“Had a wedding,” he corrected.
“I know I canceled it, but I’m here to un-cancel it.”
“Should have come back to me earlier. Or called me sooner. Over the weekend. First thing yesterday even.”
“I was—” —having make-up sex. Lots and lots of it. “I was out of town. Working things out. And yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I had to be with my Valentine!” she whined, three beats from a tantrum.
“Your groom I’m assuming,” he said gravely, as if looking for holes in her story or in her newfound desire to reopen her marriage case.
“Of course I’m talking about my groom,” she snapped.
“The same groom?”
“I can’t believe you would even ask that!” she exclaimed, incensed at the inference that she was a slut who was also the marrying kind—or at least the engaging kind.
Ignoring her, he continued, “See, the wedding business is a 24/7 operation. Valentine’s Day is one of my biggest days of the year… behind the 4th of July—there’s just somethin’ about fireworks.”
“So what does that have to do with anything?” she asked as calmly as possible, trying to make sense of this sudden turn in her day. She’d expected Vinnie to be as thrilled as she was. He would get all of his commission and she would be getting married like she was supposed to.
“Your wedding is gone,” he said, adding a visual poof motion with his hands.
“What do you mean my wedding is gone? It was just here last week! I put deposits down and everything,” she mewled unbecomingly. This was like some kind of nightmare.
“That reminds me,” he said, plopping an envelope in front of her on the desk. “I said I would take care of everything.”
She looked inside. A wad of dough. “What is this? Are you paying me off?”
“It’s your deposits. You’re welcome.”
But she wasn’t thanking him. She didn’t want to thank him. “How did you get these back? I thought that if the wedding didn’t happen then you kept—”
“You’re confusing me with a traditional wedding planner.”
“Excuse me?” She was already cursing out Tara in her head for leading her to Vinnie Delrio in the first place—under the exact assumption that he was a wedding planner. But of course whenever Tara was involved there was more to the story.
“I’m a broker, remember?” he said proudly.
She looked at him, puzzled, only vaguely recalling any such thing in her bridal haze.
“I deal in weddings.” Since she had been struck dumb, unable to get from here to there with the conversation, he continued, “I buy bad weddings—cancelations due to drama, tragedy, irreconcilable differences, whathaveyou’s—and repackage and resell them…. Need a wedding quick, Vinnie Delrio is your guy. Plus, if things don’t work out for you’s, I can get most of your money back by selling your wedding to the next bride in need of a quickie.”
“A quickie?” she eked out. It sounded so sordid and gross and cheap.
“Nothing wrong with a quickie. When you’s know, you’s know, I like to say. No reason to wait six months or a year or more. Heck, sometimes you’re under the gun.”
“But I don’t have a clue what you mean.” She was hopelessly frustrated. “I don’t even want my money back. I want my wedding back.”
“No can do. It’s someone else’s dream now.”
“Someone else’s dream?”
“I found a new investor in your wedding dream. Where’d you’s think your wedding came from?
Her jaw dropped. “My wedding was someone else’s first?”
“It was the chick who came before you’s dream. The death of her love became your wedding made to order. Easy enough. Took her whole package over, except the flowers—jilted bride found the groom doing the nasty with the chick doing the flowers for the wedding. Vinnie doesn’t do business with an establishment that breaks up weddings. Gina’s Flowers is out for good. But Gina was always trouble—she’s my first girlfriend. Seventh grade. Let me see her—but I guess that’s beside the point.” He clasped his hands together before they completed the outline of a female silhouette. “Anyways, I might be a broker, but I still believe in true love.”
Catherine felt a creepy, unclean feeling. “How can you do this to people?”
“Pairing the wedding losers with the last-minute nuptials? It makes good business sense.” He shrugged; no shame at all.
“It’s so clinical and cynical.”
