2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) Page 15

  “Not real weddings,” Elizabeth Hemmings said, sounding elitist. The cacophony of cooking sounds on the other end was rising to a crescendo to match her mother’s inner turmoil. It was a phenomenon she was all too familiar with; Elizabeth’s pace increased exponentially with the level of discomfort or disbelief she felt—she could have broken land speed dishwashing records when Uncle Henry got caught screwing a cocktail waitress young enough to be his daughter and Aunt Kathy threw all his things out on the lawn and set fire to them. My word, both a cheater and a pyro in the family!

  “Yes, real weddings,” Catherine retorted. “Even getting married by Elvis in Las Vegas is a real wedding.”

  “Have you considered that? You can definitely do that in March.”

  “I could do that tomorrow.”

  “If that’s your prerogative.” She sounded completely divorced of the substance of the conversation.

  “You want me to elope?” Catherine choked out. How could I be so wrong?

  “I’m just saying that planning takes time, and it’s not really—”

  “My strong suit?” she offered.

  “Don’t put words in my mouth, Catherine. It sounds like you called me just to start an argument.”

  “No, Mother, I called you to keep you in the loop. I wanted you to share this special moment with me. It’s your only daughter’s wedding and you don’t even give a crap.”

  The silence on the other end was deafening. Not a word or a breath or a faulty move with a dish or utensil. She’d unsheathed a sword and shoved it right into her mother’s heart. Now she didn’t know what to do. Her own heart was beating a mile a minute. She wanted to hang up the phone self-righteously. Her mother had started the whole thing…. And yet Catherine had crossed an invisible, electrified line with the “only daughter” comment. She’d just thrown Josey’s death right in her mother’s face.

  “Whatever you choose is fine,” Elizabeth said suddenly, cool control in her voice.

  Friday, January 7th

  -23-

  “Hi,” she said quietly, almost shyly.

  “Hi, yourself.” Fynn’s voiced washed over her.

  “I wish I was there with you.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’m already sick of the whole wedding thing and I’ve hardly even gotten started yet,” she grumbled. Fynn was silent on the other end, either mulling what she’d said or waiting for her to continue, a stark contrast to the way she would have reacted to the same type of incendiary comment—probably ripping the ring off her finger and throwing it all the way from New York to Minnesota. “Everybody is knocking our wedding date like we don’t have a clue what we’re doing.”

  “We have a wedding date?” he asked, bemused.

  “Yes, we have a date.”

  “Refresh my memory….”

  “We talked about it just a few nights ago.”

  “Before, during, or after sex?”

  “Is that how you nail everything down?”

  “I just want to know how suggestive I was at the time. Before sex I will agree to just about anything. During, I’m not listening to anything…. To be honest, after sex is the only time I’m really paying any attention,” he said playfully.

  “It was after.” She rolled her eyes at no one.

  “Was I sleeping? You know I like to sleep after sex.”

  “Fynn,” she protested. “I woke you up. We talked. I said the 4th of March. You agreed.” A simple play-by-play—okay, technically he hadn’t actually agreed. But he had said it was all up to me. Tacit agreement is still agreement. It would probably hold up in court.

  “This March?” he asked.

  “Don’t you start,” she warned.

  “So we’re getting married on March 4th. I’m totally up to speed now. What exactly is the problem?” he asked easily.

  “Well, Georgia acted like we’d have to move heaven and earth to pull it off, and my mom told me we should just elope.”

  “Sounds like Connor’s advice runs in your family,” Fynn said with a chuckle.

  “Connor was talking out his ass,” she growled through gritted teeth.

  “And where’s your mom coming from?” he jabbed playfully, obviously not getting the clue that this was serious.

  “She thinks I must be knocked up to want to get married this quickly.”

  “Elizabeth Hemmings didn’t say that.”

  So she was paraphrasing. “Basically,” she asserted.

  “You said she always wanted grandchildren. Maybe she was saying it hopefully,” he offered, pitifully unschooled in Elizabeth Hemmings’ ways and means.

