Toss the Bride (16 page)

Before I head home with an early dinner of Thai takeout, I decide to drop by the Chattahoochee Chocolates plant and visit Avery. He gave me the grand tour the week he started, so I sort of know my way around. The plant is near West End in a once down-and-out industrial area newly populated with lofts and shiny new cars. I pull into the employee lot and head inside. The air-conditioning feels perfectly chilled against my hot skin. Just the walk from the cool car to the cool building is a stretch. Outside, the sun is shining like a blowtorch, and for the first time, I look forward to fall and the changing season.

The receptionist calls Avery and then returns to stuffing envelopes. I wait, walking around the small lobby and reading the press clippings framed on the wood-paneled walls. I learn Chattahoochee Chocolates has won the Confectionary Newcomer Award and the Food Traders New Start medal, and has been voted “Best Candy Bar in Atlanta” by the alternative weekly newspaper four years in a row. I look around, hoping for a free-sample tray of something chocolaty. It is hard to read about candy for more than a few minutes without wanting to taste it.

I hear a noise and look up, expecting Avery. Instead, it is Ted, whom I've met just once. I already like him, though. He talks superfast and uses his hands constantly to illustrate his point. He also seems to really care for Avery, and that makes me happy.

“Hey Macie, how's it going?” Ted asks cheerily.

“Good. Just finished up with a bride for the day.”

“Cool. Avery's around back. He wants to show you something.”

“It's not candy tasting, is it? Because I have to warn you, you don't want to turn me loose back there in the lab. I could be dangerous.”

Ted laughs and opens the front door of the lobby leading back to the parking lot. “Don't worry. I won't let you near the stuff.”

I follow him back outside, into the heat and the sun. Ted leads me around the back of the building, where three loading docks stand ready for shipping. Wads of newspaper have blown against the chain-link fence and weathered to a dull beige. As we climb the stained stairs to the first loading dock, I catch sight of Avery inside the bay. It looks like he's playing tennis. I give Ted a wry smile. “You pay him for this?”

“Just wait,” Ted says.

When we get closer, I can see that Avery is gripping a racket head in one hand and extending the grip toward a boy. Two boys, actually. They look about nine or ten years old, and they watch Avery with wide eyes. A man in a white T-shirt stands nearby, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Now, see, what you do here is shake hands with the racket,” Avery says to the smaller boy.

The boy giggles. “Why I wanna do that?”

“Because you have to hold the racket the right way or you can't hit the ball.”

“Let me try,” the taller boy says.

“Let's give Antwon a try first,” Avery says with a calm voice.

I watch the two boys and Avery for a few minutes before I am able to catch his eye and smile. The boys each get a chance to hit a few balls Avery gently tosses their way. The man, their father, chases down stray balls. When Antwon thumps a ball solidly out of the bay doors and into the parking lot, Avery calls it a day.

“If your dad lets you, we can practice tomorrow,” Avery says. He shakes hands with the two boys solemnly. “Remember, tennis is your friend.”

The boys nod, and repeat after him with seriousness, “Tennis is our friend.”

“That's enough, boys. Let Avery get back to work now,” the boys' father says. The boys scamper off to their bikes propped up against a chain-link fence nearby. “Bye, Daddy!” they call, spinning around the parking lot and popping wheelies as they pedal away.

“Get on home to Mama. Go straight there.”

With a last giggle, the boys leave the parking lot, looking both ways before they roll across the street. A tractor trailer lumbers by and turns into the next lot.

The smell of exhaust lingers over the loading dock. A stray dog lopes by on the sidewalk, head down and ears back.

“Macie, this is Louis, Antwon and Damon's father,” Avery says.

I nod hello. “They seemed like they were getting the hang of it.”

“Antwon, he'll do whatever Damon does. And he'll try to do it better,” Louis says.

Ted reaches for the tennis racket and takes a couple of air serves. “That's me and my brother. Always competing.” He tosses the racket to Avery and walks back inside with Louis.

