Wedding Girl (9 page)

“Really?”

“Of course. You'll have to come back and see what we have up our sleeves.”

“I see. So all of this is his idea? The new products, the changes to the old recipes? He woke up one day after sixty years in business and thought it was time to shake things up?”

I'm starting to get annoyed at this Mark fellow. Which, frankly, feels much more manageable than the minor attraction that had been brewing. “Mr. Langer recognizes that the neighborhood has changed significantly in recent years and that he should serve the changing needs of his community. He is forward-thinking enough to know that by making a few simple changes in what he offers, he lets his customers know that he is considering what they want and is attempting to provide it with the same level of quality and dependability that have allowed him to be here for sixty years.”

“Or he's grasping at straws to try and stay afloat in a market that has blown right by him and made him nearly obsolete.”

Now he is just pissing me off. “Any place that doesn't change to reflect change around them is simply doomed. That isn't grasping at anything; that is just smart business.”

“Well, Sophie, as good as they are, your cupcakes aren't likely to save a place like this.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Langer's has no need of saving, not by me, or anyone. Was there something else I could get for you?” I thrust the bag containing the box of cupcakes at him. He smirks at me and takes his purchase.

“Not at all, Sophie. Thank you for the cupcakes. And the business lesson.”

He turns and walks back out the way he came, and as much as we could use the kind of business that buys a dozen up-charged cupcakes on a whim for the “girls in his office,” I won't exactly be terribly disappointed if he takes his superior, smirky, snarky business elsewhere.

I walk into Nuevo Leon promptly at noon and pass the large group of Mexican families and Chicago's finest waiting for tables. Amelia had texted that she was already seated in the back room. The place is packed as always, and heady scents of spices and grilled meats fill the air. Amelia waves me over, and I join her at the table. She is noshing on the bowl of house-made pickled vegetables they always put on the table, and in less than thirty seconds, we are given menus, a basket of still-warm tortilla chips with salsa, and small cups of chicken soup. They always provide a little amuse-bouche of some sort of soup when you arrive, and I'm always grateful, since the minute I walk in here I get ravenously hungry.

“Thanks so much for meeting me here. This isn't exactly
Brian's favorite spot, so I'm always looking for lunch companions who are a little adventurous.”

“I've always loved this place; you don't ever have to ask me twice.”

We glance at the menu, decide to split a queso fundido with chorizo and poblanos, and then we both order the skirt steak special. The melted-cheese dish arrives quickly, lava hot and packed with spicy sausage and roasted chiles. We dig in, rolling the cheese mixture in hot fresh tortillas.

“Heaven.” Amelia rolls her eyes in pleasure.

“Amazing,” I agree, letting the flavors wash over me.

“So, I suppose you're wondering why I summoned you here.”

I take another bite. “Nah, I couldn't care less. I'm just happy to be eating this.”

She laughs. “Well, there's that. But I'm coming up on some unexpected snags, and since you had such amazing advice for me before, I thought that if I bribed you with lunch, you might let me pick your brain again.”

“I don't mind singing for my supper. Lay it on me.”

Turns out that keeping the wedding part secret and just promoting the event as a big thirtieth-birthday bash means that a few of their friends and family are creating some unexpected complications. For starters, at least three of the out-of-town guests have asked if they can stay with Amelia and Brian. They have all been temporarily put off by being told that someone else requested housing first and that there's only one guest bedroom. But all have offered to do couches or blow-up mattresses on the floor, so now Amelia and Brian are worried that these people might not be able to afford the hotel where they got a block of rooms, and won't come if free housing isn't available. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn't mind turning their town house into a crash pad, but it isn't exactly ideal for a wedding weekend. And since the party is on a Saturday night, their
friends are also trying to make plans to get together Saturday during the day, and she isn't sure of the best way to get out of it.

I scrape the last bit of cheese out of the cast-iron skillet, and a busboy whisks it away like magic. “What was your plan for Saturday?”

“I figured we'd spend the morning and early afternoon getting the place set up and then scamper home to get ready.”

I shake my head at her just as our skirt steaks arrive. “No. No can do. You'll make yourself crazy.”

She cuts a piece of steak, seared crisply on the outside and pink and juicy on the inside, and pops it in her mouth. “Whaddoido?”

“For starters, for Saturday you need a wedding coordinator. Not a planner; they'll charge you an arm and a leg, and you've already done most of the work. You need someone to be there the day of to get everything set up, to deal with the different vendors, to manage the timing and execution of the event. And no, before you ask, I am not volunteering. But I have someone for you.”