  “She was judging me. Like no one would want to marry me for me, only because I was stupid enough to get knocked up.”

  “Babe, I love you but you’re starting to sound a little nutty,” he said carefully.

  “I am just so sick of people assuming that I am a complete idiot who can’t run my own life without messing it up.

  “What’s the big deal what they think? Get yourself a pretty dress and we’ll do this thing,” he said breezily, like that was all it took.

  “I just thought that my mom would be… more interested. I thought she would want to help me plan it. I thought I would have to beat her away from the guest list and seating chart and menu with a stick.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t approve of me.” There he was for her, ready to take the blame.

  “Oh no, she loves you; it’s me she doesn’t approve of.”

  “I hardly think that—”

  “She has all kinds of problems with me,” she seethed. Her mental gears started to turn and then catch. “I’ll show her.”

  “Catherine, what are you going to do?” he asked warily.

  “I’ll make the perfect wedding. Prove that it can be done in two months. What the hell does she know?”

  “Now there’s the Catherine I fell for. The don’t-take-no-for-an-answer Catherine. The throw-all-caution-and-sense-to-the-wind Catherine. The one who gets shit done. Hell, last time you had this much fire you caught a great guy,” he said, throwing a compliment in for himself for good measure.

  “I did. And I can do this.”

  “I’m a little terrified and turned on all at the same time.” He paused. “What are you wearing right now?”

  Saturday, January 8th

  -24-

  Towering before them was a perfect brick façade with glossy black doors that were filled with beveled glass and wrought iron. “Okay girls, this is where it all begins.” Georgia seemed enraptured, as if she were on a religious pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

  “Aaaaa-men,” Tara sang, obviously getting the same vibe.

  “Are you ready?” Georgia squeezed Catherine’s arm like whatever was on the other side of those doors was going to be better than Christmas morning.

  “As I’ll ever be.” She was unable to muster the same level of enthusiasm as her mind was preoccupied with how much a place like this cost to hire. They couldn’t run such swank without serious commissions.

  Tara stepped up to the doors first, but before she could even touch a handle they opened for her.

  A butler? Catherine thought, feeling even further out of her league and comfort zone.

  They stepped into the marble foyer-turned-reception-area with offices radiating out in all directions. It was a genuine conglomeration of planners, perhaps even a multi-national planning organization hell-bent on taking over the world one wedding at a time.

  “Who are you here to see?” the butler-esque person asked. She was dressed smartly in a winter-white suit with a cream blouse, and her hair was wound tight in a chignon any bride would be proud to wear. Not a hair out of place, not a thread hanging loose, not an eyelash untamed—Catherine had a sneaking suspicion she was a cyborg, or perhaps even a fully robotic receptionist.

  “Cidra Gibbons. We have an appointment for… well, right about now,” Georgia admitted guiltily, equating “on the dot” with embarrassingly late—Elizabeth Hemmings had the sam
e genetic abnormality. But as far as Catherine was concerned: late was late, on time was on time, and early was out of the question.

  “You can go right in; she’s waiting for you,” the woman replied stiffly.

  Georgia leveled a glare at Tara for making Cidra wait, if not simply for her twenty-something-ness that had her skating in here last minute, dressed in last night’s clothes, not looking shameful and used but instead bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Georgia, on the other hand, had fresh clothes and hair, and makeup that couldn’t quite cover her dark circles from too many midnight feedings; while Catherine looked pale and sickly from starving herself.

  Cidra’s office was less opulent than the foyer with its marble and columns, but the general lack of warmth tied the rooms together perfectly.

  “You must be Georgia,” she said with careful excitement. I recognize you from your wedding announcement in the paper. She shook her hand, nodding at Catherine as an afterthought and then mingling a disapproving moment on Tara’s club-worthy outfit that stood out skankily among all the employees, clients, and potential clients dressed smartly.

  “That was years ago,” Georgia tittered, basking.

