Honeymoon for Three by Alan Cook Read Free Book Online

car.
Within five minutes the VW appeared in his rearview mirror. He
started his car as the other one rolled by. It paused at the
campground entrance and then turned onto Route 50.
    Route 50 went north along the east
side of Lake Tahoe, into Nevada, and east through a mountain pass
to 395. If they continued north on 395, they would come to—Reno. An
awful thought occurred to Alfred, not for the first time. They
might be going to get married. But all he could do right now was to
keep them in sight.
    ***
    “ Well, here we are in Reno.” Gary
drove the car slowly along Virginia Street. “What do we do
now?”
    “ Uh, find a place to get
married.”
    “ Shall we stop at a phone booth
and look in the yellow pages?”
    “ That won’t be necessary.
Look.”
    Gary followed Penny’s pointing
finger and saw the freshly painted white building to their right. A
sign on it read “Park Wedding Chapel.” A red neon sign that said
“Weddings” emphasized its purpose. A fake spire at the top of the
building enclosed another neon sign with the outline of a
bell.
    Gary parked on a short street in
front of the chapel. Penny remembered to take her sweatshirt off
before she got out of the car. Gary put a few coins in the parking
meter, and they walked hand in hand up four steps and through the
front door of the chapel. They entered a small room with red,
patterned wallpaper on the lower part of the walls. The carpet was
also red. The rest of the room was painted white, including a
number of doors.
    The smiling receptionist sat
behind a counter. Her hair and clothes were as immaculate as her
surroundings. She told them that they could get married as soon as
they obtained a marriage license.
    “ The courthouse is closed for
lunch. It opens again at one o’clock. It’s right across the street.
I suggest that you wait by the entrance so that you’ll be able to
get your license when it reopens. Then you can come back here and
get married.”
    “ Just like that,” Gary said.
Events were moving very rapidly.
    “ Just like that.” Her sympathetic
look said that being a little nervous was par for the
course.
    “ Where can we change our clothes?”
Penny asked.
    “ Right here in our dressing rooms.
I suggest you change right now before you go to the
courthouse.”
    “ They’ve thought of everything,”
Gary said, as he and Penny walked back to the car. Even to locating
the chapel across the street from the Washoe County Courthouse, an
impressive building, complete with Greek columns and a
dome.
    “ This is exciting.” Penny
carefully removed her dress and Gary’s suit from where they were
hung up inside the car.
    Gary took his suit from her. “Look
out, world. Here we come, ready or not.”
    ***
    Alfred was frozen. This time it
wasn’t cold air; it was the events that were happening right before
his eyes. He sat in his car, parked on the street to the side of
the chapel, and kept his eyes on the front door. In a few minutes,
Penny and Gary would come through that entrance, and when they did
they would be married.
    He’d watched as they’d made their
initial foray into the chapel, his car partially shielded by
another car parked on the other side of the street. Shortly after,
he saw them come out, get their wedding clothes out of the car, and
return to its hallowed depths. There could be no doubt as to what
was happening. Why couldn’t he do something? Many times he had
pictured himself getting married to Penny. Standing at the altar,
watching her walk down the aisle bathed in light, beautiful in
white. Now it was happening, and he wasn’t the one at the altar. He
was watching from the window of a car.
    What could he do? Should he go
running into the chapel and break up the wedding? Carry the bride
off in his arms and escape with her the way young Lochinvar did in
the poem by Sir Walter Scott? His car would be his steed. She
wouldn’t resist; she would understand that they were meant for each
other.
    If that were true, why