And then, for the rest of dinner, I hear only bits of the conversation, as my mind turns over what exactly I’m going to say to my father.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MY FATHER COMES IN AT the same time that Linda brings in dessert, as if he’d been waiting somewhere else. I think it is just a dessert tray full of choices, but Mr. Maree explains that they are cake samples. He thinks it would be a ‘nice experience’ for all of us to try the different bakery samples, and choose which one we want, as a family, for the wedding.
My dad sidles up to the table, twisting his baseball cap in his hands. He looks different. Taller, somehow. He’s gained some weight, and his skin doesn’t look so ruddy. But it’s not until he bends down and pecks my cheek that I know what the real difference is.
He’s sober.
“Hello, Hale,” he says, taking the empty seat beside me. “How are you?”
“Getting married, Dad. How are you?”
“Getting sober, honey.” He looks into his lap, and I worry he might be about to cry. If he cries, I’m going to cry, and it will be a mess. I’m relieved when he lifts his head and pulls it together. “Are you happy?”
I sit for a minute, unsure of what to say, whether I need to pursue the fight or let it go. But Oscar’s thigh brushes mine, and when I glance at him, he gives me an encouraging wink that decides it all.
“I’m very happy, Dad, thank you,” I say, and my father looks away and pinches his eyes.
“Good,” he says, but his voice crumbles. “Hale, I’m...”
“Dad,” I lay a hand on his arm. “It’s fine. I’m happy.”
My father gives me a bittersweet grin, and Mr. Maree takes over then, with an elegant smile. He taps his fork on the edge of one of the plates.
“This one,” he says, “is incredible. This is the hazelnut cake, with a praline and chocolate buttercream, I think.”
Oscar passes me the plate. I put a piece of the cake in my mouth, and it is exactly what Mr. Maree said—incredible. I close my eyes for a moment to savor it. I’ve never tasted a dessert as good as this.
“Try it, Dad,” I say, handing him the plate. “This is the one I’d like at my wedding. I think you’ll like it too.”
My father takes a bite, his lips trembling as he closes his mouth on the sweet sample.
“I do,” he says, with a grateful smile. “Thank you, Hale. I like it very much.”
#
The next morning, Sher is waiting at the doors of the dress shop, where Oscar drops me off. She squeals when she sees me, and runs to throw her arms around me.
“I missed you! I missed you!” she shrieks. “And I’m so excited! A Sunday wedding? It’s so elegant! Do you know you made the news?”
“Get out of here!” I say.
Sher puts on an announcer’s voice, and says, into the imaginary microphone of her curled fist, “Otto Maree, of Otto Maree Investments, announced today that his only son, Oscar Charles Maree, will be wedding a Miss Hale Simmons, in a Sunday ceremony, to be held on the grounds of the family’s estate. The entire Maree Investment firm, and their subsidiary companies, are not expected to report back to work until Wednesday, in order to celebrate, as they say, ‘properly’.” Sher drops her fist microphone. “That is so over the top! You are so lucky, Hale!”
And I haven’t even told her how I left her behind in Virginville yet. The idea of telling her all about Sophia and Amy streaks across my mind, but I can’t think of a way to tell her without having to tell everything, so I just keep my mouth shut. Instead, I just smile, and we both stand back to look around the shop.
“Can you believe this place?” I gape.
Sher does the same, finishing my thought, “It’s so fancy!”
A sales woman scoops us up almost immediately. Her sparkling, silver-bar name pin is embossed with the name, ‘Milan’, in black print. She looks to be only a little older than us, but just by her perfectly fitted clothes, flawless make-up, and incredible shoes, Sher and I both agree immediately, in glances to one another, that we want to grow up to be Milan someday. She even pronounces her name stylishly, Mee-lon.
She asks me about dress styles, and colors, and when all she gets from me is a blank stare, Sher steps in and saves me. She fishes a folded pile of magazine pages from her purse, and some of the smaller clippings fall out and flutter to the floor. Milan helps us pick them up, and takes the mess of scraps to the counter. She lays them out, and we all look them over. In minutes, Milan is talking to us as if we all grew up together.
