by Amy Faye
"Before seven, you said?"
"That's right."
The woman's voice on the other end of the line cut off for a second. "Okay, so how's four sound to you?"
"Four works, I guess. Where is this meeting going to be?"
"I've got a note here that you don't have transportation. We can provide that, if you'd like."
Sarah cursed under her breath. The woman was right. She'd let herself forget, some time in the space of trying to play mama and trying to get what few hours of sleep that she could. But apparently, she was the only one who had forgotten. Which was, by itself, super embarrassing.
"Yeah, yeah. You're right. I need a ride. You have the address, or..."
"Mr. Bryant put one in." She listed off the correct address to confirm. There was no hint in her voice that she might have known where it was, and if she knew, then she didn't seem to have any opinion on the matter. It was a place on a map. The woman might well have been a phone service calling from India.
"That's right."
"We'll have a car there at three-fifteen. Have a nice day, Miss Jones."
"You too," Sarah confirmed. It was only after that she realized the woman had never given a name, which seemed odd. Then again, if she was an answering service, or something like that, then giving the name 'Priya' would have given it away. Better not to, in that case, she supposed.
Three-fifteen was a long way off, but there was a lot to do. The first was to jump into the shower. That was a start. The girls fussed and gurgled in their cribs as she dressed herself again. This time, at least, she was careful when she started packing her bags to get a blanket to cover herself with.
Then she started ticking off the list. Extra clothes in case the girls ruined their outfits. A few diapers, for more or less the same reason. Blanket, in case they got unusually hungry.
Then she fed the girls, who both decided that they were awake enough and hungry enough to eat without needing to scream about it, which was something new that they'd apparently picked up at some point.
She let out a long breath and leaned back. There was one thing she hadn't even considered, but with an appointment with Dan coming up, she was considering it now. How long an engagement was she supposed to expect? Were they going to live together before the marriage? How long?
None of it really mattered. People had made marriages work for a long time before she'd come along. They'd always been able to figure something out. This would be no different. She could make it work, whatever, as long as he was willing to put the same work in.
But there were so many questions. Questions about the specifics of the wedding, the engagement, the marriage. What were the girls going to do during a wedding, for example? Aunt Pat could hold them, maybe, but the truth was that right or wrong, Sarah hadn't ever really trusted her aunt with the kids. She'd never had any of her own, never shown any indication that she liked kids, and never shown any hint that she wanted to spend much time with the. Not that she couldn't, just that she wouldn't rather.
When the girls had gone down to rest a little more, Sarah set about pumping a little milk. It was triple-insuring that there was no way they were going to go nuts and start screaming in the meeting room, but it still didn't feel like enough. She wasn't exactly looking forward to the idea of humiliating herself.
She checked the clock on her phone. Two forty-five. Sarah checked her shirt for wet spots. Sometimes, a little leaking was as assumed reality. There was no way around it, and everyone pretty much understood that. If they didn't, well, they'd have to get over it.
But again, it wasn't about the limits of what she was forced to deal with. It was about trying to make the absolute most of her situation, and if she was still at home, still had a chance to change her clothes before someone saw her with a big ol' milk stain down the front of her shirt, then she was going to take that chance at the earliest opportunity.
Three o'clock came, and she started readying the girls. Allison was the fussy one, so she went second. If Sarah let her go too long then there was going to be trouble. But Chelsea was easy-going, which was good. Two fussy little girls would have been a nightmare.
Once they were all bundled up and strapped into their car seats, she pulled the heavy bag over her shoulder, hooked a carrier into each arm, and started towards the door. Not much time left to spare; at three thirteen, a knock came at the door, just as she was getting to the bottom of the steps.
Sarah didn't hurry for the door; she was already hurrying, and anything faster would just upset the girls, who were being cooperative for the time being. There was no way that she was going to disrupt that so that she could meet one of Dan's drivers two minutes early. She figured he would understand.
She opened the door. Someone stood outside. He was dark-skinned and stood straight and had a professional demeanor that matched his professional-looking suit.
"Miss Sarah Jones?"
"Hi, are you one of Mr. Bryant's people?"
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. My name is Dave. I'm going to be your driver today. Do you need any help with that?"
"I've got it," Sarah said. She wasn't sure it was true, but she didn't want to seem like she was totally incapable, either.
"If you want me to help, you only have to ask."
Sarah thought about it for a minute and handed Chelsea over to him. True to form, she was easygoing about it, even as Allison started to fuss a little at the separation. Sarah ducked her carrier out the door, reached around to turn the lock from the inside, and closed the door behind her.
Then she followed Dave out to the car, let him open one rear door for her, and then went and circled around for the other himself. Sarah worked as quickly as she could, strapping Allison in. She was starting to feel good at it. She'd only been doing it most days of the week. But Dave was no slower. As soon as she stood up and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand from the heat, Dave pulled the straps tight and straightened up on the opposite side.
