11

Rachel Winn says this is the last call to claim the patio furniture that blew into her yard during the storm. "I've got the pinkeye and have to go to Shreveport to the eye doctor," she said. "If no one calls by tomorrow evening, I'll put it out by the street and let whoever wants it take it."

—The Green News-Item

Iris Jo walked into my office mid-morning on Monday, dressed in a beautiful new outfit.

"Are you and Chris free for lunch?" she asked.

"Chris had to report to work," I said. "They're assessing the school and deciding when to reopen. I'll be around, though."

"I hoped you both could come," she said, a slight frown on her face.

"Want to plan for another day?"

"I've got my heart set on today."

"Where do you want to go?"

"The park by the lake," she said, mentioning the place we often walked during lunch.

"The park? Aren't you a little overdressed for that?"

"Stan and I are getting married at noon," she said with a big smile. "We want you and Chris to be our witnesses."

"You're getting married?" My voice came out in a croak."Today? At lunch?"

Iris laughed loudly, a bold sound I'd never heard from her before.

"I said I'd never marry again after Matt's father ran off," she said. "But that's been such a long time ago. I've prayed about it and know this is right. I don't want to wait another day to get married. No offense to my neighbors at the Lakeside Motel, but I'm ready to move in with Stan. My house won't be repaired for months."

I took both of her hands in mine. "I'm not sure how to say this, but you're not rushing into this because of the tornado, are you? Things are stressful, but they'll settle down."

"Oh, my," she said.

"What?"

"It's a scary day when you're the one trying to calm me down," she said. "I'll admit the storm reminded me how unpredictable life can be. I've known for months, maybe years, I wanted to marry Stan. I've wasted enough time."

"He's a good man," I said. "As an old married lady, I can tell you that you're going to be extremely happy together."

"Do you like my outfit?" She did a little twirl, and the skirt spun with her. "Your seamstress Barbara made it for me, in one day. She said she needed a project to make her feel good after the storm." The dress was a simple purple shift, the color of a beautiful purple Louisiana iris, with a matching jacket.

"I thought you were mighty dressed up for a work day," I said. "It's beautiful, and the color is perfect."

"That was Stan's request." She sounded almost shy. "He says I'm prettier than a field full of irises. Isn't that the sweetest thing?"

I rushed at her for a big hug. She hugged me back, but almost at arm's length.

"Watch my port," she said with a smile, pointing underneath the dress where she got her chemo treatment. I eased my grip, a moment of sadness marring my joy.

"Shouldn't you have taken the day off?" I asked.

"I've missed way too much work since my surgery," she said, "and we've wasted enough time."

"That's the truth," Stan said, walking into my office, wearing his usual pressman's uniform, including a hat made out of folded newsprint. "I've been trying to get Iris Jo to marry me for years. They say every cloud has a silver lining, and this is certainly mine."

"I'd better try to track Chris down," I said. "Have you told Tammy and the others?"

"Everyone's running around like chickens with their heads chopped off," Iris said, "and we don't want to make a fuss.Linda's over at the courthouse, and Tammy dashed in and out, said she was covering a story with Katy."

"But this is a big deal," I said.

"Pastor Jean will be there to say a few words and give us her blessing," Iris said. "I'll miss the girls, but getting married to this man is wedding enough for me. I don't want to complicate things for everyone else."

She looked radiant in the purple dress. She had a scarf around her hair, which was falling out in clumps.

"Stan, are you at least going to change clothes?" I asked with a grin. "Maybe lose the hat?"

I hurried down the street to the florist and burst in on Becca and her helper, piecing together a funeral spray out of silk flowers. Two or three other arrangements set nearby, white gladiolus and carnations in a container with a fan-shaped handle and a basket of mums that looked as though they had been spray painted pastel pink and blue.

"Know anything about flower arranging?" Becca asked. "We finally got a shipment of flowers in and we're overwhelmed."

"My mother had a green thumb," I said, "but I didn't inherit it."

I glanced around at the plastic buckets of containers filled with fresh flowers and a cabinet loaded with silk flowers of every variety. A few blooming kalanchoes in baskets sat on a table, and the floor was lined with rubber trees and peace lilies, plants that made me think of my mom's funeral.

"More services?" I asked.

