“Mom … Mom … MOM! Okay, if we have the releasing of the doves, can I skip the horses?”
I heard a squeal of delight on the other end of the phone.
“Okay, mom … okay … OKAY! Look … look … LOOK!” Natalie popped her head up and had a thought. “Alexandria is standing right here. Don’t you want to talk to her again about the food?” She grabbed my wrist and thrust the phone in my other hand.
I squinted at her and mouthed coward as I prepared for the onslaught. “Yes, Mrs. Polaire … I’m ready to make the lasagna … I’ll bring the pans to the church kitchen and put them into one of the refrigerators the night before. We’ll pick up the antipasto platters from Tony’s the next day. … Thank you, I think that the tiramisu will work best if I make it in large pans, too. … Yes, I’ll have fresh fruit as well. … I’ll put all of that in the other refrigerator. … No …” We went over the same plans that we had discussed several times before I finally said, “No, it’s my pleasure, Mrs. Polaire—what? No, Natalie actually just went into a meeting. I’ll have her call you when she gets out in about four hours—yes, I know that IS a long meeting. … Yes, she does work really hard. … I really have to go, too. Okay, bye now.”
A crumpled Natalie stared at me.
“Omigosh, Alex, thank you for that reprieve. How on earth could you stay so calm?”
“Simple, honey. It wasn’t my mom or my wedding. It’s a known fact that mothers and daughters turn into completely different people during wedding planning.”
“I don’t see that happening with you, as close as your family is.”
“Ha! I’m sure it will be a three-ring circus of advice if I get engaged and plan a wedding. I’m the first girl in three generations, don’t forget. Plus, we’re Italian. Get three Italians in a room and you get four totally different opinions.”
I smiled as I pictured my normally no-nonsense mother finally getting the opportunity to be mother-of- the bride and my brick of a father choking back a tear walking me down the aisle of our small parish church. Damian would preside over the ceremony, of course. How old would Elisabetta be? Could she be flower girl? Oh, and what kind of flowers …?
Stop! This was not on the three-item list that I promised myself I would stick to this morning. My own wedding was far in the future. According to my little list, I shouldn’t even be in the market for a man yet.
“I think that’s just what I’m going to do. What do you think?”
I realized that I was daydreaming while Natalie was pouring out her heart. I quickly tried to recall any words I heard while I was in my reverie. Run away? Elope? Nooo!
“Natalie,” I kneeled down beside her and took her hands into mine. I began in a soothing voice. “You just have jitters. All brides have them, you know that! And you also know that your mom is just really really …”
“A lunatic?”
“A mother of the bride. You are her only little girl! She’s dreamed of this day since you were born. It will all be fine. You and Sam can’t—” Ooops, wrong thing to say. I began again.
“You know that you and Sam don’t want to elope. You guys both have talked about how much you want to share this moment with all of us.” She shook her head. “How about the food? I’ve already bought
everything.”
“Donate it to the food pantry.”
Drat. That was a sensible answer and hard to argue.
“What about your awesome wedding dress? Do you really want to let that go to waste?”
“Don’t care. Give it away.”
The dress that she had spent months scouring not only Denver, but also LA and even Chicago to find? Ha! I highly doubted that if Natalie could hear herself speak those words that she would believe it.
“No. This is too much! It’s all a big mistake! All of it. Sam … everything.” She put her head in her hands.
Whoa! Now she was one step away from going rogue and calling off the whole wedding!
“Come on, girl.” I lifted her to her feet, grabbed her purse, walked her to my desk, and grabbed my own bag. We started walking toward the door, passing Elliott on the way.
“Where are you guys going?” he asked. “We have a meeting.”
“Not now, El. Wedding jitters emergency.” I continued forcefully pushing Natalie down the hall.
“Hey! What am I supposed to tell Felicia?”
“You’re the creative director,” I tossed over my shoulder. “Be creative!”
