The Week Before the Wedding

by Beth Kendrick

  The nurse shrugged. “Everyone’s different. Some people have a really high pain threshold; other people cry. A lot of our patients say it feels like a rubber band being snapped over and over on their skin.”

  “I’m not going to cry,” Emily said firmly.

  And she hadn’t. But it had been excruciating, like pushpins being shoved into the tender flesh of her finger. She forced herself to keep her expression neutral and her breath steady during the treatments.

  But the nurse had picked up on her pain and given her shoulder a squeeze. “If you want, we can give you some numbing cream.”

  “No, I’m okay,” Emily insisted. “I’m good.”

  And she was good—most of the time. She was maturing into a new woman. The kind of woman who would never dream of doing something so headstrong and impetuous as getting a tattoo. Or eloping with some hot guy she barely knew.

  “Do you do this a lot?” she’d asked the doctor as he applied an antibacterial ointment and gauze bandages. “Erase wedding rings from people who thought they’d be together forever?”

  The doctor handed her a pamphlet on proper posttreatment skin care. “Every day.”

  Emily finally allowed herself to wince after she walked out to the medical plaza parking lot. She could tell, from the swelling and moisture she felt beneath the bandage, that her finger had already started to blister.

  After the third session, the doctor pronounced her finished.

  “But I can still see it,” Emily had protested, staring down at the faint white outline of Ryan’s name on her skin.

  “That’s hypopigmentation—just a lightening of the skin. It’s pretty common. Hopefully, it’ll fade over time.”

  “Hopefully?”

  “Everyone’s body is different.” The nurse gave her a consolatory pat. “Your mileage may vary.”

  The scars never faded. She could still see Ryan’s name, etched in stark relief, whenever she typed or sliced vegetables or scrubbed the bathtub.

  Grant had never commented on the scar. As much as she wanted to convince herself that he’d never noticed it, she knew better. He saw it, but he understood she wouldn’t want to discuss it, so he never pressed her. Neither one forced the other to acknowledge the faded tattoo or the reason it existed.

  “I picked out a wide wedding band,” Emily told the manicurist. “It’ll cover the scar completely.”

  “It’ll be like the whole thing never happened,” Bonnie agreed. “And I mean, honestly, I can barely make it out. I could kind of see an ‘R’ and a ‘Y’ and I just took a guess.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Bonnie looked up with a little twinkle in her eyes. “Did he get a tattoo ring, too?”

  “Ryan? Yeah.”

  “Does he still have his?”

  “I haven’t seen him since the day we broke up,” Emily said. “But I’m sure he’s gotten rid of it. And I’m sure he didn’t bother with a fancy laser clinic, either. Knowing him, he probably carved a chunk of his finger out with a pocket knife.”

  Bonnie looked like she was trying to decide if it was okay to laugh at this.

  “He was twenty-two at the time,” Emily elaborated. “And a horror movie junkie.”

  Bonnie shook her head. “The men we date when we’re twenty-two.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what’d he end up doing with his life?” Bonnie asked. “Besides hacking up his ring finger?”

  “I don’t know.” Emily said this with equal parts defiance and pride. “And I don’t care.”

  “You never Googled him? Looked him up on Facebook or anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Wow. You must have a lot of self-control.”

  “Not really,” Emily said. “I just prefer to look ahead instead of behind.”

  “Well, with a second husband like yours, I can’t say I blame you.” Bonnie smeared some warm wax over the scar bearing Ryan’s name and glanced up. “What was his name again?”

  “Grant.”

  “You two seem really happy together.”

  “We are.”

  “And a big band of bling beats a tattoo any day of the week.” Bonnie redoubled her efforts with the paraffin wax. “So let’s get your hands all ready to show it off.”

  “Your skin feels so soft,” Grant said two hours later as he and Emily lay side by side on towel-draped massage tables.

  “I got the works: wax, pumice stone, moisturizer, eight different kinds of cuticle oil.” Her eyes were half-closed in the darkened room, and she didn’t try to stifle her yawn. “Sorry if I fall asleep. I already had my hands and feet rubbed down, and I’m pretty sure they’re pumping sedatives through the vents in here.”

