by Howe, Violet
The elevator doors opened and I followed her into her penthouse suite. Which was magnificent, by the way. I guess that goes without saying.
“I need to take a shower. Wait here.”
Twenty minutes later, she came out in a robe and poured herself a glass of champagne. “So tell me about this wedding. Give me the rundown. You’ll run the rehearsal while I talk to the reporters. Do not give an interview. Do not answer any questions or pose for any photos. If they ask you to, tell them the client contract forbids you talking to the press.”
No sooner had I started telling her about the wedding than a knock pounded on the door. Reynalda opened it and ushered in a guy with blue hair and a girl with multiple piercings. She didn’t bother to introduce me or them, but it didn’t take long to figure out they were there to do her hair and make-up.
I talked as they worked, flipping through the file to ensure I was recapping all the important points of the ceremony.
When I mentioned anything about the reception, she’d hold her hand up and say, “Ceremony. Focus on the ceremony.”
They had her made up and back to normal within a half hour and we were at the valet.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive? You’ve been drinking and taking Valium,” I whispered as we waited for them to bring our keys.
“Oh, please. Do you think I’m an amateur?” She slid the large tortoiseshell glasses over her eyes and sauntered to her car. Reynalda was back in business.
True to her word, she spent the whole rehearsal talking to the reporters. Occasionally, she’d call out some random-ass instruction to someone in the wedding party—I assume to make it appear she was in charge—but I basically ran the whole thing.
She never said one word about what had transpired between us. Not a thank you. Not a keep your mouth shut. Not a “hey, sorry I said some weird, sort of crappy things.”
It was as though it had never happened.
Saturday, October 11th
What a circus. Barnum & Bailey ain’t got nothing on this lady.
I arrived at Chris and Jayah’s hotel around seven this morning to begin set-up for our four o’clock ceremony. Reynalda strolled in around noon.
The banquet captain had just told me the custom-designed charger plates with Chris and Jayah’s initials had arrived with three plates cracked. And, of course, no extras.
In addition, the digital mapping projectors had blown out power on one side of the ballroom. When they tried to run cables to the other side of the room, the distance reduced the quality of the projection. The company’s representatives were working on a solution, but there was little help to be found on a Saturday.
On top of that, the hotel had sent over a revised diagram yesterday to Reynalda requesting that they be able to drop the coffee stations and sushi stations down to one set each due to reduced labor and a shortage of six-foot tables. Reynalda or Heidi had approved the change without ever consulting me, and in all the drama that transpired, no one had told me until I got here today and realized the set was wrong.
Because they had Reynalda’s signature on the change order and she was technically the signatory, I had no authority to get them to change it back.
She wasn’t answering her phone, of course, so when she came busting up in the reception room in her sleek black dress and little black loafers, I immediately pounced on her.
“We have an issue with the chargers, but I’ve got someone from the hotel on the phone with the—”
She held up a perfectly manicured hand and shook her head. “Not now, dear. I can’t. I’m exhausted from an appearance at a celebrity golf tournament this morning. I need to get checked in and catch a quick power nap before my hair and make-up appointment.”
I pondered what kind of prison sentence I would get if I strangled her.
“No, Reynalda. I need your opinion to make decisions. We have charger issues, we have projection issues—”
“Tyler, please. You’re a professional. You are fully capable of handling your own crises. Don’t be so dependent on me.”
“I’m not dependent on you! These are your clients. I need your input on how you’d like me to handle these situations.”
“Do you really? Really? Are you sure you couldn’t just use that brain God gave you and make some decisions on your own? I’m turning my phone off, and I’ll be back down at two to meet with the press. Don’t talk to them.”
She spun on her heel to leave, and I trotted along behind her. “But I need your signature on a change order.”
She never stopped walking. “So forge it. Tell them you’re bringing it up to me to sign and then sign it and give it back. Do you think I ever actually sign any of this paperwork?”
I didn’t see her again until she brought the press in a little after two o’clock to take shots of the room. She was made up to the nines and dressed in a floor-length sequined gown. You know, like all us wedding planners wear when we’re working an event. Her hair had been swept up into an elegant chignon and her make-up was flawless. She looked stunning, and my desire to kill her grew.
The group of reporters followed her as she spoke to the banquet captain and greeted a few of the servers by name. “Did we get the charger situation resolved?” Her question was directed to the captain, who nodded and assured her it had been handled.
Hell yeah, it had. Because I had taken care of it and pulled the chargers from any seat with small children and replaced theirs with small Disney plushes from the hotel gift shops.
Reynalda’s next press stop was the audio/visual booth, where she explained to the reporters that the event would feature digital projections from seven different locations around the world, which was basically the only fact I’d been able to share with her about the reception since she kept stopping me every time.
“What’s the update on our projectors, Luke?” she asked the digital technician. He explained in great detail how they’d rigged the wires, and she patted him on the back and told him she’d never doubted he would figure it out.
She didn’t even know what the issue was!
