Wedding Girl (21 page)

“It's his own fault for being such a glutton.”

“Are you a greedy Snatch? Never satisfied? Can't ever get enough in you?” Bubbles coos at him. I have to remember to tell the girls about this one; they love her accidental porn conversations with the dog.

“Pity Herman's son couldn't come,” she says. “It would have been so nice for him to see it today.”

I had also been hoping to see Mark, just to witness the look on his face when he saw that the place was hopping and buzzing and everyone was raving.

“Herman said that he got called back to the West Coast unexpectedly, some work thing,” I say.

“Herman mentioned it when I asked where he was. Although he thinks it was less a work thing than a relationship thing. I think he is afraid an engagement might be in the offing, and he isn't sure she is the right girl.”

“Well, they're sort of like chalk and cheese, those two; would any girl Mark chose be the right girl in Herman's eyes?”

“I think he wants his son to be happy, and thinks if this girl were making him happy, he wouldn't seem so lacking in lightness. Love makes you a feather on the wind, and Herman Jr. is a little leaden.”

I laugh. “He is at that.” I wonder about the whole girlfriend
thing. Mark has never even mentioned her existence to me, but Herman seems to believe they are really serious. Curious.

“Not our circus, not our monkeys,” Bubbles says with hands raised in surrender. It's one of her favorite old proverbs, and reminds us both to keep our noses out of other people's business. If only I could. I have at least forty Wedding Girl emails waiting for me.

We get home and Bubbles immediately heads for bed, the day finally catching up with her. Snatch can't even make it up the stairs and instead snuffles over to the dog bed in the front room and collapses, snoring like a pig with a sinus infection. I pour myself a restorative bourbon with a squeeze of lemon and a splash of ginger ale, and head upstairs to see if I can knock out some of my email backlog before I pass out. Lucky for me, most of the questions are now routine, and I cut and paste, listening to some Patty Griffin on my headphones, getting into the groove. I get one email from an older bride who wants a wedding that is “all bread and no circus,” so I recommend a small mid-afternoon Sunday wedding ceremony followed by cake and champagne, and then a private dinner for the immediate family only that evening at a restaurant. A May bride is worried about her December groom and how their friends will mix and mingle at the various wedding events considering the generation gap, so I suggest doing mixed table seatings based on common interests in hopes of creating easy conversation. And a bride who is about to have her own personal
Brady Bunch
moment wants to know how to use the wedding planning to bond her three boys with his three girls and begin to create a blended family. I tell her that to start, she should include his girls in all her girlie stuff, and he should do the same with her sons and the boy stuff. Then they should do some fun stuff, with the eight of them, and solicit the kids' advice on the wedding planning. Better to end up with a hodgepodge wedding that all
of the kids feel they had a hand in than a perfect event where everyone's on eggshells.

I check the social media sites and see that we had an exceptionally good day, our follower and likes numbers are through the roof, and there were lovely postings on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. Then I spot it.
@CakeGoddess What a charming treasure right in my new backyard! Thanks for the delicious treats @LangersBakery!
With a picture of her standing with all of her sherbet-clad minions in her office behind the detritus of their haul, reduced to crumbs and bits. She had tweeted this to her 800,000 followers, and they proceeded to follow us, tweeting how sweet she is to support other bakers. I hate that she actually helped our cause, but diligently go through and favorite and like and retweet and reply. Can't look a gift horse in the mouth, even if said mouth is full of ceramic teeth that look like Chiclets and belongs to the one person who can and probably will put us out of business.

It's just after two when I finally finish, feeling good about clearing out the inbox, when one more email arrives. It's Jake.

Sunny—

Looking forward to continuing the conversation, and grateful for your kind and forgiving nature. And of course I will report back on the bachelor party. More soon.

Jake

I smile. I go to hit Reply, but then stop myself. It's Saturday night at two a.m., and I should be either asleep or out having fun. Despite that it feels a little bit like game-playing, I don't want him to think that I'm just sitting home waiting out the summer to finally meet his fabulous personage. I'll reply tomorrow, let him sit on it a bit. I finish the last of my drink, now essentially
just lightly bourbon-scented ice water with a hint of lemon, and get ready for bed.