  “Your wedding is New York history. The Love nuptials are taught about in wedding planning seminars,” she said, unable to hide her delight any longer to be speaking to the Georgia Love. “What can we do for you here at Wedding Opulence? A vow renewal? Five years is coming up, right?” The chick did her homework.

  “Actually, I made the appointment for my friend, Catherine,” she said, pulling her in closely, protectively.

  “So you’re the bride,” Cidra said. Her tone had flattened ever so slightly; her megawatt smile blipped like a loose bulb.

  “I’m she—I mean her—I’m the one,” she stumbled out.

  “Can I get you girls something to drink? Tea? Water?”

  Tea, but of course, Catherine thought. An uptight beverage for an uptight establishment.

  “If it wouldn’t be terribly too much trouble, could I bother you for a scone with that tea?” Tara asked, copping a reasonably realistic British accent.

  “Why certainly. Anything else?” Cidra asked, looking less askance at Tara now that her English roots were showing. It seemed a slutty Brit was more welcome than a slutty Yank.

  “A dab of jam would be simply scrumptious,” she added.

  “I’ll be right back with that. Make yourselves comfortable. There are wonderful catalogs and magazines you can look through and keep in mind that anything you see, we can do.”

  As soon as Cidra was out of the room, Georgia turned and smacked Tara in the arm. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to ruin everything with stupid games?”

  “I’m just trying to make the most painful experience a little less so. It isn’t hurting anyone.”

  Catherine stifled a giggle the best she could. It was funny to think that Cidra was probably madly searching for scones and jam right this minute just to impress Georgia with all she could accomplish for her friends.

  “Why can’t you just be normal?” Georgia asked through gritted teeth.

  “Moi?” Tara faked shock.

  “No French crap,” Georgia admonished. “Don’t make things any worse. Just keep it British now, or better yet, keep your mouth shut.”

  “So sorry for the delay,” Cidra apologized breathlessly, bustling back through the door, an assistant at her heels carrying a tray of tea and sugar and cream and scones and jam.

  Once the tray was set on the table and the door was closed upon the lowly assistant, Cidra took a seat and said, “Now, what is it you’re dreaming about?”

  “First of all, I just want to say that my budget isn’t really in the ‘Love’ region.”

  Cidra put a hand to her chest and chuckled. “Few are. But rest assured we handle weddings of all levels here. Everyone deserves their best wedding day. And we only do the best for each of our clients.”

  From the moment Catherine had stepped in the building, she’d feared she was going to be charged just to breathe the “opulent” air. Now she felt some of that tension begin to release its hold.

  “Do you have your preferred date picked already?”

  “Yes. March 4th.”

  “Lovely, I don’t get many March weddings. February is pretty popular, but March is kind of forgotten.” Cidra’s eyes were on her tablet, swiping through it with gusto. “Ooh, but that’s a problem. The 4th isn’t actually a Saturday. It’s a Sunday. Is that what you wanted?” she asked, sounding like the proper answer was no.

  “But it is a Saturday,” Catherine assured her.

  “No, it’s not,” Cidra was definitive, unwavering.

  “She means this March, love,” Tara said helpfully.

  “This March?” Cidra choked on the month. “You can’t be serious.” She looked from Tara, to Catherine, to Georgia, waiting for the punch line that wasn’t coming.

  “I can’t possibly—I mean no one can possibly put together a wedding of quality in two months…. It’s actually less than two months.”

  “You forget it’s a leap year, love,” Tara said. “There’s a day gained right there.”

  “You must know that your request is preposterous. Everything, everyplace, everyone worth anything is booked already. It’s impossible.”

  “So I guess you’re not quite as good as you claim to be,” Tara leveled haughtily.

  Instead of dignifying the charge with a verbal response, Cidra snatched the hospitality scone from Tara’s grasp, plate and all, as if she suddenly realized she was feeding a street urchin or vagabond or some other lowly creature.

