The Marrying Type

by Laura Chapman

  What were the chances of him actually catching the ad? He almost never watched live TV. The only reason he did today was to kill time before a board meeting. The woman on the screen stared back at him. Years later, she still had the ability to tie his stomach in knots.

  He shook his head again. Something didn’t add up. Elliot came from money—old money. Yet she’d signed up for a cable channel’s reality TV show. She’d never struck him as the fame-hungry type. Then again, he hadn’t pegged her as a heartbreaker either.

  “Are you okay, sir?”

  Eric switched the screen off and cleared his expression. Turning to face the young woman leaning against his doorframe, he forced a content expression. He kept his voice clear as he lied to his assistant’s face.

  “I’m fine. Now tell me what we’re talking about in this board meeting.”

  ELLIOT HESITATED INSIDE the restaurant’s restroom, where she’d gone to check her makeup before the family meeting. Stealing another glance at her reflection in the mirror, a quick coat of lip gloss and brushing her hair would have to do. Her sister would no doubt find some fault in her appearance. She always did.

  Drawing a deep breath, she pushed through the door and made the trek back to the table. In the few minutes she’d been away, her sister had drawn the waiter into a conversation about the wine menu while her father and Rosalyn exchanged pleasantries. Rosalyn not only had a financial stake in the company, but she was family and deserved to be part of this conversation.

  Elliot took her seat as Libby finished ordering a bottle of merlot. She wanted to ask why they needed wine for a business lunch, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “Tell us more about this reality show you signed us up for.” Walter set down his menu and tucked his reading glasses back in his coat pocket. “I want to make sure they won’t take us for everything we’re worth.”

  Which was basically nothing at the moment, Elliot wanted to say but sipped her glass of water to keep the thought in her head.

  “Your niece wouldn’t do anything to hurt you,” Rosalyn said. “You’re family.”

  “Doing the show still means we’ll have strangers lurking around our house and lives during the busy season.” Libby twisted the emerald-cut sapphire on her right hand.

  Walter frowned. “What will happen if one of the cameramen tries to steal something from us?”

  “Don’t worry.” Elliot gently touched her father’s hand. “Marissa promised me she’d oversee our production team personally.”

  “Marissa will be here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  With Walter’s walls crumbling, Elliot rushed to offer a few more details sure to settle any of his concerns. “Marissa’s husband will even be our cameraman.”

  “Chase will be with the crew?” She nodded, and Walter’s frown eased from his face. “I always liked him. Nice young man. Comes from a good family. Why doesn’t he come around much anymore?”

  “He and Marissa travel a lot for work.”

  “That’s right. Filming TV shows is kind of a funny way to earn a living.”

  Elliot politely ignored the comment and finished. “Marissa’s production company put together an ad using some footage she had in stock. The promos are already airing in some markets.”

  “What’s the rush?” Libby asked. “What if we change our mind?”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Why is it too late?”

  “Because we signed a contract.”

  “That thing I signed was a contract?” Libby’s well-shaped eyebrows shot up. “Is it legal?”

  “According to the lawyers.”

  “I still don’t get the rush.”

  “It was necessary.” Elliot took a deep breath and another sip of water, hoping both would soothe the headache forming behind her eyes. “We had to sign a contract to receive our first payment. We needed the money.”

  “A few late bills aren’t quite the crisis you’ve made this.”

  “This is more than a few overdue bills.” Elliot lowered her voice to a whisper to avoid drawing an audience. “We have creditors pounding at our door. A liquor vendor threatened to take us to court. We’re days away from having the power shut off.”

  Libby capped off her eye-roll with a shrug. Sometimes carrying on a conversation with her sister was harder than talking sense into a high-strung bride. Elliot’s fingers twitched, itching to strike her face like they were in some kind of soap opera. The girls had never been the hair-pulling or scratching and biting type, and Elliot didn’t imagine now was the time to start. Instead, she smoothed a napkin across her lap to busy her hands.

