I ran my fingers along the lace again. I couldn’t believe they’d had the option to wear something so beautiful and had turned it down in favor of something more modern. Given the option to wear this veil, I would choose a dress purely on the basis of it matching.
“It might not go with your dress, either,” my mom said. She smiled. “But I figured since you were romantic, like me, it might be your style.” She touched my hand, her face serious. “Don’t feel like you have to wear it, Lizzie. It’s completely up to—”
“I love it.” I held out my hands. “May I hold it?” She placed the veil in my hands, and I ran my fingers over it, rubbing the lace lightly. “It’s the prettiest veil I’ve ever seen. I have to wear it.”
She smiled, her eyes filling with tears. “I won’t pretend I’m not happy to hear it. I always pictured you in it.”
I looked up at her, feeling close to tears myself. “You did?”
She nodded, brushing a lock of hair behind my ear. “Ever since you were a little girl, I would imagine what you would look like on your wedding day. You were always so beautiful in my mind, Lizzie, just like you grew up to be.” She gave me a self-deprecating smile as she wiped her eyes. “Look at me, how silly. I just can’t believe you’re getting married already—I still think of you as my little one. But soon you’ll be walking down the aisle at our church, just like I did, just like your sisters and your cousins. Just like I always dreamed you would. Where did the time go?”
She continued to muse, but I barely heard her. I had suddenly gone cold all over. She had pictured my wedding my entire life. Had pictured me in this veil, getting married in the same church she had been married in. How could I tell her that I didn’t want that? That I’d rather be married in a foreign country, with only our closest family in attendance? That I didn’t want to be married in our family church?
If shaken before, my resolve was completely shattered when she placed a hand on my cheek. “You know, when I was in the hospital, I used to worry that I would never see the day. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here for this, Lizzie. To be able to witness this wedding, just the way I always imagined it.”
“I’m happy too, Mama,” I murmured, allowing her to pull me into a hug. My throat was dry.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shatter her dreams for my wedding. Maybe that made me weak, and maybe Thomas would be disappointed in me, but I just couldn’t do it. We were just going to have to get married here.
***
I planned to tell Thomas about my conversation with my mom that night, but he ended up having news of his own that actually took my mind off the wedding. I knew something was going on as soon as he walked into the house. I was sitting at the kitchen counter, making a shopping list. When I had left my parents’ house, I realized they were low on several essentials. Groceries were a lot more complicated whenever I was shopping for both us and my parents. But even my rumination on how much ground beef was appropriate for two households was forgotten when I saw the look on his face.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my shopping list forgotten.
“What?” he asked, freezing in the act of slipping off his messenger bag. “Why do you think something’s going on?”
“Because you have that look on your face. The look that says you’re excited about something, but you don’t want to jinx yourself by telling me.”
He tossed the messenger bag on the counter and came around the side to kiss me hello. “You’re like a physic or something.”
“I just know you,” I said, looking up into his familiar face. His eyes were bright, his cheeks slightly flushed. Even his breathing was quicker than normal. “So tell me, what’s going on?”
“I just talked to Heidi,” he burst out, clearly unable to hold it in a moment longer. “She called on my way home.”
My eyes widened. “Yeah? Did you talk about looking for a project?”
“That’s the thing.” He perched on the bar stool next to me, his eyes intense. “She actually came across a project already and was calling to tell me about it.”
“Well, it must be pretty good to make you look like that.”
“Lizzie, you won’t believe it. They offered me the lead in the adaptation of Journey. Offered it, Lizzie. They didn’t ask me to audition—it’s mine for the taking.”
“Holy shit,” I murmured, my hand going to my open mouth. That was a big deal—a huge deal, actually. To be offered a role without so much as a screen test was big time, the kind of thing that happened to the crème de la crème of the A-list actors. As if that wasn’t enough, Journey was Thomas’s favorite book. He’d been coveting the lead role ever since we’d first heard rumors the rights to the adaptation had sold.
“This is amazing,” I said, shaking my head to remove the shock. “Thomas!” I let out a little squeal, throwing my arms around his neck. “I’m so excited for you!”
“There’s a catch,” he said quickly, grabbing my hands from behind his head and pulling them to his chest. He peered down at me, his gaze intense. “It starts shooting in a month.”
“A month?”
“I know it’s not ideal. I know we were planning for me to not work until after the wedding. I guess production got moved up, and the actor they were in talks with had scheduling conflicts.” He looked down, and I could sense the struggle in his demeanor. “I told her you and I needed to talk about it, that I wasn’t ready to make any decisions—”
“You’re taking it,” I said immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He couldn’t hide the hope in his eyes, though he tried to argue. “Lizzie, I’d have to go back to London in just a few weeks to get ready—”
“Then you go back to London in a few weeks.”
“But we have a wedding to plan.”
I crossed my arms. “I thought you wanted to hire a wedding planner because you’re such a fancy rich movie star?”
He grinned for just a moment before his face turned serious again. “I don’t want to leave you to do everything. I don’t want to leave you period. I would hate to be away from you for the next few months.”
