The Week Before the Wedding

by Beth Kendrick

  “I have plenty of female friends. Like Summer. I absolutely adore Summer.”

  “Summer doesn’t count; she’s your stepdaughter.”

  “Former stepdaughter,” Georgia corrected. “And the fact that I still adore her, despite her nightmare of a father, and the fact that she dares to be younger and prettier than I am, just goes to show how forgiving and easygoing I am.”

  Emily picked up her cue, and said, between a laugh and a sigh, “No one’s prettier than you are.”

  “No one,” Brad threw in.

  Georgia beamed. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” She batted her eyelashes at Brad, but Emily steered the conversation toward the point she really wanted to underscore:

  “And speaking of Summer. I know how you two get, and I’m warning you: Do not terrorize the wedding guests.”

  Georgia’s smile went from flirtatious to diabolical. “Just stay out of our way and no one will get hurt.”

  “Mom, I’m begging you, just for this week, can’t you please try—”

  “Oh, Emmy, stop being such an old lady. Try to have some fun.” Georgia gave a dainty little finger wave to two older gentlemen seated at the bar.

  “Georgia!” They fell all over themselves pulling out a chair for her and beckoning her over. “You look great! What’ll you have?”

  “Two Bloody Marys for me and my gorgeous daughter.” Georgia laughed. “But don’t get any ideas, fellas—she’s taken!”

  “Just water for me,” Emily said. “I’m off alcohol, carbs, and sugar until the wedding.”

  Brad slipped away, mumbling excuses about work, but Emily noticed the concierge glancing back at her mother as he returned to the lobby.

  “Come on, let’s mingle.” Georgia grabbed Emily’s elbow and pushed her toward the men.

  “Wait. Who are those guys?”

  “Bankers from New York. I met them on my way in, over by the tennis courts. Aren’t they dashing?”

  “How do you do it?” Emily wondered aloud for the thousandth time. “You’re like a Svengali or something.”

  Georgia winked. “Oh, you know how it is, sweetie. I just do a little dance and sing a little song, and people eat it up.”

  This statement would have sounded immodest if it weren’t so true. Maybe it was the red hair or the lilting laugh or her silly self-indulgence, but males of all ages had always been willing to stop whatever they were doing to help Georgia get whatever she wanted.

  Which was not to say that her life had been easy. Georgia tended to go to extremes—the highest highs, the lowest lows, opulence or poverty. In her eyes, moderation was akin to cowardice, and moral obligation was like slavery of the soul.

  Growing up with Georgia for a mother had been a thoroughly exhilarating—and exhausting—experience.

  Even now, every time Emily buckled herself into the passenger seat of Grant’s car, she couldn’t help reflecting on the contrast between her smooth and structured adult life and her turbulent childhood. Grant had bought the Audi after he finished his surgical residency, to celebrate signing on as a transplant surgeon at a university hospital in Boston. With his customary practicality, he’d chosen an understated sedan over a flashy Porsche or Mercedes convertible. Georgia, on the other hand, had always preferred to make a statement with her vehicles. She’d let all of her daughter’s friends pile in—seat belts be damned! The automobile model and manufacturer had changed over the years, from a tiny red Mustang to a cushy Cadillac to a cavernous Range Rover, but certain factors remained constant: The floorboards were always littered with sunglasses, tubes of lipstick, and valet parking stubs. The music was always loud, and all passengers were required to sing along. (Emily knew the lyrics to every song on Madonna’s True Blue album by the time she was four.) And when Georgia got pulled over for speeding or running a stop sign, Emily and her friends were to remain silent while Georgia simpered and pouted until the officer let her off with a warning.

  The red Mustang and Range Rover eras marked periods of prosperity, when Georgia was newly married or freshly divorced. But when she was single, things were different. There were tiny, thin-walled apartments instead of spacious suburban homes; waiting at bus stops in sleet storms instead of tooling around in shiny new cars; phone calls from collection agencies at all hours of the day and night.