“Oh, I love this,” I say, pointing to one of the three bridesmaids dresses that Sher clipped.
“That’s my favorite too!” Sher says, and Milan smiles as she picks up the picture.
“I think I have the perfect dress,” she says. “And what about you, Hale? What kind of dresses do you like? I understand the wedding is tomorrow, so I suppose we should look at what we have in your size. I know Mr. Maree said that he would pay for speed alterations, but it’s not always that easy. Luckily, with your particular size, we’ve got a great selection available.”
Milan takes us to a room with dresses that line the wall. The first one I see is a fitted, sleeveless dress that spreads out more fully at the bottom. Sher pulls in a dramatic breath, as I pull the dress from the row.
“That’s gorgeous!” she says. Milan starts explaining what kind of dress it is: a mermaid dress, with a heart-shaped bodice. She says things like brocade, and crystals, and tulle, but all I want to know is if the dress will fit, and if I can afford to buy it.
Once it’s on, I spin in a mirror, and Sher says, “That’s the one,” over and over again, until I say, “You’re right.”
“You couldn’t have chosen a better dress to suit your figure,” Milan says. “This style is both elegant and sexy. I hope that is what you were going for.”
Milan takes the dress when I’m done.
“It will be cleaned and delivered to your house in the morning, as will Sher’s dress,” she says.
“How much do we owe?” I ask, and Milan brushes away the air with her fingers.
“Nothing,” she says. “Mr. Maree is taking care of the bill.”
Sher squeals and hops and tells me again, how lucky I am. Its finally starting to sink in, just how lucky that is.
#
Oscar and I don’t eat dinner with Mr. Maree. Instead, we eat sandwiches on the back porch of the guest house. The backyard is so secluded by trees and shrubs, that it feels like we’re the only two people left in this beautiful little patch of the world.
“Are you overwhelmed yet?” he asks, bumping me with his knee. I look into his eyes, and it’s like they swallow me up. I don’t have any interest in looking away.
“Not at all,” I say. “Are you?”
“No,” he chuckles, “all I have to do is meet you at the altar, right?”
“That’s pretty much all I have to do too,” I say.
“Does that bother you?”
“No. Why would it?”
“Well, I know girls usually want a lot of say about their wedding day. It’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it? They make TV shows about what a big deal it is.”
I shrug. “It’s just one day,” I say. “The big deal is all the days after.”
Oscar reaches out, his fingertips curling under my chin, and he kisses me.
“I love you.” He says it so simply, it’s like he says it every day. “You’re not a bridezilla.”
But it’s the ‘I love you’ part that catches me. He doesn’t say it every day. He’s never even said it before. And he just looks away, like it’s no big deal that it’s the first time he’s said that, and like it’s not an even bigger deal that I’m not jumping to say it back. All he does is look out into the trees, and takes a bite of his sandwich.
I climb into his lap, wrapping my legs around his back.
“Hi there,” he says with a grin, once I’m sitting face to face with him.
“Oscar,” I say. “You just said
something really serious.”
“Hmm,” he says, nodding and licking the mustard from his lip. “I did, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I say.
His eyes graze over how our bodies are smashed together. “It looks like you have something you want to say about it?”
“Yes,” I say, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t want to say ‘I love you’ for any of the wrong reasons.”
“Well,” he says, “I think any reason I give you is a pretty good one.”
“Not if it’s based on your looks, or your money, or because some guy died at a bar, where our dads were having a drink.”
He thinks for a moment, and then his eyes are on mine, the intensity a little startling. “Is that all the reasons I’ve given you?”
“No, but,” I squirm, uneasy with the words, but Oscar holds me to him.
“Go on,” he says, even though his tone is curious, instead of angry.
“I just don’t want to start throwing those words around. It means something, you know?”