It was my turn to look down at the counter. I didn’t like the idea much myself. But there was no way I was going to let Thomas turn down this offer. It was his dream role, shooting in his favorite city. He had to do it.
“Look, I don’t need to be here quite so regularly now,” I told him, making my voice as strong as I could. “My mom is doing much better. All of her therapy is being reduced. They even told her she can start driving soon. I can split my time between home and London. We’ll make it work.”
He was already shaking his head. “We said we weren’t going to do long distance anymore, Lizzie.”
“Thomas, it’s Journey,” I argued. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We can handle being apart for a few weeks.”
“It’s longer than a few weeks—”
I smiled. “I’m trying to play it cool, mister.”
Thomas squeezed my hands. “I don’t want you to play it cool. I don’t want you to pretend—”
“I didn’t say I was pretending. I want you to do this, Thomas. I really do.”
“What about the wedding?”
I swallowed. “If we have the wedding here, we would have more help than we could ever need with the planning. We wouldn’t even need to hire a planner. Hell, they’d barely even need me to pull it off.”
“Lizzie—”
“Besides,” I went on, trying to sound more sure about it then I felt. “It will mean a lot to my family, having it here.”
“Yeah, but what about you?” He bent a little so to better peer into my eyes. “I hate you making a decision like this based on what they want.”
I shrugged. “A wedding is about family, isn’t it? I want them to feel like they’re a part of this, a part of our relationship. It means a lot to me that they want to be involved.”
“I don’t know, Lizzie.”
“I talked to my mom today,�
� I admitted. “She gave me her mom’s veil, the one she wore in her wedding. And she told me about how she’s always dreamed of this, of me getting married in the same church as everyone else. I wanted to talk to her about London, but how could I after that?”
“I’ll talk to her, then, if you feel too close to the situation. She loves me.”
“She does. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the wedding here.” I placed my hands on either side of his face. “Look, the important thing to me is that we get married. I’m not just interested in a party; I’m interested in the marriage, you know? Why not have it here, if it means so much to so many people? Besides, you know I’m not good at all of this frou-frou wedding planning stuff. Having my sisters and my parents helping wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
He stared at me, silent, for a long moment. “You know it doesn’t matter to me where we have it,” he finally said. “My family is a lot smaller, and it’s easier for them to get here than it is to get all of you over to England.” He paused. “But I don’t want your sisters making all the decisions for you, Lizzie. Maria was brutal the other night, the way she jumped in and started making plans without talking to you.” His look grew stern. “If we have the wedding here, if we let them help us, you have to promise me that you’ll stand up to them.”
I shifted, feeling uncomfortable, but he placed a finger under my chin, making me look up at him. “I mean it, Lizzie. No humungous dresses that you hate. We pick the food. We pick the music. You have to promise me. I don’t want our wedding to be something that you end up resenting because Maria is pushing you around.”
“Okay,” I agreed, knowing he had a point. Wherever our wedding was, I wanted it to be about us. “Maybe it will be easier for me to stand up for myself now that we’ve decided to have it here. I won’t have that guilt I would have had in London, so it will be easier for me to say no.”
His face tightened at my words, and I realized I probably shouldn’t have used the word guilt to describe our wedding choices. I hurried to continue, hoping he’d drop it. “Besides, I’ll have Sofie here to help me be strong.”
“Okay,” he said, his face finally relaxing. “If this is really what you want, then I’m cool with it.”
“Good.” I smiled up at him. “So. The movie.”
He swallowed hard. “The movie.”
“You have to do it, Thomas. You have to. I’ll be furious with you if you turn it down.”
“I want it, Lizzie,” he admitted, blowing out a shaky breath. “I really want it.”
I laughed. “Of course you do.”
“But I don’t want to leave you.”
“Look, I’ll come over when it makes sense for both our schedules. I’ll spend a week here giving my sisters a break with my mom and doing wedding stuff then the next week or so in London with you. We can talk every day, you know.”
“And what about the wedding plans? Am I just out of the loop?”
“We can do a lot of decision making through email and Skype,” I assured him.
“But we’d still be apart a lot more than I’m comfortable with.”
“It won’t be for very long.” I tightened my fingers in his. “Besides, I miss London, Thomas. I would love to spend some time there. With you.”
“Maybe…maybe we could look for a house?” he asked, his voice hopeful. “A place for us to live after the wedding.”
My breath caught in my throat. We hadn’t talked much about where we would live after the wedding. Everything was pretty much on hold as my mom healed. But now that we were making actual plans, now that the wedding was a tangible thing, rather than a vague fantasy, I realized I could start to envision the future for us on the other side.
“A house, eh?” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “In London?”
“Or the country,” he said quickly. “Whatever you want.”
I couldn’t keep cool any longer—I threw my arms around his neck again. This time, he let me, pulling me close and burying his face in my hair. “House hunting sounds perfect,” I said, my voice shaking a little. “I can’t wait to get started.”
