Institute of Mental Well-Being were almost gone. He felt good. He wore a decent pair of Lee jeans that had no holes or stains. His boots were Tony Lama’s. (Black Americana R Toe Western Boot, size 12, width EE. They were almost completely broken in, too.) The only thing he didn’t have was a football helmet to prevent himself from being hit on the head again, but a helmet wouldn’t have matched his rodeo sized belt buckle with the bucking bronc on it.

  Brownie nodded approvingly. Bubba noticed the boy was wearing a polo shirt and clean pants with oxfords on his feet. He almost appeared normal.

  “How’s your baby sister?” Bubba asked.

  “She cries sometimes,” Brownie said. “She’s fun to hold when she’s kicking her legs. She’s pretty happy when you’re playing with her belly button. She poops a lot too. I’m making a chart of all the colors her poop comes out as. I’ve got digital photographs. It’s surprising how well you get used to the smell. I don’t gag nearly at all now.”

  “You dint bring those photographs with you, did you?”

  “Ma wouldn’t let me,” Brownie said morosely and then brightened, “I’ll email them to you.”

  Bubba wondered if it was too late to go back into his bedroom, climb into bed, and pull the covers over his head. No, it is too late. Besides he was marrying Willodean Gray, the most beautiful sheriff’s deputy in the whole wide world. They were having a child together. They loved each other. If only all those other pesky things stopped getting in the way of general happiness, all would be well.

  “I just need a positive attitude,” Bubba said to his reflection. “Self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s it.”

  “You okay, Bubba?” Brownie asked.

  “Yep,” Bubba affirmed. “I am all right. I am okay. I am the master of my destiny. I am the maker of my universe. It’s a good universe. It’s a universe with gravy and a cherry on top of it.”

  Brownie stared at him. Precious wandered out of the kitchen, sniffed at Brownie, and went outside. “I’ll just…uh,” Brownie said uncertainly, “play with your dog while you decide what’s on top of your universe.”

  From outside Precious heard the words “play” and “dog” and yipped happily.

  Brownie grabbed a half-masticated tennis ball from a basket sitting beside the front door and cautiously withdrew.

  Bubba knew that breakfast would help. He would get something in his roiling stomach and settle things down. He looked around and decided to lock up the caretaker’s house in case a dead body happened to be of a mind to wander in.

  * * *

  The only normal thing that could be said about the wedding breakfast was that it was buffet style. Miz Adelia and several helpers had set up a tremendous variety of dishes on the huge mahogany sideboard in the largest dining room. The table was decked out with the good china and pristine table clothes inherited from Miz Demetrice’s side of the family. The place settings were simple; a fork, knife, and spoon sat next to cloth napkins folded like birds of paradise with name cards inserted in the folds.

  Bubba admired everything greatly while various family members greeted him. Certainly, Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia had gone all out. He stopped counting at twenty place settings because he didn’t exactly know who was invited to what. The wedding breakfast had invited his immediate relatives and Willodean’s. Willodean wasn’t going to be present, but her parents and sisters were. In addition, her maternal grandparents were helping themselves to mimosas, heavy on the champagne.

  Fudge clapped Bubba on the back. The Louisianan Snoddy was almost the same size and weight as Bubba but tended toward softness because he wasn’t one to put out extra effort if he didn’t feel like it. (Fudge had once run a hundred yard dash in record speed but only because he thought a masked man with a machete was behind him. The fact that the race was downhill in his favor hadn’t hurt.)

  “Bubba, you’re the last holdout,” Fudge said cheerfully. “Marriage is good. It’s bin fine for Virtna and me. We’ve got the boy and the girl. The boy keeps us on our toes. I hope you have a child just like Brownie.” He downed a flute of mimosa and then burped. “Pardon moi.”

  “I don’t reckon there could be another one just like Brownie,” Bubba said. His eyes scanned the room and caught Brownie surreptitiously pouring a little champagne into his orange juice. Fudge followed Bubba’s glance and saw it nearly at the same time.

  “Oh, shiitake mushrooms! Rumford Samuel Snoddy, Jr!” Fudge exclaimed with evident horror and waded through the crowd. There were a few surprised expressions, but most of the people were used to hearing the child being three-named in public.

  Brownie promptly put the glass down and disappeared behind three maiden aunts.

  “Don’t mind them, Bubba dear,” his aunt Caressa said to him. She motioned at him and he bent to kiss her paper thin flesh on her check. She smelt of Halston perfume and candy canes which was the way Miz Demetrice’s sister usually smelled. Bubba studied the much older woman for a moment because she seemed a little more fragile than normal. Was she shrinking? Possibly. “Getting married to the right person is purest delight,” she said. “You and Willodean have been through hell and back. I would say that you’ve pushed all the limits of your relationship and found it to be good.”

  Bubba thought he should agree with that, so he did.

  “Your child will undoubtedly be different, as everyone’s is,” Caressa went on. “You haven’t seen the news today, have you?”

  “I have not,” Bubba said almost aut
omatically and then recalled that his mother had asked him very nearly the same thing. All senses went on high alert. “Why would you be asking that?”

  “Oh, no reason,” Caressa said insincerely and added, “Look, mimosas. I must have one. I need to get the aftertaste of lemonade out of my mouth. Did you know that Willodean knows how to play this very interesting game involving a ping pong ball and an empty cup?” She didn’t wait for an answer but sallied forth to procure the errant glass of citric juice combined with bubbly spirits.

  Bubba was not fooled.

  Evan Gray, Willodean’s father, stopped on Bubba’s right side and said, “You’ll take care of my little baby girl, won’t you?”

  Bubba glanced at the man. He was in his fifties and a university professor. In what subject, Bubba wasn’t sure. He’d had conversations with the man, to be sure, but underwater basket weaving was the subject that popped into his mind. It dawned on the younger man that Evan had consumed one too many mimosas.

  “Hair of the dog that bit me,” Evan said, raising the flute in his hand. He had attended the bachelor party at Grubbo’s the previous night and he and Peyton had played some kind of drinking game with the pink pantie droppers as the punishment of choice. (It was something about saying celebrity names, and arguing about who was a celebrity. It had ended when one had said, “Superman,” which didn’t fit into their theme. That had progressed into an excited conversation about what comic characters they would sleep with. Bubba had been disinclined to participate by that time.) “I’d do anything to get the taste of those drinks out of my mouth. I had to take both aspirin and ibuprofen this morning.” He leaned in toward Bubba and Bubba could still smell the tang of stale alcohol on the older man. “My wife is a little angry with me.” He gestured at Celestine who was standing with Miz Demetrice. His mother had perceptively changed from the t-shirt and jeans to a neat two piece suit the color of a tangerine, which looked good on her.