Hmmm.
“Exactly how much are these intimate water-marked cards going to cost?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at Gigi as I snapped my gum between my teeth.
She shrugged. “Inconsequential. Hardly anything. Besides, how can you put a price on a beautiful occasion like your wedding day?”
“She’s right, Maddie,” Mom chimed in, dabbing at her eyes. “It’s your wedding day. You can’t put a price on that.”
Maybe I couldn’t. But I was pretty sure my groom would have something to say about it.
Six months ago Jack Ramirez, L.A.P.D. detective and the last person in the world I expected to believe in happily ever after, proposed to me atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was the single most romantic thing that had ever happened to me. Or, I ventured to guess, anyone outside of a Meg Ryan movie. He’d picked out the most gorgeous ring on the planet, and, once I’d given him my tearful “yes,” we’d spent three days of bliss in Paris, wrapped up in each other’s arms, floating down the Seine, feeding each other chocolate éclairs, holding hands under the most romantic sunsets in the world.
But, like all good Meg Ryan movies, it had to come to an end sometime. Once we’d gotten home the reality of being engaged had started to sink in.
Ramirez works homicide, carries a very big gun, has a very big tattoo, and a very big… well, let’s just say I’m really looking forward to the honeymoon. He’s not your typical family man, and the whole commitment thing is a new gig for him. For that matter, it was a pretty foreign concept for me, too. So far the biggest commitment I’d jumped into was a ficus tree. And that was plastic.
But when I’d shown my newly adorned left ring finger to Mom and Faux Dad, as I affectionately called my stepfather, reality didn’t so much sink in as hit me like a cheap pair of loafers to the gut. Saying the word “wedding” to my mother was like saying “Häagen-Dazs” to a Weight Watcher. She was foaming at the mouth within seconds, planning a ceremony to top all ceremonies, appropriately scheduled for this coming Valentine’s Day. Suddenly the romantic moments Ramirez and I had stolen in Paris were turned into a whirlwind of reception halls, bridesmaid dresses, honeymoon packages to Tahiti, gardens versus churches, lilies versus roses, prime rib versus chicken kiev. And currently, white, snow, or ivory watermarked place cards.
“I don’t know…” I hedged, looking down again at the squares. “Exactly what is the dollar amount of inconsequential?”
Gigi shot me an annoyed look, her mouth puckering up like she was sucking on a lemon drop. “Well, that all depends on how many people are coming.”
“Just friends and close family,” I said. Then repeated my wedding mantra, “Small and intimate.”
“Right,” Mom agreed, bobbing her coiffed hair up and down. “Just four hundred.”
I swallowed my gum with a hiccup. “Four hundred? As in people?”
Mom gave me a blank stare. Then nodded. “Didn’t you look at the guest list? I emailed the final version to you last night.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have time to print it out before I left. But I didn’t realize it went on for fifty pages. What happened to small and intimate?”
Mom blinked her heavily lined eyes at me. “Honey, I did the best I could to pare it down.”
“We can easily accommodate four hundred,” Gigi told me, her annoyance being replaced by what I could only interpret as glee.
“Exactly, that’s why we chose an outdoor venue. The Beverly Garden Hotel said they could seat four-fifty, so I figured we were fine.” Mom gave me an innocent look that I didn’t buy for a minute.
“Wait.” I held up a hand. “Hold the phone. I don’t even know four hundred people.”
“Yes, you do. Honey, don’t you want people to come to your wedding?”
“People, yes. Strangers, no.”
“These are not strangers.”
“Four hundred, Mom? I have four hundred close friends and family?”
“Oh, honey, we simply couldn’t leave anyone out.”
Was I not enunciating clearly enough? “Smaaall. In-ti-mate.”
Mom cocked her head to the side. “But, honey, it’s your wedding. It’s your special day.”
I clenched down so hard I bit my tongue. “Yes, my wedding day. One day. There is no way I can feel good about spending a mint on one day. It can be special without declaring bankruptcy over it.”
