Chapter 3 #2
After dinner, the three of them sat in the living room with the binder open on the coffee table and the laptop balanced on Noah’s knees. It should have been tedious, but Lara turned vendor comparisons into a game by assigning every option a personality disorder or a tragic backstory.
“The string quartet thinks it went to Yale,” she said, pointing to one website.
Noah squinted. “The quartet?”
“Look at the font. That font wears loafers indoors.”
Ella choked on her wine.
Noah clicked to the next option. “What about this one?”
“That DJ has strong divorced uncle energy.”
“He has good reviews.”
“Divorced uncles can be beloved.”
Ella leaned over. “What about this band?”
Lara studied the page with mock seriousness. “This band has slept in an airport and considers itself better for it.”
“Done,” Noah said. “Hire them.”
“No,” Ella said, laughing. “We are not hiring a band based on Lara’s fake biography of their website.”
“Why not? It’s the best wedding planning has ever been.”
It was fun. Ella could not deny that. The kind of fun she and Noah had been missing since the wedding became a machine that ate weekends and produced invoices.
Lara made the machine ridiculous. She made Noah participate without sighing.
She made Ella feel, for a while, less alone in wanting the day to be beautiful without becoming the sort of bride who cared whether napkins had design continuity.
At ten, Lara stood and stretched. “I’m going to bed before I start giving the rental company a complex inner life.”
“Good night,” Ella said.
“Night.” Lara hesitated at the foot of the stairs. “Thank you for letting me crash the planning.”
“You helped,” Noah said.
Lara looked at Ella.
“You really did,” Ella said.
Lara smiled, then went upstairs.
Noah shut the laptop and dropped his head back against the couch. “That was the least painful wedding thing we’ve done in a month.”
Ella nudged him with her foot. “Rude.”
“What? You hate it too.”
“I do not hate wedding planning.”
“You hate parts of it.”
“I hate the parts where everyone pretends chair rentals are what make or break a wedding.”
He grinned and caught her ankle. “See? Lara gets that.” Noah’s thumb rubbed along the arch of her foot. “Hey.”
“What?”
“You did a lot today.” His voice softened. “Binder looks amazing.”
“Lara did most of it.”
“But you let her help. That counts.”
Ella could not decide why that bothered her.
Maybe because it sounded too much like praise for being gracious. Maybe because she did not want to be thanked for allowing help on her own wedding. Maybe because Noah looked so relieved, and she wondered whether he had been more stressed by the planning than she had understood.
“She’s good at it,” Ella said.
“She’s good at organizing chaos.”
“I’m chaos?”
He tugged her foot into his lap. “You are the least chaotic person alive.”
“You say that, but I forgot my dress fitting time.”
“It happens. You’ve got too much on your plate.” The words were gentle. Loving.
On Friday morning, Bethany, the florist, called while Ella was in the shower.
She only knew because Lara told her afterward.
“I hope that was okay,” Lara said, standing in the hallway with Ella’s phone in one hand and an expression of careful concern. “Your phone kept ringing, and I saw it was the florist. I didn’t answer at first, but then she called again right away, and I thought maybe something was wrong.”
Ella tightened the towel around herself. Her hair was dripping down her back, cold against her spine.
“Oh,” she said.
Lara held the phone out. “I’m sorry. I should have let it go.”
“No, it’s okay. What did she need?”
“Just final approval on the centerpiece change. The one with less greenery.”
Ella blinked. “The white roses?”
“And ranunculus, yes. I told her I was not you but that we had discussed it last night and you preferred the lower arrangement so people could actually see each other across the table.”
Ella had said that. Almost exactly.
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“If that’s wrong, call her back. I told her nothing was final until you confirmed by email.”
That eased the tightness in Ella’s chest. “No, that’s right. Thank you.”
Lara’s face relaxed in visible relief. “Good. I was worried I overstepped.”
“It’s fine.”
“I wouldn’t have answered, except she did the double-call thing.”
“Really, it’s fine.”
Lara nodded, then set Ella’s phone carefully on the hall table between them, as if returning something sacred. “I also made coffee. Noah left early. He said to tell you he kissed your forehead, but you made a noise like an angry cat and rolled away.”
Ella laughed despite the damp chill on her skin. “Sounds right.”
“Very dignified.”
“Deeply.”
Lara went downstairs, and Ella went into the bedroom to dress.
For several minutes, she could not decide what to wear.
This was not unusual in itself. The weather was in that damp late-winter mood that made every outfit feel both too warm and not warm enough. But she stood in front of her closet longer than necessary, towel dampening the rug beneath her feet, hearing the shower drip behind her.
