Honeymoon Stage

Prologue

The camera pans and here I am. I’m in jean shorts and a white T-shirt, a far cry from bridal chic, slightly out of place amid the fanfare of this afternoon’s rehearsal.

Production is expressing serious concern that the processional song might end in the middle of a chorus, but I can’t help feeling like we all know what to do by now. We’re on hour three of this. I’m antsy.

Then I see Gabe grinning across the lawn, dimples slicing through both cheeks, and I’m swept into the fantasy despite myself.

Ready, he mouths. And so am I. I am so ready.

I’m ready to say I do. I’m ready for this circus of a wedding to be over and to actually be married.

I’m ready for the TV special to air and my subsequent embarrassment to hopefully fade into mere memory.

I’m ready to wake up next to Gabe knowing we’ve committed to each other, and then sprawl out on the couch in our pajamas and finally finish that eight-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of da Vinci’s Last Supper. That part is going to be wonderful.

Thinking about that part helps me look at this ostentatious stone mansion, and the impractical California lawn on which our wedding party has gamely assembled, with hope for the future.

The venue’s main house looks air-dropped in from Rhode Island or Connecticut: capped turrets, perky dormer windows, a wide front drive ideal for valet parking, and a garden that makes no sense in this climate.

It isn’t ugly, just soulless, as if Palisades Pines wants all who visit to forget that we’re in Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean is just out of view.

This is not the spot I would have chosen to marry the love of my life.

Gabe’s not especially drawn to the country-club life, either.

We’re standing here, surrounded by golf courses and gold-painted chairs, because of the production company and the reciprocity deal they struck, where our TV special will showcase this venue, and in return, we’re able to use this facility and film free of charge.

Well, at least without handing over actual money.

What Palisades Pines loses in rental fees, they should more than make up for in unpaid advertising and cultural clout.

The director gives the go-ahead, and Gabe’s seven-year-old niece expertly tosses imaginary petals from an invisible basket, giving little plié curtsies and hamming for the empty rows of chairs.

Take that spotlight, kid. It’s yours.

The two seasons I spent working as a production assistant on Honeymoon Stage have robbed me of the ability to lose myself in the magic.

Reality TV icons Jason Dean and Maggie McKee, the then-newlywed subjects of our groundbreaking television series, have shown me that if something looks too good to be true, it is most likely too good to be true.

It’s not that I think dreams can’t come true; it simply means that everyone has to pay for them one way or another.

The price for the dream Gabe and I share is this exclusive tie-in television special: a Honeymoon Stage wedding, featuring cameos from the original cast of the show.

At least the cast members that are still alive.

Gabe straightens his shoulders, gives a small wave to my mom.

He’s doing that thing with his mouth that he does when he’s focused—writing a new guitar riff or doing mental math.

His brow furrows, and his tongue slips to the side, and this is one of the things that I love about Gabe. The way he’ll focus. How much he cares.

As bride and groom, Gabe and I are theoretically the stars here, but we’re just a sideshow.

Maggie McKee and Jason Dean are the real draw—after all, this once was their wedding venue too.

They haven’t been seen on-screen together since the abrupt finale of their megahit show, which ended two and a half years ago.

Gabe and I signed NDAs and contracts last month.

We signed paperwork regarding residuals and time slots and the sorts of ads the network could run.

We have given up our wedding to the masticating maw of Reality television in exchange for the goodwill and exposure that will fuel our professional dreams. I’d marry this man anyplace, anytime—we alone own the dream of our lives together.

But the chance to mend broken ambitions and propel ourselves each into the careers we’ve been fighting for?

That’s only ever been on offer because of Maggie and Jason’s involvement.

Tomorrow Maggie McKee will wear a cornflower blue bridesmaid’s dress and stand up beside me.

She’s in this wedding not because we are dear friends and I have asked her to be part of my big day but because I am trying to right a wrong.

Not to Maggie—I owe Maggie McKee nothing.

But she was part of my misstep, and so I need her here to fix it.

She hasn’t shown up yet—technically her contract is only for tomorrow—so my brother’s girlfriend fills in for her now.

I think, not for the first time, that I’d prefer this relative stranger he will probably dump next week to be my bridesmaid over Maggie.

Maggie and I haven’t spoken in four years. It’s a slap in the face to both of us to have her step-touch over scattered flower petals, carrying a petite version of my ranunculus and roses.