"One today and another tomorrow," Becca said, shaking her head. "I may be the only person in town whose business was helped by the storm. It's been a grueling week. Decorating Grace Chapel for your wedding was the last fun thing I did."

"The church looked the way I always imagined—before the roof caved in," I said. "You are so creative."

Becca lived in the small Ashland community and had opened the flower and gift business a little more than a year ago in a run-down storefront, but I had not gotten to know her well. She had a head for business and was well thought of around town.

"Are you here to follow up on the Green Forward meeting, or do you need flowers?" she asked.

"I hope you can help with another fun order," I said, my eyes scanning the counter and lifting the bucket I needed. "I know you're swamped, but could you put together a simple bouquet of these tied with a ribbon?"

A strange look passed over her face. "Like a bride's bouquet?" she asked.

"Exactly," I said. "Nothing fancy but it has to be those purple irises."

"Must be a trend," she said. "Can you pick them up this afternoon?"

"I know I'm asking a lot, but I need them now. They're for a friend."

"Let me guess," she said. "Gotta have them by noon."

I ran by the Lakeside Motel and shook the wrinkles out of the one special occasion dress I had packed for our honeymoon.I had planned to wear it out to dinner one evening at the lodge and hadn't bothered taking it out of the suitcase when we checked in. I didn't figure I'd need to dress up anytime soon.

Even though the motel was close to the park, I had to detour around the Lakeside neighborhood, avoiding repairmen whose truck logos suggested they worked on electrical lines, telephones, and cable television. The pervasive damage in the old neighborhood contrasted with the beauty of the day, blue tarps on roofs, trees uprooted, and gutters sagging.

Chris met me at the park, wearing jeans and my favorite of his knit shirts, the one he'd worn the night he asked me to date him. "You look so pretty," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't have time to change."

"I'm happy you were able to slip away," I said. "Everything OK at school?"

"We're getting pressure from the state to get classes started back this week," he said. "We're not even sure how we'll get buses down many of the roads yet."

Pastor Jean arrived next, followed closely by Iris and Stan, whose usual serious face looked almost giddy. He had changed into creased jeans and a starched shirt and kept his hand on Iris Jo's elbow, as though guiding her toward the altar.

"That man is protective of his bride," Jean said, as he ushered Iris to the path by the lake. I produced the bouquet of irises from behind my back and handed them to Iris, whose smile got even more beautiful.

"Oh, Lois, they're perfect," she said.

Jean, wearing what I knew to be her favorite blue dress, pulled out her Bible and arranged us as though we stood in front of a full house in a cathedral, assuming the solemn and rich voice I loved so much.

"Friends," she said with a smile, "we've gathered today to—"

"Photographer's here," Tammy yelled as she pulled into the parking lot. "Don't start without us."

She and Linda practically ran down to where we were, Linda holding a bouquet of purple irises. "For you," she said to Iris, and then laughed when she saw the flowers in the bride's hand.

"You didn't actually think you could keep this from us, did you?" Tammy asked, snapping pictures while she talked.

"I should have known better," Iris Jo said, while Stan looked bemused.

"Clerk of court records," Linda said. "I saw where you got a marriage license last week. I just wasn't sure when you'd use it."

"That dress was a dead giveaway," Tammy said. "We ruled out Grace Community Chapel, since it's a mess, and you weren't at the courthouse. This was our last guess."

Pastor Jean cleared her throat and started over. "Friends, this is a special—"

"Wait for us," Katy's voice called, and I looked up to see her and Molly running full out through the park, Katy carrying a bundle of irises wrapped in green tissue.

"I thought you said the courthouse," Katy said to Tammy.Panting, she handed the bouquet to Iris Jo with a look of disappointment."I didn't think anyone else would think of these."

"They're beautiful," Iris said, nestling the three bouquets in her arms.

"Might this be a good time to continue?" Jean asked.

"For the love of heaven, yes," Stan, the most patient man I had ever met, said.

Iris smiled and put her arm around his waist.

"Beloved friends," Jean said, "this is a joyful day, when love triumphs."

Chris reached for my hand.

"We gather here, in a spot that reminds us of the beauty of life, to join this couple in marriage."

The world stopped for the next few minutes. The solemnity of the ceremony matched any I had attended, and a thread of jubilation was woven through it. Birds sang, and the first hints of wisteria climbed through trees, so fragrant it made me want to gulp its scent. Iris and Stan stared into each other's eyes. My handsome husband stood near.

