When Girlfriends Chase Dreams (19 page)

“Thanks, Mom.” I slow down the stirring of the dinner’s sauce as I tell her goodbye.

“Everything okay?” Conner asks. He looks timid.

“Splendid, actually,” I say in a mocking tone. “No matter. I’m sure it’ll all work out.” I cast him a quick glance. “Wedding stuff. Usual troubles, that’s all.”

“Anything I can help with?” He returns to my side and wraps his arms around my waist.

“Know anything about peonies?”

“Peonies…” Conner squints his eyes and presses his lips tightly together. “Is that a type of hors d’oeuvre?”

“Cute,” I say, taking the sauce off the stove. “Want to grab two plates, please? Dinner’s ready.”

My cell phone beeps with a text message. While Conner sets out the plates and glasses I open the message. It reads,
Forgot to mention. Headcount now 208. XO Mom

“Omigod!” I scream. I put the saucepan back onto the stove, and it slams down harshly.

“Jeez!” Conner jumps. “Easy there.”

“This is unbelievable!” I toss the cell phone aside and begin to serve dinner, muttering how things are getting out of hand. Much too out of hand. Two hundred and eight people? Have my parents gone mad? “More people!
More
guests have been added!”

“Chill out, baby,” Conner says. “It’s not the end of the world.”

I give him a blank stare, then read the text to him.

“It’s out of our control, Claire. So just relax,” he says coolly.

I give him a beseeching look. “Two hundred and
eight
people! Are my parents losing their minds?”

Conner shrugs and silently moves about the kitchen, gathering flatware and napkins and setting the table while I babble on about the usual trouble. The usual
real
trouble. No need to borrow it when the real thing’s staring you in the face.

Chapter Twelve

I should have seen it coming. How could I have missed it? I’ve been so caught up in the wedding planning, and I haven’t exactly given Conner much of my attention. And, to be completely honest, I’ve been kind of bitchy lately. When there are things Conner can’t really help out with (like finding the perfect necklace to go with the girls’ bridesmaid dresses, or choosing linen overlays that aren’t too rugged, yet not too frilly), all he can do is sit back and bear the brunt of my nagging and complaining. It’s really no surprise that Conner has decided he needs a weekend away from it all, hence his last-minute trip home, down to LA.

At first I panicked when he told me he was leaving for LA…in a
couple of days!
Why so sudden? Was the idea of marriage starting to sink in? Was he becoming afraid of the commitment? Was he contemplating moving to LA? Would he even come back home?

Conner reassured me that he was not secretly getting away to look at apartments or homes to rent. He even said (and I was totally relieved to hear this) that he wasn’t that interested in moving back home anymore. That threw me for a loop! Just when I was starting to rehash past fears.

As for running away from the altar? He laughed at that one and told me not to “worry my pretty, blonde head.” He said, “I love you, baby. Always have, always will.”
 

I know he does…and will…but the abruptly planned trip to LA really made me wonder. That’s not the kind of news you spring on a frantic bride-in-the-making with no pre-planning, and with a wedding that’s a mere few months away!

Apparently, though, Conner only felt like visiting family for a couple of days, because he missed them. So I kissed him goodbye and helped him pack his light duffle bag. (How can men pack so light, by the way? I totally don’t get it.) Then off to the airport we went.

So now, here I am, on an early Friday morning with no call in to the hospital or patients to visit, and I’m short a fiancé. It’s not that bad, actually. Maybe a little lonely, but Conner can use the trip back home. He’s probably in need of a break from all of the wedding talk and my freaking out, and he hasn’t been home in a while. His long weekend trip does come up at a convenient time, really. I’m planning to finish those darn clothespins; I’ve convinced Emily to come over and help out. She’s staying the weekend while Conner’s gone to keep me company, and I’m super jazzed.

I’ve also been meaning to go to Studio Tulaa, where Sophie, and now Robin, do yoga, and sign up for a beginner’s class. Sophie’s been a doll letting me come over now and then for some personal sessions, but I’m sure I’ll be much more consistent if I have a class to go to. One that I’m paying for and where others will kind of hold me accountable. Like, “Oh, dear, wherever is that Claire girl?” “Mmhmm, couldn’t take the pressure…” Yeah, I’m going to sign up for a class. I mean business here.