  The massage room was muted and hushed, with low light and a faint sound track of mellow flute music. The scent of mint and lavender wafted through the air.

  “Smell that?” Grant said. “That’s the smell of Zen.”

  They rested next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, in a comfortable cocoon of intimacy. When the masseuses entered and began to knead the tension out of their shoulders, they lapsed into companionable silence. Emily knew, as she drifted in and out of wakefulness, that this even-keeled contentment had been worth waiting for.

  And she’d had to wait a long time. Their courtship had started off slowly. No spontaneous combustion or love at first sight.

  Of course, she’d been too terrified to fall in love on the day she first met him. The August afternoon had been stifling, with record temperatures and humidity levels in Minneapolis. Emily had just stepped out of her office building and rounded a corner downtown when a FedEx deliveryman collapsed on the sidewalk right in front of her. The short, stocky man had swayed on his feet, then dropped an armload of Tyvek envelopes as he crumpled to the concrete without a single word. Emily stared at him for a moment, frozen and mute with shock, until a bright puddle of blood started pooling beneath his head.

  “Help!” she’d cried, glancing left and right. The sidewalk was deserted in the midafternoon swelter. “Help!”

  She’d just come out of a business meeting, so she took off her black Armani blazer, folded it, and slipped it under the man’s head, both to cushion his skull and stanch the bleeding. She had no idea what to do next, but she knew she had to do something.

  “Oh God, oh God,” she said, then addressed the FedEx guy directly: “Don’t die. Okay? Hang on.”

  She pulled her cell phone out of her briefcase to call 911, but her hands were shaking and she dropped the phone.

  As she picked it up, Emily heard footsteps behind her. Then a calm male voice said, “I’m a doctor. Tell me what happened.”

  She didn’t look up at first. She remained in a kneeling position on the sidewalk, the hot concrete ripping her stockings, and kept her focus on the flushed, unconscious man. “I’m not sure what happened. He just keeled over.”

  “Sir. Sir, are you okay?” The newcomer crouched next to Emily and shook the FedEx guy’s arm. When there was no response, the doctor leaned forward, put his cheek above the guy’s mouth, and then placed his fingers on the guy’s neck. “He’s breathing and he has a good pulse. He probably just collapsed from the heat, but we need to call an ambulance.”

  “Right. I’m on it.” Emily reached for her dropped phone, but he beat her to it. When he gave it back to her, their hands touched and she finally turned to look at his face.

  And stopped hyperventilating long enough to notice that he was pretty cute. Very cute. Actually, between the chiseled jaw and the thick, sandy hair and the broad shoulders, he kind of looked like a Ken doll. A living, breathing Ken doll with an MD and a humanitarian streak.

  Emily kept her gaze on his open, handsome face while she dialed 911. “Hi. I’m Emily.”

  “Grant Cardin.” He offered his hand and she took it. His grasp was warm and sure, with just the right amount of pressure.

  A Ken doll with an MD, a humanitarian streak, and good hands.

  Too bad her makeup was running down
her face in sweaty streaks. Note to self: Next time you stop to administer first aid to a random stranger, wear waterproof mascara. And maybe some stronger deodorant.

  After Emily relayed the pertinent details to the 911 operator, Grant resumed his brisk examination of the patient. “Hopefully he’ll be all right after they get some fluids in him, but that’s a nasty gash on his head. I’d like to get him out of the sun, but I don’t want to move him with that head wound.”

  So the two of them stood over the fallen man, creating a human awning from the brutal midday sun.

  “It’s a good thing you showed up,” Emily said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I was in the hotel elevator.” He tilted his head toward the conference center across the street, which featured domed glass elevators on each side. “I saw him fall. I saw you stop to help him.” He paused, waiting until she looked up at him through her melting clumps of mascara. “Not everyone would do that.”

