Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare)(44)

“Well, moving right along…” Uncle Theron said.

Miss Brood went on smiling as she lowered herself to her chair again with a scooping motion at the back of her skirt. Uncle Theron led the rest of them on down the corridor.

The chapel itself, which Kate had seen on several long-ago Christmas Eves and Easter Sundays, was a modern-looking space, with wall-to-wall beige carpeting and plain clear windows and blond wooden pews. “Why don’t you all have a seat,” Uncle Theron told them, “and I’ll head back to my office where I can hear when Pyoder knocks.”

Kate had been worrying about that—whether they might miss Pyotr’s knock—so she was glad to see him go. Also, they wouldn’t have to make small talk if they were on their own. They could sit in silence.

She listened closely to her uncle’s footsteps receding down the corridor, because she was wondering if he would pause or at least slow down as he approached Miss Brood’s doorway. But no, he hurried right past, oblivious.

“This church is where your mother and I were married,” Dr. Battista said.

Kate was startled. She had never thought to ask where they had married.

Bunny said, “Really, Papa? Was it a big fancy wedding with bridesmaids?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, she had her heart set on the whole damn farce,” he said. “And Theron had just been hired here as assistant pastor, so nothing would do but that he should officiate. My sister had to come all the way from Massachusetts, bringing my mother. My mother was still alive in those days though not in the best of health, but oh, it was ‘We need to have your family at this’ and ‘Haven’t you got any friends? Any colleagues?’ My postdoc served as my best man, I seem to recall.”

He rose and began pacing up and down the center aisle. He always grew restless when he had to sit idle for any time. Kate looked toward the pulpit, which was made of the same blond wood as the pews. A gigantic book, presumably a Bible, lay open on top of it, with several red ribbon bookmarks hanging out of it, and in front of the pulpit was a low wooden altar with a vase of white tulips centered on a doily. She tried to picture her mother standing there as a bride with a younger, less stuffy version of her father, but all she could summon up was the image of a limp invalid in a long white dress, alongside a bald and stooped Dr. Battista consulting his wristwatch.

A text message came in for Bunny; Kate recognized the tweeting sound. Bunny drew her phone from her purse and looked at it and giggled.

Their father stopped beside a pew and took a leaflet from the hymnal rack. He studied the front of it and the back, and then he returned it to the rack and resumed pacing.

“I hope nothing’s gone wrong at the lab,” he told Kate the next time he passed her.

“What could go wrong?” she asked him.

She honestly wanted to know, because whatever it was would be preferable to Pyotr’s simply deciding he found it too off-putting to marry her no matter how advantageous it was. “Would not be worth it,” she could hear him saying. “Such a difficult girl! So unmannerly.”

But all her father said was “Anything could go wrong. Any number of things. Oh, I had a feeling I shouldn’t leave it in Pyoder’s hands! I realize the fellow’s phenomenally able, but still, he isn’t me, after all.”

Then he continued toward the rear of the church.

Bunny was typing a text now. Tap-tap-tap, as rapid as the telegraph keys in old movies, using both her thumbs and hardly needing to look at the screen.

Eventually, Uncle Theron reappeared. “So…” he called from the doorway. He walked toward the pew where Bunny and Kate were sitting, and Dr. Battista reversed course to join them.

“So, does Pyoder have to come from very far away?” Uncle Theron asked.

“Just my lab,” Dr. Battista told him.

“Is he subject to a foreign standard of time?”

He was looking at Kate as he asked this. She said, “A foreign…? Well, maybe. I’m not sure.”

Then she realized from his expression that she ought to be sure, if they had been dating for long. She would have to remember that for their interview with Immigration. “Oh, he’s hopeless!” she would say merrily. “I tell him we’re due at our friends’ house at six and he doesn’t even start dressing till seven.”

If they ever actually got so far as an interview.

“Perhaps a phone call to find out if he needs directions,” Uncle Theron said.

It was silly of her, she knew, but Kate didn’t want to make a phone call. She was reminded of those obsessive discussions that girls had in seventh grade—how they wouldn’t like to be seen “chasing a boy.” Even if this was the boy (so to speak) who was marrying her, it felt wrong. Let him show up as late as he liked! See if she cared.

Lamely, she said, “He’s probably on the road. I wouldn’t want to distract him.”

“Just send him a text,” Bunny told her.

“Well, um…”

Bunny clucked and returned her phone to her purse and then held a hand toward Kate, palm up. Kate stared at it a moment before she understood. Then, as slowly as possible, she dug her own phone from her tote and passed it over.

Tap-tap-tap, Bunny went, without even seeming to think about it. Kate sent a sidelong glance toward what she was writing. “Where r u,” she read, beneath the last message Pyotr had sent Kate, which dated from a couple of days ago and said simply, “Okay bye.”