“I prefer to think of it as servicing a niche market that was being ignored by the traditional wedding planners. Let’s just say I know a lot of people with... bad luck. Guy falls for a girl, turns out she’s carrying a sword, if you get my drift—anyways, wedding off…. Or girl finds her husband-to-be with his ex.” Vinnie drew an imaginary line across his throat. “Maybe the groom messes with the wrong people and ends up at the bottom of the river—should his bride end up with nothin’?” He shrugged and cocked his head. “Shit happens and Vinnie is the guy who can make everything all right. I get the losers their money; provide a dream wedding for a new loving couple who is on the wrong side of time; and save the local businesses who would lose out on their profits. It’s a win-win-win. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the fairytale, but I’m also a realist—no harm, no foul in making a buck.”
“But my wedding is gone!” she exclaimed. “What am I supposed to tell everyone? What am I supposed to tell my Fynn-ancé? I can’t tell him I screwed everything up again. He just took me back!” That was when the tears started—fat, heavy tears rolling down her face.
“Oh, ay, no crying at Vinnie’s,” he warned. “You’s want a wedding; I’ll build a wedding. Prob’ly have to change the date, unless something happens in the interim—a family rift, runaway bride, death and dismemberment—”
-55-
Completely done wrong by Tara and her insane family of misfits and mobsters, Catherine swung her apartment door wide in a rage, stopping the excitable chatter on the other side in midstream. Unlike the last time she’d found the same three in her living room, this time she was the one ready to ambush. Her eyes honed in on her mark like a laser.
“You!” she blared, holding Tara at long-range fingerpoint, imagining how Elizabeth Hemmings would drop dead in a faint at this untenable welcome. She only wished her friend were as easy. But Tara didn’t even drop the chips on the way to her mouth let alone waver the drink in her other hand.
“Wait! This is supposed to be a celebration!” Georgia exclaimed, attempting to inject good cheer where it was unsustainable. She and Lacey both held up wine glasses in cheers. “We’ll have to pump and dump after tonight, but we figure it’s worth it.” Lacey nodded in agreement. “Though Niki and Nell are in your bedroom napping so we might want to keep it down,” Georgia warned.
“I just can’t fucking believe this,” Catherine said darkly.
“Cat, what’s wrong? I thought that everything was—”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Catherine seethed, interrupting Georgia and maintaining her stance with a finger holdup on Tara.
“What did I do?” she asked, her mouth full. “Is it ‘cuz I brought chips here? I know you’re on a diet but some of us have got to eat.”
“This isn’t about chips,” Catherine growled in disgust. “This is about my wedding—and your cousin who you got me mixed up with.”
“You’re welcome for that.”
“Oh no you don’t. I don’t have a wedding anymore thanks to him.”
Georgia gasped and Lacey dropped her glass of wine on the carpet at her feet.
“That’s coming out of your deposit,” Tara asserted, pointing at the blooming stain. “I’m not getting that pinned on me when I don’t even live here yet.”
“Out of my deposit? Here, I’ll pay you out of my deposits.” Catherine flung the envelope of cash Vinnie had forced on her straight at Tara—at least it hit the couch within three feet of Tara (accuracy wasn’t her strong suit).
“Shit! Where’d
you get all this?” Tara asked with glee.
“That is what’s left of my wedding dreams.”
“I’m not following. What the hell is going on here?” Georgia demanded.
“Well, it seems that Cousin Vinnie is running a friggin’ wedding chop shop…. How do you like them apples?”
Georgia’s mouth hung open in shock, looking from one to the other of them as if waiting for a punch line to appear and everything to right itself.
“He dismantled my entire wedding. Piece by piece. Sold it off to the highest bidders. Now some other brides-to-be will be enjoying my wedding on March 4th and I’ll be—”
“I’m still not following,” Georgia said slowly, shaking her head.
“Of course you’re not following. No one could follow this. It’s insane,” Catherine said, holding her head with both hands to stop it from exploding.
“So the wedding is still off?” Tara asked plainly.
“Because of your damn cousin,” she charged.