Just as I'm about to drop off, I wonder.

Is Mark out there in California somewhere having put a ring on it?

And will I be more annoyed if I have to make his wedding cake or if I don't?

(1940)

I bet you say that to all your wives.

•
IRENE DUNNE AS ELLEN/EVE
•

“Don't you find this a little strange?” Ruth asks when she picks me up at the bakery.

We are on our way to Hanna's house in Forest Park. She has invited us to a surprise birthday party for Jean, who hates her birthday.

“Well, maybe this will flip the script on Jean's whole birthday thing. She is a little insane about not marking the occasion.”

“Look, I get that for someone who is mostly all earth mother goddess, she is weird about not wanting to mark the passage of time. I don't think it's a vanity thing, but whatever, it's her bag. But they have been dating for less than two months, so throwing a surprise party? For a birthday that isn't even a special number? That is just weird.”

“Maybe thirty-seven has some special astrological meaning?”

Ruth makes a harrumphing noise. “And what about the whole
kid
thing? That's not odd to you?”

Jean divulged, offhand and almost accidentally, at our drinks date with Amelia the other night that Hanna has a
three-year-old daughter. From her previous marriage. To a man. “Didn't I mention it before?” she said when we all were a little shocked. She decidedly hadn't.

“Maybe Hanna just wanted to have a summer barbecue and wanted to invite people for Jean, but thought we wouldn't come unless it was a special-occasion sort of thing. It isn't like she's dumb; she has to see that it's a bit awkward with all of us.”

Ruth and I have been really trying on the whole Hanna front, since Jean seems so keen on her. They are going away for a long weekend next week to the beach in Connecticut, borrowing the house of a director pal of Jean's, and Ruth agreed that only once they get back can we have any opinions on how things are going in that department as it's hard enough to get Jean to take a vacation, and really not our place to ruin it.

Ruth harrumphs again and turns off of the expressway. I'm distracted anyway. I switched my hours around this week so that I could have this rare Saturday afternoon free to participate in this party. But I hate leaving Herman on his own on a weekend day—ever since the relaunch, our Saturdays and Sundays have been busy as hell, which is great, but I worry about him handling it on his own. And which is worse, this morning I tanked a batch of this week's special Pop-Tart flavor—blueberry with lemon glaze—because all I could think about was the email I got today from the Wedding Girl site.

Dear Wedding Girl—

One of the paralegals in my office suggested that I check out your services, as I have something of a problem. I am about to make an honest woman of my partner of 43 years, the love of my life, and mother of my exceptional child. We never thought we would marry, but frankly we are at the stage of life where planning for the future is a moral imperative, and we
have been advised by our estate planner that being legally married will make the eventual machinations of dealing with health issues or things that come up after death much easier on both of us, and the aforementioned offspring. Being a lawyer myself, I always knew this deep down, but the die-hard hippie in me has always balked against it.

Ever since we decided to go ahead and make things legal, my lovely compatriot has gotten, a bit, shall we say, aggressive about some things related to the gathering we're planning. I frankly had assumed we would hit the courthouse with our daughter and my mother, and then maybe have a barbecue back at the house. But apparently if you have a woman in your life, even one you know is enlightened beyond fancy parties and sparkly things, wait 43 years for a wedding? She goes a little gonzo. Last thing in the world I would have expected, but there we are. Can you give me some advice on how to gently try and rein her in a bit, get her back to rational so that I don't spend the next three months in wedding plan hell with a woman I barely recognize?

Any advice is most welcome.

Best wishes,

Robert Bernard, ESQ.

Yeah, because the only thing more awkward than being the epically-left-at-the-altar wedding advice girl is getting an email from your dad asking for advice on managing your newly shockingly bridezilla mom. Fantastic.

