The Last Suppers Read Free Page A

despite the fact that he was still a senior in high school. When I had told him the traditional wedding cake was white on white, but confessed I was partial to chocolate with mint, he’d run his hands through his bleached, rooster-style haircut and said, “Hey man, it’s your wedding,” then proceeded to concoct a dark fudge cake with white peppermint frosting. When I’d vetoed the traditional topping of bride and groom plasticstatuettes—my first wedding cake had had them, and what good had they done me?—Julian had smilingly flourished his frosting gun and created row upon row of abstract curlicues, swaying rosettes, stiff leaves, and curling swags. The flower-mobbed cake resembled a frenzied rock concert.
    “Excuse me, Goldy,” said Agatha, less timid this time.
    I turned. Agatha’s dress barely concealed a scarecrow figure. She dispelled her unhappy look with a faint smile, and I remembered the last time we’d talked, at a barbecue I’d catered for her husband’s hunting buddies. She’d been wearing a beaded sundress of the same fish-flesh hue, and given me the identical wan smile. Now she made an uncertain shake of the streaked braids.
    “Goldy, if you don’t go back to the sacristy, Lucille is going to be
extremely
upset.”
    “Yes, but the cake should be out by now—”
    “Please. Hymnal House is almost set up. It’s all going to be fine. You don’t
know
Lucille when she gets upset.”
    Lucky me. I started back down the hall. Unfortunately, that narrow space was filling up with people depositing their it’s-April-in-Colorado-and-might-snow coats in the Sunday School rooms. When they spotted me, Old Home Week officially began. The first to leap in my direction was Father Doug Ramsey, Olson’s tall, gangly new assistant, who was also a member of the diocesan Board of Theological Examiners.
    “The star of the show!” he cried, causing heads to turn. Doug Ramsey had a delicate, triangular face and long, loopy ringlets of black hair that made him look closer to eighteen than twenty-eight. His compensation for looking too young was talking too much. “The whole committee’s here,” he gushed, “which is
quite
a compliment to you. Of course, I don’t suppose the candidates are here, but then again,
they’re
probably studying for the tests we
mean old examiners
are dreaming up for them next week…. You know, I’ll don a stern expression and ask about the Archbishops of Canterbury, and then Canon Montgomery will ask about the history of the Eucharist.” He stopped talkingbriefly to flutter his knobby fingers dramatically on his chest. “And no matter
what
the question is, that
awful
Mitchell Hartley will probably flunk again—”
    I said desperately, “Doug, please. Have you seen Father Olson? He seems to have forgotten today’s the day. In a pinch, could you do a wedding?”
    Father Doug Ramsey’s face turned floury-white above his spotless clerical collar. A long, greased comma of black hair quivered over his forehead. Arrested in midspeech, his mouth remained open.
    I felt a pang of regret. “I’m kidding, Doug. I just don’t want to be delayed.”
    “Oh, no,” he said tersely, then added with characteristic self-absorption, “then you’d
never
be back in time to do the candidates’ examinations. But … a
wedding …
I don’t know what I’d preach on. Love, I suppose, or maybe the trinity …”
    This uneasy speculation was interrupted by a series of unearthly groans. I peered through the crowd in the hall and saw Lucille Boatwright sagging against one of the priests. She was moaning loudly. Remembering Agatha’s warning, I guessed I was seeing Lucille Boatwright
very
upset.
    “I’m coming!” I cried. “Just wait a sec!”
    I shouldered my way through the folks in the hall, all of whom wanted to touch me or ask questions.
Where’s Schulz?
asked one of the policemen, whose face I vaguely recognized.
Where’s Arch?
asked a Sunday School teacher. I
was in traction and