  “We can dip into savings to pay off this batch,” Libby said, taking advantage of the silence. “We have enough to cover the bills. Maybe we’ll have to skip a couple rounds of paychecks to ourselves, but we’ll be fine. Now who wants to share an appetizer?”

  “Even if we cover this round, what happens next month? Or the one after? We have employees, vendors, and service providers to pay. Those bills are due every month.”

  “And you have to keep paying yourselves,” Rosalyn added. “You have taxes and utilities on your homes. You have to eat. You have . . . meetings to keep.”

  A tactful way of mentioning the nail, hair, and—upon occasion—Botox appointments Libby kept on a regular schedule.

  “What about our reputation?” Elliot asked. “Who would want to work with us after seeing how unreliable we’ve become?”

  “A few late payments don’t make us unreliable.”

  The waiter arrived with the wine, and Libby’s face softened as she cooed for him to fill the glass to the rim. Elliot declined his offer to pour her a glass. She waited for him to finish his trip around the table before picking up the conversation. “One or two late ones might not, but constantly being late will destroy our business.”

  “What if we explain the period of transition we’ve gone through?” Libby sipped her wine and nodded in approval. “I took public relations classes in college. I can talk us out of this.”

  “You can’t talk your way out of debt.” Elliot darted a quick glance at her father, who had fallen entirely too quiet and uninvolved during the past few minutes. Even now he avoided her gaze while he perused the menu for a third time. “We haven’t discussed the loan Daddy took out. We have to pay the balance in the next three months. If we lose the house and business, we risk lawsuits and bankruptcy.”

  “Fine, you win.” Libby took another gulp. “Do your little TV show. Be a star if it makes you happy. I don’t have to be on it, right?”

  “You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.” Elliot couldn’t force them to do anything, though she wouldn’t mind if someone shared some of the burden. “But—”

  “I’d like to propose a toast.” Libby raised her glass and chin and waited for everyone to join her. “To my baby sister. The TV star.”

  Walter held up his glass. Rosalyn darted an apologetic glance across the table. Elliot shrugged and raised her glass of water in a brief toast. Her sister might not understand or appreciate why Elliot was the newest cast member to join The Marrying Type, but hopefully she wouldn’t make the situation any harder.

  From The Marrying Type Transcript

  Filmed: April

  Airing: September

  In front of a large chapel, Elliot paces back and forth, cell phone pressed against her ear.

  Announcer: On this episode of The Marrying Type, Charleston wedding planner Elliot Lynch faces a massive list of problems. From an absent florist . . .

  Elliot: If you’re not here in five minutes . . .

  The scene cuts to two middle-aged women, dressed in full formalwear. Each points to the other’s feet revealing matching shoes.

  Announcer: To dueling mothers of the bride and groom . . .

  Mother of the Bride: I found these first. I told you about them at the engagement party.

  Mother of the Groom: You didn’t. They didn’t even hi
t the runways until March.

  Cut back to Elliot, on her phone in front of the church. She’s seated on the steps, face buried in her hand.

  Announcer: And her business partners making a last-minute change of plans . . .

  Elliot: What do you mean you left town?

  Announcer: She has her hands full.

  Elliot: No, I can handle this.

  Announcer: Coming up on The Marrying Type.

  Chapter Three

  “The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It's a choice you make—not just on your wedding day, but over and over again—and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife.”

  ~ Barbara de Angelis

  FINDING THE BRIDE CURLED up next to a toilet changed Elliot’s priorities. A rogue florist and brawling mothers paled next to a sobbing bride. Even having Libby bail last-minute meant nothing compared to this disaster.

  Elliot kept her tone soft and light when she approached the bride. “Honey, let’s get you off the floor.”

  The bride answered with a muffled sob. She didn’t budge. Elliot said a little prayer for strength, hoping her proximity to a chapel outweighed her distance from a toilet in God’s eyes. Elliot ignored the urge to gag—and her fear of ruining a pair of black slacks—to gingerly kneel beside the young woman.

