2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) (16 page)

Saturday, January 8
^th

Towering before them was a perfect brick façade with
glossy black doors that were filled with beveled glass and wrought iron. “Okay
girls, this is where it all begins.” Georgia seemed enraptured, as if she were
on a religious pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

“Aaaaa-men,” Tara sang, obviously getting the same
vibe.

“Are you ready?” Georgia squeezed Catherine’s arm like
whatever was on the other side of those doors was going to be better than
Christmas morning.

“As I’ll ever be.” She was unable to muster the same
level of enthusiasm as her mind was preoccupied with how much a place like this
cost to hire. They couldn’t run such swank without serious commissions.

Tara stepped up to the doors first, but before she
could even touch a handle they opened for her.

A butler?
Catherine thought, feeling even
further out of her league and comfort zone.

They stepped into the marble foyer-turned-reception-area
with offices radiating out in all directions. It was a genuine conglomeration
of planners, perhaps even a multi-national planning organization hell-bent on
taking over the world one wedding at a time.

“Who are you here to see?” the butler-esque person
asked. She was dressed smartly in a winter-white suit with a cream blouse, and
her hair was wound tight in a chignon any bride would be proud to wear. Not a
hair out of place, not a thread hanging loose, not an eyelash untamed—Catherine
had a sneaking suspicion she was a cyborg, or perhaps even a fully robotic
receptionist.

“Cidra Gibbons. We have an appointment for… well,
right about now,” Georgia admitted guiltily, equating “on the dot” with embarrassingly
late—Elizabeth Hemmings had the same genetic abnormality. But as far as Catherine
was concerned: late was late, on time was on time, and early was out of the
question.

“You can go right in; she’s waiting for you,” the
woman replied stiffly.

Georgia leveled a glare at Tara for making Cidra wait,
if not simply for her twenty-something-ness that had her skating in here last
minute, dressed in last night’s clothes, not looking shameful and used but
instead bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Georgia, on the other hand, had fresh
clothes and hair, and makeup that couldn’t quite cover her dark circles from
too many midnight feedings; while Catherine looked pale and sickly from
starving herself.

Cidra’s office was less opulent than the foyer with
its marble and columns, but the general lack of warmth tied the rooms together
perfectly.

“You must be Georgia,” she said with careful
excitement. I recognize you from your wedding announcement in the paper. She
shook her hand, nodding at Catherine as an afterthought and then mingling a
disapproving moment on Tara’s club-worthy outfit that stood out skankily among
all the employees, clients, and potential clients dressed smartly.

“That was
years
ago,” Georgia tittered,
basking.

“Your wedding is New York history. The Love nuptials
are taught about in wedding planning seminars,” she said, unable to hide her
delight any longer to be speaking to
the
Georgia Love. “What can we do
for you here at Wedding Opulence? A vow renewal? Five years is coming up,
right?” The chick did her homework.

“Actually, I made the appointment for my friend,
Catherine,” she said, pulling her in closely, protectively.

“So
you’re
the bride,” Cidra said. Her tone had
flattened ever so slightly; her megawatt smile blipped like a loose bulb.

“I’m she—I mean her—I’m the one,” she stumbled out.

“Can I get you girls something to drink? Tea? Water?”

Tea, but of course,
Catherine thought. An
uptight beverage for an uptight establishment.

“If it wouldn’t be terribly too much trouble, could I
bother you for a scone with that tea?” Tara asked, copping a reasonably
realistic British accent.

“Why certainly. Anything else?” Cidra asked, looking
less askance at Tara now that her English roots were showing. It seemed a
slutty Brit was more welcome than a slutty Yank.

“A dab of jam would be simply scrumptious,” she added.

“I’ll be right back with that. Make yourselves
comfortable. There are wonderful catalogs and magazines you can look through
and keep in mind that anything you see, we can do.”

As soon as Cidra was out of the room, Georgia turned
and smacked Tara in the arm. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to
ruin everything with stupid games?”

“I’m just trying to make
the
most painful
experience a little less so. It isn’t hurting anyone.”

Catherine stifled a giggle the best she could. It
was
funny to think that Cidra was probably madly searching for scones and jam right
this minute just to impress Georgia with all she could accomplish for her
friends.

“Why can’t you just be
normal
?” Georgia asked
through gritted teeth.

“Moi?” Tara faked shock.

“No French crap,” Georgia admonished. “Don’t make
things any worse. Just keep it British now, or better yet, keep your mouth
shut.”

“So sorry for the delay,” Cidra apologized
breathlessly, bustling back through the door, an assistant at her heels
carrying a tray of tea and sugar and cream and scones and jam.

Once the tray was set on the table and the door was
closed upon the lowly assistant, Cidra took a seat and said, “Now, what is it you’re
dreaming about?”

“First of all, I just want to say that my budget isn’t
really in the ‘Love’ region.”

Cidra put a hand to her chest and chuckled. “Few are.
But rest assured we handle weddings of all levels here. Everyone deserves their
best wedding day. And we only do the best for each of our clients.”

From the moment Catherine had stepped in the building,
she’d feared she was going to be charged just to breathe the “opulent” air. Now
she felt some of that tension begin to release its hold.

