But with every pending decision, I couldn’t help obsessing about what Adrienne would have selected were this her wedding. Staring at the caterer’s eighteen-page fax of menu options (which came in addition to the endless list of options contained in the thick packet of information they’d sent to me in the mail), for instance, I couldn’t help wondering:

Would Adrienne serve lobster thermidor? Leg of lamb? A chateaubriand? Or a grilled salmon? Dover sole? Trout almandine?

Would her cake be multitiered? Buttercream? Chocolate? Yellow? Or mocha-raspberry-mousse-filled? Or would she instead have the traditional French wedding cake, a croquembouche?

My curiosity expanded like a mushroom cloud; other questions arose.

Looking at the lists of flowers and gemstones to choose from and their Victorian-era ascribed meanings, I compared and contrasted. Adrienne was a Scorpio; I’d extracted that out of Donald, a Libra, long ago. So I, a Leo, could look up their general compatibility—fiery, fierce, forever passionate—in Linda Good-man’s Love Signs, a fact-checking reference tool I’d used when I was editing an unauthorized biography of former Dynasty star Linda Evans and her composer-boyfriend, Yanni, and perpetually read her horoscope when I checked my own). Armed with this most fundamental bit of astrological knowledge, I first found our flowers and their meanings. Mine were gladiolus (temperance, trust) and larkspur (laughter); Adrienne’s were narcissus (naturally) and chrysanthemum (abundance—ref.: her bust line). Our comparative gemstones proved equally disquieting: mine were ruby (clarity of heart) and sardonyx (marital happiness); Adrienne’s were turquoise (prosperity, success) and lapis lazuli (power). I even checked the month we—Donald and I now; Donald and Adrienne then—planned on having the wedding. Marry in April if you can, joy for maiden and for man, was how the saying went.

One could, at this point, only hope.

But such small victories of investigation, such small insights into Adrienne’s character were luxuries I would soon not be able to afford. My time, in the very near future, would have to be reserved for only the most important informational reconnaissance missions.

With such limited resources, with so little time, the Twins and I would have our work cut out for us.

Chapter 18

18

But back to the dress.

Perhaps the biggest decision of all loomed large, and caused major physical and emotional distress. Unlike the reception menu, or the invitations, or the cake, it was certainly the one decision I could not make myself: how could I truly know how fat or hideous I looked in a particular dress without having someone there to tell me? Confiding in Gayle would be useless, I knew, but I confided in her anyway, which led her to offer to help me go dress shopping (“Get something with lots of texture and color!” she’d said). Which I declined, washing up instead yet again on the cold, rocky, unforgiving shores of Fran’s store.