“White Is For Weddings”

Julie was taking a final stroll around the grounds on the morning of the wedding when her Aunt Millie asked her to find Dolly for her.

Moving around to the other side of the house Julie looked briefly toward the front and the sides of the house as she called Dolly’s name. When she didn’t receive an answer she walked back across the terrace out toward the portable bar at the end of the swimming pool.

For one brief heart-stopping minute she looked over at the isolated tale on the other side of the pool while she remembered sitting there with Rick the other night; for a terrible breathless moment she felt the bruising taste of his mouth against hers and she knew with a sinking heart that it was probably the very last time she would ever experience his kisses.

Oh, she wanted him so much; even now when she knew that he belonged to another and could never be hers again. She wondered about what he was doing right now and what he was feeling this morning or if he would ever have a chance to be happy with Dolly! He was probably already over at the church right now waiting for his bride…and as much as Julie loved him she realized that even though he was lost to her forever, at least this way he could still experience life and hopefully he would be healthy if not really happy.

She had learned a valuable lesson this weekend. Dolly Randolph never made idle threats. She meant every damaging word she had uttered to Julie, and judging from the awful things Dolly had confessed to her, Julie knew that she was very serious about what she would do if her wedding did not go on as planned.

Just then Julie heard a car start out near the highway then it sounded like it took off really fast away from the property. She looked out toward the highway but she didn’t actually see the car or anyone else around. Briefly, she wondered if there had been someone out there talking to Dolly than had to leave in a hurry.

Shaking off her questions, Julie forced herself back to the task at hand…to find Dolly for her aunt. She looked away across the sloping green lawns behind the tennis courts out toward the small mysterious building at the edge of the woods.

As her eyes searched the green expanse of perfectly manicured grass a scrap of white paper fluttering in the breeze caught her eye, marring the perfection of the sloping green grass. She crossed the lawn to quickly pick it up.

It wasn’t a piece of trash as she’d first thought. Instead it was a white lace handkerchief. Embroidered around the border in bright blue, dainty letters were the words: ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’. A red smear stained one corner; Julie absently smoothed her fingers over the smudge of what she thought was lipstick…never dreaming in her wildest fantasies that it was not lipstick at all!

The heavy, musky smell of Dolly’s pungent perfume still clung to the folds of the little scrap of lace. This must be her ‘something old’. Her new wedding gown would be the ‘something new’. She told Julie earlier she had a blue garter as ‘something blue’. She had borrowed Julie’s bracelet, even though it was without permission to be her ‘something borrowed’.

She knew then that Dolly couldn’t be very far away. She called out to her again but didn’t receive an answer at all, only the echo of her own voice as it settled back around her.

Julie never knew exactly what drew her out that way but almost instinctively, she moved slowly around them to the very back of the pool house; as she skirted around the back side of the garage away from the house but suddenly, she stopped short in her tracks.

The first thing she saw was Dolly’s white satin shoe. One was lying haphazardly right in front of her but then when she looked around for the other one, she saw that it was still very much attached to Dolly’s slim smooth ankle and tanned leg. Then Julie saw the white lace of Dolly’s designer wedding gown as it billowed around her on the dark green grass.

“Dolly, she whispered softly. “What happened?”

She rushed to her side thinking that perhaps she had fallen. Bending over her she turned her head around to face her than gasped aloud in abject horror. There was a terrible bloody wound on the side of Dolly’s head; the beautiful blond hair was crushed and matted around the red, gaping gash.

Julie had never seen anything as vivid as the contrast of that bright red blood stain splashed across the front of Dolly’s white wedding gown. Also she had never seen anything so pale…for Dolly’s face rivaled even the stark whiteness of her wedding gown.

She reached out with a trembling hand to check the pulse on the side of her throat; but she could feel absolutely nothing beating there.

ulie’s mouth went completely dry, her heart pounded as she stood up, slowly backing away from the hideous sight in front of her; this limp lifeless form had been a happy laughing, dimpled girl just a short time before.

She threw back her head then as she loudly yelled for help; it sounded hysterical but she couldn’t help it; she didn’t even recognize the harsh, guttural tones of her own voice.

"Uncle Dyke, Uncle Dyke! Help me, please…somebody, please help me!”

Then Julie screamed and screamed but it was Lily who reached her first. Almost in a daze, Julie remembered frantically clutching her arm as she cried wildly. “Hurry, Lily, hurry. You have to get Uncle Dyke out here. Please don’t let Aunt Millie come outside right now!”