Less than three minutes later, Bennis Hannaford walked into her own apartment, lit her fourteenth cigarette of the morning, and looked Peter Desarian over like a side of prime beef. He was dressed to look like a male model on the cover of the J. Crew catalogue, and it suited him. As far as anything suited him. Bennis was of the opinion that what she ought to do about the Peter Situation, as it presently stood, was to burn the hell out of his face with one of her cigarettes. That would keep him out of circulation until the plastic surgery had healed.
Peter was not smoking. He didn’t smoke. He was afraid it would stain his teeth.
“I hope you haven’t come to try to talk me out of it again,” he said. “I know your opinion of my position, Bennis, and I don’t want to hear it again.”
“I haven’t come to try to talk you out of it. I came because Donna sent me. She wants to talk to you.”
“She does? She’s at the church, isn’t she? I heard her come downstairs a little while ago. With her mother.” Peter made a face.
“Donna’s mother is at the church,” Bennis said. “Donna is downstairs in old George Tekemanian’s apartment. It’s like I said. She wants to talk to you.”
“Alone,” Peter said.
“Why don’t you ask her, Peter? I really haven’t spent my time this morning wondering what it is that Donna is going to do about you.”
“Really?” Peter asked nastily. “Funny, I’d have thought that was exactly what you’d spent your time wondering about.”
“She’s downstairs in old George’s apartment,” Bennis said. “Come or not. Take your pick. In case you haven’t been looking at the clock, there isn’t very much more time.”
“There’s all the time in the world,” Peter said firmly. “There isn’t going to be any wedding.”
Bennis walked out of her own living room, across her own foyer, out her own front door. She stood on the second floor landing and listened to the silence above her. Donna was gone. Donna’s mother was gone. Donna’s father was over at the church, trying to get Russell Donahue to stop pacing. Bennis went down the stairs to old George Tekemanian’s apartment. Old George was sitting in the middle of his living room in his yellow wing chair, dressed in white tie and tails and helping Gregor Demarkian on with his black bow tie.
“Well?” Gregor asked.
“I don’t know,” Bennis said.
“It will be fine,” old George said. “You will see.”
“I hope it will be fine,” Bennis said. “You saw how Donna was. We can’t let him get near her.”
There was a sound outside on the landing. The three of them looked at one another. Old George got out of his chair faster than he had in twenty years and headed for the bedroom.
“Quick,” he said. “Get out of sight. Here he comes.”
Old George disappeared into the bedroom. Gregor disappeared into the kitchen. There was a knock on the door, and Bennis Hannaford answered it. She had to take a deep breath to keep herself from screaming.
“Here I am,” Peter Desarian said, leaning against the doorjamb. “Where’s the lovely Donna?”
“She’s in the kitchen.”
“Which way is the kitchen?”
Bennis motioned right. The kitchen was mostly dark. There was only one small light burning above the stove. Peter stuck his hands into his fashionably wrinkled jeans and went on in.
Gregor Demarkian was standing just behind the swinging kitchen door, barely breathing. When Peter came through, looking left and right and up and down for a tall blond girl in a wedding dress, Gregor swung out from behind the door, grabbed Peter by the shoulders, and spun him around.
“What the hell?” Peter said.
Peter was younger than Gregor, and stronger, and more athletic, but Gregor had surprise and training on his side. He got Peter pivoted around in front of the open pantry door. Then he raised his foot, planted it on Peter’s rear end, and kicked.
“What the hell,” Peter said again.
When he stumbled forward, he fell. Bennis leapt into the kitchen and slammed the pantry door shut. Then she threw the bolt.
“Goodness,” Bennis said. “And old George thought Martin and Angela were so stupid, building him this pantry.”
Old George stuck his head through the kitchen door. “It was because Angela was watching PBS,” he said. “She saw a program about old people who die of starvation because they imagine that their food is being poisoned. It is impossible to explain to Angela that old age and Alzheimer’s disease are not one and the same thing.”
Bennis tried the door. “It doesn’t feel too solid,” she said.
“Let me the hell out of here,” Peter said on the other side of the door.
“It will hold as long as it has to,” Gregor told Bennis and old George. “Let’s get out of here. We have to go to a wedding.”
“Your tie is not yet tied,” old George Tekemanian said.
“Let me out of here or I’ll sue somebody,” Peter said. “Goddammit. I mean it. I’ll sue somebody.”
“He can sue me,” old George Tekemanian said. “By the time the case comes to court, I will be so old, I will have all the sympathy vote.”
Gregor took a stab at finishing off his bow tie, and ruined the thing altogether.