Right now, I’m holding a paper plate laced with the ribbons from my bridal shower gifts—a trash bouquet that, to me, feels exceptionally silly but matters quite a bit to my mother.

“Cassidy!”

It’s my turn. In tennis shoes, I traipse the lawn that I will walk in heels tomorrow, timing each step to a hired string quartet.

My stepfather has been chatting with one of the producers, but he skedaddles back to take my arm.

We proceed. I bug my eyes out for the camera crew when we get up front to the rest of the bridal party, and my friend Jen gives me a literal slap on the wrist. She has a bleach pen in her pocket and dabs it on the hem of my T-shirt where I’ve spilled Diet Coke.

“One more time!” Here comes Lauren, our producer. Once, all I wanted was to be another Lauren—to have her poise and self-assurance, her ability to see through the bullshit. Even if Lauren wasn’t always happy, at least she was the one conducting.

What’s the line in that song? I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.

Today, her hair is dyed black as licorice.

She’s already in her yellow flower-print cocktail dress, wearing a full face of makeup.

On the original Honeymoon Stage, she would have never—time spent on glam for any crew member was both time wasted and a reason for the rest of the team to take them less seriously.

The line between a woman trying too hard and sloppy unprofessionalism is subjective, ephemeral, and subject to drastic career consequence when crossed.

We run the sequence five more times. A boom is in the shot. Someone has to use the bathroom. An airplane passes overhead. Finally, Lauren says, “Okay, we’ve got it.”

“You’re good?” I ask Gabe.

“Absolutely.” He puts an arm around my shoulder. “You?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“It’s not too late to bail,” says Gabe. “You and me, Vegas by sundown.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Even without the legal ramifications of breaking our contract with the network, we both know Vegas is not an option.

My mother would be disappointed. His mother would cry.

We can’t now deny his niece the chance to be on television.

Gabe’s career needs the publicity of this Honeymoon Stage wedding-special tie-in, and I need the reference Lauren promised in return for my cooperation.

I still have student loans to pay off. We want to buy a house.

If we back out now, the reciprocity deals will all be voided, and we’ll be stuck with the bill for this whole affair.

Tomorrow will be a performance, so tonight is the actual party.

The rehearsal dinner is at a small Italian spot with a back garden that seems straight out of Tuscany, all distressed pillars and starbursting lavender and weeds sneaking between patio stones—the sort of place I would want to have our actual wedding were it not for the constraints of the crew.

Jen and Celia get the toasts going immediately after dinner, telling stories about when Gabe and I first met.

“We were like, really? The Gabriel Leighton?” Celia’s teeth are stained red with cabernet, and I get the sense her celebration began long before our courtyard cocktails.

Jen nudges, but it’s not enough to stop her.

“Like, oh my god, here he is in our shitty apartment, sitting on our ugly couch.” I’m glad tonight’s not being filmed, though I see Lauren’s eyes dart back and forth with interest. Always looking for story, her crowbar ready to pry you apart.

“It was a great apartment.” Jen steps in. “And Cass is a catch.”

“Aww, thanks,” I say. Gabe and I are seated at an adjacent table, dessert plates mostly empty in front of us. I take his last bite of chocolate mousse.

Gabe kisses me while I’m swallowing. “I was the one who had to do the wooing.” He raises his glass, charming as always in that understated way he has when talking to a crowd.

“Write a song about it!” His friends, too, are drunk in the back. Gabe is shiny eyed and loose. He presses his knee into mine.

“Though I haven’t always made the best decisions,” he says to the room in an understatement I do not correct, “you all know I love this woman completely.”

He hasn’t raised his voice, but even those friends in the back can surely hear.

Before Gabe, I was anti-PDA. I didn’t want anyone to serenade me or declare their affection in grand gestures.

But Gabe is a grand-gestures kind of guy, and in loving him, I’ve mostly come around to them.

He rubs his thumb over my wrist. When I lean my forehead down, he follows, and for a moment we’re alone behind our clasped hands.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

I feel an almost unbearable surge of excitement and luck.

Maybe working on Honeymoon Stage hasn’t ruined me for romance. Maybe I can have my three-tiered wedding cake and eat it too. My happily ever after seems just around the corner.

For once, tomorrow will go off without a hitch.