You’re Invited Too

by Jen Malone

  They aren’t there.

  Even as halftime ends (complete with Linney shouting, “Don’t fall again, okay, Violet?” as she runs off the field), my friends still aren’t in their seats. As I move into position with my team, I finally remember why.

  Alexandra Worthington. Who insisted that today was the only day she could get to the church to plan every millisecond of the wedding ceremony, from how many seconds need to be between each bridesmaid’s walk down the aisle to testing how far the musicians will have to sit from the guests so the music will be the perfect volume.

  I hate that my friends aren’t here to see the end of the game, but at least Dad is. And so I ignore Linney’s smug face, try to bury my annoyance at Alexandra Worthington, and just concentrate on playing for Dad.

  I don’t think about Lance at all. Not one little bit.

  Sadie

  TODAY’S TO-DO LIST:

  ■ confirm dress pickup

  ■ make candles in vintage teacups

  ■ finish tying labels on key wedding favors

  ■ fold old-fashioned paper fans out of the printed wedding programs

  ■ call caterer and check on whether their forks have three tongs or four, and report back to AW

  ■ e-mail directions to hotel to AW’s third cousin

  ■ see how much Zach will charge to drive us to the mall in Wilmington to pick out bridesmaid gifts for twelve

  ■ get Vi to bake Zach some s’mores bars to bribe Zach if money alone won’t do it

  ■ talk Lauren into stealing Zach’s game controller if food and money aren’t enough

  ■ finish math homework

  ■ find binders to organize all wedding documents/contracts in—one copy for each member of RSVP

  ■ put all papers in binders, color code red for Becca, yellow for Lauren, green for Vi, and blue for me

  ■ EVERYTHING ELSE (AND THERE’S SO SO SO MUCH!)

  Izzy, you are the absolute best sibling anywhere. Seriously. I mean it.”

  My little sister goes all pink. “You’re just saying that because I’m helping you tie tags around all these old-timey keys.” She threads a piece of brown twine through the hole in the top of one, slips on a tag that says LOVE IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING, and ties them off.

  “Maybe. But you have to admit, these are awesome, right?” I’m super proud of myself for coming up with this idea for wedding favors. Way better than the dolphin bobbleheads we returned. They’re perfect for the vintage theme, and best of all, Alexandra Worthington loves the idea. Which means I love it doubly much.

  Izzy shrugs. “If you’re into this kind of thing.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I am.” I only have twenty-seven pages of Pinterest ideas on my Alexandra Worthington Vintage Wedding board, so I’d say, yeah, maybe.

  Izzy picks up another key and begins the process over again. “How come the other girls aren’t here doing this with you?”

  I jostle my shoulder into hers. “You’re the one who was complaining I didn’t spend enough time with you. I thought you might find this fun. Besides, you said you wanted to help, remember?”

  Izzy nods and adds another finished one to the pile. “I’m not complaining. Geez. I was just asking.”

  The truth is I really did want to spent time with Izzy, because I’m trying hard to be the big sister I promised Dad I would be and also because I sort of, kind of, even like hanging out with Iz sometimes. But the rest of the truth is that I was a little bit afraid to invite the other girls to help. I don’t want them to have so much to do that they reconsider their vote to keep going with the wedding planning. No one was happy when we could only stay for part of Vi’s soccer game before we had to meet Miss Worthington at the church. Now we’re only two days away from the big day, and they each have lists of their own to work on. Becca’s already in charge of putting together a playlist for the bands (note the plural s on that), Vi has to round up some of her teammates from soccer to help us hang these cool mason jars wrapped in lace doilies at the ceremony site, and Lauren is crunching numbers on the budget big-time. Everyone has something to do. So what if I have a few extra somethings?

  I can handle it.

  Plus I have Izzy to help me.

  “How was school, my sweet girls? Whatcha up to?” Mom comes in, tugging the ends of her hair through a ponytail holder. Her flip-flops thunk across the floor as she approaches.

  “I’m helping!” Izzy proclaims, and I hide a smile at how proud she sounds. Bonus big-sister points to me.