“Do you have your preferred date picked already?”

“Yes. March 4
^th
.”

“Lovely, I don’t get many March weddings. February is
pretty popular, but March is kind of forgotten.” Cidra’s eyes were on her
tablet, swiping through it with gusto. “Ooh, but that’s a problem. The 4
^th
isn’t actually a Saturday. It’s a Sunday. Is that what you wanted?” she asked,
sounding like the proper answer was no.

“But it
is
a Saturday,” Catherine assured her.

“No, it’s not,” Cidra was definitive, unwavering.

“She means this March, love,” Tara said helpfully.

“
This
March?” Cidra choked on the month. “You
can’t be serious.” She looked from Tara, to Catherine, to Georgia, waiting for the
punch line that wasn’t coming.

“I can’t possibly—I mean no one can possibly put
together a wedding of quality in two months…. It’s actually
less
than
two months.”

“You forget it’s a leap year, love,” Tara said.
“There’s a day gained right there.”

“You must know that your request is preposterous.
Everything, everyplace, everyone worth anything is booked already. It’s
impossible.”

“So I guess you’re not quite as good as you claim to
be,” Tara leveled haughtily.

Instead of dignifying the charge with a verbal
response, Cidra snatched the hospitality scone from Tara’s grasp, plate and
all, as if she suddenly realized she was feeding a street urchin or vagabond or
some other lowly creature.

Maybe such an assault would be a royal offense in
England, but stateside it was petty larceny at best. Undeterred, Tara threatened
calls to the silent-but-deadly, grand-poobah-headed guards at Buckingham Palace
and hollered for the bobbies and otherwise escalated snatching into a
full-scale skirmish that might have turned international incident but for the
fact that she suddenly lost her accent entirely—New York lashing out with a
vengeance. But even that didn’t strike fear in Cidra’s ice-cold heart. So Tara
threatened a sit-in right there in the offices of Wedding Opulence, until their
wedding grievances were heard. Not a fan of the Constitution, Cidra called
security….

Catherine didn’t understand exactly what happened
after that, either she blacked out or blocked it out, but one moment she was sitting
on a couch in Cidra Gibbons’ office and the next moment she was standing on the
steps outside, watching two able-bodied security guards pry Tara’s fingernails
from the doorjamb, as she refused to let go until all people received equal
treatment for their wedding dreams.

Justice was not done.

“We dodged a bullet there, I think,” Tara whistled in
relief, catching up with them after getting the younger guard’s number.

“Dodged lock-up is more like it,” Georgia countered
darkly, intent on getting out of there. She moved quickly, head bowed in
shame—a Love didn’t make a scene—and Catherine had to practically gallop to
keep up with her long stride.

“Come on, what does Catherine need with a wedding by
uppity bitches like that?”

“You were the one fighting for her wedding rights,”
Georgia countered.

“I was just having a little fun. Embarrassing them.”

“You embarrassed
us.
”

“Nobody knows who we are,” she said, swinging a teacup
around by its handle.

“They know who
I
am—oh my God, what is that?”
Georgia gasped, her face drained of color as she knew exactly what it was.

“A parting gift,” Tara giggled.

“You stole
a teacup from them?”

“It’s a souvenir for our trouble. What are they going
to do?”

“They’ll come after
me
,” Georgia stressed.

“Not for a teacup.”

“They’ll smear the Love name.”

“Really? Over a teacup?” Tara scoffed in disbelief.

“You
stole
it!” Georgia hollered, drawing the
eyes of several street gawkers.

“You’re the one telling everyone.” Tara gestured at
the passersby and Georgia turned red with fury and humiliation. “Besides, they
gave it to me.”

“To use
there
,” Georgia reminded her tightly.

“Cidra was asking for it. She stole my scone first and
I am absolutely famished,” Tara asserted, her British accent suddenly back.

Catherine was frozen in place on the sidewalk, a diner
just a few blessed feet away, contemplating throwing it all away for a piece of
pie. No wedding or dress or worry, just blissful pie.

“Cat, are you okay?” Georgia asked, the worry in her
voice obvious.

“Maybe she’s cat-atonic,” Tara noted with a giggle.

“You’re not helping,” Georgia snapped. “As usual.”

“I’m not ever going to be a Mrs., am I?” Catherine
asked, trancelike, fixated on the restaurant that held all the foods she loved
most, right there inside. “The whole universe is against my happiness.”

“Quit your whining,” Tara said, slapping her.

“What was that?” Georgia demanded.

“That’s what you do to snap someone out of it.”

Catherine put a hand to her cheek, focusing on Tara in
shock.

“See, she’s baaa-aaack,” Tara sang, like the little
girl in
Poltergeist
about the ghosts in the house.

Georgia put her arm around Catherine protectively. “We
can do this,” she assured her. There are plenty more wedding planners out
there. New York is full of them. So what that seven of them—”

“Laughed us back onto the street,” Tara finished
helpfully.

“Maybe we could just push the date to the 11
^th
.
It’s still within your window, but an extra week could make all the
difference,” Georgia offered unconvincingly.