“Hello? We're here.” Ruth pops me out of my reveries as she pulls up in front of Hanna's address. The house is a lovely little cottage style, small front yard abloom with landscaping, and has a wide driveway leading to the garage. There is a large catering
truck parked in the driveway, but plenty of street parking is available, so I wonder if we are early. Ruth grabs the large beribboned bag from the backseat, our gift for Jean, a cast-iron
plancha
for her new grill. Jean costumed a show in Barcelona three years ago and got addicted to the simple grilled foods she ate at all the small restaurants near the theater. She came back and bought a grill for her back porch, and now has become one of those insane Chicagoans who is outside regardless of weather, cooking things over fire. She's been using a big cast-iron skillet in place of the traditional slab surface, but a pal of mine who works at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! hooked me up with a real
plancha
, so it can be all tapas authentico all the time at Jean's from now on.

Hanna greets us with massive hugs and tells us how excited she is for us to be seeing her place at long last. The “long last” part throws me, because,
two months
, and Ruth raises an eyebrow at me. We walk inside, where there is a large open-concept great room, incorporating the kitchen, dining room, and living room. It is, to say the least, sparsely populated. She introduces us to her parents and her daughter, Pippi, a tiny thing in pigtails with a thumb in her mouth, hiding behind her mother's skirts. Which are voluminous. Hanna is dressed sort of like Donna Reed; all of the funky youthful style she's exhibited on the couple of times we've met her, the skinny jeans and ironic T-shirts with the leather moto jacket and hair in a messy bun, is gone. In its place, apparently, a rejected picnic costume from the
Mad Men
fire sale: a cotton belted shirtdress with a kicky print of twinned cherries and bluebirds, with what appears to be a freaking crinoline under the skirt.

Across the room we spot one of Jean's favorite colleagues, Gary, and his partner, Richard, both of whom Ruth and I have met at numerous opening-night parties. They wink at us, and we head to their side of the room.

“Have you taken the tour yet?” Richard asks. “It is
epic
.”

“Be nice,” Gary says with a smirk. “But you really should see it when you get the chance.”

“Oh, I'm sure we will,” Ruth says.

I walk over to kiss Jean's sister Margaret, who is looking a little gassy. Margaret is twelve years older than Jean, and lives out in the burbs. She has always been more of a mother figure for Jean, especially since their mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eight years ago and moved into the memory-care unit at the assisted-living place near Margaret. She is sitting on the couch with Hanna's mom, Therese, right next to her, on the receiving end of what sounds like a barrage of information about how great some person named Jeanine is. Ruth mouths “Jean” at me, to clue me in that for some reason these people are all using Jean's full given name. Margaret's husband, Glenn, is in the kitchen, where Hanna's dad is apparently grilling him about their family life and history.

“Hello, dear. So good to see you. How is your family?” Margaret is simply the kindest woman on the planet. She's been a homemaker her whole life, has three amazing grown sons who Jean spoils rotten, and recently became a grandmother for the first time, which is, according to Jean, the thing she was really born to do. She would never say a bad word about anyone, but the look in her eyes right now implies that she is having some opinions. I wink at her, and she smiles.

“They're good; thanks for asking. I know they would want me to send their love.”

Margaret and my mom served on a board together many years back, so our two families got to spend a lot of time together at various events and fund-raisers.

“Please send my love back. I owe your mom a call and a lunch.”

“We just love that Jeanine has such a wonderful, supportive set of family and friends around her,” Therese says.

Gary is raising eyebrows at me, and Richard gestures around the room with his head. I take a closer look at our environment.

Everything that isn't nailed down has a pithy aphorism scrawled on it. You know, those “Dance like nobody's watching” Bed Bath & Beyond art pieces? They are everywhere. Pillows that have “When I count my blessings, I count you twice!” embroidered on them. Sayings are stenciled on the walls. It looks like Pinterest threw up in here. And while they aren't my personal taste, I'm not dissing these wholesale. I know many lovely people who have one of them tastefully displayed in their homes.
One
. Not
seventeen
in the great room alone. Ruth's eyebrows have knitted themselves into a knot of distaste.