To hear her talk from the viewpoint of the press, you would think this was a woman in charge of the room, on top of every little detail. Despite the fact she’d only set foot in the room for ten minutes tops and couldn’t be bothered to actually hear the issues then.
She never so much as looked my way while the reporters were in the room, and I didn’t see her again until just before the ceremony.
I was coming out of Jayah’s dressing room when Reynalda passed me on her way in.
“She’s all set. We can start the ceremony whenever you’re ready,” I told her.
“Great. My team of helpers has arrived. I know the reception room has kind of been your baby today, so why don’t you go ahead and stay in there? Make sure things are on track and put out any fires. We’ve got this.”
A group of four young star-crossed groupies stood behind her, hanging on her every word. She snapped her fingers, and they scattered. I tromped back to the reception room, fuming. I knew she was keeping me out of the camera shots so that she appeared to be fully in control. The same thing she’d been doing all day. Fine by me. I didn’t care about being photographed or interviewed or put in the limelight.
But I’d worked with Chris and Jayah for several weeks. I had helped plan every aspect of what was happening today. It bothered me not to see my bride walk down the aisle. Not to be there for my very favorite part of any wedding, in those priceless moments just before the doors swing wide and a father walks his daughter toward her future.
I hated that I wouldn’t be there to congratulate them when they came bursting through the doors as man and wife. Try as I might to convince myself it didn’t matter, it really bothered me and put me in a funk the rest of the night.
The best part of the evening was the very end. When all was said and done and the guests had departed, and I was walking Chris and Jayah up to their suite.
“Everything was perfect, T,�
� said Chris. “You pulled it all off exactly how we wanted.”
He slapped my hand in a weird sideways high-five that I’m sure I screwed up somehow.
Jayah gave me a huge hug and smile. “We could not have done this without you. We know how much you’ve done for us. We owe the success of our wedding to you, and we won’t ever forget it.”
That’s what matters, isn’t it?
Monday, October 13th
I told Mama yesterday that if she didn’t send me a picture of these centerpieces she and Aunt Pearl have cooked up, I’m going to go ahead and book Sandy’s floral services.
She kept telling me she couldn’t figure out how to send the pictures she took with her phone, so I asked Carrie to go over and take a picture.
Oh holy hell.
A one-armed chimpanzee could have done a better silk arrangement than that, and don’t even get me started on the colors.
I was aware she’d bought the silk flowers on clearance sale, (again, against my wishes) but I’d kind of thought she understood the whole winterland, white-silver-purple theme we had going. I thought she’d bought into that.
But no.
They’d done up three examples to show me. They had spray painted the baskets white and glued some kind of snowflakes on them, and that’s about as winter as they got. The silk flowers were from every season imaginable and in every color of the rainbow. I’m talking red, orange, burnt orange, pale pink, hot pink, yellow. You name it, it was represented. Well, except for white, silver or purple. No, I take that back. A couple of them had purple flowers, but it was the kind of purple you’d use for a superhero costume, not the deep, elegant aubergine I had in mind. She even had one or two centerpieces with one flower in an unnatural, Easter egg blue.
I called Carrie right away.
“Are you kidding me? Please tell me this is a joke.”
“I thought you knew,” Carrie said. “Mama said you knew what they were doing and you just wanted a picture of the progress. I told her you were going to blow a gasket.”
“I knew she was making silk arrangements in baskets, which I told her not to do, by the way, but she’s hell-bent and determined to do it anyway. I thought perhaps she might attempt something elegant. I didn’t know they were going to look like she plucked them from the Munchkin gardens of Oz. Carrie! What am I going to do?”
“You’re asking me? I have no idea. I got married in an Elvis chapel wearing a rented red dress, remember?”
“Aargh. I can’t believe this. I’ve been telling her since day one that I don’t want silk flowers, or wicker baskets, or yellow linens. It’s like talking to a brick wall. She does not listen to me.”
“That’s Patsy.”
“What am I supposed to do now? If I don’t use these stupid atrocities, she and Aunt Pearl are gonna be all miffed, but there is no way I’m putting that on the tables at my wedding. I’m just not.”
“So tell her.”
Carrie and I both sat silent for a moment as we each imagined how that would go.
“I need your help here, Carrie.”
My sister laughed. “My help? What am I supposed to do?”
“Talk to her! Cabe’s mom has agreed to pay for my flowers. To have a professional designer come from Atlanta and do all this for me. Not only would it keep me from having a basket of Skittles on every table, but it would also save a lot of time and stress for Mama. But she won’t hear of it. She says it would be rude for me to accept the gift and embarrassing to the family. You gotta talk to her.”
Carrie groaned. “Alright. I don’t know that it will do any good, but I’ll try.”
“Thank you. You have such a way with her. Nobody can handle Mama like you do. I mean, I’ve tried, but you just have this—”
“Alright, alright. I already said I’d talk to her. I’ll go over there Wednesday night.”
“Okay, let me know how it goes.”
Tuesday, October 14th
Mel and I were discussing my wedding at lunch today, crossing our fingers that Carrie can talk sense into Mama, and trying to determine what still needs to be done and what can be checked off the list.
