“Well,” Louise went on, “that was a wedding planner. It seems that two of the stars, someone named Ashley Brooklyn or something like that, and a Jake or a Blake, I can’t remember exactly, want to get married at a traditional, charming New England inn. In short, they want to get married at the Blueberry Bay Inn.”
Isobel jumped from her seat. Louise was surprised she had kept still this long.
“Mom, this is amazing!” she cried, pacing excitedly. “This could really be fantastic for us. For the inn, I mean. Imagine the publicity!”
“Yeah. Fantastic, if I don’t totally mess up and wind up losing the business.” How Andrew would gloat, she thought, if I had to declare bankruptcy. But maybe that was being unfair to her ex-husband. He wasn’t a gloater. He would simply shake his head, lips compressed, and say something on the order of: “I told you a country inn was a bad idea.” In Andrew’s opinion, Andrew was always right. Annoyingly, as the opinion of much of the world proved, he was, indeed, most often right.
“Mom, come on,” Isobel was saying, her hands on her hips, “how hard can it be to throw a wedding? You’ve been to dozens of weddings, I’m sure. So buy a few magazines, get some cute ideas, and voilà.”
Louise stared. Isobel’s general optimism and enthusiasm really could be viewed as an astounding naïveté. She decided not to comment on her daughter’s personality quirks. “We’re not throwing anything,” she corrected. “We’re—hosting, I guess would be the right word. We’re hosting a wedding for a minor celebrity couple. Oh, it sounds awful! What am I thinking? I can’t pull this off!”
“Mom, don’t be a Gloomy Gus. How did they find out about us, anyway?”
“Online. Where everyone finds out about everything. Oh Lord, I must be out of my mind. I’ll call the wedding planner right back and say that something came up and—”
Louise made to rise, but Isobel gently pushed her mother back into the seat. “Mom,” she said, leaning down and looking her squarely in the eye, “you’ll do no such thing. Come on, where’s that fighting spirit, that gung ho attitude? Where’s that devil-may-care woman I know so well?”
“Gung ho?” Louise couldn’t help but smile. “Devil-may-care? Are you feeling all right?”
“Of course. I’m just trying to encourage you. And I’ll be here to help every step of the way, don’t forget that.”
And she would, Louise thought. Isobel was a person of her word. “Are you sure I turned lavender? Not sickly mint or icky puce? Not disgusting pea soup?”
“You like pea soup,” Isobel pointed out. “Especially when it has ham in it.”
“Answer the question.”
“Periwinkle!” Isobel cried. “That’s the word I was looking for. You turned periwinkle.”
“Periwinkle?” Louise felt her stomach drop heavily into her lower intestines. “Crap,” she said. “What disaster did I get us into?”
Isobel squeezed her mother’s shoulders. “It’ll all be okay, Mom. I have a feeling our lives are about to change in ways we never even dreamed possible. Isn’t it exciting!”
Louise managed a pathetic smile. “That’s one word for it,” she said.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2006 by Elise Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-9052-6
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9236-0
eISBN-10: 0-7582-9236-8
First Kensington Electronic Edition: May 2013
Back In the Game Page 33
