“There’s a little chapel,” Charlotte said. “It’s not far.”
“A chapel. How quaint,” Ursula said.
At first, Charlotte thought Ursula was being sarcastic. What would an LA-actress want with a little chapel and nobody to watch?
But her eyes reflected just how certain she was of this new idea.
“Will you two come? Be our witnesses?” Orion asked with pleading eyes.
Charlotte’s heart hammered within her chest. She blinked up at Everett, who looked just as shocked as she felt and they both finally smiled at one another.
“Of course we will,” she said. “I’ll call the pastor and have him meet us there. Everett?”
“I’ll call a few taxis,” Everett said. “We’ll be there in no time.”
URSULA’S WEDDING DRESS did, in fact, take up most of the back of one of the taxis. Charlotte thanked Everett for ordering a second one, which brought the two of them, along with the pastor, over to the little chapel. The pastor had performed a number of wedding ceremonies at that very chapel, and he even had a key. He snapped on the lights as the four of them stood awkwardly toward the back of the chapel.
“All right. I’ll head up there. Orion, you come along with me,” the pastor said. “Our witnesses? Take your seat. And Ursula? I think you know what to do.”
There wasn’t music. At first, Charlotte’s instinct was to put something on, something to fill the silence. But as Ursula walked up the little aisle of the chapel, her eyes heavy with tears, Charlotte realized that their emotions were too powerful; they required nothing else as a backdrop.
“You look beautiful,” Orion breathed, taking her hands in his.
“You look so handsome,” Ursula said.
She sounded different in these moments. Charlotte compared it to all the movies she had seen with Ursula acting in them. This was clearly the real Ursula, the one she kept only for Orion.
Everett reached across and gripped Charlotte’s hand as the two of them read their vows. Charlotte didn’t dare look at Everett; she knew she would burst into tears. With every breath she took, she knew she was falling for him.
And she couldn’t.
He was going to leave.
She couldn’t let herself go there.
When Ursula and Orion kissed for the first time as husband and wife, Everett and Charlotte stood and clapped and beamed at the couple. They turned and grinned back, again looking much more like young adults than world-famous millionaires. Charlotte supposed that’s what love was, in the end: just a couple of people, taking on the world together.
They had paid the taxis to wait to bring them back to the mansion. In the taxi, the pastor heaved a sigh and said, “I’m going to bed. This is much later than I planned on staying awake today. You said the wedding would be at four in the afternoon!”
Charlotte laughed. “I’m so sorry, Pastor, but the plans changed. We had no control.”
“If God wills it,” the pastor said. “I suppose you’re right.”
Back in the reception ballroom, Charlotte and Everett entered back into the fold of Charlotte’s family to intense speculation.
“Where have you two been?” Lola hissed at them.
“What do you mean?” Everett said, his eyes sparkling with secrecy. “We just stepped outside on the porch.”
“Yeah. Right,” Lola snorted.
“You can’t get anything past Mom,” Audrey said, stepping up, her hand wrapped around another croissant. “She sees everything. Luckily, I managed to get pregnant out of state.”
“You always have to bring it back to that, don’t you?” Lola said, rolling her eyes.
That moment, Ursula and Orion burst into the ballroom, their hands latched together and their smiles enormous. Everyone stopped talking. Even the DJ quit the beats.
“WE GOT MARRIED!” Ursula cried out suddenly. Orion tore toward her, bent her backward, and kissed her the way all women want to be kissed. When he brought his lips away from hers, he held his nose against hers tenderly.
It was enough to make your heartbreak.
Immediately, the ballroom buzzed with activity.
Photos had to be taken; Instagram Lives had to be filmed; tweets had to be sent; people had to tell everyone else about their opinions—like, I can’t believe they actually went through with it. They’re terrible for each other, or, I KNEW they were doing that. I figured they would sneak off and then make a whole big scene. That’s so Ursula. If you knew her the way I know her, you’d think that, too.
But honestly, none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered in these final hours of the reception was that—heck—Charlotte had done it. She had put on one of the more memorable weddings of the past twenty, thirty, forty years. She had pulled it off but not without a hitch.
“Sit back, now, baby, because you’re finally done,” Everett said teasingly.
Baby? He’s joking, obviously, but...
I want him to call me that again.
Charlotte laughed, forcing herself not to take the whole thing so seriously. “Let’s have another drink, shall we?”
“Only if you dance with me,” Everett said.
“That’s forward of you, thinking that I might want to dance with you,” Charlotte said.
Everett shrugged. “I figure it’s the kind of day to take chances.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She grinned and sat her glass to the side, just as a slow song came through the speakers. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Sorry to put you through so much torture,” he joked.
Charlotte hadn’t danced with a man since two years before Jason’s death when they had attended a wedding of one of their high school friends.
At the time, she had taken it for granted, just the way most women who had been married for what seemed like forever took such things for granted.
Now, with Everett’s arms around her, she shivered.
She wanted to tell him how weird it was for her.
