by R. L. Naquin
I relaxed. “I like it, too. We can work with it. Let’s start with that. How long have you been part of the Goth community?”
“About a month.”
Great. Excellent. I knew I’d spotted a wannabe the minute she walked in. With my shields up.
“And Eric is part of it, too?”
“He’s okay with it. He wants whatever I want.”
That was all I needed to hear. The entire catastrophe was instantly made moot. I do love my job.
Her appointment ran over by about a half hour—a fact I noted in the books and would be sure to charge Daddy for—but progress was made. Against my own financial best interests, I talked her down to two hundred twenty-five guests. She agreed to tour a gothic mansion as a possible venue, and we discussed wedding dresses that had a gothic flair with splashes of black, red or purple.
In the end, it was a good first meeting. We had nine months to pull it together. I was pleased with myself.
We made an appointment for the following week, and I walked her to the door.
“Do you think my mom will be okay with what we’re doing?”
“Does it matter?”
She looked at her shoes for a moment. “Yeah. I guess it does.”
“She’s been stuck in the car for forty-five minutes. Maybe you should take her for ice cream and talk about it.”
“Maybe I will.” And then Spider, the morbid, undead girl from Transylvania, smiled at me before she left.
Under all that black gook, I was betting she was beautiful.
It was a good day.
I went inside humming one of Maurice’s nonsense songs and cleared up the cups of nearly untouched coffee and tea. An hour later, I was finishing the last of the birdseed bags when the phone rang.
“Happily Ever After, this is Zoey.” I cringed. I hated the name we’d agreed on, but none of my ideas had gone over well with Sara. I had caved, and now I was stuck with it. Even after five years, I still winced.
“Zoey, this is Gail Dickson. I need to talk to Sara.”
Through the phone, the panic pattered at my cheek like hot drops of cooking oil.
“Sara’s out of the office, Gail. I can help. What do you need?”
She must’ve pulled the phone away because the wail of frustration sounded like it came from a distance.
“The linens are wrong! My bridesmaids bailed on me, and I have to do the birdseed thingies all by myself, my mother-in-law hates the color scheme, and the caterers left the vegetarian choice off the menu!” She took a choking gulp of air. “The whole thing is ruined.”
I glanced at Sara’s notes. “Gail, deep breaths, honey. Sara’s gone to take care of the caterers and the linens. I’ve already finished the seed bags. Your mother-in-law is not the one getting married, and no matter how much she hates the colors, it doesn’t mean she hates you. It’s also far too late in the game to do anything about it anyway.”
“It’s all falling apart.” She sounded tired. Less than two weeks before the wedding, brides often hit panic mode and have a meltdown. This bride was especially prone. Growing up with an overbearing mother had undermined Gail’s confidence and left her brittle and overly dramatic.
“Not at all. You have us to take care of things. That’s what you pay us for. The only thing you need to concentrate on right now is looking good. Stress is counterproductive. We stress for you.”
“I want it to be perfect.”
“It will be. We’ll be there to make sure of it. Just breathe, let us know if anything comes up that needs handling. And go get a massage.”
“But what if it’s too late to fix the menu?”
“Can you imagine anyone telling Sara ‘no’?”
Her giggle came out as more of a wet hiccup. It was a vast improvement over hysteria and tears. “No, you’re right. I’m a little scared of her myself.”
“Oh, you have no idea. I thought she was going to make me go home and change the other day.”
“Were you wearing that pink skirt with the orange dots?”
“No, but I think she may have broken into my house and stolen that one. It’s been missing for two weeks.”
“She wouldn’t!” That had her laughing.
“She might. Fashion is very important to her.” The oily spatters of panic were gone. Now all I felt from her was weariness. “Gail, if you need anything, you call, okay? One of us will always answer. We forward the phones at night, just in case. Go get a massage. I want to see you looking radiant.”
“Thank you, Zoey. Thank you so much.”
After I hung up, I felt drained. Between Spider and Gail, I wasn’t sure if I could take another bridal outburst. I considered patching the hole I’d lasered through my wall, but I depended on the emotional feedback from my brides. A small hole was easier to deal with than my previous wide-open state. The lowered level made a difference.
Before I’d learned to shield myself, I’d have had a debilitating migraine by now. I may have been taking in less of other people’s garbage, but I was still giving more of my own energy than non-empathic people probably did. I didn’t know how not to do that, or if it was possible to cut back. A nap would have been an enormous help. Alas, I still had one more appointment to go. All I could do was hope Helen Cranston and fiancé Steve Welsh were having an especially good day. Besides—there would be cake. Cake can fix any number of problems.
With almost two hours to kill, I made a run to Best Buy in Marin City. Maurice had cooked for me, cleaned up after me, implemented home security, worried over me and sat up with me when I was scared. I could certainly help him with a little noise during the day.
I looked at clock radios, but they seemed cheap. I was surprised to find that the store stocked boom boxes, but those weren’t quite right, either.