  She barely had time to prepare for the impact as the bride flung herself into Elliot’s arms. They sat in silence for several minutes, rocking back and forth. Elliot held the hysterical woman while she searched for any clues of what might have set off the bride. Unfortunately, her vantage point didn’t offer much.

  The bride’s sobs turned into hiccups. Accepting a tissue, she blew her nose and murmured, “I'm late.”

  “We have plenty of time.” Using one of the wipes from her wedding emergency kit, Elliot blotted the woman’s tear-streaked face to survey the damage. “We’ll call in the makeup artist and hairstylist to touch you up. You’ll be gorgeous and camera ready with plenty of time to spare.”

  “No,” the bride said firmly. “I’m late.”

  Elliot nearly repeated her words of comfort when she spotted an open pregnancy test on the counter. Paired with the bride’s sudden and mysterious stomach bug, and the constant stream of tears, she made the connection.

  Oh, God. “You're pregnant.”

  The bride sniffed. “Maybe. Probably. I haven't checked the test yet.” Her hiccups picked up. “My mother’s going to kill me. She says pregnant brides are tacky.”

  She burst into a fresh set of tears. Murmuring comforting words, Elliot craned her neck to read the test results. A smiley face. Did that mean pregnant or not pregnant? She sighed. Of course it meant pregnant.

  “Do you want to talk to your fiancé?”

  The bride shook her head, sniffing and fighting back hiccups. “It’s bad luck to see him before the wedding.”

  Elliot counted to ten before speaking. “A woman makes her own luck.”

  “Telling him would only make him nervous,” the bride said. “Maybe I can pretend this is a honeymoon baby . . .”

  Elliot knew she should try to talk sense into the woman. The groom was smart enough to do math. Their parents and everyone else would be able to crunch the numbers, too. But facts wouldn’t save the bride’s wedding, or make her feel any better. A fresh coat of waterproof mascara and some hairspray might.

  It only took Elliot five more minutes to comfort her client. Still puffy eyed, the bride pulled herself together for another hair and makeup session to repair the damage. Leaving the cosmetologists to their work, Elliot closed the bathroom door and leaned against the frame to draw a breath.

  “Crap.”

  Much as she would have liked to hide behind a pew in the chapel, Elliot pushed away from the door. She had a wedding to run.

  Rounding the corner, she found the TV show’s camera crew following the ongoing battle between the mothers of the bride and groom. She said a silent prayer of thanks they’d missed her situation with the bride. Unless they’d picked it up on her microphone, which was possible.

  “Crap. Crap.”

  If the bride wanted to convince her family and friends she’d conceived a baby on her honeymoon and not before the wedding, having the truth broadcast on The Marrying Type would undoubtedly blow her cover.

  Elliot still couldn’t wrap her brain around how quickly the show had come together. What surprised her most was how fast the network released advertisements for the show. They weren’t even done filming the first episode, but ads were running every hour.

  Elliot snagged Claire, her assistant, as the young woman walked by. She needed an update on the florist, who was more than an hour late.

  “I haven't heard anything,” Claire said, her attention focused on the fight brewing across the room.

  “Get them on the phone. We wanted the bouquets an hour ago.”

  “But . . .” Claire gazed longingly toward the more exciting issue at hand.

  “I'll handle the moms.” Elliot played with the pearl pendant on her necklace while she considered her various crises. “Call the florist. And grab the bride a bottle of water and some crackers from my emergency stash.”

  “Want me to take her some champagne?”

  “No champagne.” Claire raised an eyebrow at her terse response. Elliot cleared her throat and plastered a smile on her face. “She’s sensitive to alcohol. One drink, and she’ll be stumbling down the aisle. We need a sober bride for the ceremony.”