  “I can see that!” Mom smoothes the top of Izzy’s hair down and squeezes her shoulders. “Is this for the wedding? Too cute, Sadie!”

  For what seemed like forever it felt really super tense around Mom whenever anything wedding-related came up, and if this were last month, I probably would have found somewhere else to do this so I could avoid all mention of the Event That Shall Not Be Named, but lately she’s been bringing it up more and more in casual ways like this, and it hasn’t been so bad.

  “Yeah. These are the favors. The wedding’s a vintage theme so . . .”

  “They’re perfect!” Mom picks one up and examines it from every angle. “Completely perfect. I may have to steal this idea someday.”

  My insides get as warm and gooey as a roasted marshmallow, and I can’t hide my smile. Mom smiles back, then says, “Hey, so if you’re ready for a break, I’m planning to take advantage of the nice weather we’ve been having the last couple days to hit the surf for some pre-dinner boogie boarding.”

  I’m not sure whose eyebrows are higher—Izzy’s or mine. “Boogie boarding? You?”

  Mom just grins. “Well, yeah. There’s some storm in the Caribbean that’s sending great waves our way. I thought it might be fun. But fun is way more fun when it’s with my two favorite girls. Whaddya say?”

  Izzy is already halfway up the stairs and halfway out of her jeans. “I’m coming! Just gotta grab my wet suit!”

  Mom laughs and turns to me. “Sades. C’mon. A break would do you good. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how hard you’ve been working on this wedding.”

  I look down at the mess of keys waiting for tags and catch sight of my to-do list on the chair next to me. It’s only got two small lines crossed through a verrrrrrry long number of items.

  “Better not. Duty calls.” I motion to the tabletop and shrug. If anyone should get that, it would be Mom. She’s always missing out to do stuff for her clients.

  Mom looks like she’s about to talk me out of staying, but then she just says, “Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be in the cove. I don’t know what the undertow is like near the pier, so we’ll stick close to home.”

  I nod and go back to stringing a label. A few minutes later the house is so quiet I can hear the laundry upstairs tumbling around the dryer. I set a rhythm that matches the thump-thump as I thread and tie, thread and tie, but when the dryer buzzes, I decide the quiet is too much and flip on the TV in the kitchen. It’s some stupid talk show, but I don’t care. It keeps me company while I work.

  I finish the favors and pack them safely into a box before setting up the candle-making supplies I got from Party Me Hearties. The plan is to melt wax into these really cute mismatched vintage teacups Becca found at the antiques store above Polka Dot Books. There’ll be a few for every table, and I think they’re going to look fantastic. I just have no idea how long it will take to get them that way. This would be way more fun if I had someone to make them with.

  I pick up my phone to text Lauren, not to see if she can come over (even though her grounding is done, she’s sticking hard to her own no-going-out-on-school-nights rule) but just to have someone to talk to. We’ve been texting back and forth because her vocab word this week is “irony” and even she can’t explain what the heck “a situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected” means. She keeps saying, “I just know it when I see it.” So all day long I’ve been texting h
er my guesses. I scroll through this morning’s:

  Getting the flu on UR vacation?

  Nope. That’s just bad luck.

  Winning lottery & then dying next day?

  Also bad luck. But if you died by excessive paper cuts from giant check the lottery commission gave you, *that* would be ironic.

  I still don’t totally get it. But this time I think I just might have a decent guess:

  Starting party planning company to get ur Mom to hire u back so u could spend time 2gether, then not being able to spend time w/her bc ur too busy w/stuff 4 company?

  Her text back comes almost immediately.

  Um, yeah. That would be irony. Also: *hugs*

  That’s what I thought. I drop my phone into my pocket and get back to business. I’m nearly done with the candles when Mom and Izzy push through the door, dripping water from their ponytails and jumping up and down with their arms behind their backs trying to get their wet suits unzipped and peeled off.

  “Sadie, you should have seen the waves. They were, like, monsters!” Izzy’s pupils are so wide I can barely see the hazel parts.