“My damn cousin made your quickie wedding possible in the first place. When everyone else told you no,” Tara pointed out firmly. “You needed a wedding and I found you a wedding. Besides, he gave you all your money back, so you’re not out anything—”
“Except a wedding!” Catherine screeched. “One that guests will start arriving for any day now.”
“I’m sure he can set you up with something. If not right on the 4th then within a few weeks.”
“I don’t want it within a few weeks. I want it when the invitations say, where the invitations say, how the invitations say.”
“Then you shouldn’t have wigged,” Tara said simply.
Catherine narrowed her eyes at her supposed friend. “You knew what he did there all along, didn’t you?” she hissed.
“Of course I knew.”
“Okay, so tell me one thing, Miss Cursed-Wedding-Dress, why is a recycled wedding a perfectly fine start for a marriage while a replica of a wedding dress that might or might not be attached to divorce or death is an omen of horrible things to come. What kind of rainbows and sunshine do you think cause weddings to break up, huh?”
“Something that hasn’t even happened yet can’t carry bad juju. These people didn’t even use their weddings.”
“You have a fucking answer for everything, don’t you? Well, if there is nothing wrong with it, why didn’t you tell me what I was walking into?” she demanded.
“I figured you saw the sign.” Tara shrugged, grabbing more chips.
“What sign?”
“The writing on the door.”
Catherine stared at her blankly, not registering her meaning.
“SG Weddings,” she prodded.
Again, Catherine’s face was a dim bulb of confusion.
“What did you think the SG stood for?”
“Oh!” Georgia suddenly exclaimed.
“What? What are you talking about?” Catherine felt like the idiot who didn’t get the joke.
“Let me put it this way,” Tara said, “it ain’t Shining & Glittering, or Sparkling & Gleaming, or Silver & Gold. And it sure as hell ain’t Spencer Gifford—”
“Oh, now they’re terrific. I tried to get them to do Connor and my wedding but they are booked years in advance—a smart bride books them by the time she has her fourth date with a guy. It’s a gamble since you never know if it will work out, but sometimes that’s the only way to get what you really want for a wedding,” Lacey offered.
“They also have the highest divorce rate of any wedding planning consultants,” Georgia noted.
“Their clients are all about the wedding, not so much the marriage,” Lacey agreed.
Catherine watched the conversation move from one person to the other, traveling entirely out of range of her problem. “Ahem,” she cleared her throat theatrically.
“Sorry,” Lacey said quickly, at least having the decency to seem embarrassed by her conversational detour.
“Out with it,” Catherine said, turning her attention back to the point at hand here.
Tara crossed her hands in front of her, each one pointing like a cocked and loaded gun.
She felt her throat go dry, her hands shrinking into fists at her sides. “And people know this?” she choked out, picturing the fancy scrolled “SG Weddings” and the ribbons and doves roosted on sticks that were engraved on the door—those peculiar sticks that were most certainly not sticks at all… but shotguns. She groaned.
“It isn’t a closely guarded secret or anything,” Tara admitted. “But unless you’re in the wedding business, or have been married or happen to have gone to a wedding in the area, there is no reason why you would know—”
“You just mentioned the entire adult population!” Catherine squealed.
“Not really… you didn’t know what SG did or even who they were,” Tara pointed out.
Catherine’s face turned red in a combination of embarrassment and rage.
“I didn’t know, sweetie,” Georgia pointed out placatingly. “And considering how far and wide I worked on my wedding a few years ago—”
But Catherine focused on Lacey instead. Lacey who married Connor in Philly. Lacey who grew up there. Lacey who was being awfully quiet, working the wine stain with the vengeance of an obsessive compulsive or perhaps a woman who knew too much. “Did you know?”
“Well, I—I’d heard of them,” she said carefully.
“And just what had you heard of them?” But Lacey was now a deer in the headlights. “Lacey Stemple,” Catherine said sternly, wishing she knew her sister-in-law’s middle name too so she could properly shame her.
