Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
I turned the camera toward me again. “It doesn’t matter what other people think, Joy. This is your wedding. You clearly don’t want to get married on a boat, so what’s going to make you happy?”
She sniffed and tucked her dark, chin-length hair behind her ear. “All I wanted was to marry the man I love in a tasteful, elegant ceremony, at the lodge that meant so much to him as a kid. That’s it. But with this freaking natural disaster, I feel like the wedding is doomed.”
I took the phone from Malcolm’s hand and exclaimed, “It’s not doomed! I promise we can make it gorgeous.”
She started crying again. “My wedding planner quit on me three days ago, and my future mother-in-law has been breathing down my neck. This feels like the last straw.”
“We’ll talk about setting some boundaries with your mother-in-law later, girl. You don’t want to be dealing with that shit for the rest of your life,” I told her. “For now, let’s put all our energy into turning this around and making some magic.”
“Put my brother back on.” When I handed Mal the phone, she asked him, “Do you really think we can make this work? Because if we need to cancel or postpone, I need to call my fiancé, and his family, and all our guests, and the vendors—”
“We’ve got this, Joy.” He sounded confident. “If it was just me, I’d be concerned. But I have Daniel to help me, and he’s amazing. Truly. I know for a fact we can count on him, and if he says we can make magic, then we absolutely can.”
Damn. That was a surprising vote of confidence.
After a pause, she said, “Okay, let’s see what you can do. I’m supposed to arrive around eight p.m. tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m trusting you and your boyfriend to pull off a miracle with that restaurant.”
“I promise you can count on us, sis.” They spoke for another minute, and when they ended the call he sighed and muttered, “I think the wedding was already getting to Joy before this happened. She’s one of the strongest people I know, and I haven’t seen her cry since we were kids.” He turned to me with worry in his eyes. “We’ve got this, right?”
“Absolutely. One hundred percent.” God, I hoped so. “Out of curiosity, what’s your sister got going on that she can’t fly out sooner?”
“She’s an attorney, and she’s arguing a case before the Supreme Court tomorrow. It’s a career-making opportunity, so she couldn’t pass it up.”
“Oh, is that all? If only your family wasn’t such a bunch of slackers.”
He grinned at me and put the phone in his pocket. “We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get to it.”
That evening, Malcolm and I sat down for a late dinner in the lodge’s smaller restaurant. It was the first time we’d stopped moving for several hours. “Once again, I owe you a huge thank you,” he said. “I’m actually starting to think we might pull this off, because of you.”
“It’s a team effort, between you, me, and every available staff member.” Good thing this was such a high-profile wedding, with so many VIP guests. That meant the management was willing to bend over backwards and do whatever it took to accommodate us.
“Sure, but you’re the visionary behind Wedding 2.0.”
My phone buzzed, and I glanced at the text. It was from the floral designer, who’d sent over sketches of the additional arrangements I’d requested. What he’d designed was beautiful, but I replied with: Make them bigger, please. Other than that, they’re absolutely perfect.
Then I turned the screen to show Malcolm the sketch, and he nodded. “Pretty. Where are those going?”
“We’re topping the servers’ stations in the dining room with wooden panels and draping them with fabric. These are going to sit on top, and with the high ceilings and the size of that room, they need to be huge. I want those stations transformed into gorgeous focal points.” There were four stations around the large dining room, each surrounded by four-foot-high wooden walls. They’d been one of Joy’s biggest complaints about using the restaurant for the wedding, but I was looking at them as an opportunity, instead of an obstacle.
Mal smiled at me and asked, “How are you so good at this?”
“The floral designer is a genius. I’m just trying to imagine how all of it’ll look when it comes together.”
“I guess that’s where I fall short. I’m not a very visual person, so I can’t really picture what any of this is going to look like when we’re done.”
The tiny, redhaired waiter we’d met the morning we went to brunch appeared just then. “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t know you work in this restaurant, too.”
“I’m normally in the main dining room, but they were short-handed in here tonight.” He placed a plate with two perfect, breaded spheres on the table. “That’s a cheese-stuffed risotto appetizer, and it’s on the house. I just found out all us servers are getting some extra money in our next paycheck, to make up for the fact that they’re shutting down the main restaurant until Sunday. You said you’re a former waiter, and given how cheap the management is, I assume that idea came from you.”