“It means everything,” he says softly, and then his hands are in my hair. “That’s why I said it.”
He pulls me into a kiss, but when our lips part, I breathe, “I love you.”
“No, no,” he murmurs. “Not for this. Say it when you mean all of it. I already know you love me for this.”
And he lies back on the hard wood porch, pulling me down with him, in the very last light of evening that filters through the trees.
#
I wake to the sound of machinery. Not coffee pots or washing machines, but real machinery, the massive kind that earns the name. Oscar is not beside me in bed, so I get up, pull on my clothes, and look out the window. It sounds like there is a forklift coming at the house, but there is nothing to see out the bedroom window. I cross the foyer and go into the living room, which is lined with windows, and immediately see what woke me.
A guy on a Hi-Lo is moving stacks of tables onto the main lawn. I rub my eyes. The Hi-Lo is still there, carefully shoveling the pile of tables off the machine’s front prongs.
“Oscar?” I call, and turn as he emerges from the kitchen with a mug of coffee.
“Right here,” he says. He crosses the carpet to stand beside me, sipping his coffee and watching the workers that are flooding the lawn with chairs and flowers, as an enormous tent rises up off the lawn to the far left.
“What is all this?” I ask.
“Our wedding,” he says.
“All of this? It’s a Sunday wedding! This looks like a circus is coming!”
Oscar chuckles. “A circus is coming,” he says. “There are about five hundred guests invited.”
“Five...” I cough. “Five hundred? Who? How do you even know five hundred people?”
“Success with Fortune 500 companies, Hale. They get you known.”
“Oh my God,” I say, smashing a hand to my forehead. “I thought it was going to be like ten people, twenty tops. Not five hundred. Oh my God.”
“Come on and sit down,” Oscar says, putting his coffee on a table. “That’s just the reception. There are only about a hundred invited to the actual wedding.”
“Only?” I say. Oscar takes my hands in his and kisses my knuckles. The warmth of his mouth centers me again, and I can breathe.
“Don’t think of it,” he says. “It’s just going to be a wonderful party, that’s all. You get to wear a beautiful dress, and Sher and your father will be here. We’ll dance and eat great food, and people will be tripping over themselves to meet you. You won’t remember any of their names, and when it’s all over, we’ll just be Mr. and Mrs. Maree. House hunters. Honeymooners. Arguers of how-many-children-we’re-not-having-yet. Just that, Hale. Nothing more.”
“It seems like everything.” I say.
“Well, it is everything,” he says, kissing my knuckles again. “But it’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“And you’ll be there,” I say, with a weak smile.
“Of course. I’ll always be there,” he says.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I WISH I COULD REMEMBER everything, but it goes by in a blur. Sher and I spend most of the day at a spa. It sounds lovely, except that the closer we get to the actual wedding time, at five in the evening, the more nervous I get. I can’t enjoy the massage, or the pedicure, or the manicure, or the hairstyling, or the incredibly appealing way a man named Marco does my make-up. I don’t look like myself, or feel like myself, and by the time that I’m standing in my dress, at the mansion French doors that lead to the rose-scattered runner, I’m beyond terrified. I’m not sure I’ll make it to Oscar, who is waiting at the other end.
It’s not that I don’t want to marry him.
It’s not that I won’t keep the secret.
It’s not that I’m angry with my father, or worried that I won’t be able to be everything I wanted to.
It’s none of that.
It’s just that my legs feel like string, and my body feels like lead, and that makes it tough to get where I need to go.
My father takes my arm as the music starts, and Sher squeals the last squeal I’ll hear as a single woman, before she disappears out the French doors. My father smells faintly of booze. He apologizes. He promises he’ll get his act together. He says he is proud of me.
We walk.
The runner dips under my shoes a little. A hundred faces turn from their decorated chairs on either side of the lawn, to smile at me. I am afraid of throwing up. I am scared of wiping out in front of these hundred smiling faces. I am terrified that someone will take a picture, if I do.