  “You need to get a job,” eight-year-old Emily had instructed her mother one day when she opened a letter from the electric company threatening to disconnect their power. “A real job.”

  “I’m going to do better than that for you, baby,” Georgia replied. “I’m going to get a new husband.”

  Even as a third grader, Emily knew that this was not how responsible adults behaved. She would stare grimly at her mother, only to have Georgia stare right back and say, “What am I supposed to do? I can’t type. I can’t teach. This is my skill set. This is all I know.”

  And Emily had never been able to argue with that. Her mother had been raised in material splendor, the beautiful, spoiled youngest daughter of well-to-do parents who doted on her, fulfilled her every wish, and sent her off to find a suitable husband at a posh all-girls’ college. Georgia had been a nineteen-year-old sophomore when she met Cal, the carpenter who came to fix a splintered shutter at Georgia’s sorority house.

  Two months later, Georgia was pregnant, Cal proposed, and Georgia’s parents threatened her with disinheritance if she married “that wastrel.”

  Georgia went ahead with the marriage because she was madly in love. Cal was no wastrel. He was funny and hardworking, and he doted on Georgia. Emily didn’t have many detailed memories of her father, but she knew that their little family had been a team. He had anchored them with a quiet sense of confidence and security.

  Like Grant anchored her now.

  Cal’s death sent Georgia into an emotional and financial free fall. Though she had somehow managed to scrape by paycheck-to-paycheck with him, she started spending impulsively without him. She declared that while being poor was worth it for the right man, the right man was gone forever, and there was no point in being both heartbroken and penniless.

  “I’ll never stop loving your father,” she explained to Emily. “But I’ll never stop loving you, either, and he wanted the best for you. He wanted the best for both of us.”

  When Emily was still in elementary school, her mother married Peter, a type-A entrepreneur who’d started his own telecommunications business. When Emily was in middle school, Georgia divorced Peter and traded up for Jules, a temperamental poet who came from a very wealthy family. Jules had a daughter, Summer, who was Emily’s age, and although Emily and Summer bonded instantly, Jules and Georgia barely made it to their first anniversary before splitting in a vicious two-year court battle. After that divorce, there was a lengthy and terrifying bout of deprivation, during which Emily started finding ways to earn her own money: babysitting, dog walking, busing tables at the pizza parlor down the street, which was owned by a family friend.

  She was fourteen. She could help fend off the collection calls and the threatening notices from the utility companies.

  She could not, however, understand why her mother refused to take the same course of action.

  “Get a job!” Emily yelled at Georgia when she came home from school to find an eviction letter on the apartment door. “I don’t want to hear about your ‘skill set’ or whatever! Go work in a fancy bar or something, where you’ll make good tips.”

  Georgia, for once, had listened to reason. “You know, Emmy, you may be onto something.” She’d selected a chic black sheath dress and applied for a hostess position at the country club where she and Jules used to play golf and lounge by the pool.

  It didn’t bother Georgia that her former friends were sneering at her lowly new status as a server. She was too busy catching the eyes of all the movers and shakers who came in for a scotch and soda after a long day at the office.

  Exactly five days after she’d started hostessing, Georgia greeted Dr. Walt Bachmeier, a re
tired ear, nose, and throat specialist. The wedding took place six months later. And Emily, awash in adolescent angst, refused to act as maid of honor, or even to attend the ceremony.

  “I’m not going to this farce,” she informed her mother with an air of moral superiority only attainable in high school. “You don’t even know this guy. You’re just marrying him for money.”

  Georgia put down her mascara wand and crossed her arms over her silk dressing gown. “That’s simply not true. Walt is a delightful man.”

  “He’s ancient, Mom.”

  “He’s established,” Georgia corrected. “Age is just a number; you’ll find that out for yourself when you get a bit older. The important thing is, he still likes to dance and go out and see the world. He loves me; he loves you. That’s all that matters.”

  “All that matters is his bank account,” Emily countered. “You don’t love him.”

  She drew back a bit, half expecting Georgia to slap her for such temerity, but her mother surprised her by looking thoughtful and really considering her reply.