  “It was a little intense,” Mom adds. “And the water was weirdly warm. Oh, and we saw two seals, right, Iz?”

  “Yup. And Mom says maybe we can go back out tomorrow! Right, Mom?”

  Mom motions for Izzy to step onto a towel she’s laid out on the floor and uses a second one to mop the wet spots from the floor. “Maybe, Iz. Depends on what those waves are doing. That storm is moving north. Last I heard it was headed for the Bahamas later this week, and that’ll make the waves even bigger, so . . . oh! The weather is on now—Sades, turn it up a little, please.”

  I hadn’t even noticed that the talk show had turned into the news. I guess I got more into candle making than I realized. I reach for the remote and punch up the volume.

  “. . . repeat that we’re now seeing a change in the trajectory of this storm. While our models here show it turning out to sea, new storm models out of Europe project a path for coastal North Carolina, with landfall predicted for Friday evening around nine p.m. With water temperatures warmer than usual for this time of year, the storm is expected to pick up traction as it makes its way up the coast and may come ashore as a Category One hurricane, with sustained winds of eighty-five miles per hour. Tropical Storm Susannah is one we’ll be keeping a very close eye on here in the weather center, folks. Stay tuned for more updates as Storm Watch Susannah continues.”

  Without realizing I’m doing it, I uncurl my fingers, and the teacup I’m holding nearly slips out of my hand. “But . . . but . . . that’s tomorrow. And the wedding is on Saturday. We can’t have a hurricane the night before the wedding!”

  “We’ll figure it out, Sadie. Don’t worry,” Mom says, taking the teacup out of my hand and setting it gently on the counter.

  “Don’t worry? Don’t worry! How am I supposed to not worry when the most important event ever that I’ve spent every spare second getting ready for might have to happen in six-hundred-mile-per-hour winds? The glider for the overhead pictures won’t even be able to take off, and I doubt the photographer from Nags Head we found to do it would even try to get here! This is—it’s just—I don’t even know.”

  I sink into a chair, and Mom sits down next to me and takes my hand. Izzy plops down on the other side of my mother and tucks herself under Mom’s arm. “Glider for overhead . . . ?” Mom starts, then says, “Never mind. Something tells me I don’t even want to know. Hey. I get it. I do. I once had a wedding ceremony take place in the same church where a funeral for a firefighter was happening in the next chapel. You couldn’t even hear the bride say “I do” over all the sirens outside honoring him. But, honey, even you can’t control the weather.”

  “But, Moooooom. Alexandra Worthington is not going to accept that as an excuse. She’ll probably want me to hunt down some voodoo doctor to reverse the storm direction or something.”

  I can tell Mom is trying not to smile (even though I could totally see Alexandra asking for that). “Well, then you’ll just have to tell her to take it up with your mother. Because if this storm is headed our way, we’re not going to be worried about a wedding, that’s for sure. I’m sure you’ve heard me and Dad talk about Hurricane Floyd. It happened before you and Iz were born, but it killed fifty-seven people and caused billions in damage from all the flooding. Granted, that was a much stronger hurricane and conditions were different, but still. These storms are nothing to mess around with. My first and only priority is keeping our family safe. And I want staying safe to be the only thing you’re focused on too.”

  I burst into tears. Mostly about the wedding stuff, but maybe a little bit from fear, too, because hurricanes are super scary and even though we all live with the threat of them because of where Sandpiper Beach is on the coast, I haven’t ever been here for one. Usually we get enough warning that Mom has us in the car and driving to my grandparents’ in West Virginia before it even gets windy. That thought stops my tears.

  “We’re not going to Grandma’s, are we?” I ask. My heart is pounding. I absolutely, positively cannot cross state lines with the wedding so close.

  Mom frowns a little and wipes the leftover tear streaks from my face. “I don’t think we have time if they’re talking about tomorrow night. I have to board up the windows and do all the rest of the storm prep. Hopefully, the projections are off and it turns out to sea, but I think we’ll be riding this one out at the shelter.”

