Wedding Girl (29 page)

“Sophie, I get it. It's fine. We're grown-ups. We had a nice
night together, and it doesn't have to mean more than that. No worries.”

Whew. “So we're good?”

He smiles. “We're good.”

“And we can just not talk about it?”

“Well, if you will stop talking about it, I can get dressed and leave, and then when I come back this afternoon we can very specifically not talk about it.” He smirks.

I smack him on the shoulder. “Get dressed and go before it gets weirder.”

“Well, I think if we're not going to talk about it, then you shouldn't watch me all naked.”

“Such a delicate flower. Like if I see you naked, what? I'm just going to jump you all over again?”

“You might, if memory serves, and with good reason.”

“Augh!” I throw the blanket over my head. I hear him moving around the room.

“Have to say, I never got to do that in here when I was growing up, so thanks for making an adolescent fantasy come true.” His voice is muffled by the blanket.

“You're welcome,” I say, not really sure how else to respond.

Suddenly the blanket is pulled away from my head.

“I'll see you at three thirty, boss lady. I'm bringing the people who will be helping out for the next couple of weeks as things heat up. I mean, as we get busy. I mean . . .” He is stammering, but it is fake; he's doing it on purpose, and his eyes are twinkling in a wicked way.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Thank you for a lovely night, Miss Sophie. One for the record books.” And he leans over and kisses me softly on the mouth, and despite my firm resolve that this was all kinds of a huge mistake, and my clearheadedness that it should never happen again, my body, which apparently didn't get the message,
cries out to grab him and pull him back into bed. “I'll see you later.” And then, thank goodness, he is gone.

My phone peals on the nightstand, the alarm ringer set for maximum “get my ass out of bed” volume. I grab it and shut it off, then press my fingers into my throbbing temples and go to the bathroom for more Tylenol and more water and an endless pee. My body feels all of the aftermath of a night of passion, and just the flashes of memory that are attacking my brain are enough to mortify me.

I'm weak. I have succumbed to my basest primal desires and slept with the wrongest of men for the wrongest of reasons. All I can do is pray that he sticks to the plan and that we don't ever speak of it again. I get into the shower and scrub hard, wanting to remove all evidence of the previous night, and I find only one earplug, tidily tucked behind my left ear. I get dressed, zip downstairs, and grab a chocolate babka and a loaf of rye bread, just in case, and head over to Bubbles's. My parents' cars are both parked in front, which means they are both heading straight to work from here. My headache is down to a dull roar, and I know that breakfast will help.

“Hello?” I call out as I come through the door. Snatch snuffles his way over to see who is here and if they have treats, and I lean down to rub his head. He's wearing a very jaunty argyle sweater in shades of mint green and Tiffany blue, with a knitted-in bow tie. I toss him one of the biscuits from the bowl on the foyer console and hang up my jacket on the coatrack.

“We're in here,” my mom calls from the dining room.

I make the rounds, kissing everyone, before sitting next to Bubbles at the place she has left for me between her and my mom. I set the babka and the rye on the table. Bubbles has put
out a lovely spread. I fill my glass with orange juice, drain it quickly, and then fill it again. For a few minutes, everyone passes around the dishes, filling our plates, taking first bites, and praising Bubbles for the grub.

“As nice as it is to have us all together, I do have an ulterior motive,” Bubbles says, patting her lips with her napkin. “As the titular matriarch of this family, I think there are a few things that we should discuss with some frankness as we look to get through the next few weeks.”

“What's going on, Mom?” my dad asks around a mouthful of spinach and cheese strata.

“Is everything okay?” My mom spreads marmalade thickly on a half of an English muffin that she has already lavished with butter.

“I think everything will be fine, but we do need to address the elephants in the room.” Bubbles chews a piece of bacon thoughtfully. “I think the best way I can put this is to say that I love you both very much, and I appreciate that you are currently doing many things at once which are terribly stressful; however, I also think that you both are in danger of behaving in ways that you will be embarrassed about later, and would like to help you avoid that if I can. After all, I know that my children are not assholes, and would prefer that everyone around them not be put in a position to question it.”

Damn. I cannot
wait
until I'm eightysomething and can just say whatever comes into my brain with no filter.

“Mom!”
my dad says, not sure if he should be insulted or amused.

“Really,” my mom says, her eyes narrowing in a way that makes me quite sure she is now looking at Bubbles with a clinical eye and wondering if this is the first stage of dementia. I take another piece of strata and dig in, the rich combination of eggs,
bread, spinach, onion, and cheese filling the hole in my stomach, and settling the remnants of the previous evening's bacchanal.

“Really, indeed, my loves. Robert? You have turned, these past weeks, into some cowering milquetoast who has lost his voice, and I'm not really sure why you are allowing yourself to be bullied by the love of your life for the first time since you met.”

My dad's mouth drops open.

“And, Diane, my darling daughter-in-love, you have become a demanding, shrewish bridezilla, which I know is the opposite of who you are and what you want.”