After lingering in the aisles for twenty minutes and brushing off four different instances of “Can I help you find anything, ma’am?” I knew what I wanted. I supposed I’d known what I was after all along, but I’d been putting off the inevitable. This was going to be expensive.
To avoid wincing in public, I asked the girl at the checkout not to say the total out loud. I signed without looking and took my bags. iPods don’t come cheap, and neither do clock radios with docking stations. Money wasn’t the issue. I made enough. I’d inherited my house, and my own needs were few. Still, I couldn’t help the feeling that this sealed an enormous relationship commitment. I had no idea how long he would stay, but in the meantime I could at least make him feel comfortable and welcome.
I grabbed a burger on my way to the office, abiding by one of the steadfast rules of wedding planning: Never go to a cake tasting on an empty stomach. I felt guilty about the fast food and hoped no one would see me. Maurice would be upset that I hadn’t let him pack me a lunch, and Sara would lecture me on taking care of my body. Both were far more concerned with my well-being than I ever had been.
I parked the car up the street from the bakery and clattered down the sidewalk in my buckled heels. The day was warm and I was beginning to regret the sensible suit jacket. I made it to the appointment with two minutes to spare. Unfortunately, Helen was already outside waiting for me.
And she was crying.
Chapter Ten
I’d had such high hopes for a calm end to my day. Helen had, so far, not had a bridal meltdown in front of me. Her wedding was still four months away, so she wasn’t scheduled to break down for at least another two.
She wasn’t hysterical, so that was something. She also wasn’t with her fiancé, which was probably the problem.
I rummaged in my bag and pulled out a travel pack of Kleenex before I approached her. Best to be prepared.
Handing her the tissues with one hand, I put the other on her shoulder. “Hey, you okay? Where’s Steve?”
She gave an embarrassed sniffle and rubbed a tissue across her cheeks. “I’m fine. I was having a little pity party. I didn’t mean to get caught. Steve had to take a client to the golf course for an emergency meeting.” She wiped her nose and gave me a wry smile. “It’s very important to keep the clients happy.”
I reached through the little hole I’d made in my mental wall. I felt embarrassment and frustration from her, but nothing catastrophic. Not a meltdown after all. I squeezed her shoulder and opened the glass door to the bakery.
“Chocolate,” I said. “Let’s go taste some creamy, fluffy goodness.”
Helen was a refreshing change from my average client. A little older, a little wiser—I felt more like I was helping out a friend, less like I was holding her hand through a crisis. I liked her. She was blond, blue-eyed, and had a way of making casual clothes look formal—well prepared for the role of corporate spouse. But she maintained a wicked sense of humor that didn’t mesh with the look. I appreciated that about her.
We were greeted at the door by the owner, Moira Eccles. She buzzed around us in short bursts of energy like a tiny hummingbird fluttering from flower to flower. I had no idea how a woman who worked with pastry all day could be so damn thin, but I suspected it was from flying back and forth around the customers.
Splendid Creations was my go-to for cakes. It wasn’t often that a client had me attend the tasting with her, but I tried to steer them there whenever possible, even if I wasn’t going to be present. Moira knew what she was doing. She was an artist, but she was also a superb businesswoman. An order from her never went astray and was always on time.
She brought us a platter loaded with thin slices of cake, globs of icing and puddles of filling.
“Try everything,” she said. “Any combination you can dream up, we can create.”
She sat with us to ask all the pertinent questions about the construction of the cake. Size, shape, colors, theme. Round or square? Fondant or buttercream?
“Chocolate,” Helen said. “Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.”
Moira smiled. “For the cake, the filling, or the icing?”
“Yes.”
I laughed. “She’s having a bad day.” I handed Helen her fork. “Taste first. Flavor decisions after.”
She set her attention to dragging her fork through different combinations. One slice was getting more attention than the rest. “What is this one?” she asked.
Moira leaned in to look. “That’s red velvet.”
“Can we do chocolate with it?”
“Honey, you can do anything you want. You’re the bride.”
“What about red velvet cake with the chocolate ganache filling and a cocoa buttercream frosting. Is that too much?”
“It’s never too much. You can have more than one filling if you like. It’s your cake.”
I could see the wicked sense of humor ticking behind Helen’s eyes. I wondered what she was up to.
She picked up her fork and took a small piece of red velvet. Then she dragged it through the chocolate ganache, added a second layer of the same cake, pushed on a little raspberry filling, then finished it all off with a dab of cocoa buttercream icing. She smiled and winked at me, then shoved it into her mouth. Her head tilted back and she fluttered her eyelids for comic effect.
“Well?” I said, trying not to laugh.
“Perfect. Moira, have you seen this combination before?”
“I can’t say that I have, though I think it’s a good choice.”
“Can I name it?”
“Name it? Sure. Let’s have it. I’ll put it on a menu in your honor.”
“Red Velvet Death by Chocolate. Make sure the raspberry filling is extra thick. I want it to bleed when we cut into it.” She leaned toward me and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “That’ll teach Steve to bail on me.”
I knew there was a reason I liked her.