Thinking idly about children and their pluckiness—the boys' determination to learn tennis even in the punishing heat of a summer afternoon—made me think. Somewhere in life we lose that determination. Or do we? Avery was starting anew with his job at Chattahoochee Chocolates. Iris dreamed up Cake Cake from her first tiny, cramped kitchen. Maurice practically willed himself to please every bride and nearly always did.

I walk over to pick up a stray tennis ball that had rolled under a beat-up dolly. As I squeeze the ball in my hand, my thoughts tumble over and over in my head. Avery wants to please me by having a job, by bringing home a paycheck. He thinks unless he walks out the door to work just like I do that I will not respect him. Will he admire me if all I do is work for Maurice, grumpily tossing brides for a living? It is possible that he will eventually lose interest in me for being just kind of average. A trickle of sweat snakes down my spine. The heat out here is making me crabby.

“I gotta go, Avery.” I place the ball in his hand.

“Not so fast,” he says and grabs for my waist. “We're all alone out here. Don't you find loading docks incredibly sexy?”

I kiss him and smell the sweet saltiness that is Avery after a few ground strokes. I start to feel lost in our own secret moment and then I remember Eliza. She is at home waiting for me to confirm a few last-minute appointments for tomorrow. I have to get on the phone. “I need a lip rain check.”

Avery presses the side of his face against my neck. “I'll give you a Chattahoochee chocolate bar not to go to whichever bride is freaking out.”

“Oh, so my affection is worth just a few ounces of chocolate?”

Avery lets me go. He picks up his racket and points it toward me. “That's
premium
chocolate, honey bun.”

Before I go, I pause on the dock stairs. “That was pretty neat, you teaching those kids the basics.”

“I walked outside earlier to meet some of the guys on the line, and Damon and Antwon were here. They live up the street,” Avery says. “They were just playing around and I thought about my racket in the car. You know how I never go anywhere without it.”

I nod. This is true. Avery is incredibly prepared when it comes to playing his sport.

“So, I asked them if they wanted to hit a couple of balls and that was it.” Avery looks down at his racket. “I really think I could teach them the game, get them started.”

“That's sweet. But don't get too disappointed if they don't like it. Kids that age change their minds a lot.”

“I know, I know,” Avery says. He looks thoughtful. “Maybe I could have been a gym teacher, you know? Or a tennis coach.”

“My bride Eliza works for a foundation that brings sports to inner-city kids. They host camps all over the country.” I am proud to have a bride who does more than wear an extremely heavy engagement ring.

“Really? That's great. I never thought of that. I guess some kids just don't have parks and tennis courts and—”

“Their own swimming pool? Yes, it's true, Avery. Not everyone had a barn filled with ponies, either.”

“You're such a jerk. We only had two ponies. One for me and one for a friend,” Avery says, menacing me with the racket.

“I'm out of here. You'd better get back to work or they'll dock your pay, college boy.” I walk down the steps.

“What, you mean I'm supposed to be getting paid?” Avery calls out after me.

I stick my tongue out at him and yell back, “I'd take my wages in chocolate if I were you.”

*   *   *

I stretch out on the couch, the cordless phone in my hand. It's Saturday evening and I have yet to remove my sensible wedding-planner suit. I kick off my pinchy little pumps and scrunch up my toes. I could use a neck massage, but Avery is across town. He answers on the first ring.

“I was hoping it was you. How did it go?”

“Oh, Avery, it was beautiful. It was one of our best.”

“That's great. Was Eliza happy?”

I unhook the top button of my silk shirt, cradling the phone to my shoulder. “She cried, the groom cried, his mother cried. It was wonderful. His mom made it down the aisle. Really slowly, but she did it. And the preacher had this great talk about blessings and I just about lost it. That never happens to me.”

“See? I told you that you could do it.”

“And the best part was that Maurice was barely involved. He was there, of course, to make sure the caterer did his thing and that the champagne was chilled to a pleasant forty-five degrees. But he really didn't need to because I had everything under control. Even when the cellist was late and the prelude had to start without her, I just bumped Bach for Mozart and it looked like we meant to do it.” Take that, wedding fiends, I say to myself and settle into the couch cushions.

