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hands together, I got a good look at her engagement ring, a pear-shaped solitaire.
    “Wow, that’s a gorgeous ring.”
    “It is, isn’t it?” she said. “Leland had it specially made, and it took a while to find exactly the right stone.”
    “It was worth waiting for,” I said.
    “Just like Leland,” she said. “By the time I met him, I’d decided I was happy on my own. I liked my work. I earned a lot of money. I had a reliable vibrator, and there were plenty of men to take me to social functions where my vibrator wouldn’t have been welcome. Then along came Prince Charming.”
    “And out went the vibrator,” I said.
    Margot’s grin was wicked. “It was an old friend. I gave it an honourable send-off.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of champagne. “Let’s get rolling.”
    The food was excellent, the wine was splendid, and the talk was good. Not surprisingly, given the company, the first topic of conversation was marriage. But the wedding we spoke of was not Margot and Leland’s, which was still more than three weeks away; it was Ed Mariani’s marriage to Barry, his partner of twenty-seven years.
    On Sunday, Barry and Ed would be married in the rooftop garden of the condo on Halifax Street. “I am over the moon about the garden,” Margot said. “When I was a kid, I spent half my life in the Wadena Library. One afternoon I found a coffee-table book about roof gardens. God knows what a book like that was doing in a local library on the bald prairie, but I lugged it home, and every night I just stared at the pictures, dreaming. I kept renewing it until finally the librarian told me I might as well keep it, but if anybody else wantedto check it out, I’d have to lend it to them. And now here I am on Halifax Street with a roof garden of my own.”
    “We were lucky,” Leland said. “The developer who did the initial renos on this property completed the structural work on the roof garden before she ran out of money, so we just had to do the finishing and choose the plants and the furniture.”
    “Actually, Ed had to choose the plants and the furniture,” Margot said. “Leland was travelling, and I was working sixteen hours a day on the Zwarych trial. I didn’t want to wait till next year, so Ed took over. He did a great job.”
    Leland’s smile was slow in coming but worth waiting for. It softened his face, made him seem approachable. “Margot and I are so pleased that Ed and Barry chose to have their wedding here, and according to the forecast, Sunday will be a perfect June day.”
    “That’s good news,” I said. “Ed and Barry have waited a long time for this.”
    Leland turned to me. “Margot tells me you’re the best man.”
    “I am,” I said. “We struggled with the title. ‘Matron of honour’ sounded like I should be wearing a feathery hat and support hose, and Zack pointed out that ‘chief witness’ sounded as if I was testifying in court, so we stuck with ‘best man.’ I kind of like it.”
    “So do I,” Zack said. He turned to Margot. “So, how come you aren’t getting married in the roof garden of your girlhood dreams?
    “Because I had another girlhood dream. I wanted an old-fashioned, small-town Saskatchewan wedding,” Margot said.
    “At heart, Margot is just an old-fashioned, small-town Saskatchewan girl,” Leland said.
    Margot gave him a sidelong glance. “Hardly,” she said. “But despite my big-city ways, I wanted a Wadena wedding – notthe ones they have now, which are just the same as weddings anywhere – the kind people had when I was a kid. No floral arrangements – just everybody emptying out their gardens and bringing all the flowers to the United Church in jam jars. And everybody in town sitting in the pews whispering about how beautiful I look and checking my waistline to see if I’m pregnant.”
    Zack choked on his wine. “Are you?”
    “Focus your laser gaze on me at the wedding and decide for yourself,” she said. Margot