Chapter Three Violet
Chapter Three
Violet
“How about hashtag ‘I like big balls,’” I said a couple of weeks later as Blakely stood at the whiteboard jotting down potential hashtags for the next wedding we were planning.
“Absolutely not. That’s offensive.” Montana rolled her eyes and used her hand to cover her laughter.
Montana and I owned the Blushing Bride, the wedding planning business in town.
After we graduated from college, she convinced me to move to this small town with her and start a business together.
She grew up in Blushing, Alaska, and she’d been very persuasive about how much fun small-town living would be.
Blakely was our office manager, and the three of us worked really well together.
“Since when are big balls offensive? You don’t mind Clifford’s.”
Clifford Wellhung was the gigantic moose in town who roamed the streets as if it was perfectly normal for a wild beast to cruise around downtown.
“Personally, I find Clifford’s balls offensive, if I’m being honest. The way they just sort of dangle around like big ole melons.” Blakely shrugged. “And I have to side with Monny on this one, Vi. I think referencing his balls in a wedding hashtag could be a questionable choice.”
I laughed. “Well, his last name is Ballsy. It’s shit luck, but you may as well have some fun with it.”
Montana’s jaw fell open, and she gaped at me. “His last name is Balmy, not Ballsy.”
I winced. “Eek. Balmy balls would suck.”
Blakely burst out in hysterical laughter, and Montana and I ended up joining in.
“Speaking of balmy balls, how is it going over at your place with your sexy landlord?” Blakely asked.
I rolled my eyes. “That grumpy bastard is working my last nerve. He’s trying to tell me how to renovate my house. It’s appalling.”
“He’s your contractor. That’s his job.” Montana chuckled. “Just like we tell people how to plan a wedding.”
I thought it over. “Renovating a home is far more personal than a marriage. It’s the place I’m going to live for years to come.”
“Uh, I think a wedding is pretty personal, considering it’s the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with.” Blakely was looking at me like I had three heads, and Montana agreed, with that knowing look she liked to give me.
“Listen. I get inspired in the middle of the night sometimes. And he needs to deal with it.” I moved to the whiteboard and took the marker from her. “How about hashtag ‘it’s getting Balmy in here.’ You know, like it’s getting hot in here, but obviously we go with Balmy.”
“I don’t know about that one.” Montana tapped her lips as if she was deep in thought. I popped a few Skittles in my mouth while I waited for more ideas to get thrown out. “Hashtag ‘here come the Balmys.’ Hashtag ‘Balmy, party of two.’”
I wrote them both down, but nothing was blowing us away. And at the Blushing Bride, we liked to be blown away.
“What about hashtag ‘rollin’ with the Balmys.’ Like ‘rollin’ with the homies.’” I chuckled.
“I like that one,” Blakely and Montana said at the same time.
I motioned to an invisible mic in my hand and dropped it on the floor dramatically.
“That’s definitely the leader right now. I’ll run them by Jules and see what she thinks,” Montana said, referencing the future bride, who would most likely not agree to it, since she’d turned down every idea we’d given her thus far.
“All right, I’ve got a one o’clock meeting to go over the pricing for the tent and table rentals. I’ll report back.” I grabbed my hot tea and made my way to my office.
I set my phone on my desk and noticed a familiar face at the top of my Instagram app. My sister Velveeta had posted. Obviously, her name wasn’t Velveeta, but I preferred it over her real name, which was Velveteen.
She’d always given me plastic cheese energy, while nothing about her gave me stuffed British rabbit vibes.
My stomach dipped as I picked up my phone and took in the family photo. My father and his second wife, Pissy Beaumont.
Fine.
Missy Beaumont.
But my nickname was much more fitting for her as well.
Surrounding them were their children, Velveteen, Paris, Huntington, and Brenton. They were celebrating their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary, and the caption read: “Sweet family memories celebrating twenty-eight years of love from Maui.”
They clearly forgot to drop an invitation to daughter number one, per usual.
The bastards.
Twenty-eight years of marriage.
Even the number pissed me off, because I was twenty-eight years old as well. Logically it appears the math is not mathing.
However, my father decided to leave my mother when she was pregnant with me for Missy, the stepmother from hell.
She’d never made me feel like part of the family, and she’d act like I was a distant cousin whenever I’d visit.
