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Excerpt From "Maybe Baby"
A Warner Forever Release
June 2005
ISBN: 0-446-61578-1
© 2004 Lani Diane Rich All Rights reserved
"I, Dana Elizabeth Wiley, take you, Nick..."
Her groom blinked. "Um, who?"
A fly zipped past her eyes, and Dana swatted at it with her bouquet, then puffed up a breath of air, fluffing her bangs away from where they tickled her forehead. It was another moment before she realized everyone in the rec room at the Rosemont Home of Central New York was watching her expectantly.
"Hmm? Sorry? What?"
Her groom, a seventeen-year-old kid from Laundry with the longest and skinniest neck she'd ever seen, leaned forward. "Who’s Nick?"
Dana felt her heart take a tumble southwards at the sound of the name.
"What? Nick's no one. No one's Nick. Why? Did I say Nick?"
The groomlet gave her a small smile. "Yeah. Kinda."
She turned and looked at Milo, her boss and daily tormentor. The bible he was holding was upside down.
"Did I say Nick?" she asked him.
"Doesn’t matter," Milo sing-songed through clenched teeth and a plastic smile as he nodded towards the guests. "There's a cross-stitch event at eleven. Let's move it along, people."
A cross-stitch event. Ah, Milo.
Dana glanced across the room. Two dozen aged, happy faces stared back at her, none of whom knew who she was or would even remember they'd been to a wedding by dinnertime. According to Milo, gatherings such as weddings, graduations and baptisms - even pretend ones - raised the morale of the Alzheimer's residents by 53%. Of course, it was patently ridiculous to quantify morale, but who was she to question? As Milo liked to remind her, she was just a secretary with a wedding dress that still fit. Nothing more.