The Art of Romance (28 page)

“Just like you have a tendency to work yourself to death at a party instead of having a good time?” Having lived together for seven years, they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses too well.

“Yeah, something like that.”

They both turned when the front door opened and closed.

“I’m here—the party can start now.” Flannery breezed into the kitchen, a large bakery box in her arms.

Caylor tossed the sliced cucumber into the bowl and clapped her hands. “Yay—you remembered!”

“Of course I remembered. Any excuse to go to Gigi’s.” Flannery slid the box onto the small kitchen table.

Zarah looked from one to the other. “Gigi’s…the cupcake place over on Broadway?”

Flannery flipped the box lid open. “The very one. Caylor and I figured we’d be planning your bridal shower, so we decided there was no time like the present to taste-test cupcakes to decide which ones we want to serve at it.”

Caylor reached toward one of the high, fluffy clouds of buttercream frosting with tiny pearl sprinkles on top, but Flannery flipped the lid closed. “After dinner.”

“Spoil sport.” Caylor went back to chopping the rest of the vegetables.

“Excuse me.” Zarah fled the room

Caylor dropped the knife and followed her, Flannery right on her heels.

Zarah stood beside the sofa end table, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

“What’s wrong?” Caylor laid her hand on Zarah’s shoulder—her trembling shoulder.

Zarah’s face contorted. She rolled her eyes and wiped away more escaping tears. “I hate this. Every time someone does something for me related to the wedding, I burst into tears. You should have seen me Sunday evening at Pops and Kiki’s house. Kiki took me into her bedroom and opened the cedar chest at the end of her bed and pulled out the box that had all of her wedding stuff in it—including her veil, which she gave me.”

“And her wedding dress? I’ve always admired it in the picture over the fireplace.” Caylor handed her another tissue.

“She donated it to the Historic Textiles department at JRU twenty years ago because the fabric was starting to degrade.” Zarah blew her nose and took a few deep breaths.

“I can ask Dr. Cloud if you can borrow it back.”

“No. I had another meltdown earlier this week when Beth—Bobby’s mother—called and told me she wants to take all three of us to Manhattan to shop for dresses for the wedding.” She managed to smile through the waterworks that continued flooding her eyes. “Bobby’s an only child, so the Pattersons have offered to pay for everything since they always wanted a daughter.”

“Why do you think you’re freaking out every time someone brings up the wedding?” Flannery looped her arm through Zarah’s and led her back to the kitchen, where she pulled a hand towel out of a drawer, wetted it at the sink, and handed it to Zarah.

Zarah pressed the damp cloth to her forehead and then to her cheeks. “It’s not at the mention of the wedding—it’s whenever someone offers to do something for us…well, for me, particularly. I guess I just don’t feel like I deserve it.”

Caylor and Flannery both started to protest, but Zarah stopped them with a raised hand. “I know, I know. I need to take joy in letting others serve me, just as I take joy in serving others. In addition to going through a few months of premarital counseling with Bobby, I’ve started seeing my therapist again. I asked Pops to walk me down the aisle. And I haven’t decided if I’m going to invite the general and my stepmother to the wedding.”

The timer beeped, and Zarah put down the towel and crossed to the range, where she put on an oven mitt and pulled the dish of pasta casserole out.

Caylor’s mouth watered and her stomach growled at the sight and aroma of the bubbling tomatoey-cheesy concoction.

“Even if I invite them and they say they’ll come, they probably will forget to show up again.” Zarah set the glass pan down on a cork trivet and leaned back down for the bread.

Having just said good-bye to her own parents on Monday as they headed back to Geneva, Caylor’s heart broke for her friend, whose emotionally abusive father had done all he could to break Zarah’s spirit as a child—and as an adult, with his latest offense toward her just a few months ago. Thank goodness Bobby had been there to help Zarah hold it together. As always, God’s timing in bringing the onetime sweethearts back together after fourteen years had been perfect.

Flannery grabbed plates and flatware to set the dining room table, and Caylor and Zarah followed with the food. Flannery started the blessing before Caylor was fully in her seat, and it was over almost as quickly as she started.

