my area and cringe at the matrimonial sight before me.
A bride.
A bride seated at a table set for twenty. A very bedraggled looking, sour-faced, pissed off bride with a dress that looks as if she just yanked it out of the bottom of a trash can, wrinkled, grimy—and is that a tire track across the front? I’m guessing the nuptials didn’t go the way God intended.
“Welcome to the Black Bear Saloon,” I say, hopping next to her while whipping out my notepad. “Can I get something started for you while you await the rest of your party?” Like a good divorce attorney perhaps, I want to add but shockingly don’t. Tonight seems to be taking on a life of its own. It sure doesn’t need me running off my mouth, even though Lex’s husband, Axel, is a perfectly good attorney turned restaurateur—and this poor bedraggled bride looks as if she needs the brightest and the best in the legal department. Axel and a couple of his buddies opened up a similar bar-slash-eatery over on the ritzier, far less studious, side of town called The Sloppy Pelican. Axel’s brother, Shep, is an attorney as well. I make a face without meaning to. It’s sort of my go-to response when that public defending nuisance comes to mind, and I do my best to swat him away like the mental gnat he is.
“She’s younger than me. She’s got big boobs, too.” The bullish and yet somewhat blushing bride smirks up at me.
Whoa. I take a step back in hopes to duck out of the toxic current she’s just emitted. It looks as if she’s coming in hot with a full tank of ethanol judging by that slight slur in her speech coupled with the vodka breeze.
She slaps her left hand on the table, and I can’t help but note there’s nary a sign of any ring or bling. “Hell, he probably calls them tits because men are pigs that way.”
“Uh…right.” No matter how much I agree with her I’m about to steer this conversation in a culinary direction when a mob of women in alarmingly matching, slightly dingy, bedraggled wedding dresses storm in. And sadly, I’m not in the least surprised.
At the moment, I’m talking to who I guess to be the head bitter bride, an older woman with severe bags under her eyes. Her face looks blotchy and bloated, as worn out as that gray dress she’s donned. A ratted veil is staked into her thick blonde hair, and it looks as if she just plucked it off a corpse bride—not that she doesn’t qualify as one herself. I clear my throat. “You know what?” I muse as the bitter bride brigade falls into their seats like a coven of angry witches whose spells have all just backfired. “Why don’t you ladies take your time with the menu? I’ll be back in just a bit to take your order.”
The head bride lets out a mean whoop while waving in another whole legion of runaway brides in this direction. “Oh, honey, this is going to be one hell of a breakup bash. I came within inches of that unholy altar before I saw the light, and believe you me I’m damn thankful. You just keep the margaritas coming. Hell, we can cut out the middleman. Just send the damn bartender this way. We’ll figure out what to do with him.” The entire table breaks out into cackles over that salacious remark.
“Gladly,” I mutter as I jump out of the way and signal Cole over to take a stab at the howling matrimonial masses. Cole is handsome, classically so, dark hair, permanent naughty grin, but he’s very much taken. His plus one, Roxy, is a slit-your-throat type Goth girl who happens to bake the best darn cupcakes in town. Roxy runs her own baking business out of her apartment, and word on the street is she’s looking for a place downtown to open up a real shop in the very near future.
“Breakup bash,” I hiss as he glides by with an ear-to-ear grin. “I’m guessing she’s the one that called it off.”
“I’ve seen it all, Serena,” Cole assures me. “Don’t worry about the crowds. Roxy is coming in to help man the tables.”
Not only has Holt taken time off to tend to his wife and sweet baby, but two waitresses left for the Bahamas this morning so we’re down to a skeleton crew.
“Good thing.” I sigh as I make my way to where Sunday