by Eden Butler
“Cuz, you look fine. Beautiful. Really.” Keira tried to return Malaine’s smile, but the woman tipped her chin and moved away too quickly, falling into a loud conversation with one of the bridesmaids whose name had never registered in Keira’s memory.
There were at least twenty-five people in this room. Bridesmaids decked out in various styles of the same dark pink gowns, large, fresh hibiscuses in their hair, photographers—those who were supposed to be there to document the big day—hair and make-up people touching up curls and cleaning up smeared mascara; resort staff who walked around with trays of champagne and, of course, Leann who’d helped Keira squeeze into the massive, overly expensive gown and Mark who sat in the corner of the room—black tux with the same dark pink tie and a small hibiscus on his lapel— and one hand holding his phone as he texted back and forth to Johnny, the other in a tight grip around a half empty glass of champagne.
Crowds of people. Faces she didn’t know, smiles she appreciated but didn’t find comforting or familiar. Lights, cameras, laughter… Keira thought she might pass out.
“Keira?” She grabbed onto Leann when her cousin knelt down in front of her, pushing a frigid glass of water in her hand. “You don’t look blue. You look pale. What’s wrong?”
“The corset. It’s so tight.”
Leann frowned, pushing aside the long, ornate veil before she moved behind Keira to examine the back of her strapless gown. “Honey, I’ve got two fingers between the corset and your back. It’s not tight at all.”
She handed Leann the water and got up on shaky legs, walking toward the bathroom at the back of the room, not bothering to acknowledge the nods she received around her. “I need a minute,” she told her cousin as she trailed behind Keira, waving to Mark to follow them over her shoulder.
“Sweetie, the ceremony is in forty-five minutes. If you have to pee, we need to be quick about it.”
Keira slipped into the bathroom, which wasn’t much bigger than the tiny apartment Keira had rented when she first landed in Nashville. The bathroom at least had large tile floors and Carrera marble countertops with an ornate mirror of vines and flowers carved into the dark wood frame. The dingy apartment in Nashville had plywood subfloors, sloppily patched holes in the drywall and a cheap orange and brown serape thrown on the floors to act as a rug. Keira had no idea why that stupid place had popped into her mind, but it stuck there as she moved toward the faucet and trickled cold water on her neck and the small wish that she was back at that apartment flittered through her thoughts.
“Keira, don’t get your gown wet,” Leann said, coming into the bathroom with Mark right behind her.
Keira glared at her cousin in the mirror then closed her eyes when she spotted Mark’s frown and the fierce way he chewed on his bottom lip. She didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not when she only had a few minutes to catch her breath and break from the constant stream of people who kept approaching her, asking her to do one thing or another, asking if she was nervous, telling her she looked beautiful, commenting that Kona and Ransom both had asked why she wasn’t answering her cell.
“You have my cell?” she asked Mark, thinking the small break would finally give her a few seconds to check her messages.
The silver phone was in her hand and turning on before Mark could straighten his arm to hand it to her.
“Anxious?” Mark asked and Keira stared at him, not in the mood for more of his attitude.
“Quiet.”
Leann yelped when someone pounded on the other side of the door she leaned against. “Ms. Riley? Are you in there?”
“It’s that bitchy wedding planner.” Leann’s voice was low, whispered but Keira heard her, barely noticing how her cousin rolled her eyes.
“Better than the one trying to fuck Kona.”
“Mark!” He laughed, catching Leann’s hand as she swatted him.
“Ms. Riley,” the shrill voice called again. Keira shook her head, nodding toward Leann and her cousin took the hint, opened the door a crack and plastered a wide, forced smile across her face. “Give her just a minute, please.”
“We must maintain the schedule and there is media asking for a few words from her.”
“What media?” Keira asked, pulling her eyes away from Ransom’s message to stare at the woman through the small crack in the door. “Who let the media in?”
The wedding planner, Rita, Keira thought her name was, cleared her throat, lifted on the balls of her feet to look at Keira over Leann’s arm blocking the woman’s entrance to the bathroom. “Mr. Hale.”
