The Chapel Wars

by Lindsey Leavitt

  A limo pulled into the parking lot. Let me rephrase that. The fanciest, stretchiest limo I’d ever seen parked smack in the middle of our two chapels.

  We gaped at each other in the neon moonlight. Out spilled three muscley bodyguards in black suits. “Hey! Elvis! You open all night?”

  James straightened his posture. “Yes, sir. Can we help you?”

  “Our clients don’t have an appointment, but they want to book the whole place out. They, uh … they need privacy. And they’ll pay. Whatever. Now, which chapel do we go to?”

  A gargle rose from Dax’s throat. “Uh, you sure you want Elvis to do it?”

  “Don’t even,” James growled under his breath.

  The bodyguard took his sunglasses off. His hands were bigger than my whole upper torso. “Or a zombie. How they acting right now … they might get a kick out of a zombie.”

  Dax cut me a look. Whoever was in that limo had money and perhaps some degree of celebrity, and this was exactly the clientele Victor Cranston adored. One celebrity wedding could bring in months of business. There was a chapel down the street that said, “Michael Jordan was married here.” Married in 1992, divorced, and remarried, but people still went there because of Michael.

  It would be a jerky move for Dax to tell them to go to his chapel, but it would be understandable. Roles reversed … I don’t know what I would do.

  His eyes flitted between me and the bodyguards. Holly or mystery celebrity.

  We were making the choice we said we would never have to make.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Dax squeezed his hand into a fist and beat it against his thigh. “Fine. It’s yours.”

  “Of course it’s ours,” James said.

  “Dax.” I squeezed his arm. He was so good. So good. “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just don’t tell my poppy.” Dax stormed back to the chapel but stopped and turned around. “And erase that picture, kid.”

  The bodyguard was still standing there, his meaty hands shoved into his pockets. “So, what do I tell them?”

  “We’re open,” I said. “We have a ceremony ending now, but they can be next and book out however long they want.”

  “Rest of the night?”

  James squeaked. I started crunching numbers. “That’s a lot. We are supposed to be open until five a.m., and it’s our busiest night, and our most expensive package runs up to a thousand dollars, so …”

  “They’ll give you fifteen thousand.”

  I almost choked. Whoever “they” were, “they” did not mess around. “Then we’d be happy to make this a very special evening for them.”

  I scrambled inside and started hollering orders. Minister Dan finished up the other ceremony in record speed while we all tidied up the lobby.

  Five minutes later, the wedding party appeared. First came the flood of bodyguards, then a string of gorgeous men in suits. I instantly recognized two guys from TV. They weren’t nameremember famous, but recognizable enough that even Donna cursed under her breath. Next came the ladies, and three out of four were teen movie stars. They held up the bride, Valerie Hamilton, also a former child-star turned pop sensation. The only thing indicating that Valerie was the lucky girl was the pink BRIDE! sash slipping down her shoulder. Otherwise, she had on a fedora, a holey sweater, and sailor-style jeans.

  “She needs a bouquet,” star/bridesmaid number one said. “And maybe she could brush her hair?”

  The groom, Barry Naylor, was the star of a fake-documentary TV comedy, as well as countless rom-coms. It’s what this all was—a big rom-com of a night where I was making out with my sort-of boyfriend behind a tree, had my Elvis-impersonating brother go paparazzi on us, and, the next thing you know, a limo pulled up with a fourth of the money we needed to save the chapel.

  “Let me take you to the bride’s room,” I said. “The ladies can freshen up. Donna, can you get our wedding party some ice water and butter mints? Anything else?”

  “Hey, am I seeing double?” Barry rubbed his eyes. “There’s a lot of Elvises here, right?”

  “You told us to stop because you saw Elvis,” the bodyguard said.

  “Good.” Barry’s head rolled to the side. “I thought I was the only one who saw Elvis.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t stop and get a marriage license?” I asked the friend. He was on a cop show. He played the handsome cop. Or the handsome lawyer. All I could think right then was handsome.