Dana’s eyes ping-ponged back and forth between us. Mom puckered her forehead. Gigi narrowed her eyes at me like I’d just spoken blasphemy.
“Well,” Mom hedged, “not everyone has RSVPed yet…” She reached into her gargantuan purse and pulled out a leather-bound book, laying it out on the conference table.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The guest list.”
I took a deep meditative breath. Then opened the book and started scanning names.
“Who is Amber White?”
“Oh, honey,” Mom said, smacking my arm. “You remember Amber. She’s that woman who did your hair that time for the recital.”
“Recital?”
“You know, when you were Little Red Riding Hood?”
I blinked at her. “Mom, I was six.”
“And you looked adorable.”
“You did not invite a woman I haven’t seen since I was six to my wedding.” I hiccupped again, that gum lodging in my throat.
“Well, she took such an interest in you.”
“Mom!”
She pursed her lips, an argument on the tip of her tongue. But, lucky for me, she bit it back. “Okay. Fine. Amber’s out.”
“Thank you.” Now we were getting somewhere. “What about her?” I asked, stabbing my finger at a name halfway down the page.
“Dolly Schlottskowitz?”
“Yeah. Who is she?”
“Oh, surely you remember Dolly Schlottskowitz? You know, Megan Schlottskowitz’s mom?”
“Seriously? Megan the cheerleader from high school? Mom, I haven’t seen her in ten years. And we weren’t even friends then!” I grabbed Gigi’s pen and crossed Mrs. Schlottskowitz’s name off the list.
“I remember Megan,” Dana piped up. “I heard she got really fat after high school.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
Dana nodded, her blonde shag bouncing up and down. “Oh yeah. I ran into Karen Olsen at Starbucks one day and she said she saw Megan going into the Lane Bryant at the Burbank mall. And,” she said, leaning in with a pseudo whisper, “she’s been divorced.” Dana help up two fingers. “Twice.”
“Reeeeally?” I said, drawing out the word. I put Mrs. Schlottskowitz back on. So I wanted to show off for the former cheerleader. So sue me.
“This looks like it may take some time,” Gigi said, eyeing the list. She glanced down at the gold watch adorning her slim wrist. “Why don’t we adjourn for now? You can get back to me with headcount tomorrow when we do the final cake tasting at…” Gigi looked to Allie who whipped out an electronic organizer thingie, quickly consulting it.
“One,” she said.
“One,” Gigi repeated. “Sound good?”
Mom clapped her hands together. “Perfect. Maddie, we’ll go over it this afternoon, yes?”
I nodded reluctantly. I’d hoped to meet Ramirez for lunch, but unless I wanted my mom’s neighbor’s second cousin’s milkman attending my special day, it looked like an afternoon with The List was in order.
“But let’s at least decide on the place card design,” Mom insisted.
I sighed. “Do we really need them?” I looked to Dana for help.
She shrugged. “They are nice, Maddie.”
Three against one. I didn’t stand a chance. “Okay, fine. Let’s do the ivory linen one.”
Mom clapped her hands with delight. Gigi’s eyes lit up with that dollar sign look again.
I sincerely hoped Ramirez didn’t mind working overtime.
* * *
Five hours - and a mere thirty-five pages worth of people I barely knew - later, I pul
led my little red Jeep up to my studio apartment in Santa Monica. Just blocks from the ocean and sandwiched in between rows of eclectic buildings that conformed to L.A.’s hodge-podge school of architecture, it was my little slice of heaven. Little being the operative word here. A fold-out futon and a sketch table, and I was at max capacity. Which is why Ramirez and I had decided that I would move into his place after the wedding. Unlike me, he had an actual house. With an actual bedroom. And closets. Oh man, did he have closets. Little did he know they’d all soon be filled with shoes.
But I had to admit, a part of me was going to miss my little studio. It might be small, but it was cozy, quaint, and I’d come to love it.
I fit my key in the lock and shoved the door open.
“Hey, honey, I’m home,” Ramirez said, grinning at me as he flipped channels on my TV.