  “You’re wrong, honey. I absolutely adore him. I don’t love him the way I loved your father, true…but we have a more mature kind of bond. We’re companions, not soul mates. He’s smart, he’s funny, and he has the most beautiful manners.” Georgia had adjusted the fresh flowers in her hair. “Besides, you’re starting college in a few years. That tuition’s not going to pay itself.”

  Emily, enraged to be reminded that she stood to benefit as well as her mother, retorted with, “Oh, now it’s my fault you have to get married to a senior citizen who wears plaid pants?”

  Georgia laughed. “It’s golf wear, honey. Lighten up. I think you might really like Walt if you give him a chance.”

  Even as she scowled and stomped her feet, Emily had to admit her mother was right. Walt wasn’t rigid and controlling like Peter or moody and demanding like Jules. He had kind blue eyes, he actually listened to Emily when she talked, and he loved Georgia way more than she deserved.

  Her mother had magic, and she used it to charm other people into taking care of her. And when Emily headed off to college with a tuition check signed by her stepfather, she vowed that she would learn to take care of herself. She would become an accountant or an actuary, instead of a poet or a beauty queen. She told herself that she didn’t need magic, and she wouldn’t succumb to anyone else’s spell, either.

  But she had been wrong. Falling in love with Ryan had been easy—it took all of ten minutes—and the magic had dazzled her. Blinded her.

  Even now, ten years later, she still caught herself wondering….

  “Smile, honey, you’re getting married!”

  Emily snapped back into the present to find her mother pressing a glass of vodka and tomato juice into her hand. She started to protest, then realized that resistance was futile and appealed directly to the bartender. “May I have ice water, please?”

  Georgia’s magnetism drew a crowd, and soon Emily was surrounded by strangers, most of them male, all of them congratulating her and wishing her well and asking her where she was going for her honeymoon.

  Emily sipped her ice water and tried to quell the flutters of panic in her chest. Deep breaths. She was not and never had been a panicker.

  I can handle this. For the next week, she was going to be the belle of the ball, the center of attention, and she could do it. She could do anything for seven days.

  A low, teasing voice murmured into her ear. “You look like you need someone to take you away from all this.”

  She whirled around to find Grant standing at her side. “What are you doing here?”

  “I walked my mother to her room and promised her I’d pick up my sister and my aunts at the airport tonight. That gives us”—he consulted his watch—“five hours. Want to get out of here?”

  “Yes.” She slid off the leather barstool and grabbed her purse strap. “I’m all yours.”

  “Hey!” Georgia snagged the other strap of Emily’s bag. “Exactly where do you think you’re running off to, missy?”

  Emily pointed at Grant and let him do the talking. “I need to steal the bride-to-be for a little while.” He gave Georgia his most charming Dr. Suave smile. “Urgent wedding business.”

  “You can’t leave,” Georgia protested. “We’re celebrating. Join us! Pull up a chair.”

  Grant shook his head, then dug out his wallet and ordered a round for the house.

  “I’ll have her back before dark.” Grant took Emily’s hand in his and led her outside to the resort’s parking lot.

  “Where are we going?” Emily asked as he opened the Audi’s passenger side door for her.

  “It’s a surprise.” He walked around the car and settled into the driver’s seat. “I thought you could use a little treat.”

  “But I’m not allowed to indulge in anything,” she said as they drove down the bumpy dirt road toward town. “No booze, no sugar, no butter…”

  “You can still enjoy yourself,” he assured her.

  “Unless it’s ice water and lettuce, I can’t enjoy it until next Sunday.” She pulled one knee up to her chest. “You better brace yourself, buddy, because the honeymoon is going to be nonstop indulgence. I’m talking strawberry milk shakes for breakfast. Not smoothies—milk shakes.”

  “I look forward to it.” He patted her foot.

  “Bora-Bora.” Just saying the words sent a little shiver of anticipation up her spine. “I can’t wait.”

  “It’s going to be great. No cell phones, no e-mail, no emergencies at the hospital. Just you and me and a bungalow for two.”