“Someone’s hungry.” Zarah handed the first plate of casserole—made from several different types of pastas she’d cooked the night before, layered with spaghetti sauce, pepperoni, and lots and lots of mozzarella cheese—to Flannery.

Caylor cut open one of the hot rolls and slathered butter on the soft insides. “Is it safe to talk about the wedding now?”

“Just don’t offer to do anything for her.” Flannery put a little bit of salad onto her plate and drowned it in ranch dressing.

“Yeah, it’s safe. I’ll try to keep from getting all weepy at the table.” Zarah took a large serving of salad and handed the bowl to Caylor. “Beth and Tank—”

Caylor almost choked on her bread. “Tank?”

Zarah’s expression went soft. “Oh, sorry. Andrew—Bobby’s dad. He played pro football for a few years after college, and that was his nickname.”

“Fitting that Bobby’s football nickname was Diesel, then.” Flannery pursed her lips to the side, eyes dancing.

“Really?” Caylor filled the empty three-quarters of her plate with greenery, then dressed it with Zarah’s homemade dressing—olive oil, pomegranate-infused red wine vinegar, and herbs and spices. “Apple doesn’t fall far, huh? Okay, so anyway, sorry I interrupted, Zare.”

“It’s okay. I keep forgetting that even though you and Flannery have known each other most of your lives, you didn’t go to school or church together.” Zarah looked from one to the other. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, after knowing you as long as I have. How did you know each other growing up if you didn’t go to school or church together?”

“Our moms were friends from when they were med students together at Vandy.” Caylor took a bite of salad and let the slightly sweet and very tart flavor of the vinegar permeate her mouth. “They loved being able to share the expense of a babysitter, so we were pretty much constantly together the first five years of our lives.”

“It was one of those situations where we were destined to either hate each other or love each other when we grew up.” Flannery smiled at Caylor. “God knew what He was doing when He threw our moms together.” She turned and looked at Zarah. “Because without the two of us, where would you be?”

“I don’t even want to think about it. Because I can’t imagine anyone else as my maids of honor. Which reminds me…Bobby’s parents have convinced us to increase the size of the wedding. That means”—she sighed heavily—”I also have to increase the number of attendants. Because, as Beth pointed out, having only two people standing up there with me, and Bobby’s two—Patrick and Chase, a guy he works with—was fine for the chapel but would look pretty scrawny in Acklen’s main sanctuary.”

“So who else are you going to ask?” While Caylor knew Zarah had other friends, there wasn’t anyone she ever talked about as being close enough to want in her wedding. After all of the emotional turmoil Zarah had been through in her life, Caylor couldn’t blame her for not making friends easily.

“I was thinking maybe Stacy—Patrick’s fiancée. And Debbie from work. Bobby’s thinking about asking the two other agents on his team.” She pushed her pasta around on the plate. “It’s pretty sad that we’re each having trouble coming up with four people to ask to be in our wedding.”

Caylor suddenly had a full mental image of Dylan and his three brothers, all dressed in tuxedoes, standing at the front of the much smaller sanctuary at her church. Wow, they all looked good in tuxes.

Wait—no. She couldn’t allow herself to think about him like that. She had enough guilt from just having used that drawing of him…
maybe
him…for inspiration when writing novels that, while not explicit, were titillating. She’d fantasized enough about the man in those samples and covers back then. She didn’t need to compound her embarrassment every time she saw him now by continuing to have inappropriately romantic thoughts about him.

As Zarah talked about the tentative plans and ideas for the wedding, the phrase, “Beth suggested” or “Beth said” seemed to be repeated quite often.

“Aren’t you letting your future mother-in-law make an awful lot of decisions about this wedding that aren’t necessarily what you want?” Caylor wiped up the last of the tomato sauce from her plate with the heel of her roll.

“I am compromising on some things, but Bobby’s not letting his mom dictate anything. He knows me well enough to know that I’ll do anything to make Beth happy. He’s looking out for me. Don’t worry.”

After a quick cleanup, they moved into the living room with the box of cupcakes.

