Charlie squinted as he looked over the menu. “What did you have? The beef tenderloin with red wine and shallot sauce, or the grilled snapper with blood orange nectar?”
“The tenderloin. Liza had the snapper. And before you ask, they were both delicious. Listen, gang. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going home. I just wanted to stop by and say hello.”
Mom reached across the table and patted his hand sympathetically. “Poor baby. You’ve had a long day. Go home and get some sleep.”
“Wish I could, Grandma,” Garrett said as he heaved himself up from his seat. “But I’ve got a couple of hours of work to do first. I told Mr. Kaplan I’d have his design finished by Tuesday. I’m way behind.”
I was worried. Garrett has always been a night owl, working on his computer until the wee hours of the morning, but he looked truly exhausted. I couldn’t help but wonder if long hours were the only reason for his haggard condition.
In the family drama that is the modern American wedding, the mother of the groom is definitely a bit player. My job was to wear beige, and keep my mouth shut, and until now, I’d done so. But I couldn’t keep my concerns to myself any longer.
“Garrett, this wedding, with the butterflies and the symphony and the magnums of champagne. Is this what you want? Because it just doesn’t seem like you.”
He picked up his coat, wearily put his arms in one sleeve and then the other. “What I want is to be married to Liza. I don’t care if we dance our first dance as husband and wife to the stylings of the Boston Symphony or two guys playing kazoos. If this is what Liza wants, then it’s what I want.”
“But…is this what Liza wants?”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Liza wants a nice wedding, right? Personally, I think this one is going to be a little over the top, but she agreed to everything. If this wasn’t what she wanted, I’m sure she’d say so. She’s never had any trouble speaking her mind before,” he said with a proud little smile.
That was true. When it came to deeper, personal issues, Liza wasn’t much for confronting things head-on. But when it came to questions of style or self-expression, she had never been shy about voicing her opinions—especially if those opinions ran counter to her aunt Abigail’s.
“I guess you’re right.”
Garrett shrugged. “It’s all a little crazy, but if it makes Liza happy, then I’m all for it. I think she’s grateful to Abigail. Not only is she willing to pay for all this, she’s taking over the planning. Liza’s schedule is as bad as mine. Neither of us has the time to deal with this. So if Abigail wants to take the ball and run with it, I say let her.”
He smiled as he zipped up his jacket. “I talked to Scott Fineman the other day. My old roommate from college.”
“Oh, I remember Scott,” I said. “How is he?”
“Engaged. His wedding is more than a year off, but he’s already going nuts with the arrangements. He and his fiancée, Alisha, have visited eight reception halls so far. Eight! And they still haven’t been able to find one they like. When I told him about our wedding and how Abigail is taking care of everything, Scott was so jealous he could hardly stand it.
“‘Dude!’” Garrett exclaimed in a perfect imitation of Scott’s beach bum accent. “‘You mean all you gotta do is show up wearing the tux? I’d kill to be in your shoes, man!’”
Garrett grinned before continuing in his usual tone of voice. “So believe me, I’m not complaining. Things could be a lot worse. And Liza is happy. That’s all I care about.”
I nodded. Perhaps my worries were misplaced. If Liza was happy and Garrett was happy, that was what mattered. That and figuring out a way to patch things up with my future daughter-in-law.
“Garrett, when you talk to Liza, tell her I miss her, will you? I know she’s busy, but if she can get away for a weekend we’d love to see her at the quilt circle.”
“And,” Mom said, wagging her finger, “you tell her that Grandma Virginia flew halfway across the country to meet her. If she doesn’t come out here soon, I’ll just have to take the train into New York and hunt her down.”
Garrett grinned and headed for the door. “I’ll tell her.”
13
Liza Burgess
Before today, if somebody had told me that trying on clothes could be more tiring than running a race, I’d never have believed it. But after trying on twenty-three different wedding gowns, I felt exhausted. The good news is, I finally found a dress I love.
