Chapter 3

Suddenly, the last two days before the wedding were upon us, and there were surprisingly few last-minute things to do. Naomi was a list-keeper, a lover of spreadsheets, and she kept a tight rein on timetables and finances. I was extremely thankful for her taking this lead, which obviously would have fallen mostly to me and Lori if she was still alive. And wonderfully, she was able to keep the ducks lined up without antagonising anyone. She oozed authority in the most gentle of manners, to the point that people fell over backwards to be obliging. It was a huge lesson to me in management.

So I was a little surprised to receive a call from her on the Thursday.

“Gerald, I’m a little desperate. Can you possibly spare a little time to help me out of a hole?”

“Of course, Naomi. What’s the problem?”

“The laundry has got away on me, and my machine has decided to pack a sad. The mechanic says he can’t get here till tomorrow morning, and I’ve got a major load that needs doing. Can you call in and pick it up, and nurse it at the laundromat? It will probably take an hour or so, for both wash and dry, but you don’t have to stick around for that time. People commonly pop away while the machine’s going through its cycle.”

I was surprisingly thrilled to be asked for help by Naomi, who I’d begun to think as being super-organised. I had no urgent project on hand, so said I’d be delighted to help. As I picked the basket up from her house, Naomi gave me a very affectionate hug.

“You don’t know what this means, that there’s someone I can rely on in an emergency,” she said. Then mischievously: “And here, I’ve made you a takeaway cup of coffee and there’s a couple of biscuits in this box, in case you are in danger of dying of hunger if you wait.”
“See you later, Mr Rescue,” she laughed, giving me a kiss on the cheek as she pushed me out the door.

Her “reward” lingered with me a long while as I tended the task. And I really was thrilled at the bonding over such a domestic task.

Gareth and Sylvia had decided to dispense with the “traditional” stag night and hen party that usually preceded a wedding. In fact, they were repelled by some of the stories they heard about these shindigs.

I want to be sober on my wedding day,” Gareth announced, earning himself another kiss from his fiancée. “I want you to be sober, too,” she agreed. “I have plans for later that night that alcohol would not enhance,” she whispered, turning Gareth’s face a bright red. It might have been a whisper, but Naomi’s sharp ears caught it, and she burst into a raucous laugh, whereupon it was Sylvia’s turn to blush also.

“Go, girl,” Naomi said. “There’s a lot of home-schooling ahead, I foresee.”

Instead of the usual pre-nup celebrations, Gareth and Sylvia wanted a quiet family night. Naomi’s parents were arriving from Dunedin during the day, and this would be the first time for me to meet them. Suddenly, a twinge of nervousness hit me. Again, I asked myself, ‘what’s going on? What on earth is at stake here?” And again, I had no answer.

As it turned out, Alistair and Jacqueline Ricards were very easy-going. Naomi and I picked them up from the airport mid-afternoon and took them to the motel they had booked. A rental car was waiting there for them, and Naomi guided them over to her house to spend the rest of the day. I went ahead, to make sure the roast in the oven was in good shape, and to prepare the vegetables. I wanted to keep out of their way initially so that they and Naomi could have a good catch-up without me in the mix.

Sylvia helped to finish preparations and to serve dinner. Conversation was easy around the table. The Rickards regaled us with tales of their time in Vanuatu, and how Naomi had browned so much should could almost have been mistaken for a local. Being fluent in the three languages, she moved easily between the various cultures. Her parents struggled with the other two languages, although they managed the rudiments. But English was a common language in the country’s administration, and so that was not a struggle.