“Thanks so much, Alex,” said Natalie as we finished cupcakes at the bakery twenty minutes later. “I just don’t know what came over me!”
“Five-days-to-the-wedding-itis is what came over you, sister,” I said. “I know I have never been a bride, but I have been in enough weddings and have watched enough bride shows on the TLC channel to recognize it.”
“I just didn’t think it would happen to me!”
“Yep, no one does. But you know, you have so totally been the opposite of a Bridezilla this whole time, so you were allowed this breakdown.” I smiled. “Besides, better today than Saturday when you have a church full of people!”
“Eek. I can just imagine that.” She shuddered. “Thanks so much for talking me off the ledge. What was I thinking? Did I really say give my DRESS away?”
“Yup. When I heard that out of your fashionista mouth, I knew you needed a serious infusion of sugar.”
I pointed to the cupcakes. Natalie licked her fingers.
“Oh, yes. These did the trick. But you know, I really think they aren’t as good as the red velvet ones you made the other week.”
“What? Nah. That memory is just the result of a feeding frenzy, I think.”
“Don’t be so modest, honey. You have the gift. I really think you should consider the idea of doing this for a living.”
“Wandering around, finding jittery brides and eating cupcakes with them, you mean? I would gain a million pounds.” I tried to deflect the subject.
“Don’t be cute with me. You know what I mean. You should be a chef or cook or something. You really have the gift for showing love through food.”
“Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Especially from you, considering that you are hanging the success of your wedding reception on my modest cooking abilities. But we’ve discussed this before. I trained to be a marketer, I can’t change in midstream. What would my dad say? That would be very irresponsible, and I have to be responsible in something,” I said, thinking about my disastrous love life.
“I know you think you know his opinion, but have you talked to him about it?” asked Natalie. “I bet he’d be supportive. From what you tell me about him, I think he’d be more interested in you being happy.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I really don’t want to be the only one of his kids that is a failure.”
“A failure! You are WAY hard on yourself!” Natalie gathered up our trash to toss as we started back to the office.
“I know I’m harder on myself than I am on anyone else, especially on this kind of thing,” I agreed. “Oh, except for our company. I think someone needs to be hard on them. I think we need a harsh lecture on this direction change du jour that we go through.”
“Maybe we’re on a roll with this latest one. We haven’t had a change in direction in”—Natalie glanced at her watch—“my gosh, a day! That’s a record, isn’t it?”
We laughed and walked back to the office arm in arm.
“Where have you been?” Elliott greeted us with the sternness of a father greeting daughters missing curfew.
“Relax, Dad, we brought you a bear claw,” Natalie tossed the bag on his desk.
“Well, pastry is not going to get you out of this jam.”
Natalie and I laughed at his unintended pun.
“Ha. Well, you two are going to laugh out of the other sides of your mouths when I drop this knowledge: we have to change our marketing campaign.”
We groaned.
“Not so funny now, huh? And you want to know the �
�icing’ on the cake?”
Natalie punched him, “Quit it, funny boy. The joke is over.”
“Everything is due tomorrow—brochure, slides, web update—”
“We get it.” I cut him off. “It’s not like we haven’t gone through this drill before.” I grabbed my laptop.
“Shall we retire to the conference room to brainstorm? Hopefully, you got information from Felicia from which to work.”
“Yes.” He licked the remaining bear claw crumbs from his fingers and gathered his materials.
“Onward,” said Natalie. “Thanks for covering for us while we were gone, El.”
“No problem. Thanks for the bear claw,” he said, mollified.
As we trooped to the conference room, we encountered Cam Grayson. (Really? Was there that much IT work that needed to be done on our end of the hall? And when was he leaving, anyway? He’ll probably drive off in a convertible with the redhead, with the wind whipping through her perfect Pantene tresses.)
“So are you guys working on the new campaign?”
Strange. “What do you know about it, Cam?” I asked. What business is it of the TEMPORARY IT guy’s?
“Um, I was updating Felicia’s system when she was explaining it to Elliott.”