  Izzy whimpers and Mom turns to comfort her. “Don’t worry, Izzy-fizz. It will be like a giant Sandpiper Beach sleepover.”

  “Will my friends be there?” Izzy asks.

  “You bet!” says Mom, tugging Iz’s ponytail.

  Izzy jumps up and races up the stairs. “I have to call Morgan and tell her!”

  Mom watches her go with a small smile, then turns back to me. “So listen. I know we haven’t really talked much about this wedding stuff, and I want you to know how proud of you I am. From everything I can see, you’re doing an amazing job, and I know from the time I spent with her that Alexandra is not the easiest of clients.”

  I can’t help a snort at that understatement, but I hide it in my sleeve because I really, really want to hear the rest of what Mom has to say about how awesome I am. Compliments from Mom are always the best, but compliments from Mom about wedding planning are the best of the best. I mean, really, they’re kind of my dream come true after everything that went down with the firing. But I totally don’t expect the next words out of her mouth.

  “However, Sades, I want you to ease up a little.”

  “What?!”

  “I know, I know. Maybe this is the pot calling the kettle black. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about this stuff these last few months. I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve been less busy.”

  I hang my head. If I hadn’t gotten Mom fired, she would be plenty busy. It’s all my fault she’s had plenty of time on her hands. “I know. I’m so, so sorry, Mom. I didn’t know you were her wedding planner when she first called us, and then Becca told her—”

  “Hey. Hey!” Mom uses her finger to lift my chin up so that I’m looking at her. “Is that what you think? That I haven’t been busy because you took my client away?”

  I nod, trying to form words over the giant lump in my throat. “And then you were talking about how I shouldn’t get too many clothes for school ’cause money was tight and . . .” I have to stop talking because I start crying too hard.

  Mom tugs me in tight to her chest. Her skin smells like salt water and her towel like dryer sheets. Mostly she smells like Mom. Safe.

  “Sades, really? You thought that was your fault? I have brides calling every day. I could do twice the number of weddings if I wanted to, but I realized this summer how much I was missing. I felt awful not being there on Illumination Night when Izzy got sick, and when I saw how much you were doing with RSVP, it made me realize how grown-up you were getting. I didn’t want to miss that anymore, so I me
t with my financial advisor and we figured out a way I could scale back the business to be home more. Sure, we have to watch our spending, but we’re just fine. I’m just fine. I had no idea you thought I was upset or that you thought you caused anything bad to happen.”

  She pulls her fingers through my hair and sighs. “Baby, we have got to get better at communicating. Especially with your teenage years ahead.” She tucks a stray piece behind my ear. “Can we make a vow to talk more openly with each other?”

  I nod and swipe a few stray tears off my cheek. All this time I thought Mom was so sad about the wedding stuff. Or mad. I don’t really know. I guess I’ve been so focused on the wedding that even though I noticed Mom has been around a whole lot more, I didn’t really want to acknowledge it or think about it because I felt so guilty it was all because of me. I’m such an idiot.

  Mom takes my hand and squeezes it. “Listen. I want you to hear me when I say this. Dialing back on work stuff has made me realize something. There are more important things in life than a wedding that happens on just one day out of a whole lifetime of days. Celebrations are wonderful and very special ways to mark occasions, but real life is everything that goes on between those big events. That’s where the most important stuff happens. Does that make sense?”

  Not totally, but I guess I get what she’s saying. I might need to think about it more later, like when I’m trying to fall asleep tonight. For now I squeeze Mom’s hand back. “So, um, you’ll be around more, like, for good?”

  “Hopefully. Or at least for as long as I can make it work,” Mom says with a smile. She wraps an arm around my shoulder and holds me close until Izzy clomps back downstairs to inform us she’s made a list of snack foods she wants to bring to “the town sleepover.”

  Mom tugs Izzy over the back of the couch so she lands on top of us, then tickles her. “A list, huh? I don’t know, Sades. I think we might have yet another party planner in the Pleffer family.”

  The giggles from all three of us drown out the light wind that’s starting to blow outside.