I take out my phone and scroll through my contacts. I send her Bernie's contact card. Bernie coordinated tons of events at the restaurant, and while we were never close friends, he did reach out after I got fired to say that he hoped I was doing alright. I'm reasonably sure he will welcome the referral. “Okay. I just sent you Bernie Tarkington. He's a dream. He will handle the day so that you can just show up and get married and enjoy your party. He's English and charming, and he will whip your whole party into shape and take care of anything that comes up without breaking a sweat and without bothering you. That way, you could make brunch or lunch plans with pals without worrying.”

I eat a slice of my steak, wishing that I could figure out their secret marinade.

“Okay, that will help a lot, but what on earth do I do about houseguests?”

“Give them your house.”

“What?”

“Get a fabulous hotel suite for the whole weekend, and give your friends your house. Check into the hotel Friday morning with everything you need for your whole weekend of festivities, and have a cleaning service come that day to clean your place and put new sheets on all the beds, et cetera. Get a blow-up mattress if you think you'll need one. And then just let them use your house like a hotel for the weekend. Don't leave the hotel till Monday, and have the cleaning service come back to set your place to rights before you return. Tell your guests you are surprising Brian with a fabulous hotel weekend, so they can't say anything to him about staying at your town house. Better yet, tell them you have booked a couples massage and some other stuff for the two of you Saturday during the day, to keep Brian out of the way and prevent him from suspecting too much about the party, so they also have to be prepared to fend for themselves until the evening.”

Amelia's jaw flops open. “I never would have thought of that.”

I shrug. “It's cheaper than springing for their hotel rooms, allows you to be generous with your hospitality, and also will help make your wedding weekend a little more special. Get a great suite, big enough to have the hair and makeup people come get you ready in one room while Brian is getting ready in the other, and then it is your oasis all weekend.”

“Seriously, Sophie, you are amazing. And it's worth so much more than lunch; you have to let me pay you something.”

I shake my head. “I'm happy to help, but you have to stop offering me money.”

“Can I ask you something? No pressure?”

I shrug.

“I know that you have all that debt from your wedding. Why won't you take some extra cash?”

“It's going to sound weird and a little bit lame.”

“Try me.”

“I don't have many friends left. I mean from my life before. The restaurant business is all-consuming; it is hard to make close friends outside the industry, especially because your life is so weird—strange hours, working nights and weekends. It's just easier to have your social life connected to your working life. And so when I was screwing myself out of a job, I was also pretty much screwing myself out of my circle of friends. I have my two best girlfriends, thank god. I have a few pals from culinary school, but they don't live here, so I don't see them much. Any friends I thought I had through Dexter are . . . well, you can imagine. I have to get to a place where I can meet new people, nice people. Normal people. And maybe make some new friends. I know that probably sounds creepy, like ‘Please be my friend, I'm so desperate,' and that isn't it exactly. But I feel like I have to relate to people as people, and if I let you give me money for offering friendly advice, then it makes this”—I gesture between us—“commerce and not company. And as much as I need money, I sort of feel like I need company more.”

I know I'm blushing, so I stare at my plate, pushing the rice around.

“I'd love for us to be friends. So I'm going to stop offering you money.”

I look up and she is grinning widely at me.

“I work in
tech
. I'm surrounded at all times by
boys
. Have been since college. There is one other woman in our office, and she's the chief operating officer, and she's in her sixties with grandkids. I could totally use some girlfriends, seriously.”

“I wouldn't have thought that.”

“Yeah, it's still a guys' club. I love them, but they won't go shoe shopping with me.”

“I will totally go shoe shopping with you.”

“Deal.”

“And I'll still talk about your wedding, really, anytime. Just don't try to pay me.”

“Done. On the flip side, while they won't go shoe shopping, a lot of the guys I work with are really terrific people, so if you ever want a fix-up, we can do a double-date introduction sometime.”

“Yeah, I think my guydar is broken.” I tell her about Mark and how quickly that went from intriguing and flirty to completely insufferable and annoying.

“He sounds like a tool.”

“Yeah. And, which is worse, now I'm starting to wonder if he isn't doing some sort of recon.”

“Like a spy?”

“Well, think about it. Why does he care so much about what changes we are making in the bakery? What could be his motivation for prying and pushing? The first time he came in, he didn't even buy anything, and then this time he bought but proceeded to interrogate me.” I tell Amelia about MarySue's plans to open a bakery four blocks from Langer's. “What if he works for Cake Goddess and just keeps coming in to see what we are up to?”

“Can't worry about that.”

“Of course I can worry about it; this awesome new bakery so nearby could well put us under.”

“Not if you are awesomer.”

“I dunno, shiny and new . . .”

“There are new tech start-ups every day. Every time one gets announced, someone in the office goes all wiggy. We keep saying, ‘You can't be overly concerned about what other people are doing in your industry; you can't be reactionary to everything that is
new; you have to do what you do best and let the rest of it shake out as it will.'”

“I suppose. At least I got Herman to agree to think about making some changes. If Cake Goddess is coming in, we're going to have to be at the top of our game.”