  “Bungalow.” She grinned. “I think I like saying that even better than ‘Bora-Bora.’”

  “Ten days,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I took ten days off work.”

  “That’s because you’ve never taken ten days off work. You’ve never taken five.” Emily paused. “Have you ever even taken a whole weekend?”

  “I took off three days when my sister got married.”

  “Which was how many years ago?”

  “Uh.” He coughed. “Six.”

  Emily laughed. “But you don’t have a problem. You can stop working anytime you want.”

  “The point is, I’m overdue for a real vacation. We should pack extra sunscreen, because my flesh might literally crumble to ash in the sunlight after all these years in the hospital.”

  “I know it’s tough for you to get away for so long.” Emily leaned over and kissed his cheek. “So I’ll try to make it worth your while.”

  The words were saucy, but her tone was sweet. After years of playing the temptress and leaving men before they could leave her, she had allowed herself to be soft and vulnerable with Grant.

  Well, she was trying, anyway. The whole vulnerability thing was still a work in progress. She trusted him completely; she’d trust him with her life. But she didn’t always trust herself to be the kind of woman he deserved. She wanted to be perfect for him, and as much as she regretted her past mistakes, she could never undo them.

  She would always be the counterfeit with the checkered past in the idyllic Norman Rockwell tableau.

  Grant returned her kiss when he braked for the only stoplight in town, then continued along a narrow asphalt road until he pulled over in front of a low-slung lakeside building with a swirly-lettered sign in front: VALENTINE SPA.

  “I hear that even ice water tastes delicious while you’re getting a massage.”

  “I love you.” Emily threw her arms around him. “Will you marry me?”

  “Six days,” he said into her hair. “Ready or not.”

  “So what’ll it be?” Bonnie, the Valentine Spa manicurist, offered up three shades of polish. “Pink, pink, or pink?”

  Emily examined the choices, then selected the palest of the bunch. “What the hell? I’ll go with pink.”

  “So you’re getting married?” Bonnie uncapped the little bottle and got to work. “When’s the big day?”

  “Next
Saturday. It’s kind of a wedding-slash-reunion for my fiancé’s family.”

  “That was your fiancé who dropped you off? He sure is nice. Cute, too.”

  “He’s the best.” Grant had delivered Emily to the spa’s front desk with instructions to give her a paraffin mani-pedi before he returned to join her for a couples’ massage. “I’m really lucky.”

  “That’s the right attitude to start off a marriage.” The manicurist nodded with approval, then began a mini-massage of Emily’s left hand. “Relax, hon. Try to release all the tension from your arms and shoulders.”

  “Sorry.” Emily made a conscious effort to calm down. “There’s a lot going on. All the last-minute details.”

  Bonnie turned on some soft, plinky-plunky harp music and worked her way from Emily’s thumb toward her pinky. She paused when she reached the left ring finger. “Ryan, huh? Is that your fiancé’s name?”

  Emily snatched her hand away and tucked it under her thigh. “No. He’s Grant. My fiancé’s name is Grant.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry.” The other woman looked stricken. “I didn’t mean to—I just saw the tattoo on your finger and I thought…”

  “Of course.” Emily forced herself to put her hand back on the counter. “That’s a reasonable assumption. But I didn’t realize it was so, um, obvious still.”

  She’d paid a lot of money to get Ryan’s name off her body—it ended up being more expensive than she’d expected. More painful, too.

  Signing up for tattoo removal turned out to be a much bigger commitment than signing a marriage certificate. After pricing out the treatments at laser clinics in her area, Emily had to wait until she’d received her first corporate bonus to afford the expense.

  Then she had to talk to the medical staff and set up a series of appointments.

  “It’s a small tattoo, and relatively recent,” the bubbly blond nurse had told her. “You’re lucky—you’ll probably need only two or three treatments. And black ink is the easiest to remove. If you’d written ‘Ryan’ in red or purple, that’d be a much bigger production.”

  “Will it hurt?” Emily asked.