Her phone had rung. Lara had answered. Lara had handled it correctly. Lara had even told the florist to wait for written confirmation.
Everything was fine.
Ella pulled on black trousers and a cream blouse, then picked up her phone from the hall table on the way downstairs. Bethany had left no voicemail. There was no new email yet. The call log showed two missed calls and one answered call. Two minutes, fourteen seconds.
In the kitchen, Lara was rinsing out the coffee pot. She had already put Ella’s coffee in the blue mug from Maine.
Ella reached for it, then stopped.
Lara glanced over. “Sorry. Is that not your morning mug?”
“It is.”
“Oh good. I’ve seen you use it most mornings.”
The observation was so ordinary and so reasonable that Ella felt silly for noticing it.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the mug.
The coffee had the right amount of milk. It was nice. Lara was a nice person.
At lunch, Carolina called while Ella was between appointments.
“I only have twelve minutes,” Ella said, shutting her office door.
“Excellent. I can ruin your peace efficiently.”
“Please don’t.”
“Impossible. It’s my gift. How’s your permanent houseguest?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“What would you prefer? Temporary domestic participant?”
“Lara is fine.”
“Fine as in fine, or fine as in you’re using that voice?”
Ella pinched the bridge of her nose. “She helped with the wedding binder yesterday. It was actually great.”
“Was it?”
“Yes. She’s very organized.”
“I believe that.”
“And Bethany called this morning while I was in the shower. Lara answered because it rang twice.”
There was a pause.
Ella regretted saying it immediately.
“Bethany the florist?” Carolina asked.
“Yes.”
“On your phone?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Ella.”
“She didn’t pretend to be me. She told Bethany she wasn’t me. She said nothing was final until I confirmed.”
“Mmm.”
“Do not.”
Carolina exhaled. Ella could picture her in her office, leaning back in her chair, one hand braced against her forehead as if patience required physical support. “Okay. Did she ask before answering your phone?”
“I was in the shower.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It was ringing repeatedly. It could have been urgent.”
“Was it urgent?”
“Not exactly.”
“Did you ask her to be involved with vendors?”
“She’s been helping with the binder.”
“Did you ask her to answer your phone?”
Ella’s irritation rose, too fast and too defensive. “No, but she was trying to help.”
“Helpful people can ask first.”
“She apologized.”
“Of course she did.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means apologies are excellent tools. Sometimes they repair things. Sometimes they make it impossible for you to complain without looking ungenerous.”
Ella was quiet.
Carolina softened. “I’m not trying to make you paranoid.”
“You are absolutely trying to make me paranoid.”
“No. I’m trying to keep you from talking yourself out of every feeling you’ve had.”
Ella looked through the little office window into the hallway. Downstairs, faintly, she could hear Lara moving around the kitchen. A cabinet opened. Closed. Water ran.
“I don’t have a feeling,” Ella said.
“Okay.”
“I don’t.”
“Then no problem.”
The agreement irritated her more than an argument would have. “I have to go.”
“Sure. Love you.”
“Love you too, even when you’re being impossible.”
“That is when I am most lovable.”
Ella hung up and sat for a moment in the quiet.
She did not have a feeling.
She had a sensation. Different thing. A small physical awareness, like wearing a shirt with a tag she could not find.
After her afternoon sessions, Ella went downstairs and found the dining table covered in invitation envelopes.
For one terrible second, her stomach dropped because she thought they had somehow been spilled or stained. Then she saw the order. Neat stacks by zip code. Return addresses facing up. RSVP cards counted and clipped. The guest list printed and annotated.
Lara stood over them with a pencil in her hand.
“I know,” she said before Ella could speak. “This looks like I broke into your wedding.”
Ella blinked. “Kind of.”
“I didn’t mean to. The box was on the chair in my room, and I needed the chair for a video call with a leasing agent.
I brought the box down here and realized some of the envelopes weren’t sealed, and then I noticed the zip codes were mixed, and then…
” She gestured helplessly at the table. “I alphabetized under stress.”
Ella walked closer.
The invitations had been a source of low-grade dread for two weeks.
Not because they were complicated, but because they were final in a way that made her nervous.
Names, addresses, etiquette questions, the small politics of who got “and guest” and who did not.
She had planned to finish them with Noah that weekend, which meant she had planned to finish them alone while Noah sat beside her and occasionally said, “Wait, who is that again?”
Now most of it was done.
“You don’t have to keep doing all this,” Ella said.