by Howe, Violet
“I’m sorry. Good luck with the wedding.”
Shelia hung up, and I hung my head.
How on earth was I going to tell Heather and Sean that the one thing they most wanted for their wedding was not happening? The one feature of their event that meant the most to them and their guests?
My phone buzzed with a text from Charlotte that the pictures were almost done. I had to get back to the hotel to get the ceremony started. But I couldn’t just leave without a solution to the dance floor.
I went to find Ivan and passed the first of the arriving band members on their way in to unload equipment. A lot of good the band would do me with no dance floor.
If I had expected Ivan to panic along with me, I had underestimated the calm nature of a man from Jamaica. “It’s fine. No worries, no harm. They can dance right here.” He gestured toward the commercial-grade carpeting on the floor.
“Ivan. That won’t work. They’re professional dancers. They need to be able to glide.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we can use the patio.”
“It’s five thousand degrees out there. Besides, it’s nowhere near big enough. I need all this space for dancing.”
Ivan smiled. “It will be okay. They can dance right here. You have the space. Just not the floor. They will be happy to be married. We will give them a good party.”
I had no patience for the optimism I usually enjoyed.
“I have to get to the ceremony. I’ll call and let you know what I figure out.”
Ivan nodded. “It will be fine. We will be ready for them.”
Leo, the band leader, approached as I turned to go.
“What’s up? What a storm, huh? We had a tree down on my street. I had to drive through my neighbor’s yard to get here.”
I nodded and motioned for him to walk with me. “We have no dance floor coming.”
Leo stopped. “What?”
I motioned again for him to follow me. Time was short, and I had to get back to the hotel.
“The rental company got hit by lightning. They’re not making any deliveries.”
“That’s not good.” Leo rubbed his goatee and frowned. “We got a lot of dancers in this group.”
“Yes, I know. I gotta get back to the ceremony site. You guys are good, right? Got all the music? Everybody’s here?” I turned to him as I unlocked my car door. “You’re gonna have to knock this one out of the park. They’re gonna be pissed about the dance floor.”
Leo nodded. “Yeah, we’re set. Want me to call around? See if I can get a floor?”
“Yeah. If you have time, that’d be great.”
I called Cabe on my way back to the ceremony and asked him to do the same. It was all for naught, though. Even with Cabe, Ivan, and Leo all making calls, there was no dance floor to be found. I knew it was a long shot, especially on a Saturday when we weren’t the only ones calling to find a replacement and we needed a gargantuan amount of tiles.
There was nothing I could do. The dancers would have to use carpet.
Heather and Sean took it as well as could be expected. Tears, fury, anguish, and then acceptance. Their money would be refunded, of course, but their wedding wouldn’t be what they had planned.
Cabe had dinner waiting for me when I got home, exhausted from the stress of the day. He felt bad that he’d struck out on finding a replacement floor.
“How could they just say they’re not going to deliver when you had a purchase order clearly stating what you had ordered? And you confirmed it. The guy knew about it.”
He put the plates on the table and returned to the kitchen for silverware. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already said numerous times throughout the day, but I was sick of talking about it.
“Can we please talk about something else?” I asked as he joined me at the table.
“Sure. Let’s talk about our wedding.”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. That certainly wasn’t a less stressful topic.
“Okaaay. Or maybe not.” He shrugged and shook his head. “I didn’t realize that was a groan-inducing conversation.”
Oops. I reached for his hand and smiled, reminding myself not to lump our wedding in with all the others I deal with every day. “I’m sorry, babe. It’s not. What do you want to talk about?”
“Have you thought about a location? Where you’d like to have it?”
I shook my head and gulped down a swallow of wine. The dull pain that had started throbbing in my head with the dance floor increased in intensity as he continued.
“Are you thinking to have it here somewhere, or do you want to go back home?”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying not to dampen his enthusiasm with my stress and reluctance. When I opened my eyes, he was watching me intently.
“Tyler, I feel like every time I mention the wedding, you get this look on your face like we’re discussing going to the dentist. Should I be concerned that my bride doesn’t seem the least bit enthused to be marrying me?”
I shook my head, ignoring the pounding behind my eyes. “It’s not that. I’m all kinds of enthused to be marrying you. But having a wedding? Not so much.” I paused, steeling myself to jump in the deep end and say what had been on my mind pretty much all the time lately. “I was thinking maybe we could elope.”
Cabe looked down at his plate and stirred the food around with his fork.
I took it that he needed some convincing. “I’m just thinking it’s going to be a hassle trying to get my family and your family together in one place, you know? Plus, the cost of a wedding is just outrageous.”
“We have money, Tyler. That’s not an issue.” He didn’t even glance up from his plate.
“I know, but there’s no reason for us to spend it on a wedding. We want to do some renovations on the house, and I’m looking at going back to school for my degree. I’m just thinking our money would be better spent elsewhere. Besides, I’d much rather lay out some cash to take a really great trip somewhere and get married while we’re there. Honeymoon and wedding in one swoop. Boom! Two birds, one stone. No stress. No hassle. Whaddya say?”