“What?” Mark and Keira said in unison.
Eyes wide, the woman nodded, tugging down the jacket of her pale pink business suit. “It’s for some sort of biographical feature on Mr. Hale. National coverage, he said.”
“That’s wonderful.” Keira ignored Mark’s sarcastic, biting tone.
“Why wouldn’t he tell me about this?”
She meant it as a hypothetical question but Leann and Mark started theorizing on their own, once her cousin had shut the door, blocking out Rita’s stern frown.
“Maybe he tried and your phone was off.”
“Maybe he was too chicken shit.”
But Keira didn’t answer either of them, ignored how Mark laughed as Leann told him to stop acting like a child. She scanned her phone, twisting against the counter when the massive underskirt pinched at her back.
“Screw this,” she said, working to untie the heavy, toile skirt.
“Keira!”
“Oh hush, Leann, I have a little bit of time and that thing is hot.” Eyes back on her phone, Keira scanned through the messages. Most were short, then they became two and three sentences as the day wore on:
Ransom: Mom, I need to see you before the wedding.
Ransom: Mom? Are you getting this?
Kona: Baby, we need to talk. It’s important. Call me when you get this.
Ransom: You aren’t at the spa. Did you go back to your room?
Ransom: WHERE ARE YOU?
Kona: Keira, answer your phone! There’s a crew coming from Sports Center to film some stuff at the wedding. Maybe do an interview. BUT I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ASAP!
Kona: Is your phone off? Shit. This is important, baby.
Ransom: Okay, the wedding is in two hours. Please call me back.
Ransom: We have to talk. I have to explain something.
Ransom: Mom, an hour left. Call me!
Kona: Baby, I need to talk to you.
“I have to find Ransom and Kona.” Keira moved Leann out of her way and stormed through the room. It seemed to have filled with even more of the bridal party and resort staff and every step Keira took, someone stepped in her way or tried to stop her.
“Cuz, come take selfies.”
“Ms. Riley, we need to line up the bridal party.”
“Ma’am, here is your bouquet.”
And then Rita pulled on Keira’s elbow, holding up a hand when the crowd around them gathered. “Please, everyone, let’s try to remain calm and give Keira a few minutes. Okay?”
Keira tried to make her expression apologetic, smile wide and cheeks aching as she kept it on her face to everyone that nodded and walked away from her. “Thank you,” she said to Rita, trying to extract her arm out of the woman’s vice grip.
“Where is your underskirt?” Keira opened her mouth, but the wedding planner interrupted her. “It doesn’t matter. They can’t start without you, now can they? I’ll have one of the staff go and fetch it.”
The woman took a few steps toward the door before Keira jerked her arm free. “Where are we going?”
“The interview, Ms. Riley. Mr. Hale was quite insistent that you give them just a few minutes of your time. It’s best to do that now before everything becomes too busy.”
“But I need to see my son… and Kona.”
“I’ll have someone fetch them.”
But Keira got the feeling that the woman had no intention of listening to her. Keira could see it in the cons
tant frown on her face, in the heavy lines that deepened whenever she spoke. The woman was her wedding planner, but it had been clear all morning since she’d hustled Keira and the bridal party out of the spa, that Rita cared more about sticking to her schedule than what the bride wanted. She seemed to be one of those strict, anal retentive people that had to have order and structure. Always.
Keira clutched the bouquet in her hand, letting the heavy scent of the white roses move in and out of her nose. Why the hell am I letting this woman boss me around? And just then, as Rita pulled her down the hall into the lobby next to where the wedding chairs and aisle had been arranged, Keira decided that she wouldn’t act like a flower girl. It was her damn wedding too and she was tired of people leading her this way and that, assuming that she’d be agreeable, that she’d simply gobble down whatever shit they expected her to eat.
“Wait a minute,” Keira tried, finally able to extract her arm from Rita’s death grip.