My mom stops mid-chew, and her lovely violet eyes fill with tears.

“I don't want to hurt either one of you. This is purely from a place of concern, but I do have to be honest. So I would like for the four of us to talk about your upcoming move, and the wedding, and all of the things that are sending you both into personality chaos, so that we can help in any way that we can.”

“Am I so awful?” my mom asks, her chin quivery, though she's not quite crying yet.

I reach over and squeeze her arm. “We think you are going through so much all at once that it is making you really super stressed-out, and we just feel like you aren't having any fun with any of it. This is so amazing for you guys, moving, doing the new place, getting married . . . It should be full of joy and excitement and fun, and you both just seem miserable and frustrated.”

“It has been a little bit . . . complicated,” my dad says, looking at his lap.

“I'm not really sure how to . . .” my mom starts and then trails off.

“Here is what I think,” Bubbles says, matter-of-factly. “You are a little bit at odds with the life you are about to embark upon and the personal politics and lifestyle that have preceded it, and how to reconcile those things.”

My mom nods, the analyst in her processing this. “I think that is very astute, and could certainly add a layer of emotional complexity to everything.”

“Haven't you both always said that the most important part of living a good life is to be true to yourself as long as it doesn't cause harm to others?” I ask.

“Of course,” my dad says firmly.

“And, Mom, don't you always say that people are ever evolving, and that change is both possible and healthy as we continue to grow in our lives, that embracing those changes is positive and a sign of a strong person?”

“That's true,” my mom says, reaching for the babka and ripping off a chunk.

“Okay, then you should both know that there is nothing wrong with wanting nice things or a secure future. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with wanting to stand in front of the people you love and vow to continue to love and support each other as you move forward in your life. There is nothing that hurts anyone else about your having financial security and a lovely place to live and a legal expression of the love you have always shared.”

My mom blushes, and my dad reaches for her hand.

“Your daughter is very astute,” Bubbles says. “You both need to get over whatever weird guilt you are feeling about your newfound wealth and about having a home that functions well and is comfortable. And, for goodness' sake, you cannot be strange about getting married; it is the most natural thing in the world!”

“And for what it's worth, you can't feel at all weird or bad about me and my wedding that wasn't or what happened after. I'm really happy for you guys, about every bit of it, and I want to help in any way you want me to.”

“Thank you, honey; that means a lot,” my mom says with a sheepish smile.

“And I promise I'll participate in making the decisions instead of abdicating,” my dad says, getting up to come around and wrap his long arms around me and my mom in a big hug. “And thanks, Mom, for the kick in the britches.”

“Good,” says Bubbles. “Now let's make some plans . . .” And the four of us, our strange little family, sit and eat, and start to hash out how to get my parents married properly without anyone ending up in a padded room. And for the first time since I became Wedding Girl, I actually have fun offering some wedding advice, because the one thing that is the most important about any wedding is love, and however weird my clan is, we've got that in spades.

By the time we've finished plotting out a wedding that will make sense for my folks, it is nearly eleven thirty, and I head back to Herman's to take a nap. They have decided to do a simple late-afternoon ceremony the first weekend in November, followed by a casual party at their old house. The place will be empty, since they will have moved out the week previous, and they can set up tables and chairs all over the first level, with the buffet in the dining room. They can put up a heated tent in my mom's garden for the ceremony, and have a DJ for dancing in there. They called the developer on the spot, and he said immediately that he couldn't think of a nicer way for them to say good-bye to their old home, and agreed that they could have the house for the extra week so that it could happen. Not surprising since he has been so tolerant of the ever-changing target that has been their actual move-out date. They'll invite just friends and family and colleagues with whom they socialize. About one hundred people total. And, of course, I'm making the cake.

I sleep like the dead for about two hours, full of strange sex dreams starring Mark, and wake groggy and not feeling rested
at all. I drink two cans of Coke, eat a slice of leftover Lou Malnati's sausage pizza from two days ago, and head down to the bakery to meet my new team.

“Hey, Sophie, good to see you.” I'm shocked to see Jason standing in the kitchen with Mark. “This is my girlfriend, Annabel.” He gestures to a slight redhead, who I recognize as the hostess from Café Nizza.

“Hi. What are you guys doing here?”

“They're your backup team,” Mark says.

“Wait, what?”

“Mark told me what was going down over here, and that you needed help for a couple of weeks, and our place is running pretty well. We're talking about wanting to open a second location, which means we need to know if it can run without us, so we figured taking a couple of weeks off to help you here will tell us a lot about how things will shake out over there, without us being too far away in case of emergency,” Jason says, very matter of fact and implying that it is no big deal, even though I know that the sacrifice of two weeks of time when you own a place like his is
huge
.

“I don't know what to say, that is above and beyond.”

“Nah, I'm here to steal all your secrets. You were always way above me,” Jason says with a wink.

“And I'm here to assist him, and do front of house,” Annabel says. “I love this place. My grandparents lived here when I was growing up. I've been eating Langer's stuff since I was born.”