He took a bite and chewed slowly, still not looking at me. I reached over and rubbed my hand across his forearm. I had an inkling he wasn’t going to like this idea, which was why I hadn’t brought it up earlier. He swallowed and paused a moment before he spoke.
“Ty, I know this is what you do every day, so it’s not that exciting to you. And I get that all the family issues will be tough to deal with. Your mom, my mom. Logistics. I understand why you’d want to go somewhere.” He looked up at me then, covering my hand on his arm with his own hand. “But I want a wedding. I want to see you walking toward me in the dress. I want to hold hands with you and walk back down that aisle as husband and wife while everyone cheers us on. I want the first dance, and the toast, and the cake and all that cheesy stuff you see every day. I don’t intend to do this again, so I want to do it right? Ya know?”
Without any doubt, we were both thinking that although he didn’t intend to do it again, he had done it before. When he married Monica, they’d had a rushed ceremony in Big Sur with only her mother and her sister in attendance. He didn’t get the big wedding then, and I was trying to avoid it now.
I swallowed down bitterness at remembering his first marriage and took a deep breath. “We can still do that. I can walk down the aisle, and we can do a first dance and a toast and cake. But with just the two of us on some Caribbean island somewhere. Then we could have a party when we got back. One with our friends and your family here, and then maybe one back home.”
“What do you think your mom would say about that?”
A chill ran across me at the thought of her reaction. My two older sisters had each robbed my mother of an opportunity to plan a wedding. Tanya had done a courthouse shotgun wedding when she and Tom got pregnant their senior year of high school, though she’d miscarried soon after. Then Carrie and Kenny had run off to Vegas together and tied the knot at an Elvis chapel while they were
both three sheets to the wind. My mother had been devastated and bitter as all hell about not being able to host a wedding. As the youngest daughter, I was the only girl left to fulfill her dreams. Which made me even more apprehensive to turn her loose.
I lifted my chin in defiance and pulled my hand from his. “She won’t like it, but it’s not up to her. It’s our wedding.”
“Yes, it is. But I’d like to have our families’ support. I know it would mean a lot to both our moms for us to have a wedding they could attend, and”—he brought my hand to his lips for a soft kiss—”it would mean a lot to me.”
He was right, of course. It would crush both our moms if we got married without them, and it appeared to be as important to him as it was to them. I was the only holdout.
I can think of any number of girls who would kill to have a fiancé begging them to have a wedding and telling them they had plenty of money to spend on it, to boot!
It wasn’t like I didn’t want a wedding. Like I didn’t have ideas in my head over the years of how I’d like to do my own event when it came time.
If I could plan a wedding without having everyone else’s input I’d probably be excited about it, too. But I knew how difficult Mama was going to be about having it done her way, and Maggie would probably have some ideas to contribute as well. Then everyone at work would be pitching in their two cents, and… aargh.
It was exhausting already and we hadn’t even begun.
I struggled to put it all in perspective as Cabe watched me, his eyes filled with uncertainty and questions I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Or anyone else’s.
They weren’t asking me to hike to the top of a mountain barefooted.
It was a wedding. Something I knew quite a bit about. Undoubtedly, I could pull this off.
For Cabe. For Mama. For Maggie.
Aye-yi-yi. I was going to need a lot more wine.
Monday, June 23rd
Just when I thought we had everything out in the open, I got blindsided. By a judge, no less.
Cabe finally had his court appearance today for his little altercation at the airport. He was nervous and eager to get it over with, so I offered to go with him for moral support.
I worried if the judge didn’t know about the crapload of family drama prior to the incident, he might not understand.
But it turns out the judge didn’t need to know any of that. He had another piece of information that I didn’t have. A clue as to why my fiancé was on edge that day. Not just that day, but for weeks leading up to Paris. It even factored into his rift with Maggie.
That one little revelation would have been ever so helpful for me in trying to figure out what was going on with him while he’d ripped my heart out and twisted me into knots.
Cabe was so nervous he almost knocked the chair over when the judge asked him to stand, catching it with his hand just before it tumbled. He cleared his throat and smoothed his tie, first putting his hands in his pockets, then immediately removing them to clasp them behind his back.
“Mr. Shaw, I understand you felt the rules the TSA has set forth don’t apply to you?”
“No, sir.” Cabe cleared his throat again. “Uh, I mean, yes sir, they apply to me. I understand they apply to me.”
“But you didn’t think they applied to you on March 6th. The rest of the traveling population obviously did not need to reach their destination as urgently as you did. Or at least they didn’t see fit to assault an officer in order to do so. Now it says here you were in such a hurry because you had an engagement ring in your pocket, and the lady you intended to offer the ring to was already on the plane?”
My stomach turned a complete flip and my mouth dropped open. It’s quite possible I gasped audibly because Cabe shot a quick glance my way before answering the judge.
“Yes, sir, that’s correct.”
What the hell? He had an engagement ring in his pocket? For Paris? Cabe had been going to ask me to marry him in Paris?