My siblings and I were actually fairly close, aside from Velveeta, who was just a year younger than me because my father wasted no time remarrying and knocking up wife number two.
Velveteen took on her mother’s disdain for me, while my other siblings were a bit more rebellious, and they’d always welcomed the black sheep of the family with open arms. But in the end, I blamed my father for not standing up for me.
For making me feel like I didn’t belong and for giving me a lifetime of things to discuss in therapy.
My phone rang, and my sister Paris’s face lit up the screen.
“Hey, Par, how are you?” I asked, knowing that she was calling because our jackass sister had posted.
“Hey,” she groaned. “I’m sorry, Vi. I’m sure you saw the post from this morning.”
“I just saw it. It was a Beaumont celebration, huh?” I said sarcastically.
“I didn’t know if I should tell you. It was a super-last-minute trip, at least as far as including us kids, and Mom said they’d invited you and you were too busy to come.
But then Dad had one too many Long Island iced teas, and he broke down to me one night at the beach bar and said that he was disappointed in himself for not insisting that you be invited. ” She sighed.
Oh, William Beaumont, you poor excuse for a man.
It pissed me off that I had daddy issues over a man who didn’t deserve me and that I wasted my time analyzing the way he’d rejected me my entire life.
A man who was too weak to stand up for his own child.
I had zero respect for him at this point—yet, seeing them all together still felt like a punch to the gut sometimes.
“It’s all right. It’s not you that I have a problem with,” I said. “Tell me about Maui.”
Paris rambled on about the fact that my father and Missy had renewed their vows. It was the sixth time they’d renewed their vows since they’d married, which felt like a little overkill.
We get it. You’re sticking to your vows this time around, Daddy Dearest.
“Well, you would have enjoyed seeing Ralph in all his glory,” she said over her laughter.
Ralph was Velveteen’s fiancé, and they were set to marry here in Blushing in less than three months.
They’d be married at the Blushing Inn, the farmhouse that Montana and I had invested in with her fiancé, Myles, and renovated and was now our most popular wedding venue.
They did not choose to marry in Blushing because I owned a wedding business here; they’d chosen this quaint small town because Harry Simon, the most famous boy bander on the planet, had chosen to marry Bailey Clark, a famous supermodel, here in Blushing a while back, which had put this town on the map.
So even though I was enemy number one, I was also wedding planner extraordinaire and planning my sister’s wedding.
Ralph was what we called in the wedding business a “loose cannon.” The man literally never disappointed at family gatherings, as he’d always drink one too many shots of J?germeister and do something outrageous.
My sister was uptight and pretentious, and they were the most mismatched couple I’d ever met.
Who knew what Ralph would pull on his big day.
Needless to say, I was not looking forward to this wedding at all.
He’d streaked down the street three years ago at Thanksgiving.
He’d gotten wasted at Velveteen’s holiday work event this year and knocked over the buffet table, and she’d considered breaking up with him.
I heard about most of the gory details from Paris, since Velveteen rarely opened up to me.
“Tell me.” I leaned back in my chair and popped a few more Skittles in my mouth.
“Ralph had one too many tequila shots at the vow renewal, and he stepped on Mom’s train and tore her dress completely from her body,” she said, sounding horrified but also bursting out in laughter.
“Nooooo,” I said, because Missy Beaumont was the most proper woman I’d ever met.
She never left the house without a French manicure and a proper cardigan or with a hair out of place.
I couldn’t fathom her being stripped naked on the altar.
“Like, completely off her body? Or she was holding it in place.”
“Completely off her body. It all happened so fast. He staggered up there, tripped, Mom went to jump out of the way, and it just ripped away, like one of those magicians who makes the outfit disappear.”
“My God. Missy must have been beside herself.” I chuckled while trying to sound concerned. She was Paris’s mother, after all.
“Well, luckily she was covered in shapewear from head to toe, so it wasn’t like an ounce of skin was showing, but she had a meltdown, and we had to call the night short.”
“Everyone appeared to be fully dressed in the family photo,” I said, studying the post on Instagram again.
“That was taken before Tequila Gate.” She laughed. “It was fine the next day. Ralph stuck to pina coladas the rest of the trip, per Velveteen’s orders. Apparently, rum doesn’t bring out his crazy.”
“How the hell am I going to control him at this wedding?” I groaned.
