Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride

by Sandra D. Bricker

  "I'm just about finished here," Emma told her. "And I've been thinking about a protein shake from this place next door

  to where I used to work. We'll run by and get a couple of them, and I'll ride to the house with you to have a look around."

  "Really?"

  "Really!"

  Sherilyn dashed up the sidewalk ahead of Emma the moment the car came to a full stop in the driveway. She jammed her key into the lock and pushed open the front door. Henry galloped down the hall toward her, his tongue hung out to one side and his eyes completely obstructed with fur. The impact of dog against both legs jarred her, and she held on to the doorjamb to keep from falling.

  "Hey, Henry," Emma greeted the dog as she passed him to catch up with Sherilyn.

  "It's got to be here somewhere. Where did I leave it?"

  "Upstairs?"

  "I wasn't up there." She set the plastic cup on the counter and circled the kitchen twice before coming in for a landing on the wooden seat of one of the dining chairs. "Emma, what did I do with it?"

  "Don't panic," she replied before slurping the last of her shake through the thin straw. "Just take a deep breath and think."

  "Don't panic?" she questioned, pushing to her feet and pacing through the kitchen. "I've got my life in that BlackBerry. All of my numbers, my appointments." She paused in thought before gasping. "Ohh! Em!"

  "What?"

  "The guest list for my wedding. It's in my BlackBerry."

  "We'll find it."

  "Like my first dress? Or the second one after that? We were going to find those too. I swear, I think this wedding is cu—"

  "Stop!" Emma cried, jumping in front of her and holding up both hands. "Don't even say that out loud."

  Sherilyn nodded and bit her lip.

  "We could still find your dress. One of them." The lilt in her voice at the end of the statement betrayed her. Emma obviously wasn't exactly believing it herself.

  Henry, bored with them already, trotted into the living room and hopped up on the sofa.

  "Okay. Your phone. Let's concentrate on finding your phone."

  "I know I had it with me. I checked my email—"

  Crunch-crunch-crunch.

  "—and I sent a text to Pearl, I think."

  Crumple-crunch-cruuuunch.

  "What is that?"

  They both turned back at the same moment. Sherilyn shrieked, and Emma bolted toward the dog at a full run.

  "Nooo!" Sherilyn whined. "Henry, no!"

  "Oh, Sher." Again, Emma's inflection betrayed her.

  Sherilyn covered her eyes with both hands. "Don't tell me."

  "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

  "The good?"

  "I found your BlackBerry."

  Sherilyn's heart sank with a thud. She didn't need to hear the bad news.

  "The bad news is that it's in about four hundred small pieces . . . Bad dog! Really, Henry! Very baaad dog!"

  Sherilyn shooed Henry away from them and carefully gathered each and every piece of metal, plastic, and unidentified substance on and around the sofa. She hovered over it on the coffee table as Emma moved the couch cushions to check for more debris.

  "This dog is unbelievable," Sherilyn mumbled at a downward angle while lamely attempting to put the shattered Humpty-Dumpty phone back together again. "I'm not a dog person. I told him I'm not a dog person. But did he care? No.

  He picks the mangiest, most ill-mannered, garbage-smelling dog he could find in the bushes, and he brings the thing into our lives. It belches and passes gas, it barfs every time something moves—"

  "Umm, Sher?"

  "—I'm not kidding. You put this dog in the car, shift into drive, and he pukes all over the place. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. If I told you what happened the other night. We just turned our backs for a minute, and he'd eaten our dinners right off the table, and to make matters worse—"

  "Sher!"

  She snapped her head upward. "What!" And Emma jumped slightly in response.

  "Sweetie, I think you're losing it."

  Sherilyn seethed. "Well, welcome to the party, Emma Rae!"

  She meticulously brushed the pieces of her phone into a neat pile with both hands before contorting slightly in order to push it all into the pocket of her coat. When a few pieces fell on the floor, she knelt down and picked them up, dropping them in with the others.

  She wondered if it was possible—Could she actually feel her blood boiling?

  Without a word, she walked over to the back door, flung it open and stood back, staring at the clueless dog wagging its stub of a tail and panting happily at her.

