The wedding would be on Saturday, in the Dinosaur Hall of the local museum.  Gloria gaped at the phone.  Had her father gone mad? 
          “It’s where Jane and I met, you know, volunteering,” was his response to the silence.  “We thought it would be fun.  Afterwards, we’re having the reception around the corner at Juanita’s.  Would you and Gary make up the invitations and programs?  And could you also do the cake?  It would mean a lot, to both of us.”
          “Well, sure Dad, we’d be happy to.  But Juanita’s for the reception?  Why don’t you have the ceremony at the new chapel and have the reception catered there as well?  That would be really nice.”  His resounding “No” left Gloria speechless again.  Her dad assumed this was the end of the conversation and hung up.
          Gloria immediately hit the memory dial to the bakery she and her brother Gary owned.  She drummed her fingers on the countertop until their tips turned red, matching her florid cheeks.
          “Southwest Cookies.  This is Gary, may I help you?”
          “Yes, you can!  Dad and Jane are getting married—in the museum, three Saturdays from now!  In the museum of all places, and they are having the reception at Juanita’s.  They might as well have the whole thing at McDonald’s for god’s sake.  Ronald can officiate and we’ll just throw out the Happy Meals to all the guests at the reception!”  Having said this in one breath, she had to pause or risk passing out.
          “They’re old, Glor.  Let them do what they want.”
          “I know that, Gary.  But it’s just so typical of Jane to find a way not to spend any of her money—even for her own wedding! The museum is letting them use the hall for free.  Oh, and did I tell you we are making the invitations, programs and cake?  They could more than afford a nice reception for their friends.”
          “That’s true.  It’s not like they’re on fixed incomes or anything.”
          “Not on fixed incomes!  Gary, the woman’s a millionaire and Dad’s not hurting either.  I swear she still has her first penny in a vault somewhere.”
          “Jane’s not that bad, and she makes Dad happy.”
          “For that, I am grateful to her,” Gloria conceded.  Their dad had been very lonely and withdrawn before he met the sixty-year-old widow.  They actually liked the same things, geology and paleontology.  Two old fossils getting married among the dinosaurs did seem appropriate somehow.

Gary agreed to get the layout started for the invitations.  She thanked him and added, “Oh, I almost forgot the best part.  All of Jane’s children and stepchildren are coming in for the big event.  Including Nate the Great.”
          “Well, hell!” Gary said.  “Okay, whatever.  I really have to go.”

Gloria thought that would get a rise out of Gary.  Nate was Jane’s wunderkind, on whom the sun never set.  It was true; the sun setting on him would be a physical improbability.  There would have to be a tear in the time/space continuum for that to actually happen.  Nate was the Vice President of Research and Development for a gourmet cookware company.  He traveled the world on a continuous basis, made zillions of dollars and owned his own executive jet.  He was probably coming up with a cure for the common cold in his spare time.
          Gary hated Nate, though they had never met in person.  Nate was all Jane ever talked about, and she talked a lot.  Gary felt that their father had replaced them with Jane’s perfect, boast-worthy family.  Although it made her sad, Gloria sometimes felt the same way.  At any rate, it was difficult to adjust to the idea of six step-siblings and all their kin getting added to the familial mix.  It had been just Gary, her, her husband, Matt, and Dad for so long.

A week later, Gloria was in her favorite dress shop with her best pal, Leigh.  They were searching the sale section for something to wear to the wedding.
          “I can’t believe her own daughter isn’t even buying a dress for her mother’s wedding,” Leigh exclaimed, upon Gloria’s revelation.  “After all, she is going to be Matron of Honor.”
          “Yes, Miss Trust Fund is borrowing a dress from a friend in Vermont, and she hopes it arrives on time,” Gloria said with a snicker.  “Her friend must be just as cheap—she’s sending it by U.S. mail.”
          The two women laughed.
          “Here’s a perfect dress for you!” Leigh said.  She pulled a turquoise green creation from the sale rack.  “And, it’s been marked down twice.”
          Gloria checked the tag.  Money had been tight since she and Gary had started their business.  Even a marked-down dress was an extravagance right now.
          “Well, it’s bad luck to wear old clothes to a wedding or new clothes to a funeral,” Leigh said under her breath.  ‘You would think the daughter would show a little more respect.  I guess money doesn’t buy good manners.”
          “I get the impression that Jane’s whole family could care less about making an effort for this event.  They are in change of the decorations at Juanita’s. All they are doing is hanging up a strand of white Christmas lights, which they are borrowing from us.  Oh, and the daughter is putting candles, left over from her own wedding, on the tables as centerpieces.”
          “Now we know why they are rich!”
          “Isn’t that the truth,” Gloria said.  “All I want is for this wedding to be nice for Dad.  He’s been a widower for thirty years… Well, what do you think?”  Gloria spun around in the fitting room to model the dress for Leigh.  “I look lumpy in silk, huh?”
          “Just put on a pair of control-top pantyhose,” Leigh suggested.
          “I think I might need something more industrial than hosiery,” Gloria said.