Staring at dozens of pictures of wedding gowns was overwhelming. I had no idea what I wanted, so when Abigail pointed to a couple she liked, I just nodded and went along with it. Two hours later, after nodding in agreement to Abigail’s suggestions on everything from the typeface on the invitations (Bickham 3) to the flowers for the bridal bouquet (pink mini calla lilies, white cymbidium orchids, green dendrobium orchids, and seeded eucalyptus—all to be shipped in from Hawaii), a rack of bridal gowns and a full-length mirror were delivered to the restaurant.
Byron hustled Garrett off to another room to try on tuxedos while Abigail, Leslie, Camille, and Karin stayed to help me with the dresses. They were all big and white and fluffy and lacy and, I’m sure, somebody’s idea of the fairy-princess gown she’d always dreamed of, but I wasn’t that somebody.
Twenty dresses into the process, Byron knocked at the door.
“How are we doing in here?” He peered over the tops of his glasses, looking me up and down before crossing his left arm over his waist and resting two fingers of his right hand on his cheek.
“Doesn’t she look beautiful!” Abigail exclaimed.
Byron’s eyes shifted from the dress to my face, to Abigail’s, and back. The room was silent. Everyone awaited his verdict.
After a long moment, he clapped his hands together twice and said, “All right! Everybody out! You too, Abigail. Why don’t you all go next door and see how fabulous Garrett looks in his tuxedo?”
After they left, Byron walked over to the bar where the waiters had left a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket. He poured a glass and handed it to me. “Don’t spill it on the dress. If you do, the designer won’t take it back and,” he said, pulling up a chair so I could sit down, “that dress is definitely going back.”
What a relief! I sank into the chair and took a drink of the champagne. “Isn’t this just the worst dress you’ve ever seen?”
“Well, that depends. If you were Scarlett O’Hara descending the staircase at Twelve Oaks, then I’d say it was perfect. But if you’re a bright young art student with a modern style sense? Not so much.”
Byron crossed back to the bar and poured a glass of champagne for himself, albeit a smaller one, less than half full.
“Liza, dear, why in the world did you choose this designer? Stephanie Gallante makes nothing but fluffy, frilly gowns. Every one a meringue. When Abigail said Gallante, and you agreed, I wondered. Your look is so modern, a little edgy. Gallante didn’t seem like your cup of tea, but who am I to interfere?
“I deal with all kinds of brides, and for some, a meringue is exactly what they want. So that’s what we give them because, in the end, it isn’t any one particular gown that makes a bride beautiful, but the fact that she feels beautiful in whatever gown she’s wearing. But you don’t feel beautiful in that dress. In any of these dresses,” he said, sweeping his hand to encompass the rack of white that stood by the wall. “If I’d come in here about two minutes later than I did, I think I might have found a bride in tears. Am I right?”
I sniffled. Byron pulled a crisp, white handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“Here. Use this. It wouldn’t do to have you wiping your nose on the sleeve of the dress. Then Stephanie really wouldn’t take it back.”
He smiled and I laughed through my tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said, dabbing my eyes with the handkerchief. “I’m just feeling…”
“Overwhelmed?”
“Yes! None of this seems quite real. I had no idea t
here would be so much to do, so many decisions to make.” My eyes started to tear up again. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Byron raised his eyebrows and took a sip of champagne before going on. “I’ve planned over two hundred weddings in my career, nearly all of them for lovely, wonderful women who had every reason to feel overjoyed about their good fortune, and do you know something? Every single one of those wonderful, lovely brides had at least one good cry between the engagement and ‘I do.’ It’s perfectly normal.”
The hard knot of tension in my stomach loosened just a little. I wasn’t as crazy as I thought I was. I was normal. Everything would be all right. It would be. Byron said so, and he’d been through this two hundred times.
“Once we get through today it will be easier, I promise. You’re having everything thrown at you at once! If I were you, I’d have grabbed that bottle of champagne, locked myself in the closet, and told Abigail and me and everybody else to go away and never come back.” He winked at me.