“I got three each of four different flavors.” Flannery lifted the lid and referred to a small piece of notepaper. “The two white ones with pearl sprinkles are different—the one with the fluted frosting is Champagne, the one with the frosting that looks like ice cream from Dairy Queen is Wedding Cake. The one with toasted coconut on it is Italian Cream Wedding Cake. And the White Midnight Magic has the dark chocolate cake, cream cheese frosting, and chocolate chips. And that’s the one I’m trying first.”

Caylor took one of the Italian Cream cupcakes onto her dessert plate and settled back into the corner of the sofa, curling her feet up onto the cushion beside her.

After a couple of bites of the decadent dessert, Caylor set it aside and rested her head on the arm of the sofa. She wished she’d had the drawing of the cover model with her after sitting for Dylan’s class yesterday. She could have whipped it out and held it beside the pencil drawing he’d done of her to see if they shared as many similarities as she imagined they did.

And then there was the dog. She’d written in
Lady Knight
that the heroine had a large hound—with no specific breed given—but she’d pictured it as a wolfhound and had mentioned that in the cover information she’d sent to her editor to be passed along to Patrick Callaghan. Just to be certain she had her dogs right, she’d gotten online as soon as she got home last night and searched for images of Irish wolfhounds. Though she’d had little doubt before, the photos that came up proved that the dog on the cover of the book was the same as the dog in the painting at Dylan’s apartment, which was the kind of dog his roommate owned.

“For late May, I was thinking either a pink or a green—though we’ll have to be careful with the shade of pink, to make sure it looks good on both of you.” Zarah flipped through the pages in the thick, three-ring binder on the coffee table in front of her, the box of cupcakes having been closed and moved to the floor. “And we’re talking an evening wedding, now. So super formal, which means floor-length dresses for you.”

Caylor sat up when Zarah looked over at her with concern in her gaze. She moved closer and leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees, to look at the pictures of dresses Zarah had found online and printed for reference.

“You’re just trouble all the way around, Caylor. Red hair. Six feet tall.” Flannery pulled the notebook closer and studied the photos of the bridesmaid dresses.

Of course, it could be pure coincidence that Dylan had painted a wolfhound in his piece at home that looked just like the dog on the cover. After all, both he and Patrick Callaghan painted in an almost photorealistic style. Online, one Irish wolfhound had looked just like the next, so maybe the same was true in paintings, too.

Based on seeing him in that close-fitting, black T-shirt Tuesday night at the seniors’ painting class, Dylan was nowhere near as broad through the shoulders or as muscular as the guy on the covers of her Mason novels—though he could hold his own when it came to broad shoulders and strong arms, from what she’d observed. And she
had
observed.

“Caylor?”

“Uh-huh.” But what if Dylan
was
Patrick Callaghan? Her editor told her that Patrick Callaghan said he read every word in Melanie Mason’s manuscripts, which was what inspired his cover art for them. What would Dylan think if he found out Caylor was the one who’d written them? No nice guy like Dylan would be interested in someone who’d spent five or six years letting her imagination go to places she would never dream of letting herself go in reality—not until she was married, anyway. Which meant she definitely shouldn’t have been thinking about it, much less writing about it for public consumption.

“Caylor.”

She jumped at the sound of the notebook slamming closed. “What?”

“We’ve been trying to get your attention for five minutes now. What is going on with you?” Zarah pushed back the notebook and put the cupcake box back on the table, and she and Flannery each helped themselves to another.

Caylor started to explain but then realized she needed visual aids. She stood, stepped over Zarah’s feet, and went down the hall to the office. When she returned, she set each of the six Melanie Mason books down on the table.

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about going back to writing this kind of novel.” Flannery, who’d been a great help in getting Caylor connected with editors and agents in the Christian publishing industry, looked offended.

“No. It’s not that. I’m perfectly happy writing sweet and inspirational romances.” She picked up
Lady Knight
and handed it to Flannery. “Look really close at the guy on the front cover.”

She got her phone out of her pocket and pulled up the picture of Dylan she’d secretly snapped during one of the breaks they’d taken in his class yesterday. “Tell me that the guy on these covers doesn’t look like Dylan Bradley.”

“You mean your cover model you’ve been in love with for the last ten years?” Flannery smirked, but she obliged and picked up each of the books in turn and held it up to the phone she and Zarah now held between them.