The saleswoman produced a figure-controlling device she guaranteed would do the trick. Even though it cost almost as much as the dress, Gloria figured it would be money well spent, if it helped her to look a little thinner and made her feel somewhat confident around Jane’s family.
          The two friends paid for their purchases and headed to the parking lot.
          “Don’t forget the rehearsal dinner next Friday night at Jane’s house.  Her kids are ordering pizza for the occasion, and we don’t want to waste their money,” Gloria said to Leigh with a giggle.
          “How could I forget a thing like that?”
          Gloria’s cell phone chirped.  “Excuse me,” she said as she dug through her purse and pulled it out. “Hello?”
          Gary was on the other end.  He sounded frantic.  “Dad’s been hurt hiking on one of his geology field trips.  He’s at the hospital now.  Jane is with him and I’m on my way there.”
          “Is he going to be okay?”  Gloria’s hands were shaking so badly she had trouble holding the phone to her ear.
          “Don’t know.  See you at the Emergency Room.”

What an ordeal.  After the initial fluster of activity, the doctors decided that their father had dislocated his shoulder and compressed a disk in his lower back—both of which caused him severe pain.  Overnight he seemed to have aged way beyond his seventy-five years.  Gloria sat on the edge of his hospital bed and held his hand.  He looked up at her, his face wan with sadness and whispered, “I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding.  I’m so disappointed.  It would have been a lovely party at Juanita’s, with all our family and friends.”
          As tears welled in Gloria’s eyes, she realized it didn’t matter where the wedding was held, only that it happened.
          “You quit talking like that!” she said to her father.  “You’ve got two weeks’ worth of rehab before the wedding, enough to be able to stand and say ‘I do.’  So don’t give up!”

Friday evening.  The wedding was tomorrow afternoon.  Their father was out of bed and moving around with the aid of painkillers and a walker.  Gloria and Matt pulled up to Jane’s spectacular home that overlooked the city.  The circular drive was already full of expensive, late model sport cars and SUV’s.
          “Maybe we should park around the corner and walk,” Matt joked, at the expense of their twenty-year-old minivan.
          Once inside, they ran the gauntlet of Gloria’s future step-siblings.  Most of them were doctors or engineers.
          “What is it you do?” one asked.
          “I manufacture cookies with my brother, Gary,” Gloria said.
          “Are you having much success with that?”
          Gloria looked at Matt and rolled her eyes.  “Well, it pays the bills, most of the time.”

After answering the same question three more times, Gloria thought she should have just recorded her answer. She could have worn a sign around her neck that read: HIT THE PLAY BUTTON TO CONFIRM THAT COMPARED TO YOU, I AM A BIG LOSER.”
          She found Gary fielding a similar question.  They shared knowing looks.  When they were alone, he mocked, “Are you having much success at that?”
          “If I get asked if I heli-ski one more time, I think I will scream!  Is that all these people do?” Leigh interjected as she joined them.
          “No.  They vacation in Machu Picchu, as well,” Matt said.
          They shook their heads.  It was a different world.