But he did it, first.
“I haven’t danced with a woman like this in a long time,” he told her. “I don’t even know when it would have been. Ten years ago? Prom even?”
Charlotte laughed. “Why has it been so long?”
“I guess I’ve never bothered to get close enough to a woman to want to dance with her like this,” Everett explained.
His eyes meant business.
Like he wanted to be close to her.
“Am I out of practice?” he asked, interjecting her thoughts.
Charlotte shook her head. “I think you’re doing okay. Maybe a B or a B+.”
“I’ll take it. That’s a passing grade,” he said, smiling down at her.
The song ended, and then, several songs later, the night ended. One of the actresses from a recent acclaimed film ran outside to throw up in the snow, and another guy audibly broke up with his girlfriend in the corner. Ursula and Orion had spent the majority of the last hour stuffing Christine’s cake in one another’s face and making out with reckless abandon.
“I think it’s safe to say this party went off the rails,” Christine said, her eyes on the couple.
“It started off the rails. I don’t know where we are now,” Everett said. “How did Zach hold up, by the way?”
“I thought he was going to throw a knife earlier, but now he and the servers are partying in the kitchen,” Christine said. “The man knows how to cook, though. He outdid himself today. And he says he’ll take us on vacation next week. I could use a beach somewhere. Especially before the baby comes.” She beamed at Audrey.
Charlotte and Everett hovered out on the porch and watched the guests as they filtered back into their taxis and limos, returning to the hotels and inns across the island. Those who stayed on at the mansion had already headed up to their rooms, and the ballroom was slowly clearing out.
“This was one of the wildest weekends of my life,” Everett said. His eyes caught hers.
Charlotte’s heart thudded. This was the moment, wasn’t it?
The moment every girl waited for.
“I hate that I have to leave tomorrow,” Everett said.
“Los Angeles awaits,” Charlotte said.
Everett paused for a moment, then swept forward and delivered a perfect kiss—the kind of kiss that made Charlotte weak in the knees. Her eyes closed and the world slowed down around her. She no longer heard the screaming celebrities; she no longer remembered the stress of the day.
The only thing that mattered was this moment.
And all too soon, the kiss ended. Charlotte watched in shock and awe as Everett nodded and said, “I’ll see you when I see you,” and cut out across the snow, ducking into the taxi furthest away.
Charlotte was sure she would never see him again.
But he had given her something she hadn’t thought she would ever feel again.
Now, she had hope.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Everett stood at the magazine and newspapers stand in LAX the following evening.
In his right hand, he still held onto Charlotte’s Uncle Wes’s massive winter coat from the seventies. He had only realized that mistake when he had been halfway through his drive from Falmouth to Boston, midway through the day. “Shoot,” he had muttered as he’d stripped it off at airport security.
“Where you headed?” the woman at security had asked him.
“LA,” he’d told her.
“I guess you won’t need that coat all the way over there,” she’d said with a funny smile.
“No. I guess not.”
Now, his heart ached with the memories of the last few days.
It had been a whirlwind, from that first chance encounter of Lola and Christine at one of the local bars to the gorgeous Thanksgiving dinner celebration at the Sheridan house, then on through the weekend, until that final kiss the night before.
He hadn’t braved contacting Charlotte that morning. She had told him about her husband—something he hadn’t expected her to do, as it was clearly very difficult for her to talk about—and he hadn’t fully known if that was some kind of invitation? Some kind of, I’m interested in you and I want you to hear my story? There was no way to say.
On the flight, it had occurred to Everett that, since Charlotte had been married for around twenty years, she probably hadn’t dated much. Could he attribute all his confusion around it to the fact that she just hadn’t known what to say or do?
His eyes scanned the newspapers until he dragged one out the Sunday New York Times, still one of the most-sought-after newspapers in a world that was much more fascinated with online publications these days. He bought the newspaper from the guy at the counter and sat on the bench nearby. People in front of him walked down the hallway quickly, their eyes focused, their bags dragging behind them. For whatever reason, Everett didn’t feel any big rush to get back to his Silver Lake apartment.
Oscar-Winning Actress and NBA Basketball Player Tie the Knot in Secret Ceremony
The article was in the Social section. There was so much to say that the writer had managed to fill an entire page. A photo that was nearly identical to the one Everett had taken—when Ursula and Orion had burst back into the reception after their official ceremony at the chapel—graced the page.
This wasn’t your average, everyday marriage between two millionaires on Martha’s Vineyard.
I know it doesn’t sound like it should be any different. Maybe, on paper, it wasn’t. There were certainly thousand-dollar bottles of champagne, gorgeous details on the Christmas trees, a string quintet, celebrities from twenty different countries and fifty different films and TV shows, and several music performers with top Spotify ratings.
This reporter assumed that it would be just another wedding.
But it wasn’t. In fact, for the majority of Saturday, most of the guests assumed the entire wedding was canceled. Ursula Pennington herself stormed into the reception area and announced it, then immediately downed a bottle of champagne.
