Chapter 13

Cecilia

C oming back to work on Monday was surreal. It seemed like I had been gone for years, instead of a week and a half. So much had happened! The coffee shop looked the same, except for a lot dirtier. Clearly no one had been supervising the cleaning crew!

Neveah opened with me and absolutely freaked out when she saw my ring.

“Cecilia! You got engaged!” When I nodded, she pulled me into a hug. “I’m so happy for you! Let me see the ring.” She grabbed my hand and held it up to the light and squinted at it. “That diamond must be two, two and a half carats! Clarity and color are excellent to the naked eye.” We both stared at it. “And those rubies! They’re gorgeous. You have to look for the deep red color, and you really have it here! The stones are perfectly matched, too.”

“Neveah, how do you know this stuff?”

“Who doesn’t know this stuff?” she asked me, puzzled. “I hope it fits well.” She tried to see if she could pull off the ring. Instead she nearly dislocated my finger.

“It’s fine!” I told her, taking my hand back and shaking the pain off. “Jeez!”

“You don’t want to lose an engagement ring like that,” she assured me. “And speaking of engagements, last Friday—”

The front door flung open, and Keri stomped in with the “I’m a manager” look on her face. “Oh good, you’re both here. Nancy and Cecilia, we need to have a meeting.” She started to walk from table to table. “Why are these tables so dirty? Who is watching the cleaners?”

I started to follow her but Neveah didn’t move. “I’m not coming over there until you call me by my right name. I’ve worked here for five months now and I’ve had enough, Keri. My name is Neveah .”

Keri rolled her eyes. “Ok, Neveah . It’s so hard to remember!”

“It’s ‘heaven’ spelled backwards,” I supplied. “Maybe that will help you.”

Keri stopped dead. “Really? That’s so cool. I wouldn’t expect you to have such a cool name.”

Neveah looked at me and I shrugged. “Uh, thanks?” she said to Keri.

Keri gestured us to seats at a semi-clean tabletop.

“Hi Keri, I’m back,” I reminded her. “I was in California, remember?”

She squinted at me, pretty clearly not remembering. “Great, you’re just in time. I’m going to be super busy cancelling all the wedding stuff. Unless I can find another groom pretty quick…” She considered. “No, it will be better just to start fresh when I find a new guy. I already don’t like the table linens I chose, anyway.”

I was so confused. “What—” I started to say.

“Harrison and I broke up. It turns out he’s really a douchebag. I got pretty tired of him questioning my commitment to my work. Plus, the whole cheating thing.” She waved her hand airily. “So yeah, I dumped him. And he had already paid the deposits on everything, so he’s out that, and I’m keeping the ring and…” Her eyes dropped to the table, specifically to my hand resting on it. “Wait a minute. WAIT A MINUTE. WHAT IS ON YOUR FINGER?” she screamed.

I clapped my right hand over my ring. “Alex and I are getting married,” I said quietly.

There was dead silence, and Neveah and I watched her warily. Keri got up from her chair and stood over me. Either she was going to punch me or…she hugged me, a big, hard hug. Wow, that could have gone either way. I felt lucky! And her perfume smelled great, too.

“This is perfect!” she exclaimed. “We can just use all my wedding stuff for you!”

“Uh…”

Luckily, Keri never really understood that when you were at work, you were supposed to work on the job you were hired to do. Because that day, the three of us didn’t do anything but plan my wedding. And she was amazing at it! All the whining and problems she had put us through over her own wedding with Harrison were gone when she was choosing things for someone else. It was all good once I convinced her that we weren’t going to have 500 people, I couldn’t wear her dress because she was six inches taller, and we weren’t going to wait until December, either. I wanted to get married pronto.

We set the date, after I ok’d it with Alex, we booked a venue (Steve’s back yard), we got Keri’s friend the stationery store owner to quickly print some invitations for our very limited guest list. We called the Lebanese place to cater, and of course we booked a singer: Jason! I started to get really excited. I had never planned for a party before, and it was fun! Besides the groom, the most important thing to me was cake tasting, and I was waiting to get to it on Keri’s to-plan list.

“You should do this for a living, Keri,” Neveah told her. “You’re way better at weddings than running the coffee shop. You’re a pretty bad manager.”

I kicked her under the table, but Keri was nodding thoughtfully. “You know, Nigella—heaven spelled backwards Neveah, you might be onto something. Let’s see if this one gets really screwed up, and if not, it might be time for me to career change.” She pulled me to my feet. “Now we’re going dress shopping. This is going to be hard because there’s no time to order one and you’re the size of a garden gnome so sample sizes are out.”

“Hey!” I protested.