  “We didn’t even know they were getting married until about twenty minutes ago,” he said.

  Donna visibly cringed behind the counter. Grandpa had been known to turn away last-minute, midnight I-doers if he thought an annulment was in their short future. My quick calculations only gave them a 15 percent chance of surviving the week.

  “We’ll have the limo take them to the courthouse. Just need to show some ID and sign. You’ve booked the chapel all night, no rush. Is there anything else I can do for you guys?”

  “Wasn’t there a zombie outside too?” Barry asked.

  “No, just Elvis here,” Donna said.

  “That was, er, someone from the other chapel.”

  Dad lowered his camera. “Who from the other chapel?”

  “I don’t know. Just someone dressed like a zombie. You know how Cupid’s Dream is.” I prayed that I’d gotten all the zombie makeup off my face.

  “Well, I want a zombie. I was in a zombie movie once.” Barry hiccuped. “Make it a zombie Elvis.”

  Donna walked around the counter and pulled me back. “First Elvis, now this? When does it stop? How far will you go before you realize it’s all too far?”

  “Probably sixty thousand far. Because if I don’t go there, we don’t go anywhere.” I jerked my arm away from her. “Please make a choice to be happy about this.”

  “You want a zombie?” Donna smiled at Barry. “Holly would love to dress up and make any of your wedding dreams come true. That is, after all, what she does.”

  Forty minutes later, Barry and Valerie said their “I dos.” I stumbled slowly behind them as they walked down the aisle, my arms out zombie-style, dirt and ketchup smeared across my face.

  We ended up making $21,000 that night. If we could just maintain average numbers and have a decent Valentine’s Day, we were going to be fine. More than fine.

  Rose of Sharon Wedding Chapel was in business. For now, it didn’t matter if it was the kind of business Donna thought we should be in or not.

  Chapter 13

  Since we worked New Year’s Eve, Sam decided to host a January fourth party. I asked Dax to go. My mom was driving her sister back to Phoenix, and I didn’t work until three the next day, meaning I had no curfew or responsibility.

  But it wasn’t until Dax accepted that I started thinking about the party, how my friends could be … how they were, how he and I weren’t really at the meet-the-friends point yet, how being together with someone on a holiday—even a made-up holiday—makes that “being together” more of a thing.

  I went to Sam’s early to help Camille set up. His mom had chosen a Mexican theme for the evening (for what reason, we knew not), and had a taco bar catered and sombreros hanging from the ceiling and mariachi music playing near the pool. Sam came up behind Camille, shaking some maracas, and kissed her. Which of course lasted too long, so I pretended the salsa bowls needed to be shuffled around. For five painful minutes.

  Camille pulled away and batted Sam on the shoulder. “No more bessar for you, señor!”

  “New Year’s is automatic bessar,” he said.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Wait, so you think just because you’re having another party, you automatically get to hook up with me?”

  Sam grinned. “No, I think because it’s a day ending in y I get to hook up with you.”

  “Sam Perkins! Stop being a jerk!”

  “Hey, babe. Don’t get mad. It’s New Year’s.” He started to sing, deep and twangy. “What are you doing, New Year’s Eve?”
r />   “Tell me that wasn’t a country song.”

  Sam shrugged.

  “That’s how you apologize? It’s not even real New Year’s.”

  “It’s our New Year’s.”

  “If it’s only ours, then why have a big party?”

  Sam reached for Camille. “You like big parties.”

  “No, you like big parties. I like … I like … I don’t even know what I like because you never let me decide for myself.” She turned around and grabbed my arm. “Come on, Holly. Let’s leave him alone with his sombrero.”

  “There’s a U2 New Year song she might have liked better,” I informed Sam before Camille pulled me out of the room. I thought it was unspoken that, as Sam’s friend, I would naturally side with Sam, but those boundaries were starting to blur. Sam was out of line, but it was probably hard for him to see that since Camille never took much of a stand.

  We went up to the kitchen to, I don’t know, check on more salsa. “That boy is getting on my nerves,” Camille said. “It’s like he thinks he owns me.”

