The Best Man's Holiday Romance

by Gail Sattler

  “I guess,” he said as he took a long slurp from his straw, then slipped the drink into the holder. “But a real camera is easier to download. And you have a real camera.”

  “If you can call a digital real. One day I want to get a real film camera.”

  “And a shop to develop the film, too, I assume? Where does a person go to even buy real film anymore, or get it developed?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. Bad idea. Let’s go.”

  Jeff didn’t say much as they continued on to the park, but at least he now was adding something to the conversation, and she considered that a good sign. Before they went to church she’d barely got a word out of him. Not that he would get over the breakup of his relationship with Heather in such a short time, but it gave her hope. If she had to stereotype Jeff, she would call him the strong and silent type of guy. He usually wasn’t a talker, but when he was upset, he went silent to the extreme. She’d taken enough management courses to know that it was better to keep the conversation going, even if he didn’t talk about what was bothering him. Which meant she had to steer him to topics that interested him.

  She had a feeling that once they arrived at their destination, she was going to learn a lot about ducks.

  Chapter 3

  Jeff tossed his hard hat into his locker, and unfastened his tool belt.

  His first day back on the job as a newly single man had been an eye-opener. Not only had he learned a little about some of his coworkers, he also learned a lot about human nature.

  When everyone heard that the wedding was off, after the expected manly condolences, comments were made not only about Jeff being single, but also that Heather was now single. A number of the guys had asked for her phone number and if he minded them going out with his ex. He’d cringed at the concept. Despite the reason for the breakup, having someone he knew go out with her just felt too invasive. After he told them the reason he’d split up with Heather, all of the guys changed their minds except one. Frank claimed that as long as he knew they wouldn’t be exclusive, he didn’t care; he only wanted a good time, not a commitment with a ball and chain.

  At that comment, most of them laughed, but still, no one else asked for her number.

  One of them had wanted Heather’s sister’s number, which had made him strangely angry.

  He didn’t give anyone any numbers.

  Now that the guys were all on their way to wherever they went on a Monday night, he was alone. Since he had nowhere to go and no one to see, Jeff didn’t mind being the last one out or to lock everything up and secure the compound.

  After he’d checked everything was put away for the night, he pulled his cell out of his pocket to order a pizza to pick up on the way home, and noticed a new text message.

  It was Tasha saying she was picking up a pizza and would meet him back at his place in half an hour to help him cancel wedding arrangements.

  He poked through his phone, trying to find Tasha’s phone number in his call log so he could call her and tell her not to come. Yesterday he hadn’t been good company, and he wasn’t going to be any better today. He’d been sullen during the church service, and then once they got to the park he couldn’t stop talking about duck habitats and migrations. They’d picked up Chinese takeout for supper, then gone back to his place, where instead of going through what needed to be canceled, he’d remained in duck mode.

  When he was in his teens he’d come across a cat that had captured and nearly killed a baby duck. He’d saved the duck, nursed her back to health and then kept her as a pet since she couldn’t be released into the wild because she couldn’t fly and she had a permanent limp—which for a duck was pretty sad. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t walk right, but she couldn’t swim in a straight line, either.

  Jeff bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t told any of his adult friends about Daffodil. Heather didn’t even know. When he’d introduced Heather to his parents they’d met at his house, not at his parents’ place, where Daffodil still lived. Since they’d been just recently engaged the topic of his pet duck hadn’t come up. But not only had he told Tasha, he’d shown her pictures.

  Then he’d explained that because Daffodil couldn’t fly, he’d needed to take her into the house in the winter. But since ducks couldn’t be house-trained like cats or dogs, his mother had started sewing duck diapers after being inspired by pictures she’d found on the internet. The diapers had worked so well that even though they looked ridiculous, his mother fancied them up, then started a home-based business selling fancy duck diapers on eBay, and that had later financed a large part of his college tuition.

  While his mother had been sewing duck diapers, he’d designed and constructed a number of waterways for Daffodil. He’d also designed some for the wildlife center, where he’d had a part-time job when he got older. His friends had teased him that since he’d had such fun with pipes and fittings he should be a plumber when he grew up, and that had indeed been his career choice.

  His life was what it was because of a dipsy duck that wore designer diapers.

  It even sounded stupid.

  It was no wonder he couldn’t hold down a decent relationship.

  He stared at the phone in his hand. There was no point in phoning to tell Tasha to not come. He had a feeling she would have her phone already turned off. He’d learned that from experience already.

  He texted a quick Thx, just in case she actually looked, slipped the phone into his pocket and made his way to his car. When he was a block from home, as he made the last turn he found himself driving behind Tasha.

  Another day, he would have smiled at his good timing. For tonight, nothing was good. Tonight the plans for his life were going to swirl into a deep pit, along with a fair amount of his savings from nonrefundable deposits.

