The Bridesmaid (2 page)

“I
was
wearing red
that
night.”

“And I know you won’t believe this, but, you know how at the very end of the song? You know how he whispers ‘I love you’ really softly?” Brock leaned in toward Abby’s mother’s desk like he was about to share a prized secret. Abby’s mother was riveted. “Well, I swear I knew I was in love with Kirsten right at that very moment.”

“And I knew I loved him too.” Kirsten’s grip on his hand tightened.

“
Oh!
That’s so
sweet,
” Abby’s mother said with a wide smile.

Stewardess, I’ll take that barf bag now.
It was exactly this type of story that had inspired Carol to come up with the term VIC a few years ago. All the couples that came through the Dove’s Roost seemed to have one of these sugarcoated cheese bombs to drop and they all felt the need to share them. Repeatedly.

“Abby? Did you get that?” her mother asked, turning in her big leather chair. “ ‘Lady in Red’ for the opening dance. We’ll need to tell the band.”

“Oh, I got it,” Abby said with a tight smile, gripping her pen. “Lovely choice.”

“Well, thank you!” Kirsten said. “You are so sweet to help out your mother like this.” She looked like she was about to burst into tears, that’s how touched she was.

“Just happy to do my part,” Abby said with a big toothy grin. When no one was looking she glanced at her watch.

Right about then she should have been down at Van Merck Park with Christopher and the rest of the soccer crew. If she were she’d be tearing down the sidelines, dodging and weaving, showing off the dexterous dribbling skills she had been working on all week long. But instead, she was stuck here, waiting for Kirsten’s inevitable morph.

So far Kirsten, while far too chipper for this early in the morning, had shown no signs of scales or a giant green tail. But that would all change soon. Something would make her snap. Something
always
made the brides snap.

“Oh! And I’ve decided I want the Hearts Entwined ice sculptures,” Kirsten said. “One for each of the stations at cocktail hour.”

“A fine choice,” Abby’s mother said.

Abby made a note. Hearts Entwined ice sculptures at four stations.
One thousand dollars for frozen water. That’s responsible spending.

“Ice sculptures?” Brock said. “Um, honey, I thought we decided not to go with ice sculptures.”

“No, Brock. Your father offered to put in more money, remember?” Kirsten said slowly. “That means we
can
have the ice sculptures.”

Brock laughed nervously. Abby found herself inching to the front of her seat. This was it.

“I thought that money would be better spent if we put it toward our honeymoon,” Brock said. “We’ve maxed out the Visa as it is. . . .”

“So? We have three more,” Kirsten said.

“Do you really want to start our lives together that far in debt?”

“Do you really want to have cocktail hour tables with no centerpieces?” Kirsten asked, her grip visibly tightening on his hand.

“I’m sure there’s something else we can do with the tables,” Brock said, looking to Abby’s mother for backup. “Phoebe? What do you think?”

“Oh, well, we can do some lovely things with the florist,” Abby’s mother replied brightly. “Or we can arrange the chafing dishes and platters in such a way that you won’t need decoration at all.”

Brock nodded. “That sounds good, doesn’t it?” He looked relieved.

“No decoration on the station tables?” Kirsten said. Her mouth hung open in stunned horror. She shook her head slowly and narrowed her eyes. “Are you insane? Do you want me to have a substandard wedding?”

“No, honey—”

“Don’t honey me! Lizzy Markowitz had ice sculptures at her cocktail hour!” Kirsten said, her face paling. “I
need
ice sculptures.”

“Just because Lizzy had them? You hate Lizzy!”

“That’s
why
I have to have them!” Kirsten stood up. “My God, Brock! You don’t understand me at all!”

“It’s just frozen water!” Brock exploded.

“Thank you!” Abby blurted out.

“Abby!” her mother said through her teeth.

Kirsten couldn’t have looked more offended if Abby had just suggested virginal white was not exactly her color. She burst into tears and ran from the office. Brock apologized and quickly followed. Abby leaned back in her chair with a sigh. She uncapped the pen again and wrote in her notebook.

Brock: 1
Bridezilla: 0

“Abby! How could you say that?” her mother asked as Brock and Kirsten stormed out the front door onto the lawn.