“Two girls in my class who got pregnant in high school had SG Weddings.” Lacey rushed the words out. “Actually it was one double wedding. But it was done up nice and classy. Their parents had money so they had all the bells and whistles. Really spectacular.” She tried her best to soften the blow.
“Vinnie does quick weddings for preggos, so what?” Tara countered.
Catherine rubbed her belly. “So people think that I’m—”
Georgia sucked in audibly, holding her breath like she was about to witness a horrible calamity, a crime—Catherine gutting Tara right here, right now.
“I’m sure not everybody does….” Lacey said charitably.
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Tara piped up. “Vinnie makes a lot of people happy giving them big weddings on short notice. And if a lot of them are plumper than usual, who gives a fuck? He has more heart than that Spencer Gifford guy.”
Lacey nodded her head enthusiastically in agreement and Georgia gave a swift nod of her own.
Catherine’s lips started to tremble and tears filled her eyes as she realized that their buoying approval meant nothing—she didn’t even have an SG Wedding anymore.
“So what’s the plan?” Georgia asked, not a trace of told-you-so to be found even though had they done things Georgia’s way in the first place, Catherine’s wedding wouldn’t have disappeared in a cloud of shotgun fire.
“I don’t have a plan,” she wailed, the dam breaking and despair overwhelming all else. FUCK ME!
“No thank you,” Tara said glibly.
“Huh?” Catherine grunted.
“I’m into guys.”
Catherine was bewildered; she hadn’t even realized that she had spoken out loud. Either that or Tara was suddenly psychic—
“Except for that once when I was really drunk, but I thought she was a guy so I don’t think that counts,” Tara noted. “Had a full mustache if you can believe—”
“NOT helping,” Georgia groaned at her. “There are more important things right now than rehashing your mistaken lesbian encounter with the Bearded Lady.”
“Mustached Lady—I mean she wasn’t a total freak show. What do you take me for?”
Georgia turned her back on Tara to prove it wasn’t worth discussing. “So what did Fynn say when you told him?”
“I’m not telling him.”
“You have to t
ell him. What if we can’t fix—”
“We have to fix this. We have to make this happen. He already thinks I’m a fruitcase as it is—”
“That would be nutcase,” Tara offered.
Catherine brushed her off. “I don’t need him to know that I screwed everything up even more, like some kind of total spaz.”
“That ship already sailed,” Tara noted.
“I’m not a spaz…. Right?” she asked the room.
“More of an emotionally challenged space cadet—hey, maybe that should be your new career!” Tara announced helpfully.
Catherine waved her off. “I am perfectly grounded. Absolutely normal.” But she noticed that Georgia was sitting the conversation out. Obviously you agree with Tara, bitch.
“I am not a bitch,” Georgia said righteously, whispering her indignation as if Nell’s little ears were vacuuming up words while she was sound asleep in the other room.
“What?” Catherine turned a deep radish red. She hadn’t just called her a bitch, only thought it—
“You just mouthed bitch at me,” Georgia said, looking over her shoulder to Catherine’s bedroom like she feared she’d be caught swearing—twice.
“I did not.” But her voice wavered uncertainly.
“You did. In fact you’ve been mouthing a lot of stuff. Mostly unintelligible, but that I could certainly read,” Georgia assured her.
“I think you’re developing a tic,” Tara noted.
“A tic? I can’t have a tic!” She touched her face to feel whatever they were seeing. “My wedding pictures!”
“What wedding pictures?” Tara asked.
Catherine groaned audibly. Tara was right. There was no photographer. No pictures to pose for. No fucking wedding!
“Oh my God! There it is again!” Tara squealed.
“What?” Catherine demanded.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Tara asked Georgia, who nodded tightly, as did Lacey who’d taken her eyes off the carpet for a scant moment to observe Catherine’s latest syndrome.
“What do you see?” she screeched.
“It’s like a scowly face and a Tourette’s thing. You’re mouthing swear words.”
2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) Page 30