A Coventry Wedding. Becky Cochrane
of a certain harsh reality settling in as she stared blearily from the balcony of Hud’s Los Feliz apartment. In only a few days, she would wake up there every morning, watching him rush out the door to make it to the studio by seven. There would be some days he’d be gone for twelve to fourteen hours, finally coming home to eat and memorize his lines for the next day before falling into bed.
The three days a week he wasn’t taping, he’d be busy playing softball, golfing, or surfing with the Foundlings, his group of friends who’d given themselves that name when they hadn’t made it into the Groundlings, L.A.’s famous improvisational group. She suspected that rather than being self-deprecating with their name, they secretly thought they were too good for the Groundlings. She had to admit that none of Hud’s friends had turned into the slash clichés: waiter/actor, stylist/singer, personal trainer/comic. The Foundlings were moderately successful, but almost nothing they did reflected the glamorous lifestyle people outside the industry associated with show business. They were just normal people who happened to be actors, writers, comedians, and musicians.
The Foundlings’ ordinary lives didn’t bother her; she wasn’t interested in glamour. But she did wonder why they always had to be around and part of everything she and Hud did, and she had a feeling marriage wouldn’t change that. She wasn’t sure she was ready to drastically alter her life when Hud’s would basically stay the same.
While she’d stared from his balcony at the hazy L.A. sky, she suspected it was a bad sign that the week of her wedding, she was already missing her tiny studio apartment on the edge of Silver Lake. Her rent was paid through August, so she didn’t have to rush moving her possessions into Hud’s place after their wedding. But shouldn’t she be looking forward to starting their life together as a married couple, instead of yearning for her creaky old hardwood floors and the shaded sidewalks of her neighborhood? Even the burglar bars on her apartment windows and her aloof neighbors seemed charming compared to Hud’s apartment full of gray granite, smoked glass, black leather, and stainless steel.
She’d stopped her random, brooding thoughts when her fiancé joined her on the balcony wearing nothing but a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs and holding out a steaming cup of coffee for her. She might be losing an apartment, but she was getting the hunk of Sweet Seasons. Thousands of women would be thrilled to spend a single night with their favorite soap actor, and he was going to be with her every night for the rest of their lives.
She’d opened her mouth to thank him for the coffee and instead heard herself saying, “I want to postpone the wedding.”
She still couldn’t understand what had motivated her. It was as if someone else had taken over her brain and spoken for her. Certainly not practical, dutiful Pru, who’d been filling her head with recriminations ever since. Maybe she had yet another personality inside her. Maybe someone would end up writing a book about her. They could turn her disorder into a network movie: Three Voices of a Reluctant Bride. Or better yet, a dozen episodes on HBO or Showtime. They’d get some actress with long red hair to play her. Not Nicole Kidman; she was too old. So was Julianne Moore. Lindsay Lohan was too young. Maybe Alicia Witt. Hud could play himself.
Hud, Pru reminded her. You were remembering Hud’s reaction.
Hud had been amazingly understanding. Once he realized that she was serious, he assured her that she was having a bad reaction to the way the wedding had gotten beyond their control. Instead of trying to talk her into getting married anyway, he agreed to the postponement. He called the network and had someone arrange his flight to Minneapolis so he could join several of his cast mates at Suds and Studs, a meet-and-greet for fans of daytime TV. He wasn’t even upset that she didn’t want to go to Minnesota with him. He suggested that she treat herself to a few days at a resort of her choice, where she could relax and stop thinking about the wedding. Chandra, the agent/publicist/raving lunatic who took care of Hud, could notify the minister, the church, the string quartet, the caterer, the band, and the five hundred wedding guests. He would even ask Chandra to cancel their honeymoon plans.
All she had to do was tell her mother. Hud refused to burden Chandra with that job.
She squirmed uncomfortably and looked at her silent cell phone. She had attempted to call her mother. Several times. It was impossible to catch Carol Halli in her office, so she’d finally tried to leave the message with her secretary.
“Oh, no you don’t,” the secretary barked. “You deliver your own bad news. I’ve got one word for you: liposuction.”
“Huh?”
“Here’s a test. If you can tell me my name, maybe I’ll give your mother the message.”
“Uh…”
“Can’t do it, can you? Do you know why you can’t remember my name? Because over the past five years, your mother’s had more assistants than Baskin-Robbins has ice-cream flavors. I’ve kept my job a record seven months. I only have two paychecks to go before I’ve saved enough money to get this cottage cheese suctioned from my ass and thighs.”
“What does your surgery have to do with my wedding?”
“This wedding is your mother’s ultimate networking opportunity. If I tell her it’s off, she’ll fire me on the spot.”
“That’s crazy,” she said, even though she had to admit that her mother was incapable of hanging on to an assistant. “Anyway, the wedding’s not off. It’s just delayed.”
“I’m sending you to voice mail,” the secretary sang in a warning tone.
“It’s Frida. No, Francie.”
“So close,” the secretary said before adding, “It’s Nelda.”
The next thing she heard was her mother’s I’m-not-in-leave-your-number message. After a hostile moment of wishing she could tell Nelda that she should keep her ice cream and cottage cheese strictly metaphorical, she tried to break her news in a tone that sounded as forceful and confident as possible. Then she hung up and raced to keep her appointment in Palm Springs with the man who’d made an offer on her car. Even though she was no longer days away from becoming Mrs. Hudson Blake with legal rights to the second set of keys to his Audi, she’d been counting the minutes until her wretched SUV paid back some of the money she’d spent to keep it running. Nothing would have stopped her from unloading it.
She checked to make sure the twelve thousand dollars was still in its tight bundle at the bottom of her purse. When the tow truck driver showed up, she couldn’t let him know she was carrying that much cash, just as she didn’t want him to see the diamond that seemed too heavy for her slender fingers. Being desperate, stranded, and apparently affluent would make her an easy mark for him or whatever mechanic he took her to.
She squinted at the name on the driver’s door of the tow truck: REVERE AUTO REPAIR. The letters beneath it were too faded to make out at this distance. It looked like CONVENT-something, but that made no sense. Although if she thought about it, nuns probably didn’t take a vow renouncing auto repair. Judging by how much car repairs had cost her, a garage seemed a more practical way for a convent to raise money than selling honey, sewing choir robes, or doing whatever nuns did. She wasn’t Catholic, so she had no idea. The closest she’d ever come to a nun was Sister Francesca on Sweet Seasons. Sister Francesca would never be mistaken for an auto mechanic, although Delaney Stewart, the actress who played her—
Fatigue was taking her on mental journeys that would only end in sleep. She stretched her neck and tried to focus. After giving her the twelve thousand for her SUV, the buyer made arrangements to get her back to L.A., but at the last minute, she’d asked to be taken instead to her grandpa’s house in Redlands. A visit with Grandpa Bagby and Aunt Ruby would settle her frayed nerves and give her courage to deal with her mother. At least when her mother deigned to speak to her again.
She didn’t want to think about her mother. Instead, she let her mind drift again, this time to summers at Grandpa’s when she was a little girl. Most of the local orange groves were gone by then, but he’d held on to some of his land and his trees. Enticed by the fragrance wafting through her bedroom window, she’d wake up early