  Leaving Claire to handle those tasks, Elliot faced the situation brewing in the foyer-turned-boxing ring. Longtime friends and fellow social committee chairwomen, the mothers of the bride and groom hadn’t raised a stink during the entire wedding planning process. Like most mothers, they wanted the wedding to be perfect. They’d oohed and ahhed over bridal magazines, happily planning their children’s storybook future together.

  Until today.

  Like true Southern Belles, the women went dress shopping together, helping each other choose the perfect outfit for the occasion. Neither wanted to upstage the other—this was their shared day, after all. They even sat next to each other at the beauty salon that morning to have their signature looks perfected.

  But when both women arrived at the church wearing the same pair of Louboutin spiked heels, all hell broke loose. How dare the other woman try to spoil the day by stealing her look!

  Elliot had to act fast if she wanted to keep the women from actually ruining the day for their children—or embarrassing themselves on national TV. Her stomach lurched.

  “Ladies.” Her voice oozed politeness and class, both learned from her mother years ago. “Have I told you how beautiful you are? I’m halfway worried you’re going to outshine the bride and her bridesmaids in the photographs.”

  Her words stopped the women. Flattery usually worked with vanity when reason and good manners failed.

  “Oh my goodness—your shoes. You ladies took care of everything. What a great idea.”

  “Great idea?” the bride’s mother asked cautiously.

  “This is amazing—matching shoes for the mothers of the bride and groom.” Elliot let out a sigh, hoping she exuded admiration rather than frustration. “People are always obsessed about having identical shoes for the bridesmaids, but you ladies took this to another level.”

  “We took this to another level,” the mother of the groom repeated.

  “Absolutely. I have never seen two women manage details like you. Do you miss anything?”

  The women glanced between their shoes and returned their gaze to her. She’d piqued their interest at the very least.

  Chase, the cameraman and Marissa’s husband, leaned in for a closer inspection of the shoes. His ears turned red. Was he trying not to laugh? She darted an annoyed glance at Marissa. At the same time, Elliot adjusted her stance and straightened her back slightly, hoping the effort made her thinner on camera as she schmoozed the moms.

  “I
bet everyone will take one look at those shoes, which are fabulous by the way, and want to have their moms match shoes for their weddings.”

  “Do you think we’ll be featured in the newspaper’s style section?” the groom’s mother asked. She rubbed her lips together, nearly salivating at the idea.

  “Oh, absolutely. I bet this will be the next big rage for summer.”

  Both women grinned. The vision of being industry trendsetters far outweighed their earlier annoyance. Relieved to smooth over the argument, but mind focused on the other issues at hand, Elliot pressed forward.

  “Ladies, can you come over here? I want the photographer to snap a picture for your wedding albums and my portfolio.” Elliot guided them to a more picturesque part of the chapel. “I confess I’m dying to have a photo of the two of you. I want to be able to show people you were the first.”

  She doubted matching mom shoes would become a leading wedding trend, but it wasn’t impossible. Frankly, she didn't care. She would’ve claimed Vera Wang featured the style on her showroom floor if the lie made the women stop creating a spectacle. The mothers followed her lead, and Elliot motioned the photographer over. She gave a quick direction and turned to Claire, who had the florist on the line. Taking the phone and stepping away, she switched gears again.

  “Where are you?” Elliot’s teeth clenched together. “You said you’d be here hours ago.”

  “I wanted to check the reception site again,” the florist said. “It’s perfect. The arrangements are going to blow people away. You’ll probably want to send photos to one of the regional wedding magazines.”

  Elliot waited for him to quit singing his own praises. “I have a photographer here who needs pictures of the bride and her bridesmaids, and they don’t have bouquets.”

  “No problem,” the florist said. “They can take their photos after the wedding.”

  “They can, and they will, but your contract states you would have the bouquets here and in their hands two hours ago. The wedding is in less than an hour. If you aren’t here in five minutes, I will advise the bride and groom to contest the contract for a refund. I’ll also encourage my future clients to use a different vendor. Are we clear?”