It was strange for Everett to read the events back to himself. It felt almost as though the things that had happened had been a part of someone else’s life. He skimmed down a bit more before he caught sight of Charlotte’s name.
Charlotte Hamner, a remarkable newfound force in the wedding industry, did the best she could with what she had. Her décor was immaculate; the parties were stunning. But beyond this, a source close to the actress herself states that Charlotte brought Ursula and Orion to a nearby chapel for the ceremony itself, after they decided to marry after all. It’s this commitment to unique detail, according to some, that led Ursula to hire the woman in the first place.
I’m sure this isn’t the last time this reporter will write about the likes of the wedding planner, Charlotte Hamner.
Everett grinned inwardly as he folded up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm.
Outside, Everett called for a Lyft car and darted into the back seat, still holding onto that huge coat. The Lyft driver was a California-guy through-and-through, and he scoffed at the coat. “Where were you? I hope you went skiing.”
Everett gave a half-answer about a job he had to do out east. He let his head roll back on the car seat as the vehicle rolled toward Silver Lake. For reasons he couldn’t fully name, the place looked much different than it had before he’d left—as though his brief stint out east had left his eyes permanently changed. When he closed them, he saw snow behind his eyelids.
What was that about?
Back in his apartment, he received a text from the girl he had been seeing on-and-off over the previous month or so. He thought back to their few nights together, how stunted the conversation had been and made the decision to end it.
Compared to what he had built with Charlotte, it had been next to nothing, anyway.
He sat at his kitchen table and scanned through his phone.
It was the first time in several days that he gave full attention to other people’s lives, which was also a difference to him.
People in California were normally looking in on one another, always trying to “win” the situation with a better life.
Back on Martha’s Vineyard, Everett hadn’t considered anyone else’s life once.
He had just actually liked where he’d been, who he had been around.
But what did that mean?
He couldn’t just decide to move there, out of the blue. That was crazy. It was the kind of thing Charlotte—or women like Charlotte—would turn their noses at.
Everett busied himself with the photographs he had taken the previous days at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. It took a number of hours to edit the “keepers” properly and send them off to his editor, who wrote back almost instantly.
These are incredible, Everett—but not as wild as that wedding sounds like it was. The Times broke it. Apparently, they had someone on the inside?
At this, Everett leafed again for the newspaper to read the byline.
He laughed to himself.
Lola Sheridan
What were the chances? And when had she found the chance to write it and send it off? Early that morning? Had she stayed up all night?
The Sheridan women were certainly something else.
Anyway, I think we’ll have a spread on this in the next issue. Do you think we should include more about the wedding planner? There’s been buzz about her, even after we featured her in that Q&A the other day. Let me know. You probably met her?
Everett dropped his head back and blinked at the ceiling. His sink started leaking, a horrible drip-drip-drip against the bottom, and he bolted up to turn the handle all the way back down again.
He hadn’t gotten her number.
But probably, she had a website, right?
He found the Wedding Today website and went immediately to the Q&A with Charlotte Hamner. Sure enough, her website was listed. He found it, then found that she didn’t have a direct email or phone number, just a contact box.
He had to fill out the contact box to get to her, just like every other bride
in the world.
And he felt like a complete idiot doing it.
Hey Charlotte,
It’s Everett.
I realized I’m an idiot and didn’t get your number or email or anything.
My editor wants to include more info about you in the article about the event. Is that okay with you?
As I’m filling this out, I realize that my editor probably already has your details and has already emailed you directly with this exact question.
So I’m feeling more and more stupid as I write this.
To put it frankly, I liked meeting you. Now that I’m back on the west coast, sitting here with your Uncle Wes’s enormous winter coat, I realize I liked meeting you more than I liked meeting other people.
Don’t know what I want you to do with that information.
I guess I just want you to know that, just in case.
Everett stared at that cursor at the bottom of the little contact box for a long time. It was almost ten at night, which meant it was one in the morning over there. She would get it in the cold light of Monday morning.
Great.
But there was no way he could turn back now.
He clicked his mouse on the SEND button and then watched the box transform to a:
Thank you for contacting Charlotte Hamner! She will get back to you soon and can’t wait to help you transform your wedding dreams into a reality.
Everett changed into his boxers and tried to get some sleep in his bed, which he had bought used from another friend who’d wised up and returned to Seattle after a year of LA. He flopped around in the bed for a little while, until he whacked his hand to the side and gripped his phone. He heaved a sigh, then began to drum up another message.
Apparently, there was a lot on his mind.
Hey Mom. I wanted to apologize for missing Thanksgiving. I missed your apple pie (and your company) more than I can say. I hope we can mend our relationship soon. I love you.
The minute he sent it, the app showed his mother writing back.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one sleepless on this Sunday night.
Before she finished writing, she called him.
Everett answered on the first ring.
A Vineyard Thanksgiving (The Vineyard Sunset Series Book 4) Page 14