Died to match Page 0,86

would be. How often do you have 80,000 popular music artifacts to look at while you sip your champagne? Not to mention the Sound Lab, where you could seclude yourself in a soundproof booth and play guitar, bass, keyboard, or drums, all interactively wired to help you along. Or the Sky Church, the great hall of the EMP

The Sky Church, I had read in the visitor’s guide, was built in homage to Jimi Hendrix’ vision of communion through music. It was dominated by the world’s largest video set-up, forty feet high and seventy feet across, which could be fragmented into different projections or treated as one huge screen for concert footage and video art.

For the wedding, the sound man had orders to keep things hot, fast, and loud. He had awesome equipment to work with: a 24-channel sound system that created layers of amazing sound throughout the vast space, dozens of speakers hanging from the Sky Church ceiling like futuristic chandeliers, and four towers of spotlights, two rising up on either side of the screen and two more flanking his control balcony on the opposite wall. I had been on that balcony during one of my planning visits, and marveled at the dizzying drop to the dance floor and the complexity of the space-age consoles. This was going to be some dance party.

Although the planning for this extravaganza rivaled a space shuttle launch, one of my tasks was actually simpler than usual. Joe Solveto’s delectable food would be served buffet-style, and the seating would be casual, with suit-yourself clusters of tables in the restaurant and lounge areas, and scattered throughout the exhibits as well. So I had no place cards to design and no seating charts to develop, except for the head table. Which, inevitably, turned out to be the stickiest wicket of all.

The fuss started late Thursday afternoon, barely forty-eight hours before the big moment, when my meeting with the bride turned into tea with Great-Aunt Enid. Elizabeth was putting up all the out-of-town guests at the Alexis, a bijou luxury hotel near Pioneer Square that was swankier than anywhere I’d ever stayed in my life. The formidable Enid was presiding over a tea table in her suite, with Paul, Elizabeth, and a nurse in dutiful attendance.

Monica, in fawn-colored cashmere that set off her chestnut hair, sat stiffly on a needlepoint chair looking like she wanted a cup of something stronger. Burt wasn’t there; he and his errant wife were doing a Clark Kent and Superman act, never to be seen together.

“So you’re the big-deal wedding expert.” Enid was as short and tough as a tree stump, with a wide flat face rayed with wrinkles and square bony hands that trembled badly. Nothing trembling about her gaze, though. She surveyed me like a horse trader assessing a decidedly sub par nag. “In my day, a girl had her mother to help her get married, not some expert. I bet you charge a fortune.”

“But Monica is helping me, Aunt Enid,” said Elizabeth. She and her mother had apparently called a truce in the face of this larger threat. “It’s just such a big wedding that we need Carnegie to handle some of the details.”

Enid made a rude noise. “What kind of a name is Carnegie, anyway? And who has hair that color?”

“Well, I do,” I said, sitting down and smiling. After all the diplomacy entailed by my job, there was something appealing about Enid’s rough candor. “My dad was a redhead, and I can promise you that he didn’t dye his hair.”

The old lady nodded, satisfied. Or maybe she was just tired. After a few minutes’ chat, she turned to the nurse, a sturdy Jamaican woman with a good-humored manner.

“Time for a little lie-down, don’t you think, Irene?”

“Just a little one,” Irene agreed, and helped her shuffle slowly into the bedroom.

We rose to leave, but Monica beckoned us across the hallway to her own suite, whose luxurious furnishings she had nearly obliterated with scattered clothing and fashion magazines. There were no chairs clear, but Monica had a stand-up conversation in mind.

“Lizzie,” she said, “I went through those notes you gave me, and I’ve changed my mind.”

“But you already agreed!”

“I just can’t do it. I cannot sit next to that man.”

Was it my imagination, or was that smoke rising from Elizabeth’s ears? “ ‘That man’ is still your husband. And if you call me Lizzie one more time I’ll—”

“Elizabeth, honey,” said Paul, while he telegraphed me a look that said Mayday.