“Keep that as your focus, being your best; the rest will make you crazy.”

We finish our lunch and make a date for next week to shop for her wedding shoes, and I head home sated and surprisingly happy, with a package of still-warm fresh corn tortillas and a new friend.

(1936)

CARY GRANT AS CHARLIE MASON:
I go haywire when I look at you.

JOAN BENNETT AS RUSTY FLEMING:
It's the altitude.

“Who's a good boy!” I hear Bubbles coo from downstairs as I head down the hall to the shower. A peek over the railing shows her giving the dog a good belly rub at the foot of the stairs. Regardless of my distaste for being awake at the appalling hour of seven on my day off, it's hard to stay too annoyed. Bubbles catches me peeping at her, and her round face breaks into a wide smile.

“Good morning, sweet girl. You're up and about early today!”

“Beautiful day like this, how could I stay in bed?” Especially when Bubbles was up at five clomping down the hall, singing Patsy Cline, and letting the teakettle whistle for a full four minutes.

“Wonderful! Can I make you some breakfast?”

There is the occasional benefit. “Absolutely. I'll be down in ten.”

Considering the length of Bubbles's morning ablutions, I'm astounded that there is enough hot water left for me to get in a three-minute shower. I wet my hair, retrieving an earplug from the nest of tangles under my right ear, but decide against a full
wash. A second earplug is discovered tucked neatly under my left boob. Just as I get the soap off my body, the water threatens to turn, so I give up, bending down to clear the hair out of the drain and finding a third earplug in the drain catch; god knows where it was hiding. I towel off quickly, put my hair in a loose bun, and head back to my room to get dressed.

“Perfect timing,” Bubbles says as I wander into the kitchen, where a steaming cup of tea is already waiting. I sip it slowly, and she hands me a plate.

I laugh. “Eggs in a basket?” There on my plate are two slices of toast, each with a fried egg cooked in the middle; the two circular pieces she cut out of the centers of the bread are toasted and buttered on the side with a pair of plump sausages.

“It was always your favorite.” She winks.

I use one of the toast rounds to break the yolk of an egg, which flows out perfectly liquid, and take a bite. “It was indeed, and for good reason.” I haven't had an egg in a basket in probably twenty-five years, but it is still freaking delicious.

“So, what is your plan for today?”

“I'm meeting my mom and dad for lunch at the house and thought maybe I'd swing by and pick up something fun for dinner for us. Maybe we could do a double feature tonight? A little Hepburn and Tracy perhaps? I've been in the mood for an
Adam's Rib
/
Pat and Mike
night.” Anytime I need a little confidence booster, Kate Hepburn always does the trick for me; she is so sure of herself.

Bubbles's face falls a little bit. “So sorry, sweetheart, I have plans for dinner and the opera this evening.”

One thing about Bubbles: She might be an old broad, but she's no homebody. I can barely keep track of her theater subscriptions, her mah-jongg and bridge games, her charity meetings and book club. She keeps herself very busy, filling her days with other little old ladies when I'm at the bakery, and two or three
nights a week with evening plans. I can never remember if she's meeting Mrs. Spiegel with the sciatica or Mrs. Goodman with the cataracts or Mr. and Mrs. Barkley from the bridge club. She's lucky to have a reasonably broad social circle that's still ambulatory, and I've stopped asking who she is seeing so that I don't end up on the receiving end of way too much medical information or, god forbid, a potential fix-up. I'm mostly cashed when I get home from work, so if she isn't there, I'll take the dog for a walk, eat something, watch an old movie.

I find I can't watch regular TV these days. It's all too “reality” or depressing, or shocking and provocative, and all I can manage is funny fluffy movies full of beautiful women and handsome men falling in love and quipping brilliantly and wearing stunning clothes and endlessly sipping champagne and stirring martinis. I wish I could blink my eyes and have some magical realism moment like in that
Pleasantville
movie, and just lose myself in a world long gone. But I have to admit, it's more fun to watch with Bubbles. She remembers those years, accentuates the movie-watching experience by sharing personal anecdotes from her own childhood and stories of her parents. Sometimes a movie will spark a particular memory, so she will pull out her photo albums, and we will curl up together and talk about old relatives. She has the best stories.

“Well, that sounds like fun.”

She smacks my arm playfully. “Little fibber. You hate the opera.”

This is true. As much as I have a soft spot for musicals, especially old movie musicals, opera is beyond me. Too screechy, too melodramatic, too not-in-English.

“Well, I don't want to
go
, but
you
think it's fun, so it sounds like fun for
you
. What's playing?”

“
Tosca
.”

I make some exaggerated gagging noises while rolling my
eyes. She laughs and smacks me again. I wink at her and pick up a sausage with my fingers and bite it in half dramatically. She makes a face that says she disapproves, but her eyes twinkle at me, so I know she doesn't really.