  "Get out."

  "Sher!"

  "I mean it. Get out, Henry!"

  Henry shook his fur from head to paw, and he sat down and grinned at her.

  "Do you think I'm joking?" she asked him through clenched teeth. "Get out of my house this instant!"

  "Sherilyn, stop it."

  "No, Em! I want this dog out of my house and out of my life right this minute!"

  The dog looked confused as he walked like he was on a death march toward the door. He looked up at her for a moment, then cast a glance back at Emma before he slowly and obediently left the premises. He looked back again at the edge of the deck, but Sherilyn slammed the door and walked away.

  "Sher—"

  "Don't you dare, Emma. Not one more word about that dog."

  "—you are not going to send Henry packing, out into this cold weather. This is not you," she said, hurrying toward her and grabbing her by the shoulders with both hands. "You are not this cruel."

  "Cruel? I'll show you cruel." Sherilyn began unloading the contents of her coat pocket, then pointed to the mess strewn across the dining table. "This . . . This is cruel!"

  A little voice from deep inside told her to stop. She heard it clearly, like crystal bells clanging at her.

  "You think this isn't me? Well—" Tears rose in her eyes, and her extremities began to feel weak, as if she'd been suddenly injected with some sort of warm anesthetic. "Well, it is me. It's the new me." She began to sob as she added, "Pleased to meeeeet yooou." She dropped down into the nearest chair and collapsed into her arms atop the chunks of BlackBerry before her.

  "You've been under a lot of stress," Emma said softly. "The move, the wedding, a new job and a new home, all the trips to the hospital."

  "And I'm allergic to the love of my life," she wailed into her folded arms.

  "No. You're not."

  "And I can't find my wedding dress. . . . Either of them."

  "It's only natural that, at some point, you'd go a little batty."

  Sherilyn whimpered and nodded her head without looking up.

  "I think a good cry is in order. I really do."

  She knew how pathetic she sounded as she sniffled, "O-kaay."

  "But while you do that, Sher, I'm going to go find your dog. And then we're going to call the veterinarian and find out if chewing up a cell phone—"

  "He's not my dog," she pointed out weakly. "Please don't call him my dog. He's not my dog."

  "I know you'd like to believe that," she said, rubbing Sherilyn's shoulder. "But, sweetie. He's your dog. More importantly, he's Andy's dog. And you've just evicted him."

  It took a few seconds, but realization stabbed her, and Sherilyn's head popped up.

  "Oh, sweet kumquat! What have I done?!"

  And with that, Sherilyn barreled toward the door, threw it open, raced out to the deck . . . hit a patch of ice and promptly went flying, tumbled down three frozen steps, and thudded into several inches of tightly-packed snow.

  Stunned, she just laid there. All thoughts of her BlackBerry, retrieving Henry, having a bunch of crazy to make up for . . . all of it, gone.

  Until a large, warm, pink tongue began slurping at the side of her face.

  "Oh, Henry. Thank God."

  After Emma finally managed to help her stand up again, and after half an hour of cuddles and apologies on the sof
a, Sherilyn and Andy Drummond had a dog again.

  And something else besides.

  "Oh, Sher," Emma exclaimed as she helped her friend out the front door toward the waiting car. "Just take slow, deliberate breaths. I'll get you to the emergency room."

  "Hotel," she managed as she climbed into the passenger seat of the Explorer. "Inhaler."

  "No, Sher. We're going to the hospital. Just hang on, okay?" Sherilyn clutched her neck, massaging it as she tried to force air down her throat and into her lungs. Her heart pounded wildly, and the ringing in her ears partially drowned out whatever Emma had been trying to tell her.

  "I . . . can't . . ."

  "But the good news is you're probably not allergic to Andy at all!" Emma declared as she sped through the stop at the corner. "It's clearly Henry you're allergic to, Sher."

  The reality of the revelation felt like a pile of bricks stacked on her chest. Or was that just her airways constricting?

  "Shhh." Emma greeted Andy at the door of Sherilyn's hotel room with her finger over her lips. "She's asleep."