“What?” Abby asked, trying to look innocent. “I was just agreeing with the groom. I thought the customer was always right.”

“Abigail Lynn, I know that sitting in on these meetings is not your idea of a good time, so I appreciate your offering to help,” her mother said. “But I would appreciate it even more if you wouldn’t antagonize the clients.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

Her mother went after Brock and Bridezilla and Abby headed for the foyer so she could watch from the front windows. Then Abby’s father appeared from around the side of the house where he’d been assembling the lattice arch for that evening’s ceremony.

He gave them a questioning look and then said something, which Abby knew was probably “What seems to be the problem here, folks?” because that’s what he always said when something went wrong. He lifted his hand to his mouth and nodded in his concerned way as Kirsten did a dance of upsetness. Soon her father’s hands were on both their shoulders and he was saying something. Kirsten’s posture started to relax and Brock’s face became a less disturbing shade of red. Crisis averted.

After a few more minutes Brock wrapped his thick arm around Kirsten’s shoulder and they walked toward their silver BMW. Abby sighed and let the drape fall back down over the window. Her parents were so good at what they did. How they managed to genuinely care about each and every couple that came through the doors of the Dove’s Roost, Abby would never understand. They were all so insipid, so spoiled, so obsessed with a ceremony that didn’t actually
mean
anything. And yet, as far as Abby could tell, they spent so little time thinking about the eternal love that the ceremony was supposed to be about. All that mattered to them were color schemes, candle costs and whether to be announced as “Mr. and Mrs. Blabbedy Blah” or go the slightly more modern “For the first time as husband and wife, Blech and Blech Blabbedy Blah.”

Abby was just about to run upstairs and grab her soccer ball when she heard squealing brakes on the back drive, accompanied by the telltale scream of an electric guitar. Abby smiled. Noah was here.

She walked back through the main hall and into the catering kitchen, where Rocco and Big Pete were busy assembling the chicken kiev for that evening’s wedding. Little Pete—Big Pete’s nephew—banged away at the back of the catering fridge. There was a loud slam, followed by a cry of pain.

“Oh, focaccia!” Little Pete came out from behind the fridge, a bandanna tied around his head, his thumb stuck in his mouth. He kicked the refrigerator door.

As always, the food smelled amazing. Abby grabbed a carrot stick and dipped it in Rocco’s béarnaise sauce. There were a million drawbacks to living at the Dove’s Roost, but at least the food was good.

“Abigail! That’s for the guests!” Rocco scolded her with a smile.

“Put it on my tab!” Abby called.

Rocco and Big Pete laughed, their fast fingers never once pausing as they worked. Abby shoved open the back door just as Noah Spencer, bakery delivery boy extraordinaire, started up the steps. He was holding two pink boxes that almost jumped out of his hands when he saw her.

“You scared the crap outta me,” he said.

“Just trying to help,” Abby said with a smile and a shrug.

Her stomach was filled with that nervous-yet-pleasant tingling sensation she experienced every time she saw Noah. He was older, he was beautiful, and she’d had a crush on him since she was approximately nine and he’d saved her from a bunch of bullies on the playground at Van Merck. Noah had been riding his bike through the park, saw the fourth grade boys spinning Abby mercilessly on the merry-go-round and chased them off. From that moment on, Noah Spencer was her one and only, her dark-haired, blue-eyed knight in faded denim. But since he
was
older and beautiful and constantly treated her like a kid sister, she kept her crush to herself and did her best to treat him the way he wanted to be treated—like a big brother.

He walked by her and deposited the bakery boxes on the wooden pastry table.

“P.S., your pants are falling down,” Abby said.

Noah hiked up his khakis and grinned. “Lost a little weight, I think.”

“How you do that while working in a bakery I will never understand.” Abby crunched her carrot. Noah’s blue shirt made his incredible eyes look even more incredible than usual. She tried not to stare.

“Can I make up a plate for you and your pa?” Rocco asked Noah.

“You know it, Rock,” Noah said. “Dad would kill me if I came home empty-handed.”

Rocco started loading up a plastic platter with food. Noah turned and opened up one of the pink boxes, lifting out an intricately decorated layer of the cake. The yellow icing was covered with a white basket-weave design so detailed she could see the striations in the “wicker.”

