Eliza shyly turns in a circle and self-consciously pats her short brown hair. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Now, let’s have a seat, shall we? I understand from Maurice that we have a delicate timing issue.”
While we settle into the flowered love seat in Lily’s office, I look at the black-and-white bride photos displayed on the light blue plaster walls. Many of the brides are ours. Their gleaming teeth and perfectly sculpted hair reach out from the wall and seem to mock me. It’s like a most-wanted list of bad brides. Shuddering slightly, I look away. Darby’s on there, and so is Francie.
Lily’s reference to the “delicate timing issue” catches me off guard. It has not occurred to me to ask why this wedding has to take place in two weeks. I am so used to brides demanding this flower shipped from Louisiana and that tartlet flown in from San Francisco, it completely escaped my attention to wonder why Eliza wanted this wedding to take place in fourteen days.
Now it all makes sense. I look discreetly at Eliza’s waist, but that tells me nothing. She’s as thin as a brunch crepe. They all are. I tend to gain a little poundage in my hips when I’ve had too many sweets, but my brides are more disciplined. Well, if Eliza is rushing a wedding to cover up a little oopsie, then maybe she’s not so disciplined.
I try to imagine her fiancé. Does he want to get married? Were they planning on it and the baby speeded things up? Or did he enter this flurry of wedding planning reluctantly? Little Eliza was getting more interesting by the minute. We did not know each other very well yet. After all, she’d hired us two days ago. It would be just a matter of time before she spilled the beans. She was probably dying to tell someone about her premarital indiscretion. It might as well be—
“And I understand that she will be healthy enough to attend the ceremony?” Lily is patting Eliza’s hand and offering a tissue. I snap to attention and away from my soap-opera dreams.
“Yes, his mother only ever wanted to see us married. We’ve been together since we were fourteen. And this might be her last chance.” Eliza sobs into her hands. “They say she could go at any time during the surgery. She’s been so sick this year. We don’t know how long she will be with us.”
I feel like such a jerk. I lean over to my bride and rub her back. “I’m so sorry, Eliza. I didn’t know.”
She looks up and wipes her eyes with the tissue. “And the worst thing is, everyone thinks we’re having the wedding so quickly because I’m pregnant.”
I shake my head sympathetically, sensing I have sunk to a new low. “People are so tacky.”
Lily puts on a bright face. “Well, let’s solve at least one problem. The dress.” She stands and walks toward an antique armoire, where shoes and veils spill out in a creamy pageant of satin and tulle. A sagging rack holds five or six dresses crowded together, each one encased in a thick, plastic carrying case. I know these are dresses Lily has ordered over the years that were never picked up or paid for—a sort of gown graveyard.
We start trying on the dresses. Lily is very hands-on, unzipping and tying, fluffing and pulling in fabric, so there’s not much for me to do. I sit in another flowered chair and daydream lightly. I imagine the type of dress I would select if I were getting married. Perhaps I would go for a 1920s kind of look with a Nottingham lace veil. Or I might go modern, selecting a thin, organza silhouette gown. There’s always traditional, too, a strapless, silk A-line or something more sweet like the ballet-skirt look. The choices are deliciously endless.
But in Eliza’s case, poor Eliza with the dying mother-in-law, she does not have choices. Since the wedding is in twelve days, she has to go with what she can get. And that might be the peau de soie dress with a rear inverted pleat she pulls on now.
“Oh, Eliza, what a beautiful dress,” I say, sitting up.
And it is. The bodice fits her tiny frame nicely, while the chapel-length train touches the floor in a dramatic arch. Lily adds a scalloped-edge tulle veil with pearl details. The entire effect is lovely. I quickly stand and grab a bouquet of fake flowers from Lily’s armoire. Thrusting them into Eliza’s hands, I grab my digital camera. Maybe we can get a few shots for her future mother-in-law.
When I am finished, Lily takes up the hem with straight pins so that her seamstress can make the final touches to the dress. This will be rushed, too, and will cost a little, but that’s what we have to do. The dress itself is offered to us at a discount since it is a season or two old. Lily seems pleased to have the garment taken off of her hands and kisses us both as we leave.
As we drive to our next appointment at the caterer’s, I try to figure out where Eliza gets her money. She seems nice enough, not insufferable like many of our brides-to-be. I sneak glances over at her as she flips through a bridal-planning book. Her clothes are well made, her nails tastefully manicured, and her shoes look expensive, but not in a flashy way. I decide it must be old money.
I ask Eliza about her fiancé. “It sounds like you have been together for a long time.”
“That’s right. We met the first day of freshman year. It’s always been just Ben and me. Ever since he asked me in geometry class if I needed a ride home and then admitted he couldn’t drive yet.”
“That’s cute.” I had about ten boyfriends freshman year, each one lasting no more than a week or two.
“People ask me if I ever get curious about dating other people, but it always just made sense, you know?”
“I actually do understand what you mean. Now, anyway,” I reply. “But a few years ago, I wouldn’t have gotten it.”
Eliza closes her wedding planner and turns to me with a grin on her face. “Macie, are you married?”
“Um, no. Not yet, anyway. I have a boyfriend. His name is Avery.”
“Are ya’ll serious?”
“We’re getting there,” I answer, slowing to turn onto Northside Drive. “He’s just started a new job, so when that settles down, we’re supposed to, you know, move things forward.” I groan to myself. What a dorky thing to say. Why not just tattoo the word “insecure” on my forehead?
“So, this Avery is it? He’s the one?”
I glance out of the car window to the posh homes lining the street. Each yard is green and perfectly trimmed and mulched. Avery’s house looks much the same. My gardening efforts extend to the pair of nearly dead geraniums that have been cast out onto my tiny balcony due to their insistence in dropping leaves.
“I think so.”
We drive in silence for a minute or two, and then I decide to throw a question back to Eliza. “What do you do when you’re not planning a wedding in less than two weeks?”
Eliza laughs, a surprisingly throaty, deep kind of laugh. “Well, when I’m not torturing wedding planners, I work for a nonprofit foundation.”
I am impressed. It sounds really important. “That’s great. What do you do for them?”
“We have a recreation angle to our mission, so we look for ways to engage inner-city children and those without access to parks or sports. We run camps all over the country. It’s a really great job.”
“What kind of camps?”
“Well, soccer, tennis, basketball—you name it. Whatever the community tells us they need. My job is to meet with community leaders and talk about what they want for their area.”
I am glad that Eliza found us. I enjoy working with her, even though she is a rogue bride. I ask her the name of the foundation.
“The Seller Foundation.”
It is only later, when I drop Eliza off at her home, that I realize her name and the foundation’s name are the same. Of course, I knew her last name, but it didn’t hit me until I was driving back toward home. The concern for her fiancé’s mother, the ease with which she accepted the graveyard dress, the philanthropy job—it all made sense. Eliza was a rogue bride in more ways than one. Rogue does not always mean bad; sometimes it just means nice.
* * *
Before I head home with an early dinner of Thai takeout, I decid
e 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 co
rdless 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.”
Toss the Bride Page 12