She continued without hearing me. “But maybe we can fit you into one of those First Communion dresses, you know, for the Catholic thing for like eight-year-olds? That’s more your size.”

“Hey!” I said again. “I’m not wearing a First Communion dress. I already have the dress. ”

Keri looked me up and down. “I’m going to have to approve it. I clearly can’t trust your taste.”

And Nevvie, the turncoat, was nodding! “It’s true, Cec. You dress like a kindergarten teacher. That’s bad,” she explained.

Keri whipped out her phone. “I’m calling the other guy to come into work.”

“Jason,” I put in.

“Right, Jason. The three of us are going to look at this ‘dress’ and take you shopping. You can’t be a Whitaker wearing clothes like that. There are standards. Call Alex and get his credit card,” she ordered me, and when he came down to drop it off he couldn’t stop laughing.

“Keri is planning our wedding?”

“It’s mostly done already. She’s a dynamo as a wedding planner! And I guess it’s easier since we’re only having your brother and cousins and their families, Nevvie’s and Jason’s families, Ms. Eubank. And Keri now, I guess.” And my mom, if she called back. Alex was on standby to get her a ticket if she wanted come. I had made it clear there was no plus one allowed, however.

“Let’s hope Keri’s better at wedding planning than she is at running this place. There’s no milk or cream and I stepped out of my shoe when it stuck to the floor.”

I nodded. “I had a talk with the cleaning crew, and we’re getting a dairy delivery later today.” I put my hand on his chest. “You know I don’t need any of this, right? We could go get married at the Circuit Court, I looked it up.”

Alex put his arms around me. “But aren’t you having fun? ”

“Yes, but—”

“Then let’s have a wedding.” He kissed me. “What’s left to do?”

“We’re going to look at Ms. Eubank’s wedding dress.” I bit my lip. “What if they don’t like it?” She had given it to me while Alex finished up fixing up her yard over the weekend. It was just lovely, lace on the top and fitted tightly at my waist, then flaring back out in a round skirt that was “tea-length,” Ms. Eubank explained. It fit me really well and I felt beautiful in it. And when I saw the look on her face when I tried it on, I knew I would wear it.

“Do you like the dress?” he asked, gently pushing my hair back, and I nodded. I loved it, and it felt so special that she was loaning it to me. “Then it doesn’t matter what they say.” But then I saw him having a private word with Neveah and Keri before he left. That guy! He was the best ever. Time to go cake tasting. And shopping, too.

Alex and I relaxed back into our routine for the next few weeks. He was struggling a lot with what to do about his job, but he and Steve seemed to have hit a new level of trust in their relationship. Steve came over a lot, and I liked him more and more—as a person, not just as the guy who would help me dismember anyone who hurt Alex. Things weren’t exactly perfect between them: Alex was still so afraid of disappointing him, and Steve was still freaked out that something would happen to him. They were a work in progress.

The cake tasting had definitely been the high point of the wedding planning. Nevvie and I finally picked a simple vanilla cake with chocolate ganache. It took a lot of tasting to get there! And Keri had been appalled when I suggested that maybe we could pick Queen Anne’s Lace for flower arrangements for the tables and for my bouquet, but it spurred her to finally figure out what was in season and plan accordingly. As the wedding approached, she was working on it non-stop and I had taken over running the coffee shop. Nothing had changed, really, except the identities of the bride and groom! To be honest, the hardest part about the wedding planning for me and Alex was getting the marriage license. And reeling in Keri. And waiting for the day to come.

On our wedding eve, Alex and I cuddled in our big bed in the condo.

“You’re quiet,” he said. He was tracing my nipples with his fingertips, which was very distracting. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

“No, not at all,” I told him, turning on my back so I could see his face. “Are you?”

“Just about the vows I wrote. I hope they’re sentimental enough.”

“Alex! You did not! You know how I feel about writing our own vows!” I sat up straight.

He was already laughing. “I’m sticking to the script, don’t worry.”

I lay back down. “I’m just thinking. I got the DNA test back today. Ms. Eubank got hers, too.”

“And?”

I sighed. “We’re not related. Not even a little. So Roger Trelles isn’t my dad.”

He kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry. I know you were counting on it, but we’ll keep looking. Are you disappointed?” he asked .

“I was. More about her, than him. Ms. Eubank said it didn’t matter. She was worried that I’d be upset, but she said she feels like I’m her niece, or cousin, or whatever, anyway. She didn’t care about the DNA part at all.”

“That’s nice. And she’s right.”

“Yeah.” I flipped back on my side and snuggled back against him. “What I was thinking was, it’s usually the dad who walks the bride up the aisle.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said again. He pulled me closer to him.

