Episode 5: For the Dress, Chapter 2

"We need to start a list," announced Cassandra.

Eve looked up at her in confusion. "I thought that's what we were doing?"

"No, not of the bets, silly, of the wedding stuff!" Cassandra enthused. "You're nearly done there. Why don't I start a list of all the things we still need to do for the wedding."

"You can start with choosing a date!" Eve quipped.

"Okay, I'll make two lists," she decided. "One for things you need to do with Flynn, one for things we can do together."

"All Flynn and I have to do together," said Eve, "is choose a date, choose a venue for the wedding and one for the reception, choose the rings, and agree on the guest list, although I don't think he'd be overly distraught if I left him out of any or all of those, sometimes!"

"What about the cake? The food? The flowers?" Cassandra asked.

"Chocolate for the cake and he really doesn't care what I choose for the rest."

"Honeymoon destination?"

"His job."

"Vows?"

"Each writing our own."

"Colour theme?"

"I choose, I tell him," shrugged Eve. "Same goes for everything else."

"Okay," the younger woman nodded and drew a line under her list, then turned the page. "So what do you still have to do yourself?"

"Well, I still need to do most things," replied Eve, finished the last of the bets and showing the paper to Cassandra, who looked it over and nodded agreement. "I can't really choose the food until we have a venue, obviously, but the favours and the stationary can be sorted out before that. The flowers and decor ought to match between venues and we'll probably want the cake decoration to tie in with that. Nothing too fancy though. If I choose a dress with a colour in it, we could maybe reflect that in the flowers and decor..."

"You don't have a dress yet?" Cassandra's eyes went wide in alarm.

"Cassandra, it's only been a couple of months we haven't even set a date yet!"

"I know, but, but, it's the dress! Everything else revolves around it! The hair, the make-up, the bridesmaids dresses and hair and make-up, the flowers, the decorating, the cake..."

"Please tell me you are not one of these women who has been planning their own wedding since kindergarten," begged Eve.

"Me? No," scoffed Cassandra. "It wasn't really discussed in my childhood, then when the tumour turned up there was no point."

"There is now," Eve reminded her.

"I'm still getting used to there being a 'now' for me," smiled the redhead. "It's a little early to be looking that far ahead."

"He's your true love. You did a spell," Eve told her. "He saved your life with fairy tale magic. If anybody's going to get their 'happily ever after', it's going to be you two."

"You don't have to be married to live happily ever after," shrugged Cassandra. "Not these days. My parents only bothered getting married for the legal side of things."

"Does Stone know you feel that way?" Eve asked, tilting her head in thought.

"I haven't decided what I feel yet," Cassandra shrugged again, receding slightly from the conversation. "If he asks about it, I'll tell him that. He won't though. Not for a while."

"How do you know that?"

"It's come up in conversation," said the younger woman, waving her hands evasively as she spoke. "Come on, let's look at dresses."

Eve took the hint and passed over one of the magazines, setting it between them. Cassandra brought out from somewhere a pack of sticky tags for pages of interest, stuck one of each colour to her notebook next to items listed there as a key, and moved up closer to Eve to look through the pages together.

After what felt like several hours of loud laughter and raucous giggling, but was probably nearer two, Jenkins made his presence on the mezzanine known.

"Ladies, I realise weddings are meant to be joyous occasions," called down the caretaker, "but if we could save some good cheer for the actual day, my research and I would greatly appreciate it."

"Sorry Mr Jenkins," chorused the two women, in the singsong tones of schoolchildren, who are never really sorry at all when they say it.

"What on earth is so amusing about wedding magazines anyway?" Jenkins wondered aloud.

"Well we could explain," offered Eve innocently.

"But we're sure you really don't want to know," finished Cassandra, bursting into another fit of giggles.

Jenkins glared at them, then realised they were too lost in hysteria to notice and shook his head with a sigh. "Maids are May when they are maids," he muttered, and gave up.

"Should I choose roses or carnations for my bouquet, Jenkins?" Eve called up.

"Embossed card or watermarked paper for the invitation?" Cassandra rejoined.

Jenkins waved a dismissive hand at them and slunk away.

"Ooh, I like that one!" Cassandra exclaimed in delight, turning a page and pointing out a pale pink princess style dress with puffy sleeves and skirt and a buttoned up bodice.

"Reminds me of Little Bo Peep!" Eve exclaimed in disgust. "Simple! I said simple! And you do know wedding dresses are traditionally some kind of variation of white, right?"

"Okay, not pink, simple, more traditional, got it," said Cassandra. "But the bodice is nice, isn't it?"

"Not practical," Eve shook her head. "All those tiny buttons side by side like that would be too difficult to undo."

"I've seen you pull off far more delicate tasks than undoing fiddly buttons," said Cassandra, pulling a face.

"I wasn't thinking of me," smirked Eve, and both girls descended into giggles again.

"Okay, no tiny buttons, noted," laughed Cassandra, turning the page again. They moved on to another section of the magazine. "We can't really choose anything else until we pick the dress, can we?"

