Sweet Talk Me (21 page)

“What have I been thinking?” she asked Carmela on the phone in bed after the party. “I should have told everyone there.”

“You need to call Dubose.”

“I will, as soon as I hang up with you.”

“Did the guys like the pie?” Carmela asked.

“Oh, yeah.” True managed to smile into the phone. “They did. That was very nice. Thanks.”

“No problem. What guy doesn’t like pie, right? And Gage has been so good, straightening my shelves for over a year.”

“You mean it wasn’t for Harrison, too?”

“Oh, sure. Harrison. He’s welcome to it. But you know, Gage has been displaced. I was thinking maybe a little TLC wouldn’t hurt.” Carmela paused. “So whatever. It’s only pie.”

“Right, well, it was a huge hit.”

“Good. And don’t you dare feel guilty about eating some. Too many brides lose weight before the wedding. You want to have a vibrant glow. You can’t do that when you’re starving. And don’t feel guilty about calling Dubose, either.”

True sighed. “I won’t. In fact, it’s a good thing Penn’s on the other side of the Atlantic. I’m furious with her for abandoning me so totally. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to work myself up to that point.”

“Harrison, maybe? He’s quite the distraction.”

God, yes, he is
. True curled a lock of hair around her finger. “That can’t be it.” There was a second’s silence. “Although he’s very charming. But you know that.”

“Uh-oh,” Carmela said.

“No, no, no. Nothing to worry about.”

“Right,” said Carmela, not very convincingly, which did nothing to help True feel less anxious about his presence in her house.

She could hear him playing chords on the front porch. “Um, talk to you tomorrow?”

“Sure. Maybe I’ll run over after work with another pie. Or just help Weezie out with any U-pick customers. Sounds like you girls could use some support.”

“Thanks, but Harrison and I are taking Weezie to Trident Tech for the open house. Only Gage will be here after five.”

“Oh?” Carmela sounded a little out of breath. “Well, I’ll bring over some dinner then. My famous lasagna. I’ll just drop it off.”

“That would be nice. Thanks, Carmela.”

She dialed Dubose’s number next. This news called for talking, of course. Not texting. It was far too important.

“Hey, honey.” Dubose’s familiar drawl instantly made tears come to her eyes. She’d been crazy to think she could handle this wedding calamity alone.

“Hi.” She wished she could see him. “Where are you?” It was eleven
PM
. Maybe she’d called too late.

“Just getting into bed,” he said. “It’s been another helluva day. I’m beat.”

Shoot. She couldn’t send him to bed depressed and worried. She’d wait one more day. Catch him while he was alert. Or better yet, she’d go out tomorrow and she would
solve
this problem! She’d give it one last shot. “I wanted to say good night, is all, and I miss you.”

“Damn, I miss you, too. Everything going well there?”

“Yes,” she lied. It literally pained her to say that. “I went to one of our parties tonight. Everyone missed you.”

“That’s nice.”

“
I
missed you.” She could hear the TV on in the background—a crowd yelling. Baseball, no doubt. “But guess what? I got your friends their beach house.”

“That’s good.” She could tell he was watching a game.

“It’s beautiful. Upstairs, it’s got a—”

“I’m sure it’s fine, honey. I really have to go now.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Good night. I-I love you.” And she did, she was sure of it. Just because she was attracted to Harrison didn’t mean she didn’t love Dubose. She heard married people didn’t stop being attracted to other people—they learned how to deal with it. It was human nature. It was in everyone’s genes to be hardwired for sexual attraction to anyone who was good looking. She’d simply ignore the siren song because she was civilized, not a cave girl, and she had a lot to lose—the love of a very good man.

“You sleep tight,” he replied. “Bye.”

“Bye,” she whispered.

Fudge.
She clicked off and stared at the ceiling. Harrison was done playing the guitar now. She wondered where he was. She couldn’t hear a thing from Weezie’s or Gage’s rooms. Was Harrison in the bathroom brushing his teeth? Or maybe he was getting ready to take a shower. The pipes here were in miserable shape. He’d told her he’d take his shower at night so they wouldn’t have to fight over hot water in the morning.

Her imagination switched on like a movie projector and produced an unwelcome image of her walking into the bathroom and slipping into the shower stall with him.