“And is it safe to assume this is the lucky lady here in court with you today?” The judge peered over his glasses at me, and I struggled to close my mouth and acknowledge him in some way. To smile. To swallow. To manage a nod. I think I made some movement, even though my mouth still hung open slightly. Quite the attractive picture, I’m sure.
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Cabe said.
“She said yes, then? After the delay of your detainment?”
“Yes, sir, she did.” Cabe smiled at me and turned back to the judge. I attempted a delayed reaction smile as my brain screamed, “Wait! You had a ring in your pocket?”
“May I ask how the two of you became separated and caused you to find yourself on the wrong side of the security line?”
Cabe shifted his weight from foot to foot as he answered. “We had a disagreement, sir. I had walked away to cool off and didn’t realize I passed the restricted area.”
The judge removed his glasses. “Well, there will be many a disagreement over the course of a marriage, son. I’ve been married forty-two years this October, and while I applaud your intent to walk away and cool your temper, I would advise you to hold your tongue in the disagreement to keep it from escalating. If you displayed with this young lady here the level of frustration you demonstrated with the TSA agents, then she may regret saying yes. You have no prior arrests, no trouble with the law before. I’m going to waive further jail time but I’d like to suggest you find more effective ways of dealing with your emotions. I think you’ll both benefit from that.” The judge turned to me. “Ma’am, I wish you my sincerest congratulations on your engagement, and I hope this is the last time you need to accompany him here.”
My jaw relaxed enough to close, and I managed a nod.
I stayed silent while we walked to the parking garage with the attorney, but my car door had barely closed when I blurted out the question stuck on repeat in my mind.
“You had an engagement ring in your pocket at the airport?”
“Yep.” Cabe grasped my hand in his and planted a huge kiss on the ring I wore. He was still so elated about not going back to jail that he hadn’t even noticed my mood change.
“This ring?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. You think I have a supply of engagement rings?” He chuckled, but I didn’t.
“I don’t know what you have. Why did you have a ring in your pocket that day?”
He sobered as he picked up on my mood. “Because I was going to ask you to marry me. In Paris.”
“So what happened?”
He stared back at me. “What do you mean?”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“We didn’t go to Paris.”
My thoughts were spinning so fast I couldn’t think straight.
Cabe twisted in his seat to face me.
“Look, Ty, I didn’t know the judge would mention that. I didn’t think about it being part of the police report. You’re obviously upset. I don’t know what to say. What can I do?”
I looked away. Yes, I was upset, but I didn’t know what to say either. I couldn’t help but replay it all in my head. The hot and cold mood swings. The on and off relationship. Getting close. Backing off. He’d said it was stress from the family problems. But he’d also alluded to a fear of committing. So to learn he bought a ring in the midst of all that confused the hell out of me.
“When did you buy the ring, Cabe?” I asked the question without even looking at him, scared I would cry if I turned away from the window.
He exhaled deeply and turned off the car. “January.”
I turned as my mouth dropped open again. “January? You bought me an engagement ring in January?”
Paris was March. We had barely crossed the line between friends and lovers in January. He had disappeared and come back all weirded out at the end of January. Was this why? What changed his mind? Had he gotten cold feet?
“So what happened?”
He shrugged. “What do you mean?”
<
br /> Anger rose within me as insecurity, fear, and new doubts crept in. Kind of ridiculous, I suppose, since I was sitting there wearing the ring, just as engaged as I could possibly be, but something had changed.
Now it felt heavy on my finger.
Hot.
Itchy.
Uncomfortable.
I twisted it as I struggled to find words and sort feelings.
“Did you buy the ring for me?”
He laughed, a rather scoffing laugh filled more with disbelief than humor. “Of course. Who else would I have bought a ring for?”
“What made you decide to buy me a ring?”
The disbelief spread across his face as he widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. “I wanted to marry you. Duh.”
“Then what changed your mind?”
“Nothing changed my mind. We’re getting married. Help me understand why you suddenly seem all pissed off. Why does it matter when I bought the ring?”
“Because you’re telling me you bought it in January. Which means that after you bought the ring, you freaked out and backed off and got all scared of commitment. Am I right?”
He placed his hand on my thigh and squeezed. “That’s not a question I can answer with an easy yes or no. But we’re together now. Isn’t that what matters?”
I laid my head back and put my hands over my eyes.
Maybe I shouldn’t have cared when he bought it. Maybe the fact that we’d persevered through everything and ended up together in the end was what mattered the most.
But I’d been given new information regarding one of the most painful times in my life. Feelings of anger, hurt and bewilderment had bubbled right back up to the surface.
I’ve never fully understood why he backed off the way he did, and this new piece of the puzzle left me more confused than ever. I rubbed my hand across my forehead and stared out the window.
“You sat in your mother’s pool house and told me you were happier than you’d ever been before, and then the very next day you fell off the face of the earth and didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“That’s not what I said. I said I needed time to sort through everything. To be sure. I’m sure now. I’ve been sure for a while. Can we not just focus on where we are now?”