Was it Gloria’s imagination, or had the room suddenly brightened?  Nate the Great was approaching, an aura of superiority glowing dazzlingly around him.  He stuck out an impeccably-manicured hand to Gary and made his introduction.
          “So, Gary, I hear you are making the wedding cake.  I fancy myself as being a bit of a chef.  I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with.”
          “Well, I’m a bit rusty. We manufacture cookies, not cakes, for a living, but it should be fun, and I’m honored to have been asked to do it.”
          “I am sure it will be cute, just like your homemade invitations,” he said with an air of condescension.  Then he was off to illuminate another conversation about the joys of skiing from helicopters.

Saturday morning.  Gary and Gloria put the finishing touches on the cakes: two sheet cakes to feed the horde of Jane’s extended family, and one elaborate tower cake for the bridal table. Gary had outdone himself with the ornate icing.  He had spent hours on the scrolls, ropes and flowers.  It was the perfect 3-D representation of the invitations they had designed.
          “I have to go get Dad and myself ready for the ceremony,” Gary said.  “He’s still loopy from all those drugs he’s taking for his back.  I hope it’s legal to be stoned when you sign a marriage license.”  As Best Man, it was Gary’s responsibility to get their dad to the nuptials on time, without looking like he was a candidate for the Betty Ford Clinic.
          “Matt and I will deliver the cakes to the restaurant before the ceremony.  We’ll see you at the museum.”

Gloria had to admit that the borrowed Christmas lights and used candles did give Juanita’s a festive air.  Some of Jane’s children were there, finishing up the decorations, when they eyed the sheet cakes.
          “I have to go out and get the layer cake,” Gloria said as they gathered around. She set the pink boxes on the table and straightened up.  When she did, the new girdle she was wearing made a retreat towards her Mason/Dixon line.  Retched thing, she thought as she gave it a surreptitious tug.   I should have just worn the control-top panty hose.

Balancing the box that held Gary’s labor of love, she carefully re-entered the restaurant.  With each step she took toward the bridal table, she could feel the recalcitrant undergarment slipping another few precarious inches.  Three feet from her destination, the body briefer made a mad descent past her hips, and rocketed down to her knees with such velocity that she was sure it must have caused a sonic boom somewhere.
          Her knees were now bound together in a tangle of Lycra and elastic.  Momentum carried the top of her forward, along with the cake, which catapulted from her grip.  It flew across the room and connected with Nate the Great’s chest. From her new perspective on the floor, she could see the rip in the time/space continuum, as it dawned on him that he was now covered in lemon wedding cake.

Matt was the first to react: he wrestled the offending girdle off of Gloria’s legs and helped her up.  One of the siblings ushered Nate to the men’s room to see what could be done about his Armani suit. Gloria was mortified as all remaining eyes settled on her.  “HIT THE PLAY BUTTON TO CONFIRM THAT COMPARED TO YOU, I AM A BIG LOSER,” sprang to her mind once again.
          It was all so horrible—Gary’s poor cake and Nate’s ruined suit!  Yet, despite the mayhem, she was surprised to feel laughter gurgle up and escape from her mouth; just a giggle at first, followed by belly-jiggling howls.  She laughed until she couldn’t breathe.  That was until she saw the clock on the wall: the wedding was in fifteen minutes!
          “We have to get to the museum!” she called out.  In unison, everyone picked up the cake shrapnel then headed for the parking lot, where Gloria ceremoniously tossed the girdle into the Dumpster.

“Where have you been?” asked Leigh, as Gloria and Matt took their places beside her in the Dinosaur Hall.
          “We had a bit of a cake-tastrophy,” said Matt.  Gloria had to bite her lip to hold back a fresh wave of giggling.

Her dad looked so handsome in his black suit and turquoise bolo tie when he took Jane’s hand in marriage.  The ceremony went without incident and the reception was now in full swing.  Mariachis roamed, singing wedding ballads to the newly-married couple, and all was well with the fabric of time and space once again.
          Gary, being the good sport he was, offered a toast: “To fallen heroes…both cake and girdle,” which received a roar of applause and laughter.

Gloria sat back in her chair after tipping the musicians.   Jane’s family hadn’t.  Her father was whispering something into Jane’s ear and they were both smiling.  He was happy, married to the woman he loved and his back was on the mend. What could be better?
          She was truly glad to have been a part of it all.  She smiled at Matt and they got up to dance.  So what if she looked lumpy in silk?