“Oh,” I said. “Seems like you should be concerning yourself elsewhere since you aren’t in the marketing department or an executive, don’t you think? Besides, don’t you have OUTSIDE INTERESTS you might want to attend to?”
I pushed him aside and walked into the room.
“Outside interests?” he scratched his head, then said, “Ah, well, I think I see. Alexandria. Natalie. Elliott.”
He saluted each of us in turn, then left.
“What was that about outside interests?” Elliott asked.
“Well,” I sniffed. “If he is going to flaunt his little girlfriend right under our noses, then he should just expect, um …”
“Acceptance? Welcome?” asked Elliott.
“Kindness?” added Natalie.
I looked from one to the other. They just didn’t understand, did they? Wait, what exactly didn’t they understand?
“It’s just not—” I could see that I wasn’t going to get either of them to join in my cattiness. “Ooooh, never mind. We have important things to attend to.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts as we revised our campaign yet again.
Thirty-eight hours, many coffees and sodas, one run for sandwiches, and one late-night pizza delivery later, we had the new campaign.
We looked at each other, survivors in a war of technology and verbiage.
“Whew! One more of those, and I think we’re going to be eligible for combat pay,” I said.
“Beer. I need beer,” came from Elliott, who was lying on the floor.
“You need a shower.” Natalie kicked him. “And we all need sleep. I am going to arrive at the altar on my wedding day looking like I walked down the interstate rather than down the aisle.”
“Natalie, you’re taking Friday off at least, right? I think you need Thursday, too,” I said.
“I’ll be fine. Oh, please, if my mom knows I have time off, she’ll insist on more bonding time, and I really don’t want to do a spa day with my aunts or something else incredibly uncomfortable. But how about you? You’ll be okay, right?”
“Me? I’m not the bride—oh, I see. Don’t worry, I’ll manage to get your meal on the table!” I threw a crumpled sheet of paper at her. “I don’t know why I worried yesterday that you were losing your healthy sense of self-interest.”
She grinned. “Managed to bounce back, didn’t I?”
“Beer. I need beer,” came from the floor once again.
“For crying in the mud, Elliott! Let’s go get you a beer! It’s after six o’clock, and we’ve been here since yesterday morning. I think we can leave.”
We pulled Elliott to his feet. I looked around the conference room, feeling guilty for a minute that it looked like a war zone.
“You guys go on. I’ll be right behind you,” I said.
Elliott and Natalie both stopped in their tracks and without looking back, Natalie asked, “You’re not going to clean up this disaster zone, are you?”
“No. Well, just a little. Natalie, you know I can’t leave this room looking like this.”
They both reluctantly turned around. Elliott in particular pouted and dragged his toes across the floor. “I didn’t say you guys had to stay. I’ll just manage the worst of it and be five minutes behind you, I promise.”
Elliott perked up, but Natalie was not convinced. “Are you sure, Alex? We don’t want to leave you with the grunt work.”
I laughed. “I don’t see it that way, and you know it. Besides, if I left this, I would just be thinking about it the whole time we were gone. Shoo! It will take me a sec, and I’ll be right behind you.”
I pushed them both out the door and set about the business of scooping the worst of the detritus into the trash can, straightening out the chairs and table, and erasing our brainstorming from the whiteboard—including some very inspired but very off-topic artwork of Elliott’s.
When I was nearly done, I heard voices approaching. Through the window, I could see that it was Kenneth, Cam, and Cam’s lady friend. Hmph, she was wearing those crocodile pumps I had eyed in Nordstrom last month. On top of everything, the girl had taste in shoes. I tilted my head. Would I have paired them with that skirt and blouse? Darn it, I definitely would have. And she had those long auburn tresses flowing again. Does the girl never wear a ponytail? Stop it! I didn’t even know this girl, and I was being mean-spirited. She was probably very nice. Probably volunteered at orphanages and delivered meals to the elderly for all I knew. Although girls with looks as glamorous as hers usually were on the receiving end of free meals, purchased by potential suitors in fabulous restaurants. And those suitors all usually wore Armani suits and had names like Brick or Thad … or Cam.