***
Everything seemed to move very fast once Thomas officially took the role. The producers requested that he come to London right away so they could screen test potential co-stars and handle whatever logistical issues there were when shooting a movie. He would be gone for a week, and I decided to make the trip with him. I figured it’d be a good test run to see how ready my family was to help my mom in my absence. Besides, I hadn’t been back to London in months, and I missed it so badly it made my chest hurt just to think about it.
The night before Thomas and I were set to leave, he came into the bedroom to find me packing. “Hey,” I said, distractedly hunting for a missing pair of shoes. “Have you seen my black ballet flats?”
He looked at me blankly. “You have ballet shoes?”
I made a face at him. “Ballet flats. They’re flat shoes without a heel.” When his face still didn’t clear, I had to laugh. “I practically live in ballet flats, Thomas. You see me in them nearly every day.”
“Oh!” He held up a finger. “Those black shoes you wear all the time? I think they’re in the den.”
“Thank you.” I moved toward the door, but he caught my hand as I passed.
“Can it wait a minute? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
The nervous look on his face immediately put my guard up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He led me over to the bed and pulled me down next to him on the edge. “It’s good news.”
“If it’s good news why do you look so terrified?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “I’m a little afraid of your reaction.” He took a deep breath. “An agent called Heidi’s office today.”
I wrinkled my nose. “An agent? Heidi’s your agent. Is this someone that wants to partner with her—”
“No, Lizzie,” he interrupted. “Not an agent for me. A literary agent.”
I felt the air leave my lungs. “Oh.”
“Look, I know how uncomfortable you are using our connection to advance your career. I understand that completely. But…this agent heard about you from Ellen Jacobs.”
Color immediately rushed to my cheeks. Ellen Jacobs was an editor I had met with in Los Angeles. I had allowed myself to be swept along in the fantasy that she and her boss loved my book on its own merits, completely missing the fact that they were actually only interested in capitalizing on my relationship with Thomas—until they basically spelled it out for me. It had been one of the most mortifying—and disappointing—experiences of my life.
“I know you don’t want any kind of repeat of that,” he said quickly. “But this agent seemed genuinely excited about your book.”
“Thomas—”
“Look, what could it hurt to have a meeting? She’s going to be in London next week for a book expo. You could just fit it into your schedule, how easy is that?”
“I don’t know. What if it’s like last time?”
“Lizzie, it won’t be. Working with an agent would be totally different than working with an editor—she’d be on your side, working for you.”
He had a point. The editors I had met in L.A. were primarily concerned with their own bottom line—how my book would work for them. An agent’s job would be to represent the best interest of my book.
“But if this agent heard about my book from Ellen,” I said, “don’t you think she would want the same thing Ellen did? To change it all and make it about you.” I looked away, not wanting him to see how hurt I still was by the whole thing. Ellen and her boss had wanted me to change the entire premise of my book to make it mirror my relationship with Thomas—the whole normal-girl-is-rescued-from-obscurity-by-a-handsome-celebrity angle.
“Not necessarily. And if she does, you tell her the same thing you told Ellen and her boss—you’re not interested.” He took my hand from where my fingers were fidgeting with the hem of
the bedspread. “We talked about this, Lizzie. Every meeting you have with someone in the industry is good for you. It helps to create a buzz, get your name out there.”
I nodded. I knew he had a point.
“Look, is there a chance this agent only heard of you because we’re dating?” he asked. “Of course. But that doesn’t mean she won’t love your book once she reads it.”
There was that thing I had such a hard time getting past—the idea that an agent or an editor would only work with me because I was dating Thomas. It seemed so…unfair to me. As if reading my thoughts, he nudged my shoulder. “It’s only going to get worse when we’re married, you know.” His voice sounded equal parts sad and resigned. “And I’m sorry for that, Lizzie. Sorry that sharing my name might make things uncomfortable for you—”
“Don’t talk like that,” I said quickly. “I’ll never be sorry for attaching myself to your name.”
He gave me that same rueful smile. “I know me being famous means some media attention, and traveling a lot, and a bunch of other stuff that you find tedious.”
“Like parties at movie stars’ houses.”
He looked exasperated. “Only you would call that tedious. But you dealt with it, Lizzie.”
“It’s part of your life, Thomas. Of course I dealt with it.”
“So why can’t you look at the agent thing the same way? Being with me means you might get a little favorable treatment in your career—which, you know, isn’t a bad thing.”
“I know. I know that it sounds spoiled and naive to think of the…nepotism, or whatever, as a deal breaker. I just…” I just wish I could do it on my own.
“I’m not pressuring you, Lizzie. Take the meeting or don’t; it’s entirely up to you, and I’ll support you, either way. Your book can stand on its own merit; I’m sure of that. So why not use this chance to get it in front of someone who can help to put it out there?”
I thought of my sister Maria, of the conversation we’d had right after Mom was hospitalized, when I told her about the humiliating meeting with Ellen. I had complained bitterly about my reputation, how everyone was sure to think of me as using Thomas to get ahead. “You need to decide if you care more about what other people think than about your own happiness,” she had told me, reminding me that Thomas being famous was just another relationship challenge no more or less difficult than anyone else’s relationship challenge.
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