  A few minutes later, after the ambulance arrived and the paramedics loaded the fallen FedEx guy onto a gurney, Grant picked up Emily’s blood-drenched jacket and tucked it under his arm. “I’ll get this cleaned and return it to you.” Before she could argue that he’d done more than enough, he’d asked for her card and continued on his way.

  Emily had spent the rest of the day watching her phone, wondering if the doctor with the dimples would call.

  He didn’t call. Instead, two days later, he hand-delivered the dry-cleaned jacket to her office and asked her to dinner. At the end of their first date, he kissed her on the cheek. At the end of their second date, he barely brushed his lips against hers. At the end of their third date, he’d given her another perfunctory peck, and Emily had called in her best friend and former stepsister, Summer, for a consult.

  They’d scheduled an emergency strategy summit at the dressing room of the poshest department store in the city.

  “He keeps asking me out,” Emily explained as she pulled a simple but brilliantly cut black cocktail dress over her head. “And he keeps checking out my rack when he thinks I’m not looking, but the man will not make a move.”

  “Objection.” Summer stopped paging through a fashion magazine long enough to give Emily a critical once-over. “You said he kissed you. Twice.”

  “Yeah, but they weren’t steamy, passionate kisses. They were like…” She wrinkled her brow, searching for the right term. “Smooches. He smooched me. Like you’d smooch your cat or your cute little cousin.”

  Summer turned a magazine page. “That’s what you get when you date a Ken doll. You get Ken-and-Barbie kisses.”

  “But I sense he’s holding back. I know he has potential.”

  “Potential is an urban legend. Dump him.”

  “No!” Emily adjusted the bodice of the dress, examining her cleavage in the mirror. “He’s awesome. Smart and funny, and I can tell he’s got quite the body going on under those tailored shirts. And, PS, did I mention he’s a surgeon?”

  “I don’t care if he’s emperor of the universe. The man smooches.” Summer shuddered. “Next.”

  Emily twisted her hair back to see how the neckline would look with an updo. “But I really like him.”

  “Why?”

  Emily gave the matter some thought before replying. “He’s kind. He’s a great guy, with great values, and he makes me feel…”

  “Like a femme fatale?”

  “No. Like a—”

  “Shameless hussy?”

  “No. Like a lady.”

  Summer grabbed the wastebasket and pretended to retch. “And that’s a good thing?”

  “Yes. I see potential in him, and I think he sees potential in me.” Emily felt a girlish little smile starting as she related the next part. “And when we go out, I feel taken care of. Not in a financial way, although he does insist on paying for everything. It’s the little things. He pulls out my chair; he makes sure my water glass is always full; he puts his hand on the small of my back when we’re walking through a crowd.”

  “The hand-on-the-lower-back thing is hot,” Summer conceded. “Gets me every time.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. He’s a gentleman. It makes me all fluttery inside.”

  “Despite the Ken kisses?”

  “I never should have said the ‘K’ word to you.” Emily rolled her eyes. “So what if he didn’t throw me up against the wall and ravish me at the end of our second date? Did you ever stop to think that maybe he’s just biding his time and being considerate?”

  “Little does he know who he’s dealing with.”

  They both laughed.

  Summer tossed the magazine aside and said, “I vote you just rip his clothes off and be done with it. Since when do you wait for a guy to make the first move?”

  “Ugh.” Emily speared her fingers into her hair. “Since I became a lady and started dating gentlemen.”

  Summer lifted one eyebrow. “I have to tell you, I strongly disapprove of this trend.”

  “Stop editorializing and help me pick a dress, will you?” Emily turned in front of the mirror and peered over her shoulder at her reflection. “Which one says ‘unzip me with your teeth,’ the black one or the red one?”

  “From my very limited understanding of ladies, I don’t think they wear red dresses. They leave that to the shameless hussies like me.”

  “Hmm, good point.” Emily returned the red dress to its hanger. “I’ll go with the black. I’ll wear it with no panties and hope he can pick up on the ‘I’m-not-wearing-any-underwear’ vibe.”