  She pulled over in front of his house, allowing him to go ahead of her to park his car in the carport, then she pulled in behind him.

  Pizza in hand, Tasha met him at the door. “What great timing.”

  “I guess,” he said, feeling as if he should say something, but he didn’t know what.

  He led her into the kitchen, which fortunately he’d cleaned since yesterday’s meal.

  She scanned the counters. “Do you want to eat here or in the living room?”

  “Here is fine.”

  “I’d like to start going over everything right now. Some of these places might be open, and we can call today to get stuff canceled. I think some of them will give back at least part of your deposits if they can rebook for the same day, so we should start calling right away.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you keep all your receipts? Business cards with contact information?”

  He pulled an envelope out from a drawer and laid it on the table. “It’s all in here.”

  Before she finished her first piece of pizza, Tasha dumped the contents onto the table and put everything into little piles. “I don’t see the bill for the cake.”

  “Pastor’s wife is, or was, making the cake. She said she’d let me know how much it was after the wedding. She didn’t want a deposit since everything was from her kitchen, anyway.”

  Tasha raised her head and stared straight into his eyes. “You did tell Pastor about everything, didn’t you?”

  “I emailed him. I can’t talk to him yet. I’m too afraid he’s going to try to convince me to forgive and forget, and marry her, anyway. I won’t do that.”

  Her eyes softened, and she reached to touch the top of his hand. “The Bible doesn’t actually say to forget. God just says to forgive. I don’t believe God would tell us to continue in a bad situation and be hurt again, unless we want to take that risk. God tells us to forgive, which means to deal with it, then move forward, which doesn’t mean to forget, just to handle it with compassion, then
get on with your life without letting it eat away at you. Does that take some of the pressure off?”

  All he could do was stare down at her hand, still on top of his. Her touch was gentle, and her hand was so nice and warm.

  He looked up at Tasha. He hadn’t thought about forgiving Heather. Truthfully, he hadn’t got that far yet. So far all he felt was hurt, and stupid for not seeing what was apparently right under his nose. He was still mostly numb. Even though he hadn’t seen Heather for over two days, he wasn’t sure the reality of it had set in yet. But as he shifted his attention to the pile of bills and receipts on the table, he was sure that by the end of the night his head would catch up with his heart.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, then looked into her eyes. “That does take the pressure off.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Until now he hadn’t wanted to, even though he knew he would have to. But he wasn’t sure Tasha was the best person; after all, she was Heather’s sister and they lived together. He opened his mouth to say so, but the wrong words came out. “Yeah. I do.”

  When she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, the words began to tumble out of his mouth. “Since I was the best man, I needed to be there early, with the rest of the wedding party. You know how she takes so long to get ready. I thought if I got there really early, I could motivate her to be ready, so we could leave early.

  “That woman who watches the door from her balcony on the third floor let me in when Heather didn’t answer. I guess you’d already gone. When I got to your floor I saw a couple lip-locked in front of your neighbor’s door. I started to go around them, then...” He gulped and squeezed his eyes shut as the picture of what he’d interrupted burst into his mind’s eye like a picture in a big-screen movie theater.

  Tasha’s voice broke into his thoughts. “You saw it was Heather and Zac.”

  He nodded, then opened his eyes, preferring to see Tasha than to keep replaying what he’d stumbled onto. “I couldn’t see their faces but I saw my ring on her finger. You know what went through my mind when they pulled apart? First, I stood there in shock, thinking that she’d never kissed me like that. Then I started wondering if he ever kissed his wife like that. Then it started to sink in that she was fooling around on me with a married man. You know what she said to me? That it wasn’t what it looked like.”

  He covered his eyes with his free hand, as if he could make the image go away. “And that made me look harder. She was carrying her shoes, and her buttons were done up wrong.” As the image kept repeating in his head, he didn’t know what he felt like doing worse, screaming or putting his fist through the wall. “It wasn’t what it looked like. It was worse.”

  Tasha gasped, and her grip around his fingers tightened.

  He lowered his hand from his face and stared into Tasha’s eyes, wide with shock. “Before I did something I would regret, I demanded my ring back and walked away. I couldn’t go to Luis’s wedding in that frame of mind, so I went down into the exercise room and beat on the punching bag for a while to get it out of my system, then went to the wedding.” He gulped. “It was really hard.”

  As he continued to stare into Tasha’s eyes, they became glassy.

  She quickly released his hand. Strangely, he suddenly felt really cold.

  Tasha turned around, swiped her sleeve across her eyes, sniffled, then sucked in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  For lack of something better to do, he pushed away the pizza box, and straightened the pile of bills. “There’s nothing to say. It’s over. Now let’s start canceling everything. The sooner it’s all done, the better.”

  Tasha swiped her sleeve over her eyes once more, then picked up her phone, and started dialing the number on the bill that was on top of the pile, which was the caterer. “This will be the most expensive,” she muttered, then cleared her throat while waiting for someone to answer.