“Ms. Riley, really…”
“Would you shut up for a second?” The look on the wedding planner’s face confirmed Keira’s suspicion that Rita wasn’t used to a disruption of her intricately laid plans. Keira also guessed that it was rare anyone spoke to Rita with more than a mildly elevated tone.
“Excuse me?”
“I need a moment. I need to take a breath. This is all too much and it’s making me sick to my stomach.” She tried to make the quiver in her voice vanish, but her temper had been stoked and those practiced techniques to control her anger, to prevent her from lashing out, became unfamiliar and unimportant. She closed her eyes, exhaling so hard that her teeth whistled. “I need my son and I need Kona.” She opened her eyes, mildly grateful that Rita wasn’t frowning, wasn’t arguing. “I need them right now. Please.”
“Alright, Ms. Riley, I can do that for you, but please,” Rita waved in front of them, to a room on the other side of the aisle, “take a moment to speak with the media. There won’t be time later.”
A quick nod and Keira walked through the small cluster of wedding guests, smiling at them, listing off the members of Kona’s family, his old teammates she only recognized from their endorsements and news articles. Other than Ransom, Leann and Mark, Keira really didn’t have any guests. That made her frown, it made her ache for Bobby, all alone in Nashville. It made her wish her father was there to walk her down the aisle, that her mother hadn’t alienated everyone around them so the only family they had left would actually want to spend time with them. Being a single mother, then trying to maintain that while working toward success as a songwriter, meant that Keira had never made time for any enduring friendships. She didn’t mind, really. She had Ransom, she had Mark and his Johnny. She had Leann when she’d come for visits and Bobby, of course. But as Keira stepped closer to that open door, to the cameras and lights she knew would be shooting down on her, she wished she’d spoken up, told Kona that what she wanted was simple. Him. Nothing else but him.
Sweat began to collect at the base of her neck as Keira walked into the small reception room. She caught the gaze of a handsome man, a face she vaguely remembered seeing on some sports program Ransom always watched, but she didn’t know his name. He was in a tailored dark suit and his skin looked like smooth, milk chocolate, making his beautiful hazel eyes contrast wildly against that dark complexion.
“Keira,” he said, walking toward her with a wide, honest smile on his face and his hand outstretched ready to shake hers. “I’m Micah Scott.”
Keira’s gaze moved around the room, to the technicians behind the tall lights stretching nearly to the chandelier. The man holding her hand followed her gaze, looked over her shoulder and released a brief laugh. “Kona said you weren’t all that accustomed to media attention.”
“No. Not really.” She took her hand back and he waved her to the center of the room, under those harsh, hot lights and in front of a portal camera set up on a tripod with a large lens staring at her like a shocked eyeball.
“You look beautiful, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Keira usually shied away from flattery, but her mind was too focused on that lens, on the heads peeking into the room from the lobby that she didn’t even blush when Micah complimented her.
“Funny that you lived in Nashville and have been involved in the production of so many popular songs, but you don’t frequently talk to the media. Why is that?”
“Um, I was just never comfortable in front of a camera.”
“But you’re okay on a stage?”
“Sometimes. It’s different.” Her eyes shifted over Micah’s head, to the guy behind the camera as he fiddled with a few buttons. “Can’t… can’t see the crowd from the stage if the lights are bright enough.”
Micah followed her gaze, stepping in front of the camera so Keira had no choice but to look up at him. “Just try to relax. This won’t take long at all. It’s your wedding day and we don’t want to keep you more than we have to.”
Keira nodded, leaned back when a tall man with red hair who smelled of cigarettes and spearmint gum clipped a small microphone to the side of her dress.
“Great. We ready, guys?” Micah looked over to the sound board, the men behind it and then back to Keira when he got a thumbs up.
She saw Micah’s mouth moving and she somehow answered his questions, but she knew she was coming off as stiff and robotic. PR and marketing weren’t things she’d ever excelled at, and her unprofessional, uptight vibe when in front of a camera was reason number one why the label hadn’t expected Keira to do too much media.
