Chapter 2
Two
Eva Givens’ alarm vibrated her awake at six on the dot. She killed it instantly. She did not mess with the snooze button. Snoozing was a gateway drug.
She was on her feet in seconds and into the shower, the phone coming with her. It read her emails aloud from the safety of a Ziploc bag while Eva lathered.
Caterer confirming delivery. Florist asking, for the third bloody time, whether ivory and eggshell were different colours. A bride forwarding a Pinterest board titled Just some inspo with five exclamation points. She wasn’t getting married for a year and a half.
Eva stepped out of the shower, freed her phone from its rain mac, and fired off a few quick replies while brushing her teeth. As she blew her long, dark, straight hair dry, her brain ran through the schedule for the Freeman-Carter wedding, looking for the slightest inefficiency.
For Eva Givens, wedding planner extraordinaire, it was a light start to the day.
***
At eight sharp, Eva entered the Westbridge ballroom and stopped dead.
‘No,’ she said.
Earnest, a junior coordinator who still had the youthful glow of hope in addition to an apt name, turned quickly. ‘What?’
‘I would hope you’d have some idea what I’m about to say,’ Eva said calmly.
Earnest looked blank.
‘The chairs.’
Earnest blinked. ‘They’re Chiavari. The client asked for Chiavari.’
‘The client asked for champagne Chiavari,’ Eva said. ‘These are gold. Vegas gold.’
Earnest flushed. ‘They looked right in the picture.’
Eva inhaled slowly, resisting the urge to flip one of the foul chairs.
‘Earnest,’ she said, voice even. ‘If the bride walks in and sees these, she will cry. The bad kind of crying. And half my job is protecting the eyeliner of brides. Call the rental company. I’ll buy you time.’
Earnest nodded with gratitude and walked out, phone in hand.
Eva surveyed the room, adjusting timelines in her head like a military strategist planning a really fancy invasion.
Then she saw the napkins. They were folded incorrectly. A new staff member, Lila, still in her teens, was folding them.
Eva approached. ‘These need to be folded in thirds, not halves.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought—’ Lila’s hands trembled.
‘Thinking isn’t necessary. There’s a diagram. It’ll do the thinking for you.’
Lila nodded rapidly.
‘Unfold and start again.’
Lila looked around her at the fifty she’d already done. Her eyes filled. She took off running.
Eva took her seventh deep breath of the day.
‘Jen,’ she said.
Her assistant appeared instantly. She was older than Eva, in her fifties, which Eva found useful. She was not easy to intimidate, and she didn’t take much personally. If Eva had been interested in having friends, Jen would have easily made the cut.
‘Lila’s crying in the hallway,’ Eva said. ‘I was probably a bit sharp.’
Jen winced. ‘You want me to go talk to her?’
‘I can’t be nice to her right now. Aside from the fact that I don’t have the time, it makes me unpredictable. People need to know where they stand. I should be consistently scary.’
Jen nodded with an understanding that Eva appreciated. ‘On it.’
‘And feel free to talk shit about me. But keep it just this side of disrespectful if possible.’
Jen blinked. ‘You’re asking me to slander you?’
‘If you would.’
Jen left, and Eva began refolding the napkins herself. Her muscle memory kicked in quickly as she considered her tearful employee. Her tears would soon turn to relieved laughter of a woman with an ally in a war against the big bad boss.
Eva didn’t mind that. She did not need to be liked. She needed the day to run on time.
***
At two o’clock, Eva was at the church, minutes ahead of the bride.
As her car pulled up, Eva switched the vibe down to something a bit less Napoleonic, shoulders relaxed, voice warm enough to be reassuring but not so warm that anyone mistook her for soft. They didn’t want soft. Soft didn’t get things done.
The bride carefully pulled herself and her huge dress out of the car.
‘Hi, Jane,’ Eva greeted the bride. ‘Everything’s ready for you.’
The bride exhaled like she’d been expecting some last disaster to derail everything. ‘Yeah?’
‘Tiptop. All you need to do is enjoy your day.’
‘You’re amazing,’ the bride said.
‘I’m organised,’ Eva corrected gently.