“Not dealing with elitist wankers would make all the
difference,” Tara noted, slipping back into the British accent she’d been using
on and off all day, just for shits and giggles. “They don’t have to be so
rigid. You want your husband to be rigid, but the wedding? Heck, my cousin got
married at a tailgate party. He loves the Eagles and loves his wife—perfect way
to honor them both. It was a great time.”

Georgia gave Tara a look for the unsolicited and
subpar anecdote, then turned to Catherine again. “Maybe we just need to tone
down some of it a little. You know, do wedding-lite.”

“Or we could use my cousin,” Tara offered.

“What exactly is wedding-lite?” Catherine asked,
ignoring Tara.

“I just mean you don’t have to do everything. Fake
flowers instead of real. Cupcake tower instead of wedding cake—”

“Oh, and I can get my wedding dress at the dollar
store!” Catherine exclaimed facetiously. It wasn’t so much the idea of cutting
costs and finding ways to do things themselves rather than trying to book
people who had already been booked for other weddings, long ago, by proper
couples who planned their nuptials at proper lengths of time. It was the fact
that Georgia was advising she do things that Georgia would never accept for
herself.

“Or we could go see my cousin,” Tara said again, for
the umpteenth time. She’d brought up that brilliant idea every time they got squeezed
out of another wedding planner’s office.

But now Catherine was desperate.

“What the hell does your cousin have to do with my
wedding?” Catherine blurted.

“He’s a planner.”

“What kind of planner?” Georgia asked, eyes narrowed.
“A city planner? A funeral planner?” Considering the questionable employment
streak of the Delrio clan, it was a fair question.

“I told you about him the other day. He’s a wedding
planner.”

“Who?” Catherine asked, having met some of her
“cousins” and heard about plenty of the others. “Is this the one with the
tailgate wedding?”

“No, but he planned it,” Tara said proudly.

“That’s not really what I’m looking for,” she
shuddered.

“My Cousin Vinnie does all kinds
of weddings.”

“Is this a joke?” Georgia asked, looking from Tara to Catherine,
seeming as dubious as all the planners they’d come across during the day.

“No joke.” Tara crossed her heart. “He’s really good.
Totally legit.”

“Incorporated legit?” Georgia challenged.

“Storefront legit,” Tara assured her.

“What’s his name?”

“I told you. It’s Vinnie.”

“His
company
name,” Georgia growled.

“SG Weddings. He has a huge following in Philly.”

Simple enough, right? Catherine looked to her most
trusted advisor and matron of honor, but got a mere shrug back, a mealy assent
that this might in fact be where they were right now. Their only bet left.

“Does he do New York?” Catherine asked.

“I don’t know,” Tara said, completely unhelpful. “But
what about having it in Philly anyway? Or Chesterton? I’m sure he can do it
there.” Her can-do tone was catching, kind of like the way you catch a
cold—starting with a mild discomfort in the back of the throat.

“It might be easier to get something done there,”
Georgia admitted. “Plus, your family would be happy.”

“Don’t overestimate them,” Catherine said quickly,
still smarting from her last conversation with her mom. “But I do see some
potential.”

“I’m sure there are a bunch of planners we could try
if we moved the location,” Georgia added. Buoyed by a new city full of options,
she was quick to subtract the wild card that had led them there in the first
place.

“Like my Cousin Vinnie,” Tara said firmly.

“Or someone else,” Georgia asserted.

“Women flock to him. He gets the impossible done…. And
I’d say getting you married is pretty much impossible!”

“As if!” Catherine exclaimed, riding on tentative hope
for the first time in hours.

“You need a wedding done in two months; my Cousin Vinnie
is the guy who can do it.”

“Well, if Marisa Tomei loved him, he has to be
something,” Catherine snorted.  

Tara ignored the reference—probably too young—but she gave
a swift nod of smug approval that she was finally being heard.

“I guess that’s where we start tomorrow then,” Georgia
said begrudgingly.

“What do you mean tomorrow?” Tara asked. “I thought
the time was ticking away on this thing.”

“I can’t drive all the way to Philly now. I have to
get home to Nell. And even if I could, I’m sure his office would be closed. Besides,
don’t we need an appointment?”

“Vinnie does things differently.”

“Oh boy, now it comes out,” Georgia said theatrically.

“He’s more accommodating and more welcoming and not
such a bitch like all those broads we saw today,” Tara added forcefully.

“But I can’t—”

Catherine cut her off. “We’ll go. Tara and I will
handle this. Don’t worry. You get back to Nell with your….” She air-cupped her
own breasts to show her sympathy and understanding for Georgia’s situation even
though she had no earthly idea what her friend was going through.

“But I—I thought we would do this together. And don’t
you think it might be a little rash to move your wedding a hundred miles on a
whim like this?”

“This isn’t a whim. We were summarily dismissed from
the New York wedding world. Without this we’ve got zip. And if it doesn’t pan
out….” Catherine gave Georgia a knowing look that said that most of what Tara
put out there was questionable and therefore not necessarily worth a lot of their
time. “At least we’ll already know that we need to start fresh tomorrow with a
new plan.

“I guess,” Georgia pouted.