Unlike her, he didn't wait around and wipe his head. He circled the car a second time, slipped his hand into her door and opened it. She imagined that it had to be frustrating to deal with, at least a little bit. If it was, Dave was good at hiding the expression on his face. Then he crossed a third time, opened his own door, slipped in, and turned the key.
The car wasn't as nice as the one she'd driven in the day before; it was, however, at least as nice as anything Cole had in his garage. Sarah readjusted her expectations of Dan. He had more money than he seemed. More money than she was used to.
She thought for a moment about being put off by it; every really rich guy she'd ever known was kind of a jerk. Then again, there was one thing that they all had in common: they had money to burn.
10
Dan waited with a mixture of emotions that he couldn't explain. The whole benefit of the thing was that it would be able to completely bypass emotion. He didn't need to give it a second thought.
But somehow, that didn't seem to be the way that things were going to work out. If anything, he was more emotional than normal. It was a weakness of his, getting emotional over things and not one that he was terribly fond of. It had only ever caused trouble in the past. Hell, even when he met her, it had been in a haze of getting pissed off. Never helped in the long run. But sometimes, in the short run, in limited ways, it led in good directions.
He leaned the chair back as far as it would go without starting to threaten to tip. A long breath out. Then the door opened, and he stood up. "Is it time?"
"Yeah, it's time," the man said. He wasn't much of a best man, all told. On a week's notice, without any close friends to speak of, Dan had done what he could. Bob was a decent enough guy, and a great employee. He just wasn't actually a friend.
"Okay. How do I look?"
Bob's eyes glanced over him, top to bottom. "Looking good."
There was no need to confirm, of course. He already knew what he looked like. He'd triple-checked already. But quadruple-checking was just fine by him, and if it caught someth
ing embarrassing, then it would have been entirely worth it.
Then he followed Bob through the halls, even though he had already walked the route a hundred times in his mind. He could hear the organ music, played sadly on an electric piped through the PA system, so loud that he felt it through his shoes.
He waited a minute, until he was sure that Bob had made it all the way down the aisle, and then he was at the door and walking in. His tuxedo felt tight around his chest, but at least it cut a fairly impressive figure for him, which was more than Dan could say about most formal wear.
He walked up the aisle, his head throbbing with lack of sleep the past week. He should have slept at least a little before the big day, so that he wouldn't look loopy up there on the altar. Instead, he'd just have to keep control of himself.
He led himself up, took his mark the same as he had during the rehearsal, and the same way that he had done it a hundred times in his head.
The entire wedding was as planned as it could possibly be, on such short notice, and he'd worked very hard to make sure that whatever happened, it wasn't him that screwed it up.
He frowned at the empty seats. It would have been nicer to have a thousand people here, but that would necessitate planning well enough in advance that people could actually make it. He wasn't planning on waiting, and apparently, neither was Sarah.
That was good, at least. He watched the priest come down the aisle; behind him were the bridesmaids, who were far too attractive for their jobs. It made him a little bit nervous; he should have had someone taking care of that pick girls a little less good-looking. It wouldn't do to have his bride outdone.
Then the maid of honor, and the flower girl, and then there was a long pause. The electric organ grew to a crescendo, and stayed there. It was all rehearsed, but even still, Dan could feel himself getting nervous. What if she'd decided against it?
He couldn't bring himself to blame her. There was nothing between them but a few short conversations and an agreement for payment, in a sense, for services rendered. He'd be upset, but not unthinkably so. Because he could understand.
Then the door at the back of the chapel opened, and the bride came through. With no father in her life, no brothers... no male relatives at all, really, and no close male friends, she was guided by Aunt Pat, who was positively beaming at the opportunity to be the center of attention in her own mind.
The bride herself was covered in a birdcage-sized veil that didn't quite manage to hide the general shapes and colors of her face. But the outfit... Dan shivered. There were few things that he hadn't been involved in, in the entire wedding procedure. It was an intense week, and that meant all hands had to be on deck for everything.
But she'd insisted, same as she had for the church, that there were some traditions that she seemed to feel were sacred. One of them was that he wasn't allowed to see the dress, and so he hadn't. Which was why he had been worried about the bridesmaids.
If he'd seen her in this, before, he wouldn't have worried about someone outshining her. The corset boned in attractively, giving her an hourglass silhouette that she had no doubt had previously, before she'd gotten pregnant. The top was cut low and pulled in tight, tight enough to show cleavage. He shivered. This was going to be his wife.
There was a little voice in the back of his mind that reminded him of the specifics of the arrangement. She was just there to stave off questions about why he was single. There wasn't any time in his life for a real relationship. Marriage was just an item on a checklist. That's how it had always been.
Her dark hair framed her shoulders in a way that forced his eyes to follow it as she reached the chapel steps, and then she was standing right in front of him, and for the first time in his life he felt like he couldn't breathe. He forced a smile onto his face, because he had to look like a big idiot without it.