  Andy carefully clicked the door shut behind him and softly approached the bed. Sherilyn always pulled her hair into a ponytail at the top of her head when she didn't feel well; something left over from her childhood, she'd told him during a bout with the stomach flu back in Chicago. True to form, her hair formed a teepee at the center of her head, scrunched together with a large gingham ruffled band. With her face tucked sideways into the pillow and her wayward hair pointing upward, she reminded him a bit of a sleeping Pebbles Flintstone.

  Emma rolled her hand at him, and he followed her out to the balcony as she slipped into her coat. Once the door formed

  a solid barrier between them and Sherilyn, she began to explain in an almost-whisper.

  "She was looking for her BlackBerry over at the house. She

  was in very close proximity with the dog, and she was having trouble breathing, closing up the way she does."

  "Henry?" The implication wasn't lost on him, and Andy battled the disappointment.

  "The doctor did some tests. The results will be ready in a couple of days, but we're pretty sure, Andy. It's Henry. Sher's allergic to the dog."

  "Ah, man." He sat down on the cold iron chair next to the bistro table, and Emma leaned against the railing.

  "I know. I'm sorry."

  "She didn't want Henry anywhere near her," he said, shaking his head. "But I talked her into it."

  "Well, you didn't know."

  "I should have—"

  "Andy," she interrupted him. Leaning down until she caught his eye, she repeated, "You didn't know."

  He nodded. "I'll find a home for him."

  She rubbed the sleeve of his coat. "I'm sorry, Andy. I know you really love him."

  He smiled. "I love her a little more."

  "Just a little?" she said.

  "I'm a sucker for any shade of redhead. Always have been."

  "Lucky for her you didn't fall for an Irish Setter then."

  "Yeah. Close call."

  Andy glanced through the glass and noticed Sherilyn sitting straight up in bed, her funny little ponytail pointing at the ceiling and her eyes turned stormy. When she saw him, she tried to smile, but it didn't quite make it all the way across her lips, and the corner of her mouth twitched a greeting.

  "Brrr," Emma growled as they went inside. "It is really cold out there."

  Andy sat down on the edge of the bed, and Sherilyn melted into his arms, burying her face inside his open coat.

  "Andy, it's Henry," she said into his collarbone. "I'm allergic to Henry."

  "I know."

  "I'm so sorry."

  He pressed his palm against the back of her head and smoothed her lumpy hair in an upward motion. "You have nothing to be sorry about."

  "But you—"

  "—love Henry," he finished for her. "And I'll put all of my efforts into finding him a really great new home."

  She moaned and tossed her head against him.

  "There are probably lots of people who would love to have a dog like Henry," he reasoned. "He'll have new digs in no time at all."

  She made an indecipherable sound, sort of like, "Ihh."

  "Hey. Did you find your BlackBerry?"

  When she simply whimpered but didn't respond, Andy looked to Emma. With a reluctant shrug, she told him,

  "Henry."

  "What about him?"

  "He ate it."

  After a full minute of silence, Andy's eyes just stuck on Emma's, a tiny little noise escaped out of Sherilyn. In another couple of seconds, she was bumping against him, her face still buried.

  "Honey?"

  It wasn't until she looked up at him that he realized she was laughing and crying at the same time.

  "Sherilyn?"

  "My whole life was in that thing," she said, and a fit of slightly hysterical laughter followed before her face contorted again. "I'm really sorry about your dog, Andy. I really am."

  Emma tilted one shoulder into a shrug as she told him, "She's been on the verge like this all day." Then she opened her eyes wide and mimed, "Losing it!"

  Andy shifted, placed his hand under her chin and lifted Sherilyn's face to his. "Are you all right?"

  Laughing, she shook her head emphatically. "Nope," she said, and she continued to giggle and cry in alternating spurts.

  "It says here that you're allergic to aloe?"

  "Yes." Sherilyn nodded.

  "Don't see a lot of that."

  "No?"

  "No, it's a fairly unusual allergy."

  "Ever since I was a kid. I was at a friend's house, and I burned my hand on the stove. Her mom tore off a chunk from a plant she had in the window and put the gel on the burn. Twenty minutes later, I was a large round beet with legs."