I couldn’t help it. My hormones did that little happy “squee!” they always did when I saw him. He had that tall, dark and handsome thing down to a science, his broad shoulders tapering to a compact frame. Black hair, just a little too long, curled around his ears. Dark eyes, a square jaw, and a paper-thin white scar cutting through his left eyebrow all gave him a slightly dangerous air that made women swoon and men lock up their daughters.
Luckily, my father lived two hundred miles away.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, dropping my purse on the kitchen counter and leaning in for a hello kiss.
“Mmmm… hello,” he murmured against my lips, wrapping both arms around me.
I swear it was almost enough to make my afternoon with The List melt away.
“My cable was out,” he said, when we finally came up for air. “Thought I’d come watch the game here. I ordered pizza, too. Should be here any minute.”
“Pepperoni?”
He grinned. “With extra cheese.”
The man was a god.
“So, how was your day?” he asked, settling himself on the futon as tall guys in expensive sneakers filled the TV screen.
“Ugh!” I plopped down next to him. “Don’t ask. Did you know that my fourth-grade teacher is coming to our wedding?”
“Okay. Cool.”
“No, not cool. I haven’t seen her since I was ten! And then there’s my uncle Charlie’s first wife who lives in Belize, my grandmother’s third cousin from Oklahoma, and the guy who sold Mom her minivan!”
Ramirez raised an eyebrow at me. “Sounds like a lot of people.”
“Four hundred.”
“Damn. What happened to small and intimate?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I mumbled, grabbing for the remote as a Budweiser commercial flickered across the screen. “And we’re getting ivory linen place cards.”
“I’m watching that.”
I flipped to the news, checking the weather for tomorrow. I had this new pair of suede boots I was dying to wear, but not if there was even the slightest chance of rain. “Just a sec.”
“Darlin’, if I miss tip-off, I’m gonna cry.”
I gave him a playful smack. But gave in, flipping back once I saw we were all sunshine for the next week. Gotta love L.A.
“So,” I said, relinquishing the remote and leaning my head against Ramirez’s chest, “we’re doing the final cake tasting tomorrow. One o’clock.”
Ramirez threw an arm around me. “We?”
“As in, you and me.”
A groan rumbled beneath my ear.
“What?”
“Didn’t we already pick a cake months ago?”
“Yes, but this is the final sampling to make sure everything if perfect.”
Another groan. “Do I really have to be there?”
I felt a frown settle between my brows. “You should want to be there.”
He leaned back, narrowing his eyes at me. “What exactly does that mean?”
“It means, this is our wedding.”
“I know. I’m just not a real wedding-y kind of guy. Can’t you just taste it?”
“Alone? Come on, don’t you want to have a say in the cake? Don’t you want to have any input into the most memorable day of our lives? Don’t you care what color the flowers are or what kind of place cards we have?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Is this a trick question?”
I threw my hands up. “This is our wedding, Jack. Not just mine. I want it to be special for you, too.”
“And I’m sure the flavor of cake will make all the difference.”
“Now you’re just being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
“A little.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not the way to win points, pal.”
He sighed. A big, full bodied thing that said he was wondering if he shouldn’t have just stayed at home and listened to the game on the radio instead.
“Okay, if it will make you happy, I’ll go sample cake tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Thank you. I’ll pick you up at 12:30. But-” I held up one finger. “-you’re not doing it to make me happy. You’re doing it because you want to. Right?”
He shook his head at me, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Sure. I want to spend my afternoon stuffing my face with buttercream icing.”
The sarcasm was thicker than my mom’s mascara, but I decided to let it go, instead nestling back into the crook of his arm.
“So…” Ramirez’s fingers began kneading the nape of my neck. “If we’re previewing the cake, does that mean we get to preview other things, too?”
I leaned my head back and met a pair of dark eyes, simmering with that bad boy look that had me smitten from the start.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, as his fingers kneaded lower, slipping inside my blouse and toying with my bra strap.
“The honeymoon.”
I grinned, going instantly warm in all the right places.
