The Wedding
To Hector, fell the honour of escorting his mother and sister home the morning of the wedding.
The older woman was short and plump, in an old fashioned flowered hat, long dress and elbow-length gloves. Hector's younger sister, Harriet, was a tall, smartly dressed brunette. She was a coed at Ohio State.
"I don't see why you don't have a proper military wedding" said Harriet. "What's the point of your being in the military if you don't get to walk under crossed sabres."
"I don't see why you didn't at least rent a church for your wedding, instead of having the minister officiate in the backyard of the house" said the elder Mrs. Canfield.
"Mlor's shy" said Hector. "We didn't want a big deal, Mom. And with me being an astronaut, the press would have been all over us. Even if we went to a church. It was this or eloping to Las Vegas."
"But with a big wedding we would have been in all the papers!" sighed Harriet.
"Yeah" said Hector ruefully. "On top of everything else, the reporters would want to know why Captain Canfield had to pick up his mother and sister at Los Angeles Union Station instead of LAX."
"You know I can't stand flying, Hector" said Mrs. Canfield. "How can I travel in those aeroplanes hovering thousands of feet in the air. There's something unseemly about it all. How you manage up in space I'll never understand. Why couldn't you be in the calvary, atop a horse?"
Hector groaned
"It's a nice house, Hector" said Mrs. Canfield, who started by checking for dust in the living room. "I'm glad you didn't waste the family's money. Now, where is the blushing bride?"
"You can't see Mlor until wedding" stated Shad. "But you can see Shad, mother of blushing bride Mlor."
Shad wore a conservatively cut dress, un-conservatively coloured purple with pink polka dots.
"Strange syntax" observed Harriet.
"That's how people speak in Nordania, Harriet" Hector said quietly. "And dress."
"I'm charmed to meet you" said Mrs. Canfield. "And an interesting choice for the wedding."
"Very beautiful dress" said Shad, putting on a matching pink and purple hat. "Don't have colours like this on our side of the hill."
"That's true" said Hector.
"Well, what do you think, Mother of Hector?" said Shad. "Sister of Hector?"
"It is a very colourful choice" observed Mrs. Canfield.
"Father of bride also dressed in fine colourful clothes" announced Gronk coming into the room. "I finally found clothes on this side of the hill I like. Maybe I wear clothes like these, all the time. Or maybe most of the time."
Gronk was dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt, slacks, and a florescent tie with a hula dancer.
"Gronk look like a boss" said Gronk.
"See, I tell that Gronk can be made to wear clothes like on this side of hill" said Shad. "It only a matter of choosing the right clothes."
"Oh my!" said Mrs. Canfield.
"Oh, that's where Hector learn those words" said Shad.
The wedding was to take place in the yard, with the Canfields, Pamela, Major Mackenzie and Breer's current girlfriend as the only guests. The food was mostly catered, though some of Shad's delicacies were on hand. Mac warned the Canfields not to have an extremely spicy green concoction, through Harriet tried some after watching Breer gulp it down without any effect. (1)
"I warned you" said Mac, passing her a glass he had poured in anticipation. "It's what you call an acquired taste."
"It's real hot" said Breer sympathetically, "but you've got to have a cast-iron stomach."
"It's best you tried it" said Breer's new girlfriend, Dora. "Breer's mom has really out-of-this-world Nordanian recipes. They aren't all good, but they're something."
"You might be better off calling them Early American recipes" observed Mac sardonically.
"The earliest" said Breer.
"The earliest what?" said Tim O'Hara, walking down the hill from the front of the house.
"Why O'Hara over here . . . I mean what are you doing here, Mr. O'Hara?" asked Breer, crossing his arm. "This is supposed to be a private wedding."
"I was invited" stated Tim defensively, taking their photographs with a flashbulb that made the lot of them blink. "You won't mind."
"I invited him" said Mac. "One reporter now is better than dozens descending on Mlor and Hector, isn't it?"
"And Tim can be trusted" said Pamela.
"Especially since it means an exclusive for the Los Angeles Sun" said Tim. "One more photo!"
"Besides" said Hector, walking over to pose with his mother and sister. "He promised to give us photos of the wedding."
The three Canfields put on beaming smiles for the camera, so beaming they looked unnaturally strained and forced. Tim O'Hara and Major Mackenzie managed to get them to tone it down.
The wedding ceremony went off relatively normally. The minister had met the bride and groom before the wedding and was aware of some of the "Gronksons" eccentricities. As for the bride, Mlor was traditionally dressed and taken down the aisle by her Hawaiin shirted father.
"Look like dress of my second wedding" observed Shad to Breer, as both were standing by the minister. "The one Mac and Hec throw for me" (2)
"Only this time the dress isn't made from a US Air Force parachute" best man Mac whispered to maid of honour Pamela.