Oscar comes into view. He’s beyond incredible, in his black tux with a silver and black embossed vest. He’s got a dark purple flower in his lapel. Any girl would feel blessed to be on her way to marry him, and I’d like to say that the sight of him makes it all better, but he looks worried when he spots me too. I wobble once on my heels, and although my father manages to hold me steady, I see Oscar lurch forward a little, hands up, as if he would be able to reach me, and catch me, if I fell.
It’s the first time in my life I wish I were drunk. My hands are sweating, as I hold my gorgeous bouquet of purple and yellow flowers. I don’t even know what they’re called. The wedding planner woman told me to keep the bouquet at my waist, but with every step forward, the flowers seem to get a little higher, as if I’ll end up peeking out of them, once I reach Oscar.
“Dad,” I whisper, “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”
“I don’t think I can either, Hale, but we’re going to have to. Almost there. Hang on, okay?”
I think he’s being metaphorical. I don’t know. All I can really concentrate on is not throwing up in my purple and yellow flowers.
We reach the end, and the Pastor asks who’s giving me away, twice, without any answer from my father. My dad’s just standing beside me, looking pale. The Pastor finally asks my dad directly, “Mr. Simmons, will you give your daughter to be wed?”
My father looks like he’s going to lose it. I lean over and instead of kissing his cheek, I whisper hotly in his ear, “Say yes, Dad! You’re not even the one who needs to be drunk—I am! Just hold it together so I don’t come totally unglued, for God’s sake!”
My father straightens up, clears his throat, and tells the Pastor, “I do”, as he hands me over to Oscar. Oscar’s strong hand on my arm snaps something into place. Not completely, but almost. His fingertips are soft, and his smile is genuine as he leans over and whispers in my ear, “You’re gorgeous, Hale. We’re going to get through this together, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, a little too loudly. There are some titters from the decorated chairs. The Pastor begins, and I rock on my heels. Oscar keeps a hand on my elbow, although I don’t think we’re supposed to be touching yet. The Pastor looks over the top of his Bible, and asks the crowd if anyone objects to us being married, but his eyes fall back on me, as if he thinks I’ve got something to say.
I don’t, but there is a disturbance
behind us, and I hear the words, clear as bells, “I object.”
Oscar and I turn together, my eyes running over the rows of heads, to find the one that is out of place. It’s not hard to find her at all, standing like the blond Popsicle stick she is, in the middle of the crowd of guests.
“Amy,” Oscar growls. She’s dragged her scandal all the way here, and now she’s going to make sure to wave it around in broad daylight.
“Go home, Amy, you’re not welcome here,” Oscar says.
“That’s a shame, Oscar, because I think everyone would like to know about us.” Her smile spreads, like marshmallows on a radiator.
“What the hell?” My father rises from his seat, swinging around to face her.
“There is no ‘us’,” Oscar growls again, ignoring the murmurs that pop up among the rows of guests.
“Young lady,” Mr. Maree stands from his seat to face Amy too. I’m sure Oscar has told him who she is. That’s probably why Mr. Maree looks so pale. “You are not welcome to stay, if you intend to ruin my son’s wedding.”
“I’m here because he killed a man, and tried to cover it up,” Amy blurts.
“Where’s security?” my father shouts. “This girl is nuts!”
“Rick Tatum!” Amy shrieks. “Oscar killed him!”
People’s heads are whipping back and forth, trying to catch all the reactions.
“Who the hell is Rick Tatum?” Oscar says. “I don’t even know the person you’re talking about!”
Technically, Oscar’s telling the truth, but the whispers still hike up and somebody says, “Isn’t that the guy that was killed at Modo’s Bar?”
I assume that the man who stands up next is Modo. He’s a burly guy with long hair, tied back in a ponytail for the occasion. He’s wearing a nice suit, and a scowl aimed at Amy, as he says, “The guy that died outside my bar died of natural causes. He had a seizure and clonked his head. The cops released the autopsy report this morning. So, what are you talking about, little girl?”
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