A really good thing is that in a couple of hours I have a meeting with Melissa to go over all sorts of things. Yes, I finally got in touch with her! We’re meeting at—you guessed it—Starbucks, and we’re going to get a lot of work done today. I can feel it. May is practically here, and before I know it August will be next!

I nearly fall out of my car after my shoddy parallel parking job, a stack of bridal magazines in my arms and some printouts of ideas I saw on Pinterest. You just can’t feel the full scope of the beautiful images and ideas on the tiny cell phone screen.

I slam my door shut with my butt and almost lose some magazines in the process. I’ve got my magazines all over the seats and floor of my car because, well, my trunk’s kind of broken. No, it
is
broken. I totally busted it the other day. I was going to grab some of my bridal magazines to reference when I was on the phone with Mom, trying to show her the style of suits that I had in mind for Conner and the guys. They even had their appointment all ready for next weekend. Can you say
finally
?

Anyway, so I was rushing about in such a frenzy that I accidentally jammed my key into the trunk’s keyhole too roughly and, well, as you can imagine, the key snapped right off in the lock. Snapped in half, the darn thing!

What did I do next? Well, I was home alone. Mom was hanging on the line, with a duplicate magazine in front of her, patiently awaiting a page number. In haste, I decided that a sure-fire way to open my trunk, now that the key was jammed in real good was to get out a pair of pliers to hopefully remove the broken key piece. I still think it wasn’t such a crummy idea. The logic was there, but, err, the whole smooth-moving wasn’t.

I figured I could remove the broken key and give it another go—with more care the second time around—using my spare key. Of course, it sure would’ve been nice if I could’ve popped open the trunk the easiest way—by pulling the lever inside the car. But that broke off in my hand years ago, and all that remained was a pokey stick, which fell back and into the framework of the car somehow. Don’t ask how. But when I take a rather bumpy road or accelerate quickly, I can occasionally hear that darn stick rattle around in there. I’ve since taped up the hole with some really classy duct tape.

Anyway, the pliers trick would have worked on the trunk, theoretically, but somehow I misjudged my force and crammed the broken key even further into the hole (vaguely taking me back to when the hand lever took a dive into nether regions).

It didn’t stop there. The pliers went so far into the hole, thanks to my brute force (hey, maybe I don’t need yoga after all), that I somehow managed to shove in the keyhole itself. The entire keyhole! With the set of pliers sticking out of the sunken keyhole, I decided I’d gone much too far. It was time to wait for Conner to come home before I wreaked any more havoc.

Poor guy. He came home, stared at the debacle for a solid and very silent minute, then said he’d take care of it. His solution was to safely remove the pliers and take the car to an auto-body shop.

What was my response? Well, I had two very good reasons to take care of the little problem right then and right there, through DIY measures.

I told him that we needed to save the little discretionary money that we had for our honeymoon cruise. We weren’t going to drop a dime on a problem that could probably be solved with some duct tape. (It worked before. Sorta…)

I also said that I needed the bridal magazines immediately. I wanted to show my mom what I was talking about, not to mention Conner would need to take the girly magazine with him to the suit fitting. I didn’t have time to wait on some sluggish mechanic to pry open my trunk of magazines.

So that’s when Conner removed the pliers, and my entire trunk’s locking mechanism. Now there’s this gaping hole (sound familiar?) where the lock used to be, accompanied by a really deep gash above it that I kind of made with the pliers when I was going all Hulk on it.

We got the trunk open, but the only way to keep it from flying open when I hit speeds above painfully, creekingly slow is to tether it with one of those brightly colored bungee cords. So now my car’s bumper, with the aid of a bungee, is officially holding my trunk in place. And I’ve since had to move all of my bridal magazines to the seats and floor of my car. It’s a real mess.

Anyway, super long story, but a bride’s got to have her resources at all times, and this meeting with Melissa now is one of those critical times. Something in my gut is telling me that I don’t have those adorable birdcages (not to mention peonies), so I’m bringing backup plans. Scads of ideas for centerpiece décor.

“Hey, girl!” Melissa says in her bubbly voice.

“Hey.” I don’t stop to order a coffee or even a bottle of water. To be honest, I just want to get down to business.