"We can look at the stationary section," suggested Eve. "Plain and simple should be fine, on ivory paper or card, I think."

"You're thinking about ivory for the dress then?" Cassandra asked, turning to the stationary section.

"Mmm," replied Eve, thinking back to the painted reliefs that had adorned the walls of the tombs and temples she had visited when last in Egypt. "Ivory, maybe in satin. Something with long, simple lines that suits my shape. Finding the stationary should be easier though."

"Well, why don't you look for stationary, then, and I'll narrow down a short list of dresses that match that description," suggested Cassandra. "I could use Ezekiel's laptop. I'm sure he won't mind."

Another hour ticked by. From the mezzanine above, Jenkins relished in the silence of concentration that had descended, broken only every now and then by a muttered 'look at this' or 'what about that'. He was only vaguely aware that the muttering had continued this time, and was getting gradually less and less decipherable. It had taken on that hushed tone of a shared confidence, and he had endeavoured not to attempt to listen, when the quiet was broken by a shriek of laughter from Cassandra. Jenkins winced, nearly dropping the book he was holding. His own concentration broken, he decided on a soothing cup, or maybe pot, of tea. He marked his place in the book and laid it down on the reading desk. He braved the stairs.

They were still giggling when he reached the ground floor, so he wandered over and peered over their shoulders to sneak a glance at whatever frilly monstrosity had amused them now. He stepped back immediately and attempted to leave unnoticed. He failed.

"Why Jenkins, I do believe you're blushing," called Eve, her voice full of laughter.

"Ahem," Jenkins straightened his bow tie and attempted to regain his composure. "I do not see why items such as those are required in a Bridal magazine."

"Any dress is only as good as it's foundation garments," Cassandra teased.

"Especially wedding dresses," added Eve with a grin.

"One does not make a habit of following the fashions in ladies undergarments," sniffed the old man with his nose in the air. He hurried out of the room, followed by two peals of laughter from the women.

By the time Jenkins returned with the tea, the two ladies were pouring over a pile of magazines with sticky tabs hanging out of them. More dresses evidently. The giggling had subsided, but a turn of the page and a whispered comment from Cassandra this time set Eve off again. The phone rang.

With neither woman moving a muscle to answer it, Jenkins put down the tea pot and reached out a hand himself. At least, he thought, sighing with resignation, it was unlikely to be another giggling girl on the other end of the line.

"Hello, gentlemen, how can I help you?"

"Jenkins?" Stone's voice sounded worried. "You sound cheerful. You never sound cheerful."

"Thank you for that thrilling episode of psychoanalysis," threw back the older man, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"We need you to look out those books you found before on the mystery houses," Stone continued, more confidently now that the status quo had been resumed. "We need to know if any of them are, or can appear to be, big old mansion houses."

"How big, exactly?" Jenkins' brow furrowed.

"Well, the hall they've got the auction lots in looks like some kind of Disney ballroom," replied Stone.

"That's big," mused Jenkins. "I'll see what I can find out, but I find it highly unlikely."

"Is that Flynn?" Eve called over, both ladies having now taken note of the telephone conversation.

As Jenkins nodded a reply, he noticed Cassandra hunting about on the desk. She came up holding a piece of paper and waved it at Eve. The Guardian seemed to remember something and they hurried over, pointing at it.

"I am being reminded to ask you how things are going," Jenkins intoned, fully comprehending what was about to come next.

"Other than the fact we have found precisely squat and the thief seems to think he's in charge," responded Stone, "we're good."

Cassandra wordlessly waved the paper in front of Jenkins eyes while Stone's voice buzzed through the line. He caught it from her hand and looked down the list.

"I do hope he hasn't annoyed you too much," Jenkins continued to recite in dreary monotone. "I would hate to have to start patching him up again."

"Oh, he's still in one piece, no bruises," Stone assured him. "So far."

Jenkins pulled a face at Cassandra, who looked as though she was trying to make her eyes inflate. "And Mr Carson isn't being too irritatingly intelligent?"

"No," Stone was starting to sound curious now. "He had to remind us about his photographic memory, but it's just as well he did: we needed it."

Jenkins handed the list back to Cassandra, shaking his head.

"Good, good," he said, batting away the list of questions as Cassandra tried to point out others. "I will call you as and when I know more."

He hung up and turned to a Cassandra whose face was bright red with the effort of holding in laughter. "Any more of those and they would have worked out something was going on," he told her, indicating the questions on the sheet. "As it is, Mr Jones remains unbruised and Mr Carson has only reminded them of his intelligence, in the form of his eidetic memory, once. I have no interest to know which bets that wins or for whom, just as I have no interest in bridal bouquets or invitations stationary. I shall try to find out more when I call them back, but in order to do that, I must first find the information they require. Do excuse me."

Without any further ado, he extricated himself from the hive of girliness and, tea-tray in hand, beat a hasty retreat up to the mezzanine.