“What time are you meeting your folks?”

“Noon. Although considering them both, I'm shocked I haven't heard from them cancelling.”

“Well, you haven't seen them since we went to Chinatown, and that was, what, three weeks ago?”

“'Bout that. I just think it's weird they wanted to meet for lunch, and at the house.”

“Maybe it's a good sign, a sign they are thinking about taking more time for themselves. Not working such crazy hours.”

I give her a classic single raised eyebrow, a gesture I learned from her.

“Okay, maybe not.” She waves me off.

I grab my plate and teacup and load them into the dishwasher.

“
Snatch!
Time for walkies,” she yells out into the hallway as she leaves the kitchen. I can hear her put the dog's leash on. “We'll be back in a bit,” she calls back to me before heading out the front door.

I go upstairs to check my email, and see I have a note from Amelia.

A few quick questions, since we are getting so close . . .

Since no one knows it is a wedding, no one will be prepared for toasts. Which is fine by us, we aren't interested in toasting, but how do we handle people who want to make a toast in the moment?

The invite specifically says “No gifts please,” but Brian thinks that people are going to want to send us stuff anyway after
they find out it is our wedding, even though we don't want anything. How do we handle that?

We sent his cousin from Indiana an invite that was specifically “Mr. and Mrs.” But they RSVP'd with their three kids. This is not a kid-friendly event. What do we do about that?

Thank you thank you thank you. And I've been doing what you said and walking around at home in the shoes we bought with a pair of socks on, and you're right, they are totally getting more comfortable. Let me know if you are up for dinner or drinks or something one of these nights!

A

I think about this for a minute and then reply.

A—

I think after the ceremony, when everyone is seated for dinner, you and Brian welcome them and thank them for going along with the surprise. Let them know that anyone who wants to share a special message with you can tell the videographer, and he will help them tape a “toast.” That should take care of your friends. If parents want to toast, let them. They may be longwinded or bumbling, but they're your parents, and they are already going to feel like they missed out a little bit, so if they want to toast, suck it up. But be sure the DJ knows not to give the mike to anyone not pre-approved by you.

In your little gift bags at the end of the night, put a small card that says “Your presence was our present, but if you feel you must honor our nuptials in a tangible way, we would love for you to make a donation to one of the following charities in our name.” And then list two or three places that mean something to you
where they can go and donate. I can't guarantee you won't still find some Crate and Barrel boxes on your doorstep in the coming months, but it should keep it to a minimum.

Book a babysitter for the cousin's kids for the evening, and send them a note saying you are so glad they are able to use the occasion of the party to have a family getaway weekend, but that the event is adults only, so you have made arrangements for appropriate childcare for them so that they can have a date night!

Glad the shoes are loosening up, they are gorgeous!

I pause for a moment and then type:

I know it's last minute, but I happen to be free tonight if you want to hang out.

S

What the hell? Bubbles is going to be out. I'm trying to be open to new people. Amelia has been fun to get to know, and I really like her. She replies almost immediately.

Tonight is perfect, actually! Brian is working on a new piece of programming for a client that is due in a couple of days, and there is a glitch he can't seem to fix, so he's already warned me that he is probably pulling an all-nighter at the office with his team. What did you have in mind?

A

How do you feel about classic movies?

S

Not familiar with many, but if you mean like John Hughes stuff, I love those!

A

Sigh. Bless her heart. I believe an education is in order.

I mean a little more classic than that. Why don't you come to the house around 6:30? I'll make something simple for dinner and I can introduce you to something fun.

S

I pull my car in front of the ramshackle house on Mohawk where I grew up. I have mixed feelings about the old girl. On the one hand, the redbrick house has the kind of history I love. It was built right after the Great Chicago Fire, about 1872 or so, on an extra-wide double lot, set back a bit from the street, and has some wonderful details about it. The transom over the wide double door displays the house's number in original stained glass. The staircase is also original, with its carved balustrade and turned spindles. And the living room fireplace is surrounded by limestone and a mahogany mantel. On the other hand, it's also always been a mess. It still has the original steam radiator system for heating, with an ancient boiler taking up half the basement. No central air-conditioning, so early summer requires the installation of window units throughout the house, which can only be run in strange sequences, as the electrical system hasn't been upgraded since the 1970s. If you turn on more than two at a time, you blow fuses. The beautiful stairs are also a death trap, with skinny winders instead of landings, and the balustrade is somewhat wobbly. And the fireplace, while decorative, can't be used because the lining of the chimney is in complete disrepair, not to
mention coated in so many years of built-up creosote that the chimney sweep they tried to hire turned down the job and told them if they ever lit a fire, the whole chimney could catch and make the house a Roman candle.