Diary of an Engaged Wedding Planner (Tales Behind the Veils Book 3)

by Howe, Violet

  “Oh, please. Are you still sniveling?”

  She swept past me without so much as a word. She wore a solid black sheath underneath a long pashmina wrap in zebra print. A scarlet red wide-brimmed hat sat atop her dark brown locks, a perfect match for the red pumps she wore and the leather Prada bag she carried in the same shade.

  She made her way behind the screen to fling the purse on her desk, removing her hat to toss it across the desk as well. She reemerged and stood behind Heidi with her hands on her hips.

  “You’ve got to get over this,” Reynalda said to Heidi. She still hadn’t acknowledged my presence.

  Heidi sniffled and wiped her eyes, drawing her shoulders back with a deep breath.

  “Her boyfriend broke up with her last night,” I said in her defense.

  “Yes,” Reynalda said with the arch of a drawn-on eyebrow, “and that’s what she gets for dating the hired help. She’s much better off without him.”

  Heidi gulped and her shoulders shook, but no tears escaped.

  “The hired help? What does that mean?” I looked back and forth between Reynalda and Heidi.

  They both remained silent for a moment, and then Reynalda spoke.

  “I’ve tried to explain to Heidi that you can fall in love with a rich man just as easily as you can fall in love with a poor man. So why would you choose poor?” Reynalda turned and went back to her desk, and I weighed how awkward it would be to wrap my arms around the poor girl and rescue her from the Witch.

  Heidi’s eyes met mine, and a twinge of pain struck me at the wounds I saw there. She’d been betrayed and abandoned, which was painful for any girl in love, but then to have someone rub salt in it the way Reynalda had was just cruel.

  I extended one arm to offer a hug, but she shook her head and left the office.

  “Where’s she going?” Reynalda asked from behind the screen. “I have to leave for an appointment in the next twenty minutes. I need her in here to go through these files with you. Will you fetch her please?”

  Fetch her? Oh my Lord, it was taking all I had not to go off on this crazy lady. I stepped to the edge of the screen and peered at Reynalda, wishing I could melt her with my gaze.

  “She seems upset. Maybe we should give her a minute.”

  “I don’t have a minute,” Reynalda clipped back. “I have somewhere to be.”

  I held the copies up in front of me and waved them. “She gave me the proposals, and I’ve looked over them. Do you want to just go through them quickly while she’s composing herself?”

  The startled look on her face told me she had no idea what was in the proposals and needed Heidi in order to conduct the meeting. I sighed and went to find the servant girl to deliver her to the Witch.

  She was standing at the end of the hallway, crying quietly as she stared out the glass doors into the courtyard.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  Heidi nodded but didn’t look at me.

  “Why do you work for her?” I probably shouldn’t have asked, but I really wanted to know.

  She glanced over her shoulder at me and then looked straight ahead through the doors again. “Every assistant that has worked for her has been offered a job somewhere better. If I can do my time here, I can get somewhere. These events she does, she works with everybody who’s anybody. It’s great exposure. If I can just hang in here and meet a few people, I can walk out with a great opportunity.”

  “But she’s mean and nasty. Why do people let her get away with it?”

  “Because she gets stuff done. She makes things happen. She has the connections, and she always comes out on top.” Heidi sighed and faced me with her arms crossed. “Besides, she doesn’t act that way in front of everyone. Only the hired help like you and me.” Her lips twisted as she stressed the words, her mouth spitting them out as if they tasted bad.

  “What does that even mean? What was she talking about?”

  “My boyfriend was a photographer’s assistant. I met him when he worked one of our events. Reynalda never approved.”

  I shrugged and grimaced. “Why does she have to? She’s your boss, not your mom. Why should she care who you date? And I’d say if he’s gainfully employed, that’s a plus, not a negative.”

  “We better get back in there,” Heidi’s shoulders slumped as she walked past me and down the hallway.

  Reynalda met us at the door to her office, purse in hand, hat on head.

  “I’ve got to go. I can’t be late for my meeting because the two of you are out here boo-hooing over spilt milk. We’ll have to reschedule.”