As for Hector, he was busy looking dazedly at his blushing bride.
The vows went well, only Hector was so punch-drunk gazing at his bride that he didn't realize when it came his turn to say "I do".
"Hector" said the mother-of-the-groom sternly.
"Huh? I do!" said the love-sick astronaut.
"If there be anybody here who know a reason why these two should not be wed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace" continued the minister.
"You're a reporter. Does anybody ever come in to stop a wedding at this point?" Dora asked Tim O'Hara.
"Yeah, I wonder why they ask that?" added Breer.
"It's just for show" said Tim, though privately reflecting on his "near-shotgun wedding" a few years ago where he wasn't allowed to object (3). "It only happens on TV."
"Then" continued the minister, "by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."
Hector and Mlor kissed for an almost indecent amount of time, enough for Hector's mother to stand up and kick her son on the shin.
"That comes later" Mrs. Canfield hissed.
"Ah, mother, we're married" said Hector.
"Your father, may he rest in peace, was the same" Mrs. Canfield ruefully observed to the giggling Harriet.
Tim O'Hara managed well in his double role as newspaper reporter and wedding photographer. It helped when Major Mackenzie reminded him that it being a sunny day there was no need for flashbulbs.
As for the elder Mrs Canfield and her new daughter-in-law, they got along famously. Why? Mlor was sufficiently quiet and deferential.
"But" said Shad to Gronk and Breer, "I don't like Mother of Hector called by name Mrs. Canfield.
"It silly here that people have two names or more" observed Gronk."
"There's a lot more people here than in our village over the hill" Breer suggested. "They need two names."
"That true" Shad agreed. "But that not what Shad's complaining about. Mother of Hector very bossy."
"Like Mother of Shad" observed Gronk, but under his breath. (4)
"This happy day. Shad not argue. But in times to come, Shad will be here to watch out for Mlor. Mother of Hector not be too bossy or Shad make her be nice."
"And you'll do it, mother" said Breer confidently.
"Thank you, Breer" said Shad.
"But she look sort of weak" suggested Gronk. "You fight her she hurt very bad."
"Don't worry" said Shad. "I make sure she not hurt . . . too bad."
Major Mackenzie worried about leaving Hector's mother and sister with the Canfields. Breer was the only one at home who would understand both the Canfields and his own parents. Breer was not only a boy, but he would be hotheaded if Mrs. Canfield became too overbearing.
"I have some leave coming" Mac told Harriet and the elder Mrs. Canfield. "How about we put you up at a hotel and show you around the area this week.
"A hotel in Beverly Hills" hinted Pamela.
"Beverly Hills?" said Mrs. Canfield. "Oh, that would be something."
"I'd love it" said Harriet.
"So would everybody else" said Mac. "So would we."
The time finally came when Hector and Mlor were to leave their families behind - and take a cab to the airport and Niagara Falls. An Ohio boy, Hector always viewed the nearby Niagara Falls, New York as the natural place for a honeymoon.
"There one more thing before we leave" said Mlor. "Please."
"But we don't do that over here" Hector protested. "I wouldn't feel right."
"Oh, Hector happy to do it. Make Mlor feel happy. Hector always dream of taking bride on honeymoon to the city by the big waterfalls. Mlor always dreamed of husband carrying Mlor away.
"Oh, okay" said Hector. "Anything for you."
Hector went around the house, running into Breer and Major Mackenzie.
"Here" said Breer, handing him his club, while giving a few practice swings. "I know it's considered a really ugly thing to do here, but it'll make Mlor really happy. It's smaller than my father's club, and you don't hit my sister all that hard." (5)
"She asked you to talk to me about it? Didn't she?" said Hector.
"It wouldn't be a wedding without it" said Mac.
"Not much of one" shrugged Breer, as the caveboy contemplated the fact that he wasn't going to be clubbing his wife to be. Not unless he was prepared to spend several years in prison.
"Better do it inside the house" said Major Mackenzie. "You don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."
So Hector took Mlor into the house, pulled down the shades, closed his eyes, and as gently as he could tapped his wife with the club.
Mlor pretended to faint, Hector genuinely panicked and threw a glass of water in her face, and Mlor pretended to recover. The Comedy of Errors ended with Hector carrying Mlor outside over the threshold and into the now waiting taxi.
"Exactly like his father, rest his soul" Mrs. Canfield told the assembled company. "My, it does take me back."
"Did Hec remember to club Mlor?" Shad asked Gronk.
"Yes" said Gronk. "Breer lend him club."
"Oh! Shad very happy. That most beautiful part of wedding!"
Notes
(1) The Stone Age Diplomats
(2) In Me Caveman - You Woman.
(3) Keep Me From The Church On Time
(4) Shad's mother visits in The Mother-In-Law.
(5) Me Caveman - You Woman and Have I Got A Girl For You.
