by Alina Jacobs
Ivy had Liz’s scrapbook out on the table. “This is such a great start,” she told Liz.
“She’s quite creative!” Wes bragged, taking Liz’s hand. She beamed.
“I had some ideas as well,” I cut in, plopping down the scrapbooking pages I had started on.
“That isn’t the dress design, is it?” Mark said, brow furrowed. “Aren’t you supposed to keep that hidden from the groom?”
Andddd here we go. Mark is mansplaining weddings to. Me! A literal wedding dress maker! I fumed. I’m so going to make him quit, and that starts now.
“Obviously this does not have the dress design,” I told him, trying to make my voice as sweet as my third morning coffee. “These ideas are about the general theme for the wedding.”
Mark grunted.
“For the theme, I was thinking more earth goddess—lots of ivory, with more muted accent colors like a mint green or a blush. Though,” I tapped two color swatches, “we could also have a more cream palette. If we did that, then I would go with peach and a sage green. But first you need to decide if you like the cream or the ivory.”
We all looked at the nearly identical swatches.
“What do you think, Mark?” I asked. Mark’s eyes had partially glazed over. “You’re the best man,” I reminded him, tapping my pen on the table in front of him. “These are the types of important decisions we’ll need you to make over the coming months.”
Mark growled and looked down at the swatches. “They all look the same.”
“Do you even want to be in this wedding?” I snapped.
Mark pursed his mouth. Wes looked concerned.
“Of course I do,” Mark said through gritted teeth after a moment.
“Then why don’t we table this color discussion and move on to the save-the-date notes,” Ivy suggested, kicking me under the table.
“These are adorable!” Liz cooed as Ivy laid out the options.
The glazed look was settling back over Mark’s face.
I give him a week tops, I thought as I watched him over the whipped cream on the jug of coffee I was sipping. I bet he has one more meeting in him, then he flakes out.
Mark glanced at me, met my gaze, then straightened up.
“While normally this would be a month-long process, we do need to make a decision in the next few days,” Ivy told Liz, “in order to make sure these are sent out in time. The font, logo, and border design you select will inspire the rest of the invitations, the menus, the thank-you cards, and the branding of any other print materials.”
“No pressure, huh,” Liz said nervously.
“Any of these would be pretty,” Wes assured her.
“You can take these home and think about them, and we’ll talk about it in the next meeting, which will be in,” Ivy pointed to the calendar, “four days.”
Mark’s eyes widened slightly.
“Are you going to make it?” I said snidely. “Next time, I’ll make you a nice cup of coffee to keep you engaged.”
“All that sugar isn’t good for you,” he said.
“Of course it is! It’s a mug of fun!” I waved the coffee cup at him. “We have ten flavors of ice cream in the freezer.”
“At my office, we only have healthy snacks.”
“You have ice cream?” Liz asked hopefully.
“Of course! What kind would you like? Mark, I can give you something to lick too!”
I mentally kicked myself as I played that back in my head. Keep it together.
Ivy was too professional to snicker, but Liz laughed then clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Not like that!” I exclaimed, hurrying to the fridge.
8
Mark
I watched Brea scurry off. What was her problem? She was clearly unhappy that I was here at her wedding-planning meeting, that was for sure.
Can you blame her? You insulted her in front of her potential clients.
She returned with giant bowls of ice cream. Liz happily ate her chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream as Brea launched into yet more tedious details of the wedding, such as who was attending and how the invitations were going to be styled. Liz wanted to have a magnet that was like a scrapbook. Then Brea wanted to know if the corners should be squared off or chamfered, and they spent thirty minutes talking about the pros and cons of each.
I was half wondering if it would be feasible to hurl myself through the large glass window. It was probably solidly built. But if I could knock myself out, I might be able to go to the hospital.
My phone beeped with a message. Hopefully it was an office emergency so I could leave.
Wes: If you’re throwing yourself out the window, please take me with you!
Mark: This is supposed to be your dream wedding.
Wes: This is all for Liz. But let’s just say I may be traveling more than normal the next few months.
Mark: Conveniently on the wedding-planning days.
Wes: It’s an unavoidable tragedy.
The women had moved on from the save-the-date notes to talk about the schedule of wedding events. Because apparently it wasn’t enough to have a wedding, there were showers, bachelorette parties, bridal teas, and special shopping excursions that all had to be meticulously planned. I stifled a yawn and looked at Brea. I watched her pick at her ice cream while Ivy talked, carefully excavating each piece of chocolate chip cookie dough and then digging out all the chocolate. It was irritating.
“Why don’t you just eat cookie dough?” I snapped, unable to contain my aggravation.
Brea looked up at me.
“Because then it wouldn’t be chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.”
“You’re just picking everything out!”
“And then I mix all the ice cream with the coffee, and it melts into an ice cream coffee syrup,” she retorted.
Could I make it to the window before Wes stopped me?
“Unfortunately,” Wes said, standing up. “As much fun as the last three hours have been, Mark has a very important meeting.”
“I do?”