Right. Cam. I looked from her to Cam. Of course someone as model-pretty as her was with him. Look at him with the oh-so-casual tousled hair that was just the right length—the length that said “I’ll get around to getting a haircut this weekend, but until then, I’ll just flick it out of my eyes occasionally.” Eyes that were the color of leaves after a cooling rain. As they paused on their walk down the hall, he sat on a desk and propped his nicely shod foot (polished ... Aldo?) on a chair. Darn it, the man could dress! Gray cashmere slacks, a button-down in just the hint of dusty rose, and an argyle vest that managed to look vintage and brand new simultaneously.
The trio moved down the hall toward me, and I glanced down at my disheveled appearance. My navy Theory tunic and leggings had looked fresh yesterday morning, but by now they had the distinct feel and look of the “last rose of summer,” as my mother would say. And, though I was known for my hairstyle being kicky and unique, I knew that at that moment, it suffered from the ravages of pulling my hands through it once too often over the last thirty-six hours. And I was pretty sure that most of my mascara and eyeliner were gone. I hid in the corner behind the door.
“Kenneth, thanks for the invite to dinner tonight,” breathed the bombshell. “And we are thrilled with you joining us at the Castle.”
As they passed the conference room, Kenneth said “It’s my pleasure, Ava. Totally looking forward to it. Hold on. Let me reach in and snap off this light.”
Wow. Cam sure was a fast mover. He swooped in to the company and became fast friends with the CEO just like that. And apparently vacationing with him and the redhead too—at a castle? Her castle? Well, with a name like Ava, that wasn’t a stretch.
I held my breath. I didn’t want them to see me, but I really didn’t want them to see that I had been hiding behind the door.
“Looks like the marketing group was in here. Fine group.“ He switched off the light, and they continued walking toward the exit. “That reminds me—”
I peered around the door and watched their backs, but couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation.
/>
Reminds him of what? What could the end of that sentence be?
Probably nothing, because I was probably just punchy from being up all night. I might have known what they were talking about if I had just made myself known, rather than hiding like a kid who stole the cookies. But why did I act so out of character and hide when they came down the hall? Oh, I know I didn’t necessarily want them to see how I looked, but Kenneth had seen me look even worse after playing nine innings at company softball games. And I didn’t even know this Ava person, so that couldn’t have been it.
No. I suddenly realized that there was only one person in that little trio whose opinion I was worried about.
“What do you mean ‘he’s taken’? Who’s taken? Where? You know you always open a phone conversation like you’re opening a dramatic novel. Not even a ‘Hello, it’s Alexandria.’”
I knew that Keira was just giving me good-natured ribbing, because this wasn’t the first phone call that either one of us had ever begun as if we were just continuing one long conversation. I just wasn’t in the mood.
“Fine. Hello. This is Alexandria. May I speak with Keira please?” Okay, maybe that was a bit more snotty than I intended.
“Uh-oh. Sorry, honey. What’s wrong?”
“Just what I told you. He’s taken. Cam. Grayson.”
“What? Mr. Urbane? Taken? By whom? And why do you care all of a sudden?”
I was more appreciative of that response.
“Apparently …” I began and recounted the sad saga of Cam, the redhead, and what I saw from the conference room. I realized I was stirring the giant pot of meat sauce I was making for the lasagna for Natalie’s reception a little too vigorously, and stopped.
“Wow,” said Keira. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you didn’t actually check with him to see if this was really his girlfriend/fiancée/niece/cousin. Right?”
“Well, no. But—”
“But, nothing, my Drama Queen,” Keira began in a soothing voice. “If you want my opinion, I think you are jumping to a conclusion. And stop scrunching your face up like that.”
Love on the Back Burner Page 12
