“If you hate conning so much, you could always give up the game,” I finally managed after giving the alcohol a little time to loosen my tongue.

Jimmy Boy sputtered on Guinness. He swallowed hard, laughing as if I’d made the funniest joke he’d ever heard. When he caught my awkward smile, the laughter died. His brow knitted in confusion.

“For all my bitching, I honestly can’t imagine not going out on the road once in a while. Settling down and giving up the game sounds great, and it’s worked for men in other clans, but you know what would happen if one of us just up and quit. While everyone else would be out on the road, I’d be here alone. I couldn’t stand all these people going on like I never existed.”

I blew out a long breath and relaxed back in my chair. “It’s just that sometimes you make me nervous. You start going on about packing it all in for a simpler life, and I start to worry about what that would mean for me and Maggie.”

“I’m talking outta my ass is all. Hey,” he said, clapping me on the back. “We should talk to Uncle Pete and Hollywood about—”

Jimmy Boy didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Car horns blared from the front, and everyone in the pavilion turned their attention toward the sound. The honking continued, and vehicles appeared on the lane, traveling in a slow procession. The parade of Cadillacs, Lincolns, and late-model pickups crawled past us. Metal clanked as each car circled around, shifting the coins the owners had dropped into their gas tanks to bring good luck.

In the back of every truck, two or three girls perched on lawn chairs, poised like beauty queens and twice as painted up. In stark contrast to the men, who’d been drinking at the pavilion in rumpled slacks and collared shirts, the women wore huge gowns filling the space of each truck bed with a wash of pink, purple, and green. The jewels they wore in their hair and the sequins coating their dresses glittered in the dying sunlight. Young men gathered around the edges to get a better view, some standing, some pulling up chairs and settling in for the show.

I stayed in my seat but craned my neck, trying to see beyond the fence of onlookers. The young women on display were almost unrecognizable and not only because unmarried men and women rarely spent time together outside of formal occasions. Each one was so heavily made-up that she resembled a porcelain doll more than an actual human girl. They all beamed, clearly enjoying the attention.

Once the pavilion was surrounded, wedding guests began unloading from their vehicles. The groom and a younger man, who I guessed was his brother given the similarities between them, climbed out of a silver Lexus, grinning in matching designer tuxedos. They made their way across the cement floor of the pavilion to a row of chairs decorated with flowers and ribbons for the wedding party. Next, a stout man with a shock of white hair stepped from a black Cadillac. Pop Sheedy stooped for a moment to help his wife out of the car and then rested both hands on his burgeoning belly, offering his elbow to Bridget. The groom’s father was next. Rail-thin and well over six feet tall, he ducked his head to clear the doorframe of his own black Cadillac. Apparently, he had no wife to help from the car and so crossed quickly to his sons.

Next, the community procession began. Women with new babies to show off came first. Next, some of the older married women, who took this opportunity to show off new jewelry purchases instead of children. Finally, the unmarried girls began climbing down from truck beds, aided by the young men who’d had the privilege of driving them. They walked slowly through the pavilion, circling around the huge floral arrangement in the center of the floor in a loop of brightly colored satin, tulle, and organza.

The last car door opened. Rosie Sheedy, a baby-faced seventeen-year-old girl with black curls teased to a height that defied gravity, took the hand of the young man who’d chauffeured her to the party. A pang of jealousy tightened my stomach as her gloved fingers closed around his, and I was secretly glad that he struggled to get her out of the Lincoln Town Car with any grace. Her hoop skirt crumpled as she squeezed herself through the door, but immediately sprang back to life, forming a three-foot barrier around her legs on all sides. The dress was an irritating shade of teal blue, but I could easily look past her bad taste in clothing given who her family was.

Rosie turned her back to the pavilion and reached inside the car to help her sister make a grand entrance. A head appeared, crowned with a sparkling tiara. Ringlets of dark hair bobbed as both Rosie and the driver pulled the bride’s arms, struggling to free her from the car. For nearly ten minutes, the trio fought with the bride’s enormous dress, shoving sections of it in every direction to manipulate it through the car door. Finally, Mary Sheedy burst from the car like a cork from a champagne bottle. Her sister caught her and set her on her feet again, both girls giggling.

Mary and Rosie Sheedy were Irish twins, only eleven months apart in age, and they were so similar it was sometimes hard to tell them apart from a distance. There was no mistaking which was the bride this day, though. Mary strode to the center of the floor, making a concerted effort not to wobble under the weight of her dress.

I leaned closer to my brother. “If the competition over having the biggest dress doesn’t end soon, these girls are going to have to be wheeled around on carts.”

Jimmy Boy offered a smirk in response.

Mary’s dress was certainly a sight to behold. The skirt was made up of at least a dozen layers of fabric held aloft by a wire hoop skirt, and Mary had to spread her arms to their fullest width to gather the sides in her hands as she walked. Huge stars made of gold and silver sequins trailed their way down the front of her skirt in two lines. The bodice of the dress had genuine pink diamonds sewn along the collar and extending to her waist in a V-shape down the front and back. All the glittering gems, along with a little help from a glass-and-a-half of Guinness, were making my head cloudy. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping the feeling would pass.

Once Mary had completed her laborious journey across the pavilion, Rosie helped her arrange the dress so she could take a seat on the throne next to her new husband. The dress spilled out over the chair’s sides, and Mary seemed to hover above it rather than sit in it, boosted by the fabric of her gown. Pop Sheedy stood and raised a glass to toast his daughter and new son-in-law. The entire reception rang out in a chorus of well wishes and congratulations. He beamed with pride as he looked down at his bedazzled offspring.

In spite of their garishness, what these celebrations really represented was the deep love Travelers had for their children. Yes, they were a way to display wealth and compete with other families, but the expensive floral arrangements and ridiculous gowns were also honest expressions of affection.

“So now we’ve got a Georgian in our clan,” Jimmy Boy said, though I could barely hear him over the loud music that had just started up. No one was dancing yet, and the scene reminded me of the one middle school dance I’d managed to sneak off to, with young men on one side of the pavilion and girls giggling in small groups on the other.

“Guess so. Pop and Bridget went over for Dandelion McNamara’s funeral last week and arranged the whole thing there. Apparently, this kid has shown a lot of promise or something, so they made him a match for Mary even though he’s only nineteen,” I said. “At least that’s what Bridget told Maggie.”

“I heard they paid his family five hundred large to seal the deal, but you know how numbers have a way of growing when Traveler women get to talking.”

I shrugged, lifting an eyebrow. It was entirely possible that the Sheedys had paid such a substantial sum to make a good match for their daughter, but half a million dollars was a large dowry even by Southern Traveler standards. Still, speculation over the bride-price was as much a tradition at Traveler weddings as the fancy gowns and festive music.