“Or did you want to cancel and continue the wedding planning?” Wes asked blandly.
Fuck. Speed dating. It was like the trolley problem—did I want the acid-in-the-face option of spending the rest of the day wedding planning, or did I want to pull out my own fingernails and suffer through speed dating?
“We’re about to talk about the pros and cons of tulle versus chiffon for a drapery in the venue,” Brea said.
Pulling out my own fingernails it was.
“Let’s go, Wes,” I said.
He gave Liz a kiss.
There was that pang of jealousy.
“Holy shit,” Wes said, slumping against the far wall after we had escaped to the elevator. “I knew weddings were a big deal to women, but holy hell.”
My brother Carter was waiting outside in a bright-yellow Hummer. “You need to arrive in style,” Carter told me, opening the door with a flourish.
“I’m not riding around Manhattan in that!” I said in horror.
Finn was waiting inside the Hummer. I had been in the Marines, and I knew from experience that Humvees were not roomy. To top it off, my cousins and I were not small men. We crammed in as Carter peeled into oncoming traffic to the blares of horns.
“You’d better slow down,” I warned.
“Now, Mark,” he said, turning back to look at me. I cursed as Carter almost rear-ended a FedEx truck.
“Watch the road!” I barked at my little brother.
“We’re here to give you a crash course before your date with thirty of Manhattan’s finest women,” Finn told me.
“Just be yourself,” Wes advised.
“No, don’t!” Carter said, fiddling with the radio while I hung onto the car door for dear life. “Your real self is boring and off-putting. You need to channel your inner Carter.”
“I do not and will never have an inner person that acts in any way as immature as you do,” I told him.
The ca
r lurched to a stop in front of a hip-looking bar in Midtown. I wrenched the door open and stumbled out.
I’ll suffer through speed dating if it means I can have a drink.
“All you have to do is say something funny and memorable,” Wes said, slamming the passenger door and slipping off his sunglasses. “Women like men who make them laugh.”
“No!” Gunnar Svensson said, throwing open the door to the bar. “Women like men with money!”
Dana shoved him out of the way, rolling her eyes. “I’m so glad you came.”
“Wait, is this a TV show?” I asked suspiciously.
“It’s for a reality dating show we’re doing,” Gunnar said, running a hand through his shaggy blond hair.
“I’m not being in any of your TV shows. I refuse.” I crossed my arms.
“Relax!” Dana said, ushering me inside. “This is just a casting session. You won’t be filmed.”
“Well, you will,” Gunnar amended, “but it’s not going on TV. It’s just for internal review.”
The bar had dark leather furniture and moody lighting. Carter rubbed my shoulders like I was a prize fighter.
“Don’t think of this as finding your soul mate,” Gunnar said, his cuff links softly reflecting the light. “You’re just here to play the field.”
Finn nodded. “You’ve only been on three dates since Rhonda. You just need to work up to being in a relationship. Baby steps.”
Wes shoved a piece of paper at me. “Grant and I wrote out some memorable opening lines for you. Just try them out. And have fun!”
“Yeah, you don’t actually want to date anyone here,” Dana said, lowering her voice. “These are bottom-of-the barrel people. One woman is here with her daughter.”
“Lots of broken people do speed dating,” Gunnar said, nodding.
“See, Mark!” Carter exclaimed. “You’re going to fit right in.”
Wes pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You don’t want to stay, Finn?” I asked wryly. “You’re still single.”
“Yeah, for good reason,” he said. “Don’t want to take the chance of ending up like my father.”
“Hey,” Gunnar said, swinging an arm around Finn’s shoulder. “My father is a leader of a polygamist cult. I feel your pain.”
“I think my dad is worse than yours.”
As my friends and family left—abandoned me—several well-dressed women came into the bar and looked around critically.
“The women in Manhattan are savage,” Dana said in a low voice. “If they don’t like the pickings, they just leave. But billionaires are the best bait.”
One of the women saw me, and her eyes went wide.
“I feel like I need to be compensated for this,” I told Dana.
“We just bought a minor cable network, so we’re all out of cash,” Dana said, tossing her dark, glossy hair and directing the women to the sign-in table. “At least the ratio in New York City is in your favor,” she added, shoving a drink at me.
It was a toxic shade of red but smelled like alcohol, so I supposed it would have to suffice.
“There are so few eligible men here that women are going to be falling over themselves to talk to a billionaire.”
Gunnar shoved me to a table.
“You know how speed dating works, right? Short, five-minute dates to get to know the other person and see if you want to move to something longer. You just have to sit here and look sexy, and the women will flock to you.”
Gunnar wasn’t lying. Dana made a short announcement, then the first woman made her way over to me. A bosomy career reality-TV-show girl with overbleached hair and butt implants, she batted her eyelashes at me.
You want a family and a partner, I reminded myself. This will be good practice.
I surreptitiously looked down at the list of opening lines Wes had given me.
“What’s your horoscope?” the woman cooed.
“My horoscope? What does that have to do with anything?” I asked in confusion.