“How’s Cabe doing with the music?” Mel asked as we finished up our salads.
“Okay, I guess. He wants me to pick a song to walk down the aisle to. Said he felt like that needed to be something I chose and he’d rather be surprised. He’s picked everything else for the ceremony and the reception, and we’ve gone over all of it except his entrance and our first dance. He wants both of those to be a surprise.
“You sure you don’t want to do classical or traditional?”
“Nope. Not a chance. I’m so sick of hearing Here Comes the Bride and Canon in D that if I never heard them again, it’d be okay. Seriously, someone needs to say those wedding songs are done and we need to move on.”
“Is there a song that he sings for you, or mentions that it makes him think of you?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I thought about doing Brown-Eyed Girl, but that’s more my favorite song than anything to do with us. Besides, they don’t end up together in the end, so I don’t want that. You know what I did think about? He always calls me Buttercup. He’s called me that for years. Pretty much since we met. There’s a song where the guy calls the girl Buttercup. I know I’ve heard it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember how it goes. I should Google it.”
“Um, I don’t think that one’s gonna work,” Mel said. She held up her hands and waved them at me. “Now don’t get me wrong! I’m not telling you what you can and can’t do, and I certainly am not trying to be all up in your business like your mama. But I don’t think that song is what you want for walking down the aisle.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with it? Is it sexually explicit or something? I thought it was an old song. Like back in the times when songs weren’t explicit.”
“Oh, honey. They were still explicit. They just hid it all in innuendo. But this song’s not explicit. It’s just not something you’d want played as you walk down the aisle to get married.”
So, of course, I went straight to my desk and looked it up. I liked it at first, upbeat and happy. But no sooner had the lyrics started than my mouth flew open and stayed there. I didn’t even wait for the whole song to finish before I called Cabe and cussed him out. I didn’t even say hello.
“All this time, I thought you were calling me Buttercup like some kind of endearment. Like you were being sweet or something. Now I hear the lyrics to the song and realize it was really just a dig against me all along. What the hell, Cabe?”
“Well, hello sweetheart! And how are you today?”
“This song is about some girl who keeps screwing some guy over and treating him like shit. Is that how you felt about me? Is that who you thought I was?”
“Slow down, Buttercup.”
“Don’t call me that!” I screamed into the phone so loud that it even hurt my ear.
“Okay. I need you to calm down.”
“I’m not going to calm down. You’ve been calling me that for years. The whole time, I thought it was just some sweet nickname you’d given me.”
“It was. I just liked the name and I thought—”
“I know what you thought. The same thing your sister thought—that I was stringing you along and using you for my own emotional band-aid. I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“I didn’t.”
“Cabe, I read the lyrics. It’s pretty damned clear what you thought of me.”
He sighed, and I could hear the clicking of his keyboard keys in the background.
“Am I keeping you from working? I can hear you typing in the background. Can you seriously not just stop working long enough to explain this to me?”
“Ty, I’m looking up the lyrics so I can see what the hell you’re so upset about. Once I know that, I’ll figure out whether or not I can explain this to you.”
He started to read the lyrics aloud.
“Cabe, I know what they say. I told
you I just read them.”
“Hold your horses, would you? Let me catch up to speed.”
He continued to read the lyrics, and I struggled to listen patiently and failed. I listened, but I didn’t achieve anything anywhere near patience.
“Okaaay. Will you give me time to speak?” His sarcasm sparked my anger even higher.
“Don’t you get an attitude with me, Cable Shaw! You’ve been laughing at me behind my back all this time. How could you? I’m sorry I didn’t know how you felt about me. I’m sorry I didn’t know how I felt about you. How many times can I say I’m sorry? It’s like I’ll never be able to make this up to you. I can’t go back and change it, Cabe.”
“I’m not asking you to. I haven’t asked you to apologize. Nor was I ever laughing at you behind your back or making fun of you in any way. Now I’m not sure what you want me to say, but I honestly don’t know why I started calling you that. It damned sure wasn’t because of these song lyrics. Although I have to admit, now that I’m reading it, the words do seem to fit us pretty well. Don’t you think?”
“That’s not funny.” I sat back in my chair in disbelief.
“Look, obviously you saw the similarities, too, or you wouldn’t have your panties all in a wad.”
“I’ll have you know I am not wearing any panties, and therefore they can’t possibly be in a wad, thank you very much.” I got up and closed my office door. Probably a little later than I should have.
“Well, damn, Buttercup. I didn’t know this was gonna be that kind of phone call.”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t call me Buttercup, and don’t try to charm me. It won’t work. I’m really pissed.”
“Baby. Sweetheart. My love. My life. I understand where you’re coming from, and I can see how this looks. But I can assure you that I have meant no harm or slight in calling you Buttercup all these years. It was exactly as you thought. Simply a term of affection. If you would like for me to stop calling you that, I will do my best to cease and desist. But I can’t promise I won’t ever slip up.”