  The doctor chuckled as she reviewed the pages on the clipboard in her hands. Adjusting her white lab coat, she sat down on the short round stool and wheeled it toward Sherilyn.

  She held out a fat wooden Popsicle stick and said, "Open." Shining a light into her throat, the doctor peered inside. She then repeated the inspection into both ears and up her nose. Sherilyn wondered where the doctor might want to look next!

  "And you're sure you didn't purchase any new body lotion or hair conditioner?"

  "Nope."

  "Sunscreen, facial tissues—"

  "What, like Kleenex?"

  "Usually the ones marked for bad colds or runny noses."

  "No."

  "Natural laxatives or digestive aids?"

  Sherilyn arched an eyebrow. "Really? No."

  Dr. Benson lowered the clipboard to her lap and leaned forward with a sigh. "I think it's pretty clear that your problem the other day was related to your allergy to aloe. But it would really help if we could determine the source."

  Sherilyn shook her head and shrugged. "I really don't know.

  I was sure it was my fiancé's dog."

  "What kind of dog?" she asked casually.

  "A big, hairy one."

  "The breed?"

  "One of those sheepdogs," she said.

  "An Old English?"

  "Yes. That's it."

  "And what made you think it was the dog?"

  "It seems like every time I've had these flares, Henry has been somewhere nearby."

  Dr. Benson descended into deep thought for a moment.

  "Well, either Henry or Andy."

  She arched an eyebrow. "Andy?"

  "My fiancé," Sherilyn said with a chuckle. "There for a while, I was starting to think I was allergic to Andy, and not his dog."

  "Really."

  "Yes, and it was no small pressure point either, let me tell you. I—" She noticed the doctor's piqued interest, and her heart began to race. "Well, I'm not!" she quickly added. "It's not Andy. It's definitely the dog!"

  "You show no signs of an allergy to pet dander," Dr. Benson stated. "But it could—"

  "No!" Sherilyn shouted, and she raised both hands. "Don't say it. Please
, Dr. Benson, don't say it. Andy Drummond is the man of my dreams. Seriously, I don't say that lightly. He is the man I've waited for my whole life. So if you tell me right now that I have the unbelievably bad luck of being allergic to him, I don't think I can take it. I mean, I don't think it's an overstatement at all to tell you that I will lose it. These days, I'm just a bathrobe, some drool, and one more setback shy of being on the six o'clock news."

  Dr. Benson smirked. "Well, I think—"

  "No, really," Sherilyn assured her. "I'm done with the bad news. Done. I can NOT be allergic to my fiancé. Can't. At all."

  Romantic Quotes

  for Wedding Invitations and Ceremony Programs

  "My beloved is mine, and I am his."

  Song of Solomon 2:16 (NKJV)

  "Love is promise, love is a souvenir.

  Once given, never forgotten; never let it disappear."

  John Lennon

  "Love is a friendship set to music."

  E. Joseph Cossman

  "There are three things that amaze me—

  . . . how an eagle glides through the sky . . .

  how a ship navigates the ocean,

  how a man loves a woman."

  Proverbs 30:18-19 (NLT)

  "Love in its essence is spiritual fire."

  Emanuel Swedenborg

  "Today I begin to understand what love is."

  Alexandre Hazen Dornback

  "Love is patient, love is kind.

  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,

  it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."

  1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (NIV)

  18

  Andy ran the vacuum over the living room rug for the third time while Emma wiped down the dining room table and chairs. On the other side of the glass door, Fee glared at him; then Andy realized the squinty eyes and wrinkled forehead could be attributed to her inspection of the window for anymore streaks.

  He flipped off the switch and wrapped the cord around the body of the vacuum, wheeling it to the closet under the stairs before heading up to the bedroom.

  Fresh linens, laundered curtains, swept floors; the three of them had cleaned, brushed, or vacuumed every surface they could think of in an effort to rid the house of any telltale remnants of Henry's short stay. Andy wished he didn't miss the dog so much already, and he reminded himself that it had been only a couple of hours since young Aaron and his mother had left with Henry and all of his belongings in tow. He took a short walk around the room to make sure he hadn't missed anything that would eventually cause Sherilyn anymore discomfort.