  “He doesn’t think that. Seriously, Camille. He is so far gone in love with you. He was picking out your wedding cake flavors the other day.”

  Camille looked alarmed. “He what?”

  “No, just at Bridal Spectacular. He was saying you like lemon cake but vanilla would be better …” I was not helping things. Clearly.

  Camille looked down at her hands. “I don’t like when he talks like that. I’m sixteen.”

  “I know! I don’t think he means it, not always, he just … he loves you.”

  “He’s my first boyfriend. And my parents don’t even know he exists. We have a long way to go before we even think about marriage.”

  “Of course you do. But it is fake New Year’s Eve. No sense getting into that now and wasting all your sparkles, right?”

  Camille shrugged. “I guess not. I just feel like if we don’t talk about things when they happen, then we never talk about them.”

  “I bet if you go back to the basement, Sam will apologize right away.”

  “Yeah, he will.” Camille wrapped her arms around me like a butterfly in a chrysalis. Or a moth. Dax would prefer I mention the moths. “Thanks for talking. You’re better at it than Sam says you are.”

  “Um. Thank you?”

  The doorbell rang. Camille let me go. “Come on, time to play hostess.”

  Not to rub salt into a wound, but this is what happens when you get into these forbidden, love-of-my-life kind of romances in high school. High stakes, high breaks. Dax and I would be totally different because we weren’t in that kind of a relationship, we weren’t even in a relationship, and James already knew about us. At some point, if we even got to that point, we would tell the family and it wouldn’t be a huge deal. Or we wouldn’t tell the family, but we wouldn’t get so serious that we talked about marriage.

  I mean, besides that time we talked about marriage.

  Guests poured into the house for the next hour. Dax texted to say he’d be a little late, but 9:30 felt like we were a little past “a little.” Camille came back and forth between the upstairs and the downstairs to check on me. She offered me a sympathetic smile the third time. “Did he at least apologize?” she asked.

  “Here’s what he said, ‘Sorry, my ride taking sweet time. Kiss you soon Juliet.’ ”

  “Is that a nickname?” Camille asked.

  “I guess so. Because of the chapel thing? It’s weird. I don’t know.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Come downstairs with me. You can put a sign on the door. He’ll find you.”

  “I’ll give him a few more minutes.”

  Once she was gone, I tried writing three different texts to Dax.

  Did you get lost?

  Romeo, Romeo, when are you getting here already,

  Romeo?

  Oh, hey, I’m at the party if you want to come

  I backspaced them all and sent nothing. Three blondes, five brunettes, a redhead, and a guy with a shaved head walked in. 9:45. He said he’d be here at 8:00.

  I should text him, right?

  My phone finally buzzed at 9:53. Text from Dax: Sorry. I’m at the gate. My stomach whirled with butterflies. No, moths. Beautiful moths.

  The music pumped downstairs, and kids ran around on the tennis court outside. If I was going to make Dax come to a party at my school, at least it was this party. Not a Harry Potter roleplaying event like Sam used to have in middle school. Not that Dax wouldn’t be okay with that, I just wanted tonight to seem … older. Worthy of his stubble.

  The doorbell rang. I watched Dax through the peephole. There was another guy standing next to him, probably someone who rolled up at the same time. Maybe it was the anticipation of wanting to see him all day, but I had never seen a finer peephole-sized specimen. Dax leaned in closer to the door. The moths rammed the lining of my stomach so hard, I thought I might puke.

  I didn’t mean to fling the door open, but the anticipatory adrenaline gave me superhuman strength. “Dax, hey!”

  Dax gave a lopsided grin. “Hey, Hallie, this is Alex. Alex, this is the girl I told you about.”

  Alex held out his hand to give me dabs. Dabs? I’d been given dabs four times in my life, no times since I was over the age of twelve. “Where’s the party?”

  I pointed to the stairs. He took them two at a time.

  “Friendly guy.” I wanted to follow it up with a “and who is he?” But … whatever. So Dax brought a friend. He needed a ride and he didn’t know anybody but me. Of course he brought a friend.

