Avery wrinkled her nose in a feeble attempt to scratch an itch that had annoyed her for the past ten minutes. Sweat ran down the middle of her back and a pesky fly buzzed around her head for what seemed like the umpteenth time. She would have swatted at the thing if not for the bouquet of peonies she held in her hand. For the millionth time in the last twenty minutes she mentally cursed whoever had invented tafetta. Why would anyone have an outdoor wedding in the middle of June in Central California? One of her dearest friends of course, to whom Avery was serving as Maid of Honor on this, Chloe's special day.
Avery groaned inwardly as she envisioned adding yet ANOTHER God awful ugly bridesmaid dress to the dozen or so lining her closet. They varied in fabric, color and style but they shared one thing in common.........they were all butt ugly. Why couldn't someone somewhere design an even remotely attractive bridesmaid dress?? Ever so discreetly, so as to not draw attention to herself, Avery glanced down at her dress. Pale pink, it hit her mid calf, with what seemed like yards and yards of itchy tulle. And bows, dear Lord there were bows of every shape and size all over this thing! Huge puffed sleeves ended just above the elbow, and as if to add insult to injury, her feet were shod in dyed pink satan pumps and her hands were gloved in white. In short, she resembled cotton candy on a stick.
Avery Longinesse Cotilla as she was so named was a delictate young lady, slender and standing at approximately five feet five inches, she was a Spanish beauty..........well half Spanish. Her father
was full blood Spaniard, her mother a beauty of Irish descent with piercing green eyes and flaming red hair and a temper to match. The story had been told that at Avery's birth, her mother was in such agony that at one point she glared at Avery's father and yelled, "I will NOT be doing this again for A VERY LONG time..........thus, the infant was named Avery Longinesse Cotilla. Ironically enough, Cotilla, interpreted, means nosy.
Perhaps this is why Avery enjoyed her job as a 911 dispatcher so much. She was just nosy enough to get information from just about anyone and valiant enough to want to fix all that is wrong with the world. You didn't mess with Avery Longinesse Cotilla, she would come after you. More than once her Pastor's wife had seen it necessary to explain to Avery that sometimes we just needed to leave things in God's hands and let Him deal with the world's injustices. Avery tried hard of course to obey, but at times she felt that she, God and her black belt in Karate were a majority and worked quite well together.