“Wow,” Abby said, leaning her elbows on the table and getting in close. “Your dad does some amazing stuff with icing. This rocks.”

“Yeah?” Noah smiled proudly. “Well, I guess he’s the number one wedding cake guy for a reason.”

“What flavor is it?”

“Nothing you’d like.” He lifted out the second layer. “Chocolate with dark cherry filling.”

“Dark cherry? Blecch.” Abby stuck out her tongue. “How could they do that to their guests?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult my bakery,” Noah said. “Besides, I happen to love the dark cherry.”

“That’s cuz you’re a freak,” Abby replied.

“Speaking of freaks, how’s Johnny Rockets?” Noah grinned.

Abby sat down hard on a stool and rolled her eyes. “His
name
is Christopher,” she said. “God! One little Fourth of July mishap and you’re cursed for life.”

Last summer her friend Christopher had helped his father—a local sportscaster who was also one of Watertown’s volunteer firemen—set off the Fourth of July fireworks . . . and had stolen a couple to use at his own private party later that night. Christopher had managed to take down one of the oldest ash trees in the village and burn off one of his eyebrows—which had since grown back, but a bit darker than the other. All the kids in town had been calling him Johnny Rockets ever since. No one knew how the nickname had started, but Abby had always suspected that Noah had somehow had a hand in it.

“Fine! So how’s
Christopher
?” Noah asked as he began to carefully assemble the cake into tiers.

“He’s fine! Sheesh! Why do you always ask me how Christopher is and you never ask me about Delila or Carol or—”

“How
is
Carol?” Noah interrupted.

“She’s great. Amazing, actually,” Abby said. “She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, you know.”

“You’ve only told me two hundred times,” Noah joked. “You’d think you were her grandmother, not her sister.”

“Hey, I’m just proud of her. Is that so wrong?” Abby said. Graduation weekend in Cambridge had been amazing—a famous politician spoke at Commencement, and the Beaumonts had had a blast, spending the weekend at a fancy Boston hotel. The only bummer was, Abby hadn’t been able to spend much time with Carol herself. There were too many cousins and friends and roommates swarming around. “Anyway, she’ll finally be home next week. And, instead of moving into Boston like we thought, she’s staying here while she does her internship at the Conservation Commission.”

Abby shoved herself off the stool again and looked out the back window. The mother of that evening’s bride, Mrs. Wolf, was there, directing her father and the florist as they wrapped white organza along the chairs for the ceremony. The woman actually snapped her fingers at Abby’s dad and ordered him to retie one of his bows.

“I need out of this nuptial nightmare,” Abby said under her breath.

“What’s stopping you?” Noah asked, stepping up behind her. He was so close it gave her chills.

“I kind of live here, genius,” she said, looking at him over her shoulder.

There was a tiny cut on his jawline left over from his morning shave and his breath smelled sweet and spicy like cinnamon. He was so kissably close and yet completely unkissable. Abby took a couple of steps away, hoping to slow her pulse.

“But you don’t have to work here,” he pointed out. “My dad needs me at the bakery, but your parents run this place like a well-canola-oiled machine. So . . .”

Abby blinked. “Driving a van and carrying boxes are not exactly rare talents. Any minimum wage moron could do your job.”

Abby bit her lip when she realized how mean she’d sounded. This was one of her special talents— picking on Noah when all she wanted to do was tell him how perfect he was.

“You really know how to make a guy feel special, Beaumont,” Noah said. Cake assembled, he wiped his hands on his pants and grabbed a Jordan almond out of a big bowl on the counter. “But back to you. We all know you’re going to end up with some big soccer scholarship in a couple of years. You might as well ease the ’rents into the idea of an empty Roost while you’ve got the chance. Just go get another job. What’s stopping you?”

Noah had a point. Her parents really
didn’t
need her around here, did they? Well, except for right now because her mom’s arm was out of commission. But on a normal day Abby only helped out here and there, making favors, pouring champagne, putting out place cards. And her mom had just promoted waitress, college student and lifelong bride wannabe Becky Taylor to assistant events director. Abby probably wouldn’t even be missed.

But what would I do?
Abby wondered.
Where would
I work if I could work anywhere I wanted?