  Dax stepped forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “You look … whoa.” He smelled like beer. Lots of beer. And look, I know it was (fake) New Year’s Eve, but this was a date, right? Sort of? What kind of guy shows up two hours late smelling like alcohol with some random kid and all I get is a “whoa”?

  Dax threw his arm around me. “I had car problems and Alex had to drive.”

  “Oh.” My voice was small. Teeny-tiny. I hated how mouselike and disappointed I felt. This night was supposed to sparkle, and so far we hadn’t even reached lackluster status. “Glad you made it. Finally.”

  Dax shoved his hands into his pockets. “This house is huge. Is bringing me here part of your plot to make me like Vegas?”

  “It’s just a house.”

  “Where are your friends?”

  He was going to meet my friends like this.

  Spectacular.

  Grant loved Dax from the get-go. They had so much in common. Like … red Solo cups. That’s about it.

  Maybe Dax wasn’t any different from any other guy. Maybe it was just how I felt about him, and maybe that feeling was unfounded, a by-product of the recent life changes I’d experienced.

  Dax caught my eye from across the room and smiled. I could actually see his dimple now that he’d shaved. Nevermind. My feelings were founded.

  Porter flopped down next to me on the couch. “So your new boyfriend is a—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence,” I said.

  “Is a Crimson Tide fan. Said he used to live in Alabama. What did you think I was going to say?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re mad because you wanted him to show up with roses and champagne. Sorry, Holls. I think he already toasted.”

  “I didn’t expect roses.” I motioned toward Dax and Grant. They were laughing about something. “I just wanted … I don’t know what I wanted. Don’t make fun of me.”

  Porter leaned in closer. “Don’t let him hurt you. Three out of five Alabama fans are not doctor approved.”

  “He’s not hurting me, it’s not like that.”

  “Good. You deserve better in a boyfriend.”

  “You’re worse than Mike. We’ve only been out a few times; I don’t even know him.”

  Porter stood. “Then go talk to him. Don’t you know that drunk people are the best conversationalists? They spill all their secrets.”

  I checked my watch. 10:51. I didn’t
know what I was counting toward. Fake New Year’s with a boy who wasn’t even paying attention to me?

  I sunk back into the couch. At least the party was under control, even if my date wasn’t. West parties were different. Kids were smart at our school, smart enough that they didn’t party too hard (like Dax) and knew where they wanted to go to college and what they were doing with their lives (unlike Dax).

  Why did I invite him here anyway?

  Dax weaved around the people and offered me a cup.

  “No thanks.”

  “It’s water.”

  I took the drink and peered inside. Sniffed.

  “It’s water, Holly,” Dax yelled over the music.

  I grabbed a water bottle from the cooler instead.

  “You want to get outta here?”

  “Do you ever stay in one place?” I joked.

  “What?”

  I pointed to the door. “Follow me.”

  Sam’s family had a big side yard that no one ever used. I don’t know why the backyard got all the love when the side yard had such charm. There was a little gazebo with a tea table that Sam and I used as our interrogation room when we filmed home action movies in middle school. I always got stuck playing the Russian spy.

  “This is cute.” Dax pulled back a metal chair. “Did you bring me out here to have your way with me?”

  I took a sip of my water. Another sip. “I don’t really feel like joking around with you.”

  “Oh?” He grinned. “Then what do you feel like doing?”

  Would it have been too much to ask for him to be normal tonight?

  He scooted closer, got up in my face. “You look pretty.”

  He didn’t smell bad, not really. He still had on cologne, and alcohol can be sort of sweet too. But this guy in front of me wasn’t the Dax I knew or wanted to know. Dax was kind, funny. He seemed like someone I could count on, but maybe this was who he really was. Maybe he drank all the time. Maybe he was habitually late.

  Maybe he was just like his grandfather.

  I nudged Dax off my shoulder. “You’re drunk.”

  He grinned, shiny-eyed. “I’m faintly intoxicated.”