  My pulse started pounding and my hands shook. “I’ve been waiting here over an hour for you.”

  She ignored me and directed her attention to Heidi. “If you aren’t going to be able to function professionally, I suggest you go home. But forward the phones to your cell so we don’t miss any calls due to your personal baggage.”

  With that she slid her sunglasses on and left us dismissed as she exited the building.

  “What a bitch,” I muttered under my breath. I swear I saw a slight nod from Heidi, but it could have been my imagination.

  I told Heidi I’d call her to reschedule and gave her a quick hug. “Don’t let her get to you. Life is tough enough without letting mean people walk all over you. Go home like she told you, but don’t forward the stupid phones. They can leave voice mails.”

  She smiled a teensy bit and swung open the glass door as I turned to go.

  I’m not sure if I can finish this wedding. I might just end up on TV or in a magazine for punching out Reynalda Riley, Wicked Witch of Central Florida. I can see the headlines now.

  Monday, August 18th

  We picked a date. We picked a color. We picked a location. Eventually, we’ll get around to picking everything else, but we’re not moving fast enough for Mama.

  “Hey, baby girl,” she said when she called this evening, just as we were sitting down to dinner. “I wanted to let you know I picked up all that stuff Teri had—good, quality stuff by the way. I figured I’d get it since it was free, and you can go through it when you come up for the bridal shower.”

  I knew when she said it was free that she would—wait, did she just say bridal shower?

  “Whose bridal shower?”

  “Why, yours, silly. Who else’s?” She laughed like I’d just said the funniest thing.

  “I’m having a bridal shower?”

  She stopped laughing. “Did your aunt Marjorie not call you? Well, I suwannee. Marlena is coming home Labor Day weekend for a shower, and I told Marjorie we should go ahead and have yours at the same time. Kill two birds with one stone. Marjorie was gonna call and give you all the details.”

  I slapped the palm of my hand against my forehead. “Okay, first of all, as you should know from this being my job for the last several years, I am slammed busy Labor Day weekend with weddings. It’s a holiday weekend. People get married on holiday weekends when it’s easy for their family to be off work. Secondly, I don’t wanna infringe on Marlena’s shower. That’s rude.”

  “How do you figure? This way people will only have to come to one shower. Of course, your sister Tanya said that probably means you’ll get less expensive gifts since they’re shopping for both of you. So that’s something to consider.”

  I groaned as Cabe took the peeler from me and finished the salads while I stood there stunned by the conversation.

  “You know what? I don’t even need a shower. Count me out.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! This is one of the few times in your adult life that people actually buy you stuff. Well, some of these old coots are gonna buy you junk no matter what. But getting married and having a baby is pretty much it once you outgrow childhood. You need to get the nice stuff while you can. Go to Target and Walmart and register for whatever y’all need.”

  Oh, the irony that my mother wants us to go register at Walmart to get the only nice gifts offered in adulthood.

  “We already have our own stuff, Mom. We
’ve both been living on our own a while, so we pretty much have two sets of everything.” In fact, we had boxes of duplicate items sitting by the door to go to Goodwill, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Well, that don’t mean you can’t get new stuff or better stuff. Just go register. It ain’t gonna hurt nothing and some people don’t pay no attention to it anyway. They just give you what they want you to have or whatever they have sitting in a closet to regift.”

  “But Mama, I can’t come home for a shower Labor Day weekend even if I wanted to. We have seven weddings that weekend.”

  “Alright, I’ll see if Marjorie can move it, but I don’t think so. Marlena’s job is very important and she can’t take time off real often. She saves lives, you know.”

  As compared to my job, where I ruin lives by facilitating marriages?

  “Don’t move Marlena’s shower. I don’t want to have a shower at all, much less invite ourselves to be part of someone else’s. Promise me you won’t bully Aunt Marjorie into hosting a shower for me.”