“Isn't it lovely? Hanna did such a great job with this place; she designed it herself.” Therese busts me checking out the décor. “You must come have the full tour!”

“Oh, yes,” Richard says with profound sincerity. “You must.”

Margaret makes a move to go save Glenn in the kitchen, but Hanna's mom grabs her arm and pulls her towards the stairs. “You come too, Margaret!”

“But, um, I took the tour earlier, remember?” Margaret has bad knees, bad enough that she and Glenn recently traded their three-story family home for a sprawling ranch on the same block with no basement so that she didn't have to do stairs anymore.

“Oh, I know, but don't you just want to see their reactions? Especially when we are
bonding
.”

Oy.

Margaret, unable to simply say no, sighs deeply, and we follow Therese upstairs through a series of rooms, all of them in the shabby-chic pastel mode. All the furniture is painted with that ghastly chalk paint that gives me the willies when I touch it, and more sayings have been stenciled on nearly every surface.

“Cute pup,” Ruth says, looking at a photo of a yellow Labrador in the master bedroom.

“Yes, he was,” Therese says, voice full of venom. “That son of a bitch took him when he left.”

Margaret's eyes fly open, and it is clear that the ex-husband is none too popular with Hanna's people.

“Here is the hope room!” Therese says, back to her cheery self, as she escorts us into a fully kitted-out nursery. “Since they had so many bedrooms, when Pippi got too old for her crib, Hanna just left this all set up and moved her into her big-girl room next door. Siblings are just so wonderful. Well, you know that better than anyone; don't you, Margaret?”

Margaret has gone absolutely white.

“I could use a drink. Anyone else?” Ruth says, taking Margaret's arm and leading her down the stairs.

In the kitchen the caterer is setting up the buffet. I ask Gary, “Where are the rest of the people?”

“This is it,” he says pointedly.

“Where are all of Hanna's friends?”

“Dunno.”

I do a quick head count. “There's only nine of us.”

“Yep.”

“She hired a caterer.”

“To grill the burgers and hot dogs.” He nods over into the kitchen.

I look at the buffet. Sure enough, hot dog and hamburger buns, appropriate condiments, a green salad, a bowl of pasta salad, a bowl of coleslaw, and a chafing dish with corn on the cob. The caterer is indeed in the backyard grilling burgers, dogs, and chicken breasts. On the dining table is a vegetable platter, a shrimp platter, and a cheese and sausage platter. There is enough food for forty people. And if there were forty people coming, I would say, “Absolutely, hire a caterer; have at it.” But for nine? When it is just casual BBQ fare and the usual suspects? Using the gas grill in the backyard? That seems excessive. We'd
all have been happy to potluck if she didn't want to cook everything, and lord knows I would have been happy to man the grill myself.

I look back towards the kitchen and see that Hanna is arranging something on the counter. It turns out to be individual servings of sangria. In glass bottles. With stripy paper straws. Decorated with a garland of no fewer than three different types of ribbon, a seashell glued to the knot, and a paper tag that says “Sangria” in curly script. She is photographing them from many angles.

Richard cants his head out towards the backyard, and I look outside.

The table set in the backyard has a clear beach theme, apparently related to their upcoming Connecticut trip. And when I say “theme,” I mean that the White Party is a mere dress code suggestion in comparison.

The table has striped beach umbrellas overhead, which I'm grateful to see, since today's balmy Chicagoland weather is about ninety-nine degrees. Underneath the umbrellas hang paper lanterns in the colors of the ocean. Each chair has a striped beach towel draped on it, and the place mats are brown craft paper over cardboard. The plastic flatware has been tied in a starfish shape with the same ribbon configuration as on the sangria bottles, also with a small shell glued to it. At each place is a thin piece of wood cut in the shape of an ornate square picture frame, and resting in it is a cardboard cube, the outside of which has been covered in glued-on sand. These boxes have the same ribbon and shell thing, as well as a paper tag.