Young Jane Young(22)

I asked them if they had set a date.

He looked at her, and she looked at him. “We’d like to get married a year from now, next December,” she said. “Is that enough time?”

I nodded. “Plenty.”

“She thinks winter weddings are romantic,” he said. “But what I like about it is the value. We’ll have our pick of venues, and for half the price of summer, am I right?”

“Not half, but definitely less,” I said.

“Winter weddings are romantic, don’t you think?” she said.

“I do,” I said. The bride and the bridesmaids would freeze and, if it snowed, half the out-of-town guests might not show up. I suppose there was a romance to that. Winter pictures always turned out great, though, and I’m not sure that people don’t remember the pictures more than the actual event anyway. In any case, these were grown-ups, and I was not going to talk my way out of winter business.





FOUR





S

ome weeks later – perhaps after they’d visited one or more of those big city wedding planners – they arranged to come in for the second time so that they could give me their signed contract and a deposit for my services. Only Franny showed, which was not unusual, although she was embarrassed by his absence. “Is it weird?” she asked. “Does it seem like a bad sign? I mean, he should be here, right?”

“It isn’t at all weird,” I said as she handed me the check. “I often end up working more with one member of the couple than the other. People can’t be everywhere at once.”

She nodded. “He’s showing a house,” she said. “And he can’t always control when that happens.”

“Perfectly understandable,” I said. “How did he propose? I don’t think I asked.” I put her contract into my filing cabinet.

“Oh, it was romantic,” she said. Romantic was a big word with her. “Well, I think it was romantic. As I’m about to say it, it might seem weird to you.” Weird was another of her words.

He had proposed at her mother’s funeral. Not at it, but just after it. I had a sense that it had happened in the parking lot of the cemetery, but I wasn’t clear. She was crying and grieving, mucus everywhere, and he had gotten down on one knee, and he had said something like, “Now this can’t ever be the saddest day of your life.” Gross. Again, I suppose he had meant well, but this was truly the worst thing I’d heard about him yet. For God’s sake, some days are meant to be the saddest days of your life. Also, should she have been making major life decisions when her mother had just died? I didn’t know these people, but it was almost as if he had preyed on her when she was at her most vulnerable. I was starting to hate Wes West. A little bit, I was starting to hate him. I often ended up hating the groom, but not usually so fast.

“Oh, it is weird,” she said. “It is weird, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t weird, but it was awful. It was awful, but it was ordinary. I didn’t know her, and it was not my business. To make the moment about something other than what I had been thinking and what my face may have betrayed, I did something that was unlike me. I reached across my desk and I grabbed her hand. “I’m so sorry about your mother,” I said.

Her lip quivered, and her large blue eyes teared. “Oh gosh,” she said. “Oh gosh.”

I handed her a tissue.

“I’m a big baby,” she said.

“No, you’re grieving,” I said. “You must feel so unmoored.”

“Yes, that is exactly what I feel. Unmoored. Is your mother alive?” she asked.

“She is, but we don’t see each other much,” I said.

“How awful,” she said.

“I have a daughter,” I said. “So I can imagine something of —”

“And your mother doesn’t want to see her? Her own granddaughter? I can’t believe that!”

“Maybe she does. It’s complicated,” I said.

“Nothing’s that complicated.” Franny smiled at me. “I’ve overstepped,” she said. “I’m sorry. You have a very comforting way about you, so I forgot we aren’t friends.”

She was sweet. “Did you do your homework?” I had asked them to assemble an inspiration board for their fantasy wedding.

She took out her tablet from her purse. They had pinned a bride in cowboy boots and a groom wearing an ascot and tails; a buffet of pies and a seven-tier wedding cake; a silver bucket of gerbera daisies and a three-foot-tall arrangement with white lilies and roses; gingham tablecloths and white linen tablecloths; barbeque chicken and filet mignon. It was the wedding of City Mouse and Country Mouse.

“We didn’t get very far. Some of these are his ideas and some of these are mine.”

“I can tell,” I said.

“He wants it to be elegant, but I want it to be more rustic,” she said. “Can you do anything with this, or are we hopeless?”

“You’re hopeless,” I said.

Franny laughed and flushed. “We kind of had a fight about it. Only a little fight. He says my taste is basic,” she said, “but I want our guests to feel relaxed and comfortable. I don’t want it to feel all —” She searched for a word before settling on “corporate.”