  “Oh, I won’t ask Marjorie. She’s busier than a one-armed paper hanger trying to get Marlena’s wedding planned. And she has nearly a year to plan. Her daughter didn’t throw a wedding in her lap and expect her to get anything worth attending arranged in two months.”

  “Two? It’s three—”

  “Oh! Before I forget, I told your cousin Bonnie she could be a bridesmaid. She ain’t never been a bridesmaid, and she’s just dying to wear a fancy dress and walk down the aisle.”

  Cabe took my hand to lead me to the table to sit, but I was too keyed up to even look at dinner. I waved him off and went to the living room.

  “Mama, no. I haven’t even asked anyone to be a bridesmaid yet. You can’t be asking people.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask people, Tyler. I asked your cousin Bonnie. She ain’t never been a bridesmaid before.”

  “She’s fourteen. She has plenty of time to be a bridesmaid. When she’s older and has some concept of what it all means. I don’t even know who I’m asking, so could you just chill and let me figure out my own wedding party? Please?”

  “Well, obviously you’ll ask your sisters. And you might want to include a few more cousins, depending on your numbers. How many is Cabe asking?”

  I rested my forehead against the living room wall and relished the cool strength of it. Then I bopped my forehead against it a couple of times in frustration.

  “We. Don’t. Know. We haven’t discussed it yet. Let me worry about our wedding party, okay? Now, Cabe’s sitting at the table all by himself and my dinner’s getting cold. I’ll call you when we’ve made decisions. Don’t do anything else, please?”

  He’d pretty much finished eating by the time I joined him.

  “What’s Patsy up to now?”

  “She’s picking my bridesmaids. She told my cousin Bonnie she could be in the wedding. If I have Bonnie in the wedding, there’s about twenty other cousins who will want to be in the wedding, I’m sure. I don’t want this all blown up to a huge event. I want something small and simple. You?”

  “Small and simple works for me.”

  “Have you thought about who you want for groomsmen? I’m assuming Dean will be your best man?”

  Cabe nodded and poured me more wine. “Yeah, I guess. I was thinking Dean, my cousin Danny. Your brother. Is there some magic number I’m supposed to have?”

  I shook my head. “No, not at all. Traditionally, they match the girls with the boys, but there’s no hard-fast rule. None that we’re following anyway.”

  “What about you? Who you asking?”

  “Well, I pretty much have to ask Tanya and Carrie, because they’re my sisters, so that’s a given. I was thinking maybe to ask Mel to be my maid of honor? Well, matron. I’d ask Carmen, but I know it would be hard for Omar to take time off from work and I don’t think she’d come by herself with the baby. I can’t believe Lila’s almost a year old. Wow.”

  So much had happened since Carmen left work on maternity leave last year after having Lila. Cabe and I weren’t even in contact then, and now here we are getting married.

  “You don’t want Lila in the wedding? Flower girl or something?”

  I shuddered. “Lord, no. There is no way I would ever put a baby or a toddler in a wedding. It’s unfair to them. The energy level is all elevated and they have no idea why. They’re off their normal schedule and being passed around to people they don’t even know. Everyone’s staring at them and expecting them to walk in front of strangers without crying. No. I love Lila too much to do that to her.”

  “What about Eric and Erin?”

  Cabe had gotten along fabulously with my niece and nephew in the short time he had with them while we were home, and he’d even talked to my sister Tanya about them coming down to visit the theme parks sometime soon.

  “Yeah, I’d consider that, if Tanya was up for it. It’s a big expense to have your kid in someone’s wedding, especially since she’s gonna be in it, too. I know she and Tommy struggle with her staying at home and them living on his teacher salary. I mean, he gets a stipend to coach, but still. I’ll ask her, though.”

  “What about Galen?” Cabe had been looking at his plate, but he looked up as he asked the question. His eyes searched mine, his expression unreadable.

  “You want me to ask Galen?” My eyes opened wide at the thought and both eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  “Not if you don’t want to. But she is my sister. You’re planning on her coming to the wedding, aren’t you?”