  “This is stupid. Just unzip him with your teeth and go for it,” Summer advised.

  “Ahem. That’s not who I am anymore.”

  “Oh, please. You got an MBA, not a personality transplant. Stop pretending you’re Audrey Hepburn. You’re Mae West and we both know it.”

  Emily gasped. “Shut your mouth. I am Grace Kelly.”

  “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.” Their gazes met in the mirror and they both grinned. Summer had known Emily since middle school, and she knew all the dirt: the skipped curfews, the forbidden older boyfriends, the acting out and the double dares and the tender wounds that still made her flinch, even after all these years. The two of them had run wild together through their teens and early twenties, each trying to outdo the other with her outrageous behavior.

  And now Emily was about to get married to a restrained, respectable surgeon, and Summer was going to wear a mint green bridesmaid’s dress with crinoline.

  Emily didn’t realize she was laughing until Grant nudged her ankle with his foot.

  “What’s funny?” he demanded.

  “Summer in her bridesmaid’s dress,” she murmured. The masseuse had worked her way down Emily’s spine and had moved on to her legs. Delicious, dreamy torpor seeped through her.

  “She’ll pay you back someday,” Grant predicted. “She’ll make you wear black leather to her wedding.”

  “With fishnets,” Emily added.

  “You look exhausted.” He leaned forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “You should take a nap when we get back to the hotel.”

  And she did—after making Grant swear that he’d wake her before he left to meet his aunts and his sister at the airport.

  “All these people have come all this way.” She yawned as he tucked her in beneath the huge, fluffy white comforter. “I want to have dinner with everybody.”

  “You’ve been running nonstop for two and a half months.” Grant walked into the bathroom and filled a glass with water. “Get some rest. You let me sleep yesterday; today it’s your turn.”

  “I just need a power nap. Wake me up in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll wake you up in thirty minutes.” He put the water glass on the bedside table.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Hours later, Emily startled awake in pitch-darkness, her heart thudding. A drop of sweat trickled down her temple and into her hair. She flung out her arm and rolled over to find Grant sleeping next
to her. He didn’t stir and his breathing remained slow and even.

  She raised her head from the pillow, her ears straining to detect the slightest disturbance, but there was nothing. The room remained dark and cool and peaceful. The digital alarm clock on the nightstand read 2:56 a.m.

  Swinging her bare feet onto the floor, she sat up, then pushed her hair out of her face and fumbled for the water glass next to the clock. She took a few sips of the lukewarm liquid and concentrated on slowing her pounding pulse.

  The stress is getting to you, she told herself. Just six more nights and you won’t be waking up in a cold sweat.

  But the more she willed herself to settle down, the more her body rebelled. Her nerve endings practically crackled with sensitivity, and she was hyperaware of the swish of her soft cotton nightgown against her legs and the clammy varnished floorboards beneath her bare feet.

  As she pulled back the drapes and cracked open the French doors, she heard the low, growly rumble of an engine and the crunch of tires on gravel in the parking lot. A door slammed. A dog barked. A man laughed.

  And there was something in that sound, in the depth and timbre of that laughter, that jolted her heart out of its galloping thud and into a skittering staccato. Something stirred deep in her soul, and for a moment, she couldn’t draw air into her lungs.

  She still couldn’t see anything, but she heard the jingle of dog tags and the receding echo of footfalls. And then…silence.

  The sweet, fresh night breeze gusted across her cheeks, and she found her focus, one breath at a time. Her fear and panic ebbed as she gazed up at the huge white moon suspended over the treetops.

  She closed the window, crept back to bed, and stretched out next to Grant. But she couldn’t fall back to sleep. She couldn’t bear to be still any more. She tossed and turned for hours, until the first gray light of dawn crept in through the curtain folds and the rest of the world woke up.

  If the flower girls didn’t trash Emily’s wedding gown, the mother of the groom and the mother of the bride were going to spill blood on it. While the seamstress attended to last-minute alterations, Emily crossed her fingers and hoped Bev and Georgia might start bonding after a few cups of chamomile.