The woman looked mildly annoyed. “If you don’t know, just tell me your birthday, and I’ll help you figure it out.”
I was immediately suspicious. “Are you trying to steal my identity?”
My speed date made an exasperated noise. “I guess this is why you’re still single, huh? I’m not sure your big bank account and whatever you’re packing in your pants is enough to deal with that lackluster personality every day for the rest of my life.”
Gunnar made a What the hell? gesture from across the room.
I tried to mouth, Not my fault, but by then the next woman had already draped herself over the chair across from me.
“That bitch clearly didn’t have any staying power,” she purred, jerking her head slightly to the horoscope woman.
I swallowed and looked at my list. “Would you grab my arm so I can tell my friends I’ve been touched by an angel?”
She made a disgusted noise. “Creep. Is this some sort of a joke to you? I’d dump my drink out on you, but it cost eighteen dollars,” she said, pushing the chair back.
Then there was a blur of women. They were all the same: TV-ready, blown-out hair, perfect masks of makeup, all wearing similarly slinky dresses and high heels.
I was looking at my list, cursing my cousins, when someone who reeked of coffee and sugar sat down at my table. I looked up.
“Oh, hell no!” a familiar voice exclaimed.
9
Brea
After Mark and his cousin left, I went to fetch Liz some more ice cream.
“You’re excited about planning this wedding!” Ivy said, opening the freezer for me.
“Sorry, I know you’re the wedding planner,” I said.
“Please!” Ivy snorted. “I love having an organized maid of honor with good taste. It makes my job easier. Then I can sit back and enjoy the little flirtations of the wedding party. Like your obsession with a certain best man.”
My hand froze on the ice cream container. I gaped at Ivy and sputtered.
“What? Mark? No. Never. I can’t stand him. Didn’t you hear him? He’s the absolute worst! I don’t know why he’s even here!” I railed. “He has nothing but contempt for weddings. You should have heard him.” I stabbed the ice cream. “Making those obnoxious comments with his stupid scowl and his jaw.”
“Sometimes guys are mean to girls they like,” Ivy teased.
“That’s sexist bullshit,” I said flatly.
“And some girls are mean to guys they like,” she added knowingly.
“I wasn’t mean to him,” I hissed.
“You threw coffee all over him and were acting like an angry, possessive ferret through the whole meeting,” Ivy retorted.
I stewed on her words as I handed Liz her ice cream.
“Thanks! I really shouldn’t, but I’m a nervous wreck,” she said as she took a big bite.
“You’re growing a baby,” I assured her. “You get a pass on all the things that make you happy and stress free.”
“I do eat a large salad every day,” Liz said defensively.
“We at Weddings in the City are not here to judge you,” I assured her.
Liz left after I showed her the sketches of the options for dresses that I was working on. I made notes of her suggestions and comments so I could go home and work on a mock-up of each of the three options I had come up with. I needed to test everything before I started sewing the actual dress.
“The only problem with being a maid of honor,” I said as I gathered up my sketchbooks and sewing bag, “is that I missed a lot of the daylight today.”
“Why don’t you just move in here?” Sophie suggested. She had brought in a new cake recipe she was trying, and after sending Liz home with a generous piece, she made us all try it and give her copious notes.
“I sprawl,” I said with a grimace. “You’ve been to my—well my parents’—apartment.”
Sophie was practically jumping up and down. “You don’t sound all that excited to go back t
here.”
“I’m not,” I admitted. “But I think there are some Rice Krispies treats left.”
“Boo! That’s not exciting.”
“I mean, they’re chocolate Rice Krispies,” I said, hefting my large sewing bag.
“You know what’s better than Rice Krispies treats?” Sophie said conspiratorially.
“Cake?”
“Men!” my friend said excitedly. “There’s a speed-dating event in Midtown. I signed us up!”
I made a face.
“Come on! You’re always listening to those romance books. Now’s a chance to see a real live penis in the wild.”
“I saw a wild penis on the subway recently,” I said as we took the elevator down. “It belonged to a crazy homeless man who was spouting off about the end of the world.”
“This is a high-end speed-dating event,” Sophie cajoled. “The penises will all be attached to well-groomed, good-looking, preferably rich men. What do you say?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Wanna go dick shopping?”
“I can’t believe you talked me into this!” I complained when we stood in the doorway of the fancy bar. I glanced up at the menu and wheezed. “What kind of cocktail costs twenty dollars?”
“Just order a seltzer water and ask them to put a lime in it,” Sophie suggested.
“I’m going to need alcohol to make it through this madness,” I told her.
The speed dating was chaotic. I was also not dressed for it. All the other women appeared to have showered, changed, and put on fresh makeup for the event. I looked down at my chest. There was melted ice cream on my blouse.
“Maybe I’m not right for this event,” I said,
A tall, blond man in a sharp suit grinned at me and waved me over. “Find your name tags, ladies.”
“Just stay for one round,” Sophie pleaded as we stuck our name tags on our shirts then went up to the bar. A slightly doughy man smiled at us.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he offered.
Sophie peered at him suspiciously as he motioned to the bartender.