“Yes. Your house better be done by the wedding, because I’m staying with you. Huntington and Brenton want to stay at your house too. Let the old people stay at the hotel.”
“Velveteen is younger than me,” I reminded her.
“But she’s twenty-seven going on ninety. She’s no fun. We want to stay with you. I bet Ralph would rather stay at your house too,” she said over her laughter.
“That’s a hard no. I still can’t believe she’s marrying this guy.”
“I know. I think we’re all shocked. But Mom loves that he comes from money, so she seems okay with it.”
“At least she has her priorities straight.” I chuckled before glancing at my email inbox to see a new message that had just popped up from Charlie Huxley. The subject line was in all caps.
Urgent!
“Maybe you should try giving her some sisterly advice. You know a lot about weddings, too, as you plan them for a living.”
“I am the last person to give relationship advice. I avoid them like the plague. Plus, she never listens to me. She hates me,” I said, because we both knew it was true.
“No. She’s jealous of you. Always has been. And she might act like a spoiled brat around you, but she talks about you nicely behind your back.”
A laugh escaped my lips. “Oh really? She’s nicer behind my back, huh?”
“Yep. She also got a little loosey-goosey on the trip, and she made some comments that she wished she cared less about what people thought about her, like you do. She went on and on about how she wants to give less shits about the opinions of others, and she kept referencing you.”
“The saying is ‘less fucks.’ And is that supposed to be a compliment?” I asked dryly.
“If Velveteen is admitting her flaws and mentioning being more like you—it’s definitely a compliment.” She chuckled.
I groaned. “That’s up for debate. I’ve got to get to a meeting. I’ll call you later.”
“Love you, Vi.”
A sharp pain hit my chest at her words. If not for my three youngest siblings, I wouldn’t have any relationship with my father. But I loved them and they loved me, so it kept me in this vicious cycle with my father and his wife.
“Love you too.” I ended the call and clicked on the email from Charlie.
Ms. Beaumont,
I received your change regarding the lighting in your primary bathroom.
If you continue to make changes to the renovation plan, you can expect your timeline to change, as well as the price that you were initially quoted, if I have to keep my guys on this jobsite longer than expected.
Please be aware that this is the last change that we can agree to and if we want to finish the project in the three months that we agreed upon.
Charlie Huxley
What the hell was wrong with this man? I lived in his backyard. Why was he sending me a formal email?
My fingers fluttered above the keyboard as I thought over my response.
Mr. Huxley,
Thank you for the oddly formal email, especially seeing as we live on the same property, and you have my phone number as you texted me to tell me I parked in the wrong spot on the driveway just a few days ago.
As a contractor, I would assume that you want your clients to be happy.
I found a fabulous vintage light fixture at the antique store downtown.
So there is no hold up to the timeline, and I’m not asking you to return the other light.
I was thinking of having the original light hung in the guest bath instead.
Will thought it was a fabulous idea when I ran it by him.
Please be aware that I will continue to change my mind if I see fit, as I want my house to be perfect.
Ms. Beaumont
I hit send, then gathered my things to head to my meeting. I was slipping my coat on just as my laptop dinged with an incoming message.
Ms. Beaumont,
Chasing perfection isn’t realistic. And for the record, Will isn’t running this company, I am.
Mr. Huxley
P.S. If you got the text about the driveway, why did you park there again yesterday?
I chuckled. There was something about getting under his skin that I enjoyed.
Mr. Huxley,
I parked there because it’s a big driveway, it’s closest to the guesthouse, and I’m convinced that you’re just being a dick for the sake of being a dick. And it’s the perfect spot for my car, so I guess I was just chasing that unrealistic perfection.
Ms. Beaumont
I waited for a minute or three . . . But he didn’t respond. I’d probably pissed him off. It wasn’t my first time calling him a dick, nor would it be my last.
I walked out and said goodbye to Montana and Blakely as I walked the short distance to the party rental shop a few blocks away.
My phone dinged just as I arrived, and I glanced down at the email from Charlie.
Ms. Beaumont,
Once again, your obsession with my dick is alarming. No. More. Changes.
Mr. Huxley
P.S. If you need to use the oven again, we’ll be home by 5:30.
I tucked the phone back in my purse, and I couldn’t hide the ridiculous smile from my face.