“What about the game?” I asked, gesturing to the TV.
A wicked smile slid across his face, his lips leaning in toward mine as his eyes went from hunger to pure lust.
“What game?”
Chapter Two
I took one step up, my thighs burning in protest, my breath coming out in short, quick puffs. Then I stepped back down. Then back up again as sweat trailed in unattractive beads down the sides of my face.
“That’s it, you’re doing great!” Dana shouted from the front of the room. Twenty-odd stepping, sweating, groaning people (including yours truly) filled the studio, following her lead, marching to her every command like a bunch of bootcampers. Of course, Dana’s was the only sweat-free forehead. Not even a ladylike glisten, every hair on her pretty blonde head in place, her cute little red work-out tank (and I do mean little—Dana subscribes to the ‘less is more’ school of fashion), not the slightest bit damp under the arms even though my actress-slash-aerobics instructor best friend had been leading the Step and Burn class for the last forty-five minutes. Me – I was sweating and grunting like a linebacker as I went up, then back down the two bright orange plastic steps in front of me.
“Three more to go. You can do it!”
I glared at my cheerleader-esque friend. I’d swear that’s what she said three step routines ago.
I did the up and down thing again, my Nikes squeaking on the freshly polished gym floor as I tried (in vain) to keep up.
I’m not exactly what you’d call a health nut. I’m more of a chocolate toffee-covered-macadamia nut. On top of a mound of ice cream. Served with a brownie. While Dana was the reigning Aerobics Queen of the West Side, the only times I ever actually used my membership to the Sunset Gym were on those ninety-plus-degree days of summer when the lure of the two Olympic-sized swimming pools won out over my inherent aversion to physical activity. And even then I mostly doggy paddled.
Not that I wasn’t figure conscious. In fact, at one point in my life I’d had visions of being a sleek, svelte runway model, strutting the catwalks of Milan and Paris in the most haute of couture creation
s. However, when my last adolescent growth spurt topped me out at 5’1 ½”, those dreams faded faster than a pair of acid-washed jeans. Instead, I’d turned my passion for fashion to design. Specifically, designing shoes. After a rocky start in the business, I was finally starting to come into my own. Okay, so I wasn’t Michael Kors. But, I did have my very own line being stocked in chic boutiques throughout Beverly and the West Side. And, there was even a rumor that a certain unnamed mega-actress might be considering wearing a Maddie Springer original to the Oscars this year. (Okay, it’s Angelina Jolie. How cool is that, huh?!)
So, while I was about as fashion forward as a girl could hope to be, I generally left the whole kill-yourself-at-the-gym thing to Dana. My philosophy: if the heels are high enough, everyone looks like they have runner’s calves, right?
But with the Big Day looming in the not too distant future, Dana had worn me down. Especially when she’d accompanied me to the last dress fitting, where my heavenly white satin corset number had clung a little more “snugly” to my hips than I might have liked. (read: squished into the dress until I looked like pale pork sausage.) While the willowy stick-figure fitter had assured me she could make a few “adjustments” to the dress, Dana’s idea of making a few trips to the gym instead had sounded like a better plan. That, of course, was before I was sweating like a hog in heat and stepping endlessly to nowhere.
“That’s it! Now turn to your right!”
I turned, almost colliding with a guy in short-shorts and a headband a la Richard Simmons. “Sorry,” I mumbled between gasps.
“Now throw those hands up! Whoo! You’re doing great!” Dana demonstrated, shooting both hands in the air and shaking them like she was at a holy revival meeting. “That’s it. Feel that burn! Isn’t it great?”
I could think of a few other adjectives to describe it. I raised my hands almost to head level, wincing in pain as muscles I didn’t know I owned protested. I glanced up at the clock. Ten more minutes. If I survived that long, I was so rewarding myself with a mocha frappuccino when this was all over. With lots of whipped cream. I was pretty sure I was burning off a gazillion calories. I swiped an arm across my brow. Hell, with sweat alone, I’d probably lost three pounds.
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5) Page 102