“No, I’m not sad about it, not really! We’re walking up the aisle together, you and I. I don’t have the same urgency to find my father anymore, if that makes sense. I hope we do, but I’m ok if we don’t. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m getting what I wanted. We’re our own family, right?”

“Right.” I turned my head to look at him, and he smiled at me. “Steve, my cousins, Ms. Eubank, Neveah and Jason and their families, even Keri. You have all of us. Especially me. You’re stuck with me for life. Tomorrow it will be official.” Then he kissed me.

Alex

If you asked me later to describe our wedding, it would have been hard; I was probably more nervous than I had admitted to Cecilia. Everything that happened before the ceremony was sort of dream-like in my mind. Steve had tried to give me a talk about marriage and responsibilities, and it had made me crack up, hysterically, until he threatened to slap me. He was really strong. I had finally admitted to him before the wedding that I hated real estate development, which he already knew. I was going to stay on to help out with some projects, minimally on the payroll, and then when Cecilia and I made the move up north, I would see. I wanted to pursue art as a career. Life was too short, and I knew that better than most people.

I remembered seeing Cecilia for the first time in her dress, and that she looked more beautiful than anybody ever had in the history of time.

I remembered her smiling at me as we stood in front of the judge, and that I said the right things at the correct moments. I got the ring on her finger, and she put mine on me. I didn’t trip. I didn’t drool or faint, so that was all positive. And then we were married, and I kissed her. She was bawling, and I think I may have shed a tear, too. Cecilia was my wife.

I remembered that her mom came right before the ceremony started. We saw her sneak in as we waited to walk up the aisle, and later I got to meet Katharine in person for the first time. I had been expecting fangs or something from how she had acted, but she seemed like a nice lady. Really weird, but nice. Lots of scarves and she kind of clinked when she walked, I think due to bracelets. It made Cecilia extremely happy to have her there, and even happier when Katharine mentioned later that she was living in Oakland with her friend. Allen was apparently out of the picture.

As soon as the actual ceremony was over, I relaxed, and the party afterwards was really fun. Of course, Jason was an amazing singer, but everyone ended up taking a turn at the mic, and Neveah’s dad started DJing on Steve’s old CD player. Even I danced, and Cecilia never stopped moving. We had asked everyone not to bring gifts, but most of them had anyway. Ms. Eubanks gave us a green metal box, with index cards filled with all her recipes. Her mom gave us a copy of the Kama Sutra, which I disposed of after the party. We would never be able to use it without me thinking about her mother, pretty much the biggest mood killer of all time. I gave Cecilia another small, flat box.

“You didn’t have to get me anything!” she protested. “We said we weren’t doing presents.”

“It’s really for both of us,” I explained. “Open it.”

She took out a key on a silver keychain. “What—no. Yes?”

I nodded. “It’s our house now. But there’s a lot of work—”

Again, it was hard to speak with a woman hanging around your neck, crying her eyes out.

“I’m so glad I told her waterproof mascara,” Keri commented. “She’s super emotional. I’m glad I got over my emotional-hood. My emotion-ness. Whatever.” Keri had given us a full set of china, service for sixteen, which she said we should have registered for but since we hadn’t listened to her about registering, she would help us out. Cecilia loved it. She and Keri were oddly hitting it off. But it wasn’t too long after we opened the gifts that when we all realized that Keri and Jason’s brother, whom he called Asshole Andy, had disappeared together.

“Oh my god…we had a love connection at our wedding!” Cecilia said excitedly.

“Let’s just call it a connection for now,” I told her.

“Next I’m working on your single cousins! And maybe there’s a normal older guy for my mom. Oh, that reminds me that I have to file a police report. I’ll be right back.” She was off. Maybe Allen made enough with his drug money to hire a good lawyer. I hoped not.

We ate a ton, danced more, and laughed with our friends. Finally it was time to go. We were spending the night in the condo, then heading back up north. We had some construction to supervise. And some other activities to pursue, in a naked fashion.

Cecilia was hugging everyone like it was the last time she was ever going to see them. “Thank you! Thank you for coming! I love you,” she was repeating to everyone. I finally was able to carry her, literally, off to the car.

“Wasn’t that the best wedding ever?” she asked me as she buckled her seatbelt.

“I thought you had never been to a real wedding,” I commented.

“Well, no, but what could be better than that?” she countered.

“You’re right. It was the best wedding ever, but only because I got the best wife ever. And now we’re going home, and we are going to screw our brains out.”

Cecilia sighed happily. “Oh Alex, you’re so romantic! Drive faster.”