I sniffled and wiped my nose with Byron’s handkerchief. “Not everybody. I’d let Garrett stay,” I said.
“Good call,” he said. “Garrett is a wonderful young man. The two of you are going to be very happy together.”
The knot loosened a little more. “Do you think so?”
“Think? I know! All my brides are happy. I absolutely insist on it.”
He was teasing, I knew, but his words were reassuring.
“Ah, there we go. A smile at last. The crying jag is over.” He got up from his chair, took our empty glasses, and put them back on the bar. “Now, take off that awful rag of a dress and hang it up. I’m going to have another rack sent over.”
My shoulders drooped. Another rack of dresses?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Byron said. “Not another rack of meringues. A rack of chic, gorgeous gowns you will absolutely love. Trust me.”
“Karin!” Byron shouted. The door opened immediately and Karin peeked in the room.
“Call Velma Wong’s studio. Tell them to send over whatever they have in a size six.”
Forty-five minutes later, the gowns arrived. Even before trying them on, I could tell these dresses were much more to my taste than the others. The first was pretty. The second was lovely. And the third—a gown of ivory silk-taffeta, with tiers of pleats that draped irregularly on a skirt that was full but not overly so and tied at the waist with a wide, taupe silk-taffeta bow—took my breath away.
Byron stood back to look me over, a self-satisfied smile on his face. He turned to Leslie. “I think we have a winner. Am I right, Liza?”
It was modern and chic and, dare I say it? Glamorous. And with those tiers of pleats, feminine. I’d have never thought I could feel so feminine or so beautiful. I loved it. I couldn’t say anything for fear I’d start to cry again.
There was a knock on the door and, without waiting for anyone to give him the all clear, Garrett walked in. “Are you decent?”
I turned around. Garrett stopped short in the doorway, open-mouthed. Abigail started fussing at him, but he paid no attention to her.
“Liza…” he breathed. “You look amazing. Beautiful. Just…you’re just amazingly beautiful.”
I bit my lips to keep back a smile. His words weren’t exactly eloquent, but that was all right. The look on his face told me everything I needed to know.
“Thank you.”
“You’re just…so amazingly beautiful,” he repeated. “Is that the dress? I hope so. You just look so…so…”
“Amazingly beautiful?” Byron offered.
“Yeah.” Garrett nodded.
“Well, Liza?” Byron asked. “Is this the dress? You can try on the rest if you’d like, but I don’t think there is one that could make you look any lovelier than you do right now. And, if there was, I’m not sure that would be a good thing. Garrett wouldn’t be able to take it.”
“No,” I said, my eyes glued to Garrett’s face. “I don’t need to try on any others. This is the one I want.”
After I changed, we sat down to discuss the rest of the items on what was still a very, very long “to do” list.
“There’s not that much left here,” Abigail said, scanning the list, which had at least twenty items left on it. “Liza, you’ve got classes tomorrow and Garrett has to work. Why don’t you two go home. I can stay and finish this up. I’m staying in the city tonight anyway.”
“But,” Byron said hesitantly, “there are a few things here that are really a matter of Liza’s personal taste.”
“Oh, Liza and I have very similar taste,” Abigail assured him. “I can work out these last few details, just to get things rolling, and Liza and Garrett can go on their merry way. Doesn’t that seem like a good idea, darling?”
At the moment it did. Unless I wanted to pull an all-nighter to finish my homework, handing off the rest of the list to Abigail was the only solution.
“Yes. That’d be great. Thanks, Abigail.”
Byron pushed his glasses up a little higher on his nose. “All right. As long as everyone is comfortable with that…. But before you go, we haven’t discussed bridesmaids. How many?”
“Oh.” I thought for a moment. “Two, I guess. Margot and Ivy. Margot can be the maid of honor.”
Abigail was shocked. “Only two?”
I looked at Byron. He tilted his head to one side and said, “Of course, it is up to you, Liza. But for a wedding of this magnitude, having only two attendants would be highly unusual. A larger bridal party does give more visual impact.”
