Steps to the Altar by Earlene Fowler Page A

when I pulled into the folk art museum’s parking lot. The museum had become truly a home away from home for me. I knew every inch of its white-washed adobe interior as well as I did my rented bungalow. Better maybe. I parked under my favorite spot at the back of the lot, under an initial-scarred oak tree, where I noted with consternation a fresh carving—RICHARD LOVES KATHY. (Though I wished he’d found a different place to show his love, I also wished the couple well in their relationship.) The museum looked warm and welcoming under the gray February sky.
    Once a ranchero for the Sinclair family, deeded to them by the then ruling Spanish government, the two-story adobe house and attached stables with their dusky red-tiled roofs now housed a constantly changing crew of folk artists and volunteer docents. Constance Sinclair, our own personal patron, donated the hacienda to the historical society about ten years ago and still helped out by hosting the occasional fund raiser and by paying my salary. But the museum and the artists’ co-op affiliated with it were supposed to be self-sustaining. Which meant I spent a lot of time writing grant proposals, figuring out fund raisers, and begging money from rich, hopefully folk-art-loving people. Now that Isaac Lyons was about to become my stepgrandpa, I was finding it much easier to acquire funds from people wanting to meet and mingle with him. At first I was hesitant to cash in on my relationship with him until he told me in no uncertain terms that we were going to be family and that he was more than happy to use any influence he had over people’s pocketbooks to help the museum.
    “Frankly, Benni, I’d be supporting this museum even if you weren’t involved, so take advantage of me. Please.” He punctuated that last word with a huge bear hug, which was not just a cliché with him but a reality, seeing as he was six-four and large-boned as a grizzly.
    That was why, even though he was to be married in three weeks, he was the main attraction at the Mardi Gras Costume Ball that Constance was holding at her mansion in Cambria, a small, affluent town north of Morro Bay. It was the social event of the season with a price tag that irked me a bit . . . three hundred dollars a person. It limited the people who could attend, giving it an exclusivity that pricked at my egalitarian sensibilities. But as Elvia pointed out with logical pragmaticism, the whole point of the event was to make money for the museum so it made sense to appeal to people who had most of the green stuff.
    Of course, that meant I had to attend also . . . in costume. A costume I still had to pick up at Costume Capers downtown, a store owned by an old friend of mine. Cathy Gustavson and I had attended San Celina High School together and had shared not only the giggly experience of dissecting a sheep’s eye in sophomore biology (she held, I cut), but the wonderful agony of a crush on a young, bearded psychology teacher who didn’t know either of us existed. My time being so tight these last few weeks, I’d given her full authority to choose my costume with the only stipulation that I not be a cowgirl (too predictable) and it not be low cut. She knew me well enough to know that comfort was my main criteria for a costume so I was secure in the knowledge that a Mae West dress or skintight Cat Woman jumpsuit was not in my immediate future.
    Inside the museum itself, it was quiet, since the doors didn’t officially open until 10 A.M. Behind the counter of our gift shop, Edna McClun was cleaning the glass counter top with a solution that, by the smell, contained a large amount of vinegar.
    “Hey, Edna.” I walked behind the counter and checked my mail tray. Two letters and a catalog for leatherworking supplies. “We’re running into each other everywhere these days.”
    “It’s because I’ve got too much on my plate,” she said. “The trunks are being brought over today by one of our young men volunteers. He’s