By A Spider's Thread

"What she's having," Tyner told the waitress, as if he couldn't be bothered to make a decision. The young woman seemed a little disappointed that she didn't get to perform her full spiel of specials.

"I haven't seen you at the boathouse much this fall," Tess said, making conversation as Tyner fumbled with his flatware and napkin. An Olympic rower before the car accident that had left him paralyzed below the waist, Tyner was a harsh but effective coach. It was hard for rowers to complain about sore leg muscles to a man who couldn't walk.

"I'm out on the water before you get there," he said. "In fact, it seems to me I've seen you going out as late as six-thirty."

"I'm self-employed. I'm not in college with eight a.m. classes. If I want to row at the disgracefully late hour of six-thirty, I'm entitled."

Fu

"It's a matter of safety," Tyner said. "A single-sculler such as yourself, with no coxswain to see what's coming, is better off when the traffic is lightest."

"You know, I don't think you invited me to one of Baltimore's nicest restaurants to talk about my rowing habits. You could just hang out at the boathouse and yell at me there. So what do you really want to discuss?"

If it wasn't a job, maybe it was retirement. She was fuzzy on Tyner's age, but reasonably sure he qualified for the senior-citizen discount at the dry cleaners. Tess wondered if he was going to ease someone new into his practice, a young lawyer who would take care of Tyner's regulars while building up a new roster of clients. That would probably mean less work for Tess. More worrisome, it would mean no more cheap legal assistance, which Tyner swapped out hour for hour, despite the stark difference in their billing rates. Maybe she could just get arrested less often in the future.

Tyner cleared his throat, a noise as dry and scratchy as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, then placed a small velvet box on the table. It was an old one, judging by the greenish cast and worn spots. He popped the box open, displaying a band of silver-well, probably white gold or platinum-with a single diamond at its heart.

"My mother's," he said.

"You had a mother?" Inane, but Tess was not prepared for where this was heading.

"Of course I had a mother," Tyner snapped, sounding like himself for the first time today. "Do you think I was suckled by a wolf? She gave this to me years ago, decades ago. I never thought I would have any use for it, but, well… I'm going to marry your Aunt Kitty."

Tess was still too overwhelmed to make sense. "Does she know?"

"Of course she knows!" Tyner's voice was so loud this time that even the blase waitstaff of Petit Louis twitched in their crisp white shirts. "I asked her last weekend. For God's sake, we've been living together for almost two years now."

"I guess I thought you were asking my permission or something like that. Although I suppose you should really ask Dad, or one of his brothers, since Pop-Pop Monaghan is no longer around-"

"Your aunt is in her forties-she hardly needs permission from her brothers to marry. I just wanted to show you the ring and see if you think Kitty would ever wear anything like this. It's awfully old-fashioned."

"She likes old-fashioned things." Tess balanced the box warily on her fingertips, as if it held a poisonous insect given to impulsive attacks. "She'd prefer this to a big old solitaire on a gold band or one of those encrusted things you see on some ladies."

"It's not… well, insulting, to present her a ring rather than give her the option of picking it out?"

"Not at all. It's a romantic gesture. Or would have been if you had given it to her during the proposal instead of waiting for a second opinion, you doofus. Hey, how does a guy in a wheelchair propose? You can't go down on one knee, so you do you go down on one elbow?"

"Don't be tacky," Tyner said, hugely pleased. He enjoyed Tess's company because she was one of the few people who didn't treat his wheelchair like a bad smell, something to be politely ignored under any and all circumstances. "There is one thing I do want to ask you, however."

"Yes?"

"Given that Kitty's and my combined ages top one hundred, we don't want to get too silly, even though this is a first wedding for both of us."

"Good plan. Vegas? Elkton?"

"So instead of having bridesmaids and best men and all that folderol, we want only one attendant-you."

Tess, who had managed at this point in her life to avoid any and all ma

"I know you're probably wondering why we didn't ask you and Crow to do it as a couple."

"No, that's not it. That's not it at all-"

"But the fact is, I'm not close to him, and he couldn't very well be Kitty's attendant. And you told Kitty the other day you're not sure when he's going to be back from Charlottesville, so he can't really be involved in the pla

"Right." Crow had moved home to care for his mother, who was undergoing chemo for breast cancer, and Tess didn't know when he would be back.

"Besides, you're the one who brought Kitty and me together."

"Don't remind me."

"Anyway, it will be simpler. How carried away can she get if there's only one attendant?"

Tess began to see some advantages in the situation. "Okay, sure. Crow won't mind, given that he's been staying with his parents in Charlottesville. And if I'm standing up for the bride and the groom, I could wear, like, a really sharp Armani pantsuit, or at least a skirt-and-jacket thing, instead of some god-awful bridesmaid's dress."

"Well, actually, I'm not so sure about that." Tyner was suddenly manifesting all the nervous confusion of a young groom. "Kitty seems to have… a lot of ideas. I mean, she keeps saying it's just going to be a party where two people get married, but she's been making a lot of phone calls and appointments. I think she even has a color scheme."

"What is it?"

"It changes almost hourly."

"Uh-oh."

"But she's leaning toward black for your dress. At least, as of yesterday, she said she liked the idea of you in black."

"Well, I can pick out a black dress on my own," Tess said with glad relief.

"Of course you can. Except Kitty wants to… um, help." He pushed a card across the table. "She has an appointment for the both of you at this boutique in Towson. To start. She also mentioned some other places, like Vassari and Octavia and maybe the Neiman Marcus in the Washington suburbs if she can't find the right dress in Baltimore."

The card for the Towson dress shop was white with discreet silver letters in a curvy font, a whisper of pink blossoms scattered across its face. Just touching it made Tess's palms itch.

"So this lunch is really a bribe, right? You lured me here not to get my approval of the marriage, or even to ask my opinion of the ring, but to break the news that I have to go buy a dress in a bridal store. I can just see it. You know it's going to have some huge bow over the ass."

"I was hoping you'd think of this lunch as a celebration. I thought we might even splurge, have a good bottle of wine with lunch. On me, of course. This is all on me."

"Wine for lunch is fine, but I'm going to need a g-pack of crack to survive dress shopping. Be straight with me-is Kitty losing her mind? Is she getting all giddy and nuts? Just how bad is this going to be?"

Tyner just smiled ruefully and summoned the waitress, ordering a $150 bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.