She smiled, barely visible below the veil, and then they turned to the officiant. The ceremony went exactly how he'd expected it to. They'd rehearsed the whole thing. He'd played through it a hundred times in his mind. There weren't any surprises in store, and nothing came up out of the blue. Thank God for small favors.
He'd already gotten the surprise of a lifetime while he stood up there in front of the altar and held her hand in his. He'd never been so nervous in front of any woman before in his life. Then again, this was a new experience for him from top to bottom.
He tightened his jaw as the priest came to the last part of it. The words came out of his mouth as if by surprise; each part barely managed to come out. "I will," he said to the vows that the priest had offered him as an example at the first meeting. Promises to keep her safe and watch over her.
The whole thing was a hoax, little more than a political stunt, he reminded himself. The priest asked him if he promised to love and cherish her, to provide her with everything in life that she could have possibly wanted. He did. Tight, nervous. He ought to have been in control of himself, after all the practicing he had done.
He recited his own vows, which he'd written down based on several examples from Google, from memory. His jaw refused to work properly but the words came out in spite of it. His eyes stung, which made no sense at all. He kept repeating that to himself: none of it made any sense. It didn't mean anything, and he knew it. She knew it. But the feeling kept burning in his chest.
"With this ring, I thee wed," he said, at the appropriate moment. Slipping the ring onto her finger felt like it meant something to him, even though it wasn't supposed to. When she repeated the words and slipped the ring onto his fingers, the feelings doubled up on themselves.
Then the priest said the magic words: "By the power vested in me by the Holy Spirit and the state of Michigan, I pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."
He pulled back the veil. It wouldn't show, but her eyes were wet and she looked up at him. He took a deep breath in and leaned in. It had been a long week. A lot had happened, and he had spent more time with Sarah than he had with anyone else, for a long time, but this was different. They'd done a lot of things. Talked, drove, shopped, planned.
But they hadn't kissed. His lips pressed against hers for the first time. It shouldn't have meant anything at all.
But her lips were soft against his. The lip color that she had on tasted softly of strawberries and her body leaned into his as he traced her side. The contact didn't last longer than a couple of moments, but when he pulled away, his head buzzed.
For the first time since he'd thought of the plan to marry a complete stranger, Dan Bryant thought that he might just be in over his head.
11
Sarah walked back down the aisle beside her new husband. The words felt strange. The idea that she had a new name, that she had a new home. That the girls had a new home. It all felt strange and wrong. But it wasn't wrong. It was the truth from top to bottom.
She let out a long breath, told herself not to worry about them. They had a very capable babysitter, courtesy of their new step-father. There wasn't going to be any trouble on that front. They had plenty of food. She'd left them with so many bottles of milk that there was simply no way they'd go through it all, even at the rate that twins tended to.
So she needed to relax and get comfortable with her new life. That wasn't going to be so hard. It felt like a lie when she said it, but she forced herself to think it again until she believed it. Things were going to get better from here. She looked up at Dan. It was a long way up. He was so big, even bigger than he'd been in her dreams. Of course, there were other parts of him that had featured in the dream; parts that she couldn't begin to say whether or not he matched up with.
He squeezed her hand gently and they kept moving without stopping. Without speaking. The corset made her feel better, under the dress. It made her feel like herself, in a weird way, even as unnatural as it was. She had always been thin, even skinny. Carrying two little girls inside her wasn't who she was, and it wasn't what she looked like. But she was a mother, first and foremost. To feel like a woman,
to have Dan's eyes on her as she'd walked down, and see the way that he looked at her like she was a piece of meat, might have been an insult once.
And now, after the ceremony was finished, if any other man looked at her like that, it would be an insult. An insult to her new husband, if nothing else. She felt the heat ramping up as they stepped out through the door and then into the sun. There was a car waiting outside, thankfully without any tin cans tied to the back.
She went in first, and he went in after him, and a moment later they had gone away from the beautiful little chapel. In a couple of hours there would be a reception, and then she would be able to relax with the girls for an hour or two before bed.
She wanted to get on with the next part of the marriage proper: making it a real marriage. Husband and wife, one flesh, and all of that. She could feel it from the tips of her fingers to the points of her toes. A fluttering, twisting sensation in her belly. In a year and a half with Cole, she'd never once wanted it as badly as she did now. She'd been dreaming about it non-stop, practically every night.
But she wasn't going to tell him that, not if she could help it. Especially not right now, since there was still another hour of taking wedding photos, and then the reception, and then going to pick up Allison and Chelsea.
Then, finally, she'd be able to get this dress off and start thinking about what sort of marriage they were going to have. But that was hours and hours away, and she wasn't about to get herself all wound up only to have to stay that way for hours to come.
So instead, she leaned her head against Dan's chest. His arm wrapped around her almost automatically. "You okay?"
She nodded into his chest and nestled deeper into his arms. "I'm fine."
"You did great."
She had been worried; it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to worry, and she knew what she was supposed to be doing, so there really was no reason to be worried. All the logic in the world hadn't talked her out of the worry.
"Thanks."