I nearly drop my stack of magazines and papers onto the small wooden table that Melissa’s chosen for our meeting, and I tell her that I’ve been doing some research. “In case we need centerpiece backups.”

“Backups?” Melissa looks at me with a perplexed expression.

“Yeah.” I take a seat and shed my camel-colored coat. It’s definitely time to switch into the spring wardrobe—time for lightweight jackets. “You know? In case the birdcages don’t work.”

I search her face for a response. I’m both terrified of what I’ll hear and ready to brace myself for disappointment, knowing that in the end none of it will really matter. In the end we’ll find something to go with the floral arrangements on the dining tables.

“Oh, yeah,” Melissa says, chipper. “That’s a
great
idea. Because…” She’s running her finger across the screen of a glistening white iPad. “Because…” She turns the shiny gadget around so I can see what she’s pulled up onscreen.

She’s logged in to her Pinterest account and has a photograph of a centerpiece arrangement expanded. There’s a pretty hydrangea, rose, and baby’s breath arrangement in a glazed pot. It looks very chic. It’s set on top of a small stack of antique, hardback books.

This is exactly what I was thinking! (Minus the birdcages, of course…) It is beautiful, and there are cute decorative items, too, like lace doilies with mini blue and milk glass vases on them holding sprigs of greenery. There’s even a bird’s nest, with faux blue, speckled eggs in them. And there’s glitter! It really looks like a centerpiece that was made for my wedding.

“Very beautiful,” I say. She turns the iPad back around and her fingers start to dance wildly over it.
 

I’m fairly certain Melissa didn’t have an iPad before. Like the Louis Vuitton handbag, had she had it before we’d met, wouldn’t she have brought it along for meetings? Surely she would have brought that nifty piece of technology to help with design ideas and note-taking. I hear those things are pretty darn amazing. Lara has one, and I’m so jealous of it. The things you can do with it are limitless.

I’m madly curious, so I come right out and ask. “Is that new?” I’m pointing at the shiny gadget.

“Hmm?” Melissa perks up.

“The iPad. Is it new? I, uhh, am thinking of getting one,” I lie, losing the nerve to ask what I want to ask.
What’s with the new designer handbag
and
the iPad? How much are you charging me?

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I
am
curious. Wouldn’t you be if you meet your wedding coordinator and she’s at first equipped with nothing more than some pink papyrus and a pen and a head full of really inspiring ideas, with next to no clients on her books, then shows up after a few payments later with some very expensive loot?

“Yeah, it is new,” Melissa says proudly, the purport of my question lost on her—not that I was all that honest in asking. “It makes wedding planning and inspiration board designing
so
much easier.” She shrugs her shoulders up in a rushed motion and smiles that bright, white smile of hers. “Now I have my boards and photos with me
wherever
I go. It’s awesome.” She draws out her last word. “And it’s
really
important to have…in the wedding industry with social media and all. I can tweet and post and surf and email and…I should have had this thing ages ago.”

“Uh-huh…” I look glumly down at my magazines and at my sheets of paper. Hmm. If this iPad is so helpful, then perhaps Melissa has been able to get on top of things and order the items she said she would, and figure out the flower combination as she promised.

“So, the peonies?” I ask. I bite my tongue as I await her answer.

“You got them, girl!” She doesn’t look up at me, although she is still smiling and looking as chipper as ever. Her gaze is fixated on her screen, and she keeps pulling up different windows and photos.

I’m starting to feel like an afterthought, so I say, “How so? You really got peonies for August?”

Still not looking up at me, she says that I will get what I asked for.

I then push the envelope and say, “And the birdcages? Those, too?” I’m hopeful. A tiny bit hopeful. I can feel it. She’s going to say she bought them…

“Oh, that.” Melissa looks at me and gives an anemic grin. “Yeah, the ones you wanted were already sold before I could buy them.” She scrunches her face together and the look reminds me of a pug puppy. “But don’t worry!” She waves a hand frantically. “I found something
better
. Something that is
much
better!”

My reaction isn’t anger, and not even disappointment. I expected this, to be honest. I expected that Melissa wasn’t the lucky buyer of the one-of-a-kind antique decorative items. Going into this meeting knowing that kind of helps abate any disappointment.