  He thought she was going to get voice mail, but she got a real person. Talking to the man, she switched gears like flicking a switch. In the blink of an eye, she was all business. She was polite and asked nicely rather than demanded if it was possible to get at least a partial refund for the cancellation. She nodded a few times, thanked the person and hung up.

  “That sounds promising. He says they double booked that weekend, but he’s having trouble finding staff for the second commitment. He was almost relieved to have a cancellation. His only consideration will be to confirm that he hasn’t already ordered the ingredients and all the meat from his supplier. If not, he’ll give you back most of your deposit. He said he’d call tomorrow and let you know. What’s next?”

  “I guess the hall, and then the decorating place. I already canceled the tux rental when they called this afternoon to get an appointment for a fitting. They wouldn’t give me back the deposit, though.”

  “What about music? Did you hire a DJ?”

  “Yes, but it’s someone I know. He didn’t ask for a deposit. If he can’t rebook I’m going to send him something because it’s the right thing to do. But since he gave me a big discount for being a friend, if he rebooks he’s going to make more money than what I was going to pay him, so he’ll be ahead. I’ll text him right now.”

  “Then I’ll call the hotel.”

  While he texted his friend, he listened to Tasha. Even though the person she needed to speak to was gone for the day, the person answering said that they could probably get half of the deposit back if they could rebook that day, which was very likely because they always had a waiting list.

  Unfortunately, everything else was closed for the day, but Tasha left voice mails and helped him write emails to follow them all up.

  “That’s done, as much as we can do. But everyone’s been notified. We’ll just have to see what happens and what you can get back.”

  It hadn’t been as painful as he thought it would be. Although the hardest part was going to be telling his friends and relatives the wedding was off.

  It had been easy telling the guys at work. They weren’t really his friends, and he hadn’t invited them to the wedding. So far only a few of his real friends knew, and none of his family.

  He didn’t know how to tell them. His mother had told him his wedding was going to be the second best thing that had happened in her life, the first being his birth. He didn’t really believe that, but he wasn’t going to contradict her.

  Still, he had no doubt in his mind. Telling his mother the wedding was canceled was going to be the hardest thing he ever had to do.

  Texting would be easier than a face-to-face conversation, but he couldn’t do that to her.

  She was going to cry. He knew it. The last thing he wanted to do was make his mother cry. First, she’d cry, then she’d try to be strong and suck it up; she’d empathize, and then he’d probably cry, too.

  He hadn’t cried since he was twelve, when the conservation officer said that the injured baby duck he’d rescued was probably going to die.

  He’d saved a duck from a broken leg and a broken wing, but he couldn’t save his mother from a broken heart.

  “You haven’t told your mother yet, have you?”

  Jeff gulped. “No. How could you tell what I was thinking?”

  Tasha shrugged her shoulders and made a weak smile. “Just your expression. Your face went all soft, and it looked like you were thinking of something really sad. What we’ve done so far may be the expensive stuff, but it was the easy part. Now you have to tell all your friends and relatives, starting with your family. You probably should tell your mother tonight. I hope she hasn’t already heard it from someone else.”

  “You’re right.” He gulped again. The situation was bad enough, but worse if he wasn’t the one to tell her. “She isn’t going to take this well. She’s going to...get all emotional and stuff. I don’t want to do that to her. She was so
excited about the wedding.” And likely also the possibility of being a grandmother, even though she adamantly denied she was thinking about it before he was even married.

  Tasha stared at his phone lying on the table between them. He almost felt her mentally poking him to pick it up.

  The second he did, she stood. “I’ll leave you to make this call in private. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her to stay, that he wanted her to be there when he was done, but before he could get a word out, she was gone.

  Chapter 4

  Natasha stared at a blank spot on the living room wall.

  Ever since she’d found out from Jeff what Heather had done, she’d known this moment would come.

  Deep down, or maybe even not so deep, she’d known the right thing to do. But now that she’d had the inevitable face-to-face with Heather, she didn’t know which way to turn.

  From inside her purse, her cell phone sang out the theme from the The Muppet Show.

  Instead of answering, she checked the call display.

  Jeff.

  Last night, seeing his expression as she left, she could guess at how the conversation with his mother had gone. He probably needed a friend to talk to, but the way she was feeling after having it out with Heather, she couldn’t be that friend.

  She let the call go to voice mail, tucking the phone back into its pocket in her purse. Before she managed to rezip it, a tone sounded that she’d received a text message.

  That, she could deal with. She pulled her phone back out. The text was from Jeff.

  R U there? Can I come over?

  For today, she couldn’t see him—she needed to be alone with her thoughts, and her conscience. She typed out her reply.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  Tomorrow, after a little time, she would be able to hold herself together. But not now.