Stop.

She turned over to face the wall, shut her eyes, and tried to be thankful that Dubose was going to fix those same water pipes next year. He was thoughtful. And thorough. He’d make an excellent husband.

But she couldn’t sleep. The wedding was on her mind. Weezie and school. Harrison and his sexiness. Carmela and her store that would have to close soon. Her own U-pick business. Gage and his new house. The dogs and going to the vet for their shots. Dubose and all the work he was doing in New York.

Harrison, asleep next door.

Dubose’s mother drinking tea in England.

Dubose and the shock he’d feel when he came home and the wedding was in shambles.

An hour passed. Two.

Was Harrison asleep? Or was he tossing and turning like her? Who could she talk to? Who?

It was all too much.

Go
, something inside her whispered. It was her studio voice, the one that took over at the most inconvenient times.

She slid out of bed, crept down the hall, and opened a skinny door that looked like a linen closet. But it led to the attic, to Honey’s old music room—with an electronic keyboard, Honey’s ukulele, her old vinyl 1940s albums, and a turntable. True had converted it into a studio. When she got to the top of the stairs, she flipped on the light and breathed in deeply.

Ah, the smell up here—paint, canvas, fabric, varnish, wood, and old memories—always revived her. Gave her new ideas. Hope.

She walked carefully, knowing exactly where the creaking floorboards were, and spent two hours sifting through her canvases and then sketching a new idea for a collage—the one of Harrison with all his fans in Atlanta.

She got on her knees with her notepad and sketched another possible scene on the floor in a beam of moonlight. This one was of the dogs and Gage watching TV together in the front parlor.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

And then she was done for the night. She laid her pencil aside and felt the peace and strength seep into her bones. Her body was ready to rest. Her mind was calm, clear. The house, dignified and quiet, reminded her of her purpose. It was the house that Dubose was going to help her save. It would become their family home. Her children would sleep, eat, run, and dream here.

Tomorrow
, she told herself. Tomorrow, she would fix this wedding problem once and for all, and she’d do it for her future husband. He’d done so much for her.

She treaded carefully down the stairs and closed the attic door behind her. When she got to her room, she saw Harrison’s closed door. Unbelievable, to think that he was here. He made a great subject for a canvas. He was the quintessential country music star—a fantasy man, not husband material. He could wave his magic wand (magic guitar?) and he’d make all her wedding problems go away.

But she wouldn’t use his help.

She was a magic woman.

When she remembered to be.

*   *   *

When True woke up the next morning, she knew instantly what she had to do. She must go see Penn’s best friend, Lila Dunworth. She lived on the water in a big mansion next to Rosewood, the Waring estate. Before anyone came downstairs—even Gage, who was an early riser—she slipped out the back door and walked quietly to her car. She knew Lila would be awake. Penn always said she exercised at six in the morning then went straight to her garden. She was a renowned botanical specialist. But she was known also as a supreme hostess. Once she’d even appeared on NPR to talk about the art of throwing a good party. She’d written a book on the subject, too. So she would definitely know every caterer in the area.

“How are you this morning?” Lila asked her when she showed up in her backyard flower garden. True had texted her to make sure it was all right that she came over.

“Worried.” True followed behind her into a small glassed-in porch at the back of the house. Lila indicated a chair, and she sank into it. “Thanks so much for seeing me.”

“My pleasure.” Lila was always the lady but never particularly warm. She wore casual L.L. Bean–style clothes—ironed jeans and a floral cotton blouse with a pair of English garden clogs—and tons of gold jewelry. Her white-blond hair was swept up in a chignon and sprayed into place.

“Did you talk to Penn about the wedding before she went to England?” True asked her.

“No.” Lila had a soft, elegant voice. “I was in Augusta teaching a workshop on how to serve lunch to the press before the Masters. I missed her. Is something going on? You don’t look too well, to tell the truth.”

True smiled weakly. “I’m not getting much sleep, that’s why.” She proceeded to tell Lila what had happened with the caterer and venue. “I wondered if there’s anything you can do, please, to help me get them back?”

Lila sighed. “If Penn can’t, then I can’t, either.”