Micah kept asking questions and, mindlessly, Keira answered, but her voice was pitched too low, she sounded nervous. The lights above her felt like a raging fire, warming her so quickly that within just a few minutes, Keira could feel the expertly applied make-up melt on her forehead.
More people from the lobby hovered near the door. Kona’s uncles and cousins tried to withhold their laughter as Keira, eyes round and worried, answered Micah’s continual questions mechanically, without any personality at all.
Keira’s heart began to pound and she felt the breath in her chest growing weaker, shallower, as though something was preventing her from getting enough air into her lungs.
“One last question, Keira. You and Kona plan on living in New Orleans, but with your work centered in Nashville and Kona’s new job with Sports Center in Los Angeles, how do you plan to maintain a successful marriage?”
The words didn’t make any sense, but they stuck in her mind. Kona’s new job and Los Angeles. Anything spoken after that, like the very intrusive question Micah had asked, didn’t penetrate. That rapid beat of her heart suddenly hammered up a notch and her breath faltered until Keira lowered her head, dizzy, gasping, reaching out for Micah’s arm when he grabbed at her.
“Keira. You okay?” She felt him twist away, voice directed to someone she couldn’t see. “Get her a chair, now.”
But Keira didn’t want to sit. Even though she felt breathless, she didn’t want to be coddled and treated like a delicate glass trinket. She wanted answers. She wanted that ripping burn in her heart—the one that felt eerily too similar to the day she walked away from Kona in the prison—to ease, to melt away like the heavy make-up she was wearing.
Keira shook her head when Micah tried to make her sit and she took him by the arms, demanding his attention, needing at least a small thread of understanding. “Did you say Kona got a job in California?” The sportscaster didn’t need to answer her. She saw the realization in his rounding eyes, in the small curse that whispered under his breath. “Right. Okay,” she said, nodding once, pulling the mic from her gown, dropping it to the floor before she stepped away from Micah.
“Keira, wait. Please. I’m so sorry. I thought you knew!”
But she didn’t want the sportscaster’s apology. She didn’t want anything but Kona and his explanation, the truth she knew would break her heart all over again. He’d been with her the night before. He took her, he told her he loved her, told her s
he was his world. But if that were true, why wouldn’t he tell her he’d be leaving? Why would he want to marry her and then turn his back on their plans, the plans they had discussed and agreed upon, and instead take a job in California? How could he say he loved her and then go ahead and make such a huge decision without even talking to her first?
By the time Keira shouldered through the crowd of relatives bottlenecking the door, a line had formed in the lobby, a cluster of guests waiting to be seated. Micah was still calling after her and Keira tried to ignore him, ignore the soft touches to her back, arms and worried queries about her from Kona’s cousins as she weaved through the crowd.
Head down, her veil falling in front of her face, Keira tried to stay the tears that were building in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. It would ruin her make-up. It was her wedding day. What bride cries out of misery on her wedding day?
“Keira, there you are!” Only Mark’s voice could have brought Keira’s gaze up as he met her just outside the aisle, near the waiting guests. The second he caught her gaze, he walked faster, took her hand and lifted her face up. “Sweetie, what is it? You’re as white as those flowers in your hand.”
“I—Kona…”
“Mom! Oh, thank God.” Behind Mark, Ransom jogged toward them, looking so beautiful, so much like his father, far too much like a man, in his black tux. He stopped short when he registered the expression on Keira’s face and how tightly Mark held onto her. “You found out.”
If Ransom would have shot her, right in the chest, she doubted her breath would have left faster. Keira pushed away from Mark, standing in front of her son, hurt, pain, mixing with the dormant rage she’d kept buried for sixteen years.
“You knew?”
“Mom, we’ve been looking for you for hours. Everything’s so crazy and with the media and all the family and guests,” Ransom took a breath, moved his fingers through his hair. “Anyway, Dad and I wanted to talk to you about something before the wedding, so you wouldn’t be upset.”
