Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

Josie heard her apartment buzzer go off, and she hopped off the armchair where she had been sitting. She scurried over to the intercom and pressed the button.

"Hey!"

"Hey, it's Alissa! I'm here with Caitlin and Olivia."

"Amazing!" A grin spread across Josie's face as relief and happiness spread through her body. She felt a rush of gratitude that she had such good friends who wanted to help her out with her predicament. "Come on in."

She pressed another button to open the downstairs door, and then she hurried to unlock her apartment door so that her friends could walk right in when they arrived. Then she busied herself in the kitchen, setting out mugs for tea and a pack of raspberry-flavored seltzer waters.

A knock soon sounded on her door.

"Come in!" she called as she placed a box of chocolate cookies down on the countertop. For a moment, she wished Paige was there to help them—if she'd been there, she would have baked something for the group, there was no doubt about that. Josie felt a pang as she missed her sister, but in the next moment, her friends stepped through the doorway and she was grinning again.

"Hello, hello!" Olivia called, shutting the door behind the group. "We're here! We brought all kinds of junk food."

Josie laughed and hurried over to hug her friends.

"The kind of junk food that won't get any residue on your invitations," Caitlin promised, holding up a finger. "Olivia wanted to buy Cheetos, but I forbade it."

Olivia grinned. "This is true. We should commend Caitlin's foresight."

"You're all amazing," Josie said warmly. "Thank you so much for agreeing to help me with this."

"Of course! We've got you." Alissa nudged her affectionately, and Josie grinned back.

After standing by the door and chatting for a few more minutes, the friends got to work. They set up a work station on the table, with a pile of snacks in the center—along with plenty of napkins to wipe their fingers with, on Caitlin's insistence—and stacks of invitations at each place.

"Caitlin's got a plan organized down to a science," Alissa said, gesturing to her twin.

"Well, I just separated the address list you sent Alissa into four equal parts," Caitlin said modestly. "That way we're all working with the same number of invitations."

"Thank you," Josie said, "but what about the mistake on the invitations? What do you guys think we can do about that?" She felt her stomach twist in nervousness. She wasn't sure how they might be able to fix a printed error.

"We're going to figure something out!" Alissa assured her. "We've come armed with pens, correction tape, and even some extra envelopes in case anybody writes down an address wrong. We'll figure out a way to make these invitations look great again."

"I hope so." Josie bit her lip.

"Where are they?" Olivia asked. "Maybe we should all take a look at them together."

"Sure, sounds like a great idea!" Caitlin said eagerly. "Four heads are better than one."

Josie hurried to get the box where the offending invitations were. She placed it on the kitchen table and lifted out one of the invitations, sighing a little as she placed it down.

"Oh, those look wonderful!" Olivia cried, leaning forward to look at the invitation. "I absolutely love them."

"I agree," Alissa said as she looked at the beautiful graphic design. "These flowers and leaves bordering the words look lovely. Elegant, but with a kind of free spirit look to them."

"Thanks." Josie smiled at her friends, and then groaned as she looked back down at the invitation. "But my last name isn't Garter!"

"This is true." Caitlin tapped her fingers against her chin as she gazed down at the invitation. "We can just cover it with correction tape, and write your name in by hand?"

Josie nodded, feeling disappointed. It would be very clear that there had been a mistake on the invitations if that was the solution they adopted. Still, she told herself firmly, it was better than nothing—and in the end, an invitation wasn't that big of a deal.

"I have an idea," Olivia said slowly, peering down at the misprint. "There's a decent gap between the ‘t' in ‘Garter' and that next ‘e.' What if we all took pens and carefully changed the ‘t' into an ‘n'?"

"Oh, that's a brilliant idea!" Alissa crowed triumphantly. "And this font makes that easy to do—there's no curl on the bottom of the ‘t,' it's just a straight line."

Josie's heart leapt up. She looked down at her invitation and smiled. "Yes! That should work out really well." She hugged Olivia. "Thank you!"