“Can you help me get someone else then, please? You know everyone. I looked through your entertaining book this morning, and it’s marvelous how extensive your network of connections is.”

Lila smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “No one will help you this late in the game. They have reputations to protect. How can any caterer put forth his or her best effort if the wedding date is so close?”

“But wouldn’t that prove how good they are? Wouldn’t word spread like wildfire that they’re amazing under pressure?”

Lila shook her head. “It’s the busy season. No one can afford to take that risk. Not only that, they don’t need to. They have too many clients as it is.”

True inhaled deeply. “So … you can’t help me?”

Lila walked to a small desk, wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed it to her. “These two women are gardening friends of mine from Augusta who’ve moved out to Seabrook Island. I’ll call them and see if they can have lunch with you. But I wouldn’t count on anything. They sometimes help me put together parties for large crowds. On a lark. They’re premier hostesses in their own right.”

“Thank you.” Any lead was a good thing.

Lila came back a few minutes later. “They’ll meet you at Magnolia’s in downtown Charleston at eleven thirty.”

“Perfect. Thank you, Lila!” True wanted to hug her, but she wouldn’t dare. She noticed there’d been no tut-tutting about the absolute awfulness of the situation. Nothing warm or sympathetic in Lila’s manner. But their families had known each other forever. Didn’t she have any sense of nostalgia and desire to help based on that alone?

She’s like Penn
, True thought. And had the horrible feeling that neither one of them liked her. How could she have not noticed before? But she comforted herself with the thought that Mama had come across as a cold fish, too, yet she’d loved True. She’d simply been unable to show it very well.

True to form, Lila merely stood in the doorway of her home and watched True drive away with a standard polite smile on her face.

At lunch, the two women greeted her warmly. One was silver-haired and wore smart designer eyeglasses and wide pants, like Katharine Hepburn. The other was probably mid-thirties, with curly auburn hair and a ’50s kitsch appeal about her. Maybe it was her pale yellow pencil skirt, formfitting white blouse, and matching plaid hair band. They asked question after question about what True was looking for.

“Elegant finger food,” she told them. Southerners generally didn’t have sit-down dinners at their wedding receptions. “Open bar. The best of everything. For two hundred fifty people. And I’ll need a spectacular place, one to showcase a string quartet and a band. Of course, we’ll need a dance floor, too.”

They didn’t seem fazed by any of her desires. She felt hope. Huge hope. And then over coffee at the conclusion of the meal, the silver-haired one said, “I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

The other one nodded in agreement.

True’s eyes widened in shock. “Are … are you sure?” She looked back and forth between them. Sunlight streamed through the large bay window facing East Bay Street and sparkled off the older woman’s glasses. “You seemed so interested. And you didn’t even confer with each other before saying no. What happened?”

“We really wanted to try Magnolia’s since it’s been restyled,” said the younger one.

“What?” True stared at her in disbelief.

The older one patted True’s hand. “And offer you our sympathy.”

“Of course,” said the younger one. “I meant that, too.”

“Thanks,” True said.
For nothing
.

“You poor bride,” the Katharine Hepburn one murmured. “There’s no way you’ll be able to pull off what you’re looking for in the amount of time you have.”

“Perhaps you should change direction.” The younger one languidly stirred a little cream into her coffee. “We think you should elope.”

“It’ll be the only way to save face,” said the older one. “People will find it charming and stylish if you do it right. And you have no other option as far as I can see.”

“But how will she get the word out in time?” Her copper-haired friend leaned on her fist and looked suitably curious.

“She’ll need to start now,” the bespectacled one said. “It will require a quickly drawn-up card at the stationery store. And then a mass mailing.”

“Not Paperless Post?” said the younger one.

“Not in Charleston, honey.” The older one lowered her spectacles and chuckled. “We should buy stock in all the stationery stores around here. They’ll never go out of business. We can go with her right now and help her pick out a card.” She looked expectantly at True. “You don’t have a moment to waste, dear.”

True picked up her pocketbook, her fingers trembling, and pulled out thirty dollars to cover her portion of the meal and tip. She placed it on the table. “No, thank you. I don’t know what to say, other than good-bye.” She turned and walked away, almost colliding with a waiter.