  Maybe such an assault would be a royal offense in England, but stateside it was petty larceny at best. Undeterred, Tara threatened calls to the silent-but-deadly, grand-poobah-headed guards at Buckingham Palace and hollered for the bobbies and otherwise escalated snatching into a full-scale skirmish that might have turned international incident but for the fact that she suddenly lost her accent entirely—New York lashing out with a vengeance. But even that didn’t strike fear in Cidra’s ice-cold heart. So Tara threatened a sit-in right there in the offices of Wedding Opulence, until their wedding grievances were heard. Not a fan of the Constitution, Cidra called security….

  Catherine didn’t understand exactly what happened after that, either she blacked out or blocked it out, but one moment she was sitting on a couch in Cidra Gibbons’ office and the next moment she was standing on the steps outside, watching two able-bodied security guards pry Tara’s fingernails from the doorjamb, as she refused to let go until all people received equal treatment for their wedding dreams.

  Justice was not done.

  “We dodged a bullet there, I think,” Tara whistled in relief, catching up with them after getting the younger guard’s number.

  “Dodged lock-up is more like it,” Georgia countered darkly, intent on getting out of there. She moved quickly, head bowed in shame—a Love didn’t make a scene—and Catherine had to practically gallop to keep up with her long stride.

  “Come on, what does Catherine need with a wedding by uppity bitches like that?”

  “You were the one fighting for her wedding rights,” Georgia countered.

  “I was just having a little fun. Embarrassing them.”

  “You embarrassed us.”

  “Nobody knows who we are,” she said, swinging a teacup around by its handle.

  “They know who I am—oh my God, what is that?” Georgia gasped, her face drained of color as she knew exactly what it was.

  “A parting gift,” Tara giggled.

  “You stole a teacup from them?”

  “It’s a souvenir for our trouble. What are they going to do?”

  “They’ll come after me,” Georgia stressed.

  “Not for a teacup.”

  “They’ll smear the Love name.”

  “Really? Over a teacup?” Tara scoffed in disbelief.

  “You stole it!” Georgia hollered, drawing the eyes of several street
gawkers.

  “You’re the one telling everyone.” Tara gestured at the passersby and Georgia turned red with fury and humiliation. “Besides, they gave it to me.”

  “To use there,” Georgia reminded her tightly.

  “Cidra was asking for it. She stole my scone first and I am absolutely famished,” Tara asserted, her British accent suddenly back.

  -25-

  Catherine was frozen in place on the sidewalk, a diner just a few blessed feet away, contemplating throwing it all away for a piece of pie. No wedding or dress or worry, just blissful pie.

  “Cat, are you okay?” Georgia asked, the worry in her voice obvious.

  “Maybe she’s cat-atonic,” Tara noted with a giggle.

  “You’re not helping,” Georgia snapped. “As usual.”

  “I’m not ever going to be a Mrs., am I?” Catherine asked, trancelike, fixated on the restaurant that held all the foods she loved most, right there inside. “The whole universe is against my happiness.”

  “Quit your whining,” Tara said, slapping her.

  “What was that?” Georgia demanded.

  “That’s what you do to snap someone out of it.”

  Catherine put a hand to her cheek, focusing on Tara in shock.

  “See, she’s baaa-aaack,” Tara sang, like the little girl in Poltergeist about the ghosts in the house.

  Georgia put her arm around Catherine protectively. “We can do this,” she assured her. There are plenty more wedding planners out there. New York is full of them. So what that seven of them—”

  “Laughed us back onto the street,” Tara finished helpfully.

  “Maybe we could just push the date to the 11th. It’s still within your window, but an extra week could make all the difference,” Georgia offered unconvincingly.

  “Not dealing with elitist wankers would make all the difference,” Tara noted, slipping back into the British accent she’d been using on and off all day, just for shits and giggles. “They don’t have to be so rigid. You want your husband to be rigid, but the wedding? Heck, my cousin got married at a tailgate party. He loves the Eagles and loves his wife—perfect way to honor them both. It was a great time.”