Stan winked at Iris, and tears welled in my eyes.

"Now the formal photographs," Tammy said.

"Formal?" Chris whispered.

"Humor her," I said, and lined up with the bride and groom, Katy and Molly, all the women, the two men, every combination you could imagine.

"Enough," Chris said. "Stan, give me a hand, will you?"

The two walked to Chris's truck, my husband slapping the new groom on the back and then shaking his hand. They returned from the parking lot with two stacks of box lunches from the Cotton Boll Café.

"The wedding lunch," Chris said. "It's amazing what you can come up with if you're willing to beg."

"Just married" was written on each box, with large handdrawn red hearts. Even in the midst of chaos, the grill staff took time for the small gesture, one of the touches that made Green the place it was.

"I ordered extras to deliver to a few other folks," Chris said."We have plenty for the wedding crashers."

Under the trees, we ate turkey sandwiches and homemade pie and laughed and talked.

"So you're going to live at Stan's?" Linda asked.

"For now," Iris said.

"I won't be able to keep her away from Route Two for long," Stan said.

"This super handyman here is going to build us a new house when things settle down," Iris said. "I'm finally going to have a den that didn't used to be a place to park cars."

"And I'm going to have a pool table," Stan said.

I threw Chris a look. "Don't start getting ideas," I said.

"Miss Iris Jo, did you two start dating while I was in New York last summer?" Katy asked. "I never even knew you liked each other . . . in that way." She hemmed and hawed. "I didn't know you were in love."

Katy's magazine internship had taken her away from Green for only a few months, but, with the ego of a near eighteen-year-old, she still seemed to be afraid she had missed something. She had dated Iris Jo's son, Matt, who had been killed in a car wreck nearly three years ago, and she clung to Iris at times.

"I'd been trying to get this woman to go out on a date with me for five or six years," Stan, usually a man of few words, said. "She held out on me until Lois convinced her."

"Me?" I asked. "I thought you were an item when I got here."

"An item at the Item," Molly said with a laugh. "I like that."

"I didn't realize it for a while, but I got brave when I saw Lois falling for Chris," Iris said, her fingers linked through her new husband's. "I figured if she'd take a chance on love I would too."

"Here's to Lois," Stan said, raising his plastic cup of tea.

"And to the newest newlyweds," Pastor Jean said. "At this rate, I can marry the entire town off within a matter of weeks."

With pollen sifting down in a cloud of yellow, the conversation was relaxed and happy. I not only relished the marriage, but the simple blessing of sitting in the park together.

Tornadoes, cancer, and funerals were, for a time, powerless.

The joy of the wedding thawed a piece of my heart that had been frozen for the past nine days.

Reluctant to return to phone calls and insurance claims and crisis after crisis, I dawdled while the others packed up. Chris and I stood in the parking lot and watched them leaving.

"That may have been the best wedding I've ever been to," I said.

"Aren't you forgetting one?"

"OK, second best wedding," I said. "Life almost felt right.Will things ever get back to normal?"

"Define 'normal,' " Chris said. "As I recall, our lives have never been exactly normal."

"We didn't realize how good we had it. I want to run home and get under the bed, except I don't have a home to run to."

Chris sat the boxes of leftovers on the hood of his truck and turned to me. "Come here, " he said, and drew me into his arms with a tenderness that brought tears to my eyes.

"Between covering the story and living right in the middle of it, I haven't had time to think. Coming out here today—" Tears began to flow, and I couldn't stop them.

Chris grabbed a wad of napkins out of his truck, and I wiped my face furiously. I had never had a meltdown like this in front of Chris, and I felt slightly embarrassed.

"I'm such a baby," I said. "We're much better off than most people."

"Lois, you don't have to hold the entire town together.You're entitled to a few tears now and then . . . or even a lot of tears. Everyone in Green has probably shed plenty in the past week."

"What are we going to do about a house, and how can the Item keep up with everything?"

"You'll figure out the newspaper challenges," he said. "Your brain is only one of the many things I love about you. The rest of it we'll handle together. We'll get used to a new routine and take care of a few things we didn't count on."

"A few dozen things. Right when life was supposed to settle down, it imploded. Everything I had blew away."

My husband cupped my face in his big, calloused hands and looked deep into my eyes. "I'm still here."