“Before long, you'll be the sought-after wedding planner in town. Maurice who?” Avery says over the line.

“Nah, I still don't have his presence. Brides just feel better when they're around him. I'm too loosey-goosey.”

Avery yawns. “Well, Damon and Antwon each brought a friend to the lesson today. We had enough for the most unruly doubles game ever played.”

I laugh, picturing the two brothers jockeying for position on the court. After Avery's impromptu lesson, they came back the next day and the day after that. Avery made them a deal that he would give them a lesson each Saturday if they would find something else to do besides hang around the loading dock on summer afternoons. They met for the first time last Saturday at the public courts a mile from Chattahoochee Chocolates.

“I really think Damon has what it takes,” Avery says. “He's got this something in his eyes. Like he really gets it. Louis says Damon walks around the house bouncing a ball on the strings of his racket. I taught him that.”

“I know,” I say, stifling a laugh. Avery sounds so proud of the boys.

“Well, you just never know where life is going to take you. If you had told me a year ago I would be working for a candy-bar company and teaching tennis to boys on the side, I would have said you were crazy.”

Turning on my side, I reflect that just as Avery is doing something he's never done before, I have been venturing into unknown turf as well. Planning a two-week wedding stretched my organizational skills past their breaking point. I had sticky notes on top of sticky notes. Voice mails to myself. Three different alarm settings on my watch to remind me of appointments. And through it all, I tried to be tender toward Avery and not so grumpy. He is really trying to build a life for himself. And maybe one for us. I say good night and close my tired eyes, just for a moment. If I dream this night of weddings or brides or towering cakes, I do not remember. My last thought is of Eliza's bouquet. I picture catching it after the toss, the wide-eyed daisies tumbling end over end until they are safe in my outstretched hands. When I know all is well, it is then that I fall asleep.

9

The Greedy Bride

Before I became a wedding director's assistant, I did not know a thing about the fabled sweet-tea spoon. Silly girl that I was, I was not aware that a regular teaspoon, adequately stirred around a glass full of the sugary brew known as sweet tea, would fail to produce desirable results.

But it does, and the brides all want them: sweet-tea spoons. It's a long-handled version of the normal item every person probably uses a least once a day. Sweet-tea spoons are an addition to a flatware set and are given out when serving sweet tea or laid ahead when setting the table. They can be plain or fancy or monogrammed along with the rest of the set, and are always easy to pick out because of the long, narrow neck. The spoons almost never fit into traditional silver serving trays, and must be stored separately in a soft, fabric bag.

The sweet-tea spoon is an elusive beast. Not all flatware companies make them. After the traditional five-piece place setting—salad fork, dinner fork, teaspoon, large spoon, knife—a flatware company might make a special dessert fork or espresso spoon. They do not always bow to the whims of southern girls who demand their sweet-tea spoons.

My latest bride, Tika, must have her spoons. And they had better match her set or a certain overworked wedding-planner assistant will hear about it and a certain famed wedding planner will grouch and grumble. I am dispatched to research all available patterns containing the aforementioned spoon.

On an overcast Monday morning, I glide around one of Atlanta's better department stores, hoping to find something I have not seen before. Perhaps a new line or a new pattern will emerge that has been blessed with the golden spoon. I stake out my territory in the china department, every footfall landing in lush, scarlet carpeting. The overhead lighting is bright but not garish. The dozens of china patterns sit in recessed cabinets with soft accent lights. Crystal wineglasses and goblets sparkle nearby in tall, stand-alone display cases. Every detail pushes tradition and consumption. My brides usually love this department above all others.

Tika is no exception. She has spent weeks combing through the department stores and crafting her gift registries with intense concentration. She seems to take the prospect of receiving many, many gifts very seriously. I frequently field phone calls like the one I received this morning before breakfast.

“Macie!”

“Hey, Tika. What's up?”

“I'm on-line going over the registries. I'm thinking that maybe I should add dessert dishes and ice-cream bowls to my registry at Homespun. Maybe some crepe plates, too.”