"Perfect." Caitlin grinned. "Let's get to work."

In a few short minutes, they were working busily away on correcting the invitations. They stacked the fixed invitations in the center of the table, and once those were done, they started to address envelopes. They talked cheerfully as they worked, and nibbled snacks—being careful not to get any food on the invitations or the envelopes. The laughter and chatter that filled the room helped to ease the bride-to-be's anxiety, and it brought a sense of camaraderie to the task at hand. Her heart warmed as she realized how great her support system was.

"Thank you all so much," she said, pausing in the middle of her work. "I mean it. Thank you. For helping me tonight, and for being such good friends in general. You've all accepted me and helped me come out of my shell here."

Murmurs of acknowledgement rippled around the table as her friends listened to her words, and Josie met each of their gazes as she kept talking, feeling emotional.

"I know I was a little closed off at first, and I kept my private life hidden. But keeping things to myself meant that I was denying myself these amazing friendships. I'm so thankful I learned to open up more, so that all of our friendships could deepen into what they are."

Alissa who looked as though there were some tears in her eyes, leaned over and hugged Josie tightly. "I'm so glad too," she said. "We'll always have your back."

Caitlin and Olivia stood up and hugged Josie too. The bride-to-be had to blink back some tears as her heart filled with gratitude and happiness. She had never expected to have a life with these kinds of friendships in it—but she was so thankful that she did.

"Wow, all of these good feelings are making me hungry," Olivia joked. "I need a cookie."

The other women laughed and everyone took a short break to eat the soft, chewy chocolate cookies that Josie had provided.

Once all of the envelopes had been addressed, they started an assembly line—Alissa placed the invitations into the envelopes, Caitlin sealed the envelopes with a damp sponge, Josie placed the return address stickers in the top left corner, and Olivia put on the stamps.

In what felt like hardly any time at all, the task was finished.

"Wow," Josie said, glancing around the table in amazement as she realized that they were done. "That went so fast! I can't believe how sweet you all are to help me. I'm almost glad—no, I am glad that that mistake happened. This way I got to share this experience with all of you. And writing out the addresses was so much quicker with so many people!"

"We had a great time," Caitlin assured her, smiling. "This was a lot of fun! I always like spending time with you all."

They continued to talk happily and munch on snacks for a while. Josie felt calm and happy—all of her stress over the misprint had completely melted away. She knew that there might be other wedding disasters—or at least some other small setbacks—but she wasn't worried about them. She took a deep breath, looking around the table and smiling. With the wonderful women surrounding her on her side, she wasn't worried about anything.

The four of them continued to talk about their lives. They talked about Caitlin's plans for an informal wedding, Alissa's excitement about her coming baby, Olivia's budding relationship with Corey, and Josie's upcoming wedding.

"We all have so much wonderful stuff going on," Alissa reflected. "It makes me really happy."

"Agreed," Josie said, smiling. "There is something I'm a little worried about, though. Not the invitations," she added, laughing.

"What is it?" Caitlin asked, her eyebrows lifting in concern.

"Well, you guys know about my mom's struggles. I wasn't sure if I should invite her to the wedding or not, but Wesley and I talked about it, and I've decided that I want to."

Her friends nodded, listening intently.

"I'm going to outline a list of boundaries for her and leave it up to her whether she wants to come or not," Josie said, taking a deep breath. "I really hope she wants to."

"I'm sure she'll want to," Alissa said, making warm eye contact as she looked at her friend. "She might decide not to come for other reasons, but I'm sure that she'll want to be there with you on your big day."

Josie smiled, nodding and feeling a warm glow in her core. The other women around the table nodded and murmured agreement also.

"I hope everything works out," Olivia said sympathetically.

They talked about Josie's dilemma for a little while longer, each of them offering encouragement and support. Josie felt glad that she'd brought it up to them—she now felt less worried about the situation than she had before.

Friends make life better in so many ways, she thought. I feel like I don't have to face anything alone anymore.