“Surely you want more than two,” Abigail said.
Did I? Abigail seemed so certain about this, and Byron too. They were probably right. After all, what do I know about weddings? But still…
I wish I had someone to talk to about all this. Someone whose opinions I trusted. Someone who understood me. Someone like Evelyn. Aside from Garrett, she knew me better than anyone and, knowing me so well, she had concluded that I wasn’t good enough for her son.
Oh, Garrett. Are you sure?
I could still hear what she’d said. And it hurt. That’s why I couldn’t talk to her anymore. That’s why I stayed away from New Bern.
The thought of going back there—of climbing those familiar steep wooden stairs at the back of the shop, walking into the big workroom with the exposed brick walls and the tall windows, sitting around the table where I’ve spent so many hours talking and laughing and stitching—only to find that the old familiarity has been replaced by uneasy silences and words unspoken as Evelyn and I try to pretend that she hadn’t said it and I hadn’t heard it, was more than I could stand.
I wish my mom were alive.
I’d give anything to be able to talk to her for even five minutes. She would know if two bridesmaids is enough. She would know what I should do about that—about everything.
But I can’t. Not for five minutes. Not even for one. I can’t talk to Mom. I can’t talk to Evelyn. Abigail is the only one left in my corner. Without her, I’d have no one.
Two bridesmaids or twenty—I don’t care. But she does. So why not let Abigail have her way? What could it hurt?
“I…I guess I could ask my roommates. That would make five. Would five be enough?”
Abigail beamed. “Five would be perfect!”
Garrett and I shared a cab. It made more sense to go to the train station first and then have the cabbie take me to my apartment, but Garrett insisted. “I know you need to get back to work ASAP. Besides, this way I get to spend more time with you.” He draped his arm around my shoulders and I snuggled up close for a kiss. The cab driver could see us in his rearview mirror, but I didn’t care. Let him look.
“Mmm,” Garrett murmured, pulling back a little so he could look in my eyes. “Nice. Did I ever tell you that you’re delicious?”
“Thanks.” I laughed. “I try.”
He pulled me closer. “I can’t wait to be married to you, Liza. I want to wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life. Wh
at do you say we just bag the whole wedding deal and run away—to Aruba, or Hawaii, or Trenton, anywhere. I don’t care, as long as we’re together.”
“Okay,” I teased. “As soon as I graduate, we’ll elope to Trenton.”
“We have to wait that long?”
“Afraid so. I haven’t worked this hard only to drop out in the last semester.”
“But you wouldn’t have to quit school just because we were getting married.”
Garrett’s tone was perfectly even, and I realized he wasn’t kidding. He was seriously suggesting we elope. My shoulders twitched involuntarily. Everything was moving so fast. I could barely wrap my mind around the idea of a June wedding. I certainly wasn’t ready to advance the date.
“Wouldn’t work,” I said airily, purposely trying to keep things light. “You’re much too distracting. Besides, if we eloped to Trenton, we’d better be prepared to stay there forever. If we run out on this wedding, Abigail will send the dogs out to track us down and drag us back to New Bern. We’d have to enter the witness protection program or something.”
“Yeah. Guess you’re right.” Garrett sighed his resignation. Inwardly, I sighed with relief, glad that he’d abandoned the idea. “And I really wouldn’t want to miss seeing you walk down the aisle. You look like an angel in that dress.”
“Thank you.”
He shook his head. “No. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saying you’ll marry me.”
We kissed again. The cab pulled up to my apartment building. Garrett told the driver to keep the meter running while he walked me to the door. It was cold out. Garrett shoved his hands in his pockets while I fumbled around in my purse, looking for my keys.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “Mom and Grandma want to know when you’re coming out to New Bern. Margot and Ivy too. They want to throw you a bridal shower.”
My fingers brushed the jagged edge of my keys. I pulled them out of my bag. “Oh. Um…I don’t know. Soon. I just have so much work right now, you know?”
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