  I sat back in the chair and searched for my answer. “I guess? Yeah? I don’t know. Do you want her to come? I kind of thought you were still waiting on the apology that may never happen. So I guess I’m a little surprised to hear that you’d want her in our wedding party.”

  Cabe shrugged. “I don’t know what to do with it. I still think she owes us both an apology, but it’s our wedding. Kind of a big deal. I don’t know that I want to shut her out completely. She’s my baby sister. Even when she’s being a pain in my ass. Let me chew on it a little. I just wanted to know how you felt about it, you know?”

  I nodded. I’d assumed Galen would be at our wedding. I couldn’t imagine telling Maggie or Bill and Peggy we didn’t want her there. I’d not given any thought to her being in it. Of course, if Cabe wanted her to be, then it’s his wedding, too, and I wouldn’t stand in the way.

  So many decisions. No wonder brides are bitchy. I think I have a whole new understanding now.

  Thursday, August 21st

  Lila was not feeling well today, so Carmen stayed home with her. Which meant Charlotte was on the main phones. Happy happy joy joy.

  Mel and Laura were both out doing site inspections with clients, and Charlotte is terrified of Lillian, so guess who got stuck answering her questions every time she didn’t know what to do? Which was pretty much every time the phone rang.

  My favorite had to have been when she told me she had a bride on the line who asked if we could do scallops rumaki without the bacon. It was about the twentieth time she’d been to my desk and it was not even noon yet. I stared at Charlotte for a moment and willed myself to answer nicely.

  “Charlotte, you’ve never had scallops rumaki, have you?”

  Her eyes widened. “No. Why? Have you?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I have. Scallops rumaki are scallops wrapped in bacon. So no. We wouldn’t be able to do that. She can have scallops by themselves if she’d like.”

  She was back twenty minutes later. “I have a bride on the phone who wants to get married underwater dressed as a mermaid. Do we do that?”

  I rubbed my temples. “No. I’d have to say we don’t. I can’t think of an underwater facility off the top of my head.”

  I’m sure there’s probably some place in Central Florida that it could happen, but at that moment, I was happy to pass on it.

  Charlotte was intrigued, though. “They have mermaids at that Weekiwachee place, and they live underwater. Maybe we cou
ld have it there? Like, maybe the real mermaids could help with her wedding.”

  I glanced up from the budget in front of me, expecting to see a teasing smile, but no. Charlotte was dead serious.

  “Honey, you realize those aren’t real mermaids at Weekiwachee, right?”

  She shook her head in protest. “Oh, no! I saw them on television in a special. They live under the water. They showed them swimming around, and they didn’t have tanks or anything.”

  I nodded and weighed whether or not it mattered enough to correct her. Would it really harm anyone if Charlotte went on believing there were real mermaids living underwater at a Florida attraction?

  “Tell her to call Weekiwachee and see if they can help her. We don’t have a facility to accommodate it.”

  Her interruptions were non-stop throughout the day. It wasn’t really her fault. I’ve been on the phones up front before, and they ring non-stop. People ask the craziest things, too. So it wasn’t like I had no sympathy for Charlotte. It takes a special kind of person to man the phones. I think the reason Carmen does it so well is because she walks the line between providing over-the-top customer service and “I don’t give a damn so bye-bye.” I certainly couldn’t do that all day every day.

  I tell you someone else who doesn’t need to be doing it, and that’s the church lady at the church across from the old manor house. It’s the cutest little chapel. Stunning stained glass windows. Stone walls. Rich, wood floors. It’s well over a hundred years old and quite well-preserved. Its proximity to the manor house would make it the perfect ceremony location for a reception at the old house, and that’s just what my bride Ingrid had in mind to do.

  She and Kyle saw the church from the outside during our initial walk-thru of the manor house yesterday, but they had to fly back to Michigan today, so I told them I’d find out what we could make happen at the church.

  Mel and Lillian both said I was crazy for even trying. The church lady there is legendary among planners as being the most ferocious of her kind. Church ladies are often quite fond of their position of power, and they wield their hold on their churches with undying loyalty to the rules. Woe be unto anyone who infringes upon their authority.