To be sure of the choice, Moira jogged to the kitchen and whipped up a full slice to the new specifications. It did indeed “bleed” when we stuck our forks into it. And it was delicious. Moira did a sketch of a three-tiered square cake draped with fondant and dripping with flowers. It was going to be lovely. Helen was thrilled, we were filled with cake, and nothing but positive emotions were bouncing across the room.
I had forwarded calls to my cell, so I didn’t have any reason to go back to the office. Neither of us had anything pressing left to do for the day, so we walked down to the coffee shop and grabbed a table.
With all that sugar coursing through our veins, the only logical thing to do was to pour caffeine into the mix.
While we chatted over our cappuccinos, my eyes kept darting to the door. It did not go unnoticed.
“So spill it,” Helen said. “Who are we waiting for?”
“I’m not waiting for anybody.” I shrugged and smiled in a way that felt as unconvincing as it probably looked. Against my will, I glanced at the door again. Sometimes my body doesn’t listen to orders.
“Okay. Let me rephrase, then. Who are we afraid of?”
I groaned. “If I’m afraid of anybody, it’s myself. And I’d be glad to tell you who he is, but I don’t even know his name.”
“Ha! I knew it was a guy.” She sat forward in her chair, both hands clutching her cup. “Dish. I’m not letting it go.”
I knew she wouldn’t. I was cornered. I considered dropping my coffee to cause a distraction, but I’d already spilled somebody else’s that morning. I didn’t want to get myself banned from my favorite caffeine dealer. That would be tragic.
“He’s a paramedic,” I said. “And he’s gorgeous. I keep running into him. Today he talked to me and I made a complete ass out of myself. I dumped some woman’s coffee on her. I babbled. I told him I bought cheese, Helen. Who says that?”
Helen’s face contorted. She seemed torn between commiseration and raucous laughter.
“So?” she said. “You got it out of the way. Next time you’ll stun him with your poise and charm. Clever girl, putting him off guard like that.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” I said.
“If you keep running into him, maybe he’s already fallen madly in love with you and you don’t know it. Or fate is conspiring to put the two of you together.”
I snorted. “If that’s true, fate has an evil way of running things. Two out of the three times I’ve seen him, there was a dead body involved. “
She shrugged and picked at the paper heat guard around her cup. “Take what you can get.”
“At least he’s got a job. That’s more than I can usually say for my ex.”
“Having a job isn’t necessarily a selling point for me at the moment.” She peeled the paper apart at the seam and unwound it. “Money’s nice, but I’d like to see my fiancé from time to time.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“He says he’s building our future. Providing for the children we’ll someday have. I know he loves me. Is it so bad to wish for a little bit more of him?”
“I don’t think it’s ever bad to wish for more, especially when it comes to love.”
I could feel it now. Her disappointment leaked through the little porthole in my wall. It trickled over me like soft feathers brushing my arms. I wanted to take it away from her, make it better, but honestly, it wasn’t an overwhelming emotion. Not strong, like so many of the others I’d been hammered with lately. I had a feeling this was an emotion she kept inside and rarely let out for air. It was a constant companion, but not one that absorbed her full attention except on days like this. Days when she could let her guard down.
The voice of wisdom inside me was silent. I had nothing I could say to her that could fix this or make her feel better. But that was okay; she didn’t expect me to help her. Sometimes all a person needs is for someone to list
en.
I reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“If nothing else, you’ll have him all to yourself on the honeymoon.”
“There is that,” she said. “I’ve never been to Fiji. Two weeks alone with Steve and maybe I’ll be glad for him to go back to work. You think?” She grinned.
“And then you can spend all your time eating leftover wedding cake.”
“Red Velvet Death by Chocolate wedding cake.” She held her cup in the air and we banged them together in a toast.
“Do you think he’ll mind?”
“Eh. He should have come for the cake tasting if he cared that much.”
I never hung out with clients outside of appointments. Helen was the first exception. Socializing wasn’t really my thing, and I had a tendency to hide out at home most of the time. Sara had to cajole me into going out, and we’d been close ever since we were roommates in college. Now that Andrew had pointed out my dreadful affliction—excuse me, gift—my solitary lifestyle made a lot more sense. I didn’t bond well with individuals because they handed me too much emotional baggage. Getting too close to people overloaded me. Sometimes grocery shopping drained me to the point that I had to take a nap when I got home.
It seemed my hermit phase was coming to an end. Between my house guests, Andrew and this spontaneous coffee date with Helen, I wondered if learning to control the influx of stray emotions might be changing the way I interacted with the world. With the exception of the paramedic, it was turning into a pretty good thing. I was as sociable as the next person, given half a chance. Who knew?
We sat there for over an hour, chatting like old friends.
When our cups were empty, I went to the counter and got us refills. I’d probably regret the caffeine and sugar overload later, but I was enjoying myself. When I came back, the conversation made a natural turn from making fun of the college kid in the corner who was lip-syncing and making faces to the music on his MP3 player, to wedding plans.
“We need to make some sort of decision on the table linens and draping for the reception,” I said.
