Other People’s Weddings

Prologue

P ROLOGUE

The Fourth Wedding

South Lake Tahoe

Eighteen Months Ago

I looked at the empty cake platter, and the emptying dance floor, and smiled. The bride and groom were on their way to the absolutely beautiful lodge they’d rented for their first night as a married couple, the guests were happy, and I could finally breathe after a long day of wedding cake presenting, serving duties and one near disaster involving the photographer.

Not a feat I’m in a hurry to repeat. But the end result was worth it.

I wouldn’t call myself a romantic. But I do love weddings.

Weddings are, fundamentally, not about romance , anyway. Not really.

They might start out that way, but they evolve. When a person proposes to another person that they love very much (this has never happened to me, and I’m not in a hurry for it to, but I’ve had it recounted to me by many friends, brides, grooms and maybe I’ve watched the occasional flashmob proposal on YouTube) it’s about them . The couple.

Unless it’s a flashmob, then I usually assume it’s about someone’s ego.

But generally speaking, the proposal is between two people. The wedding is about two people, their competing tastes, the influence of their friends, and all their familial issues coming home to roost.

That’s the part I like. The whole glittering tapestry of connections between all the people involved. Which can often devolve into spectacle, but I enjoy that too.

I love what a wedding says about – not just the people getting married – but everyone in their lives.

Like when a couple chooses to get married in New Orleans during Mardi Gras but don’t want their Baptist grandmother to know they drink. Or are having premarital sex.

People are fascinating. And very, very strange.

I love to bake because I loved my grandmother with my whole heart. I love to bake wedding cakes, because I love the strangeness, romanticism and uniqueness of other people, and the parties they choose to throw when they optimistically promise themselves to another human being for all eternity.

I might not be a romantic, but I’m not a cynic either. That doesn’t mean I can ignore the glaring stat that more than half of the happy unions I bake cakes for won’t last.

So far, though, only six of the two hundred and eighty-eight wedding cakes have gotten divorced. That I know of.

One of them did recently change her profile picture to a selfie, along with a quote about seasons, so it’s possible we’re at seven now.

Yes, I do friend everyone I bake a cake for. Or they friend me. But it would be weird not to. This is a very small town.

Personal and professional lines get very blurry when you frequently run into clients in the grocery store. And at the dentist. Or at your gynecologist.

Worse when it is your gynecologist.

It’s unnerving, to say the least, when the nurse looks at you with very large eyes and says: Poppy, if you could bake my cake, I’d be so honored and I know it’s short notice but . . . well, I’m pregnant but you can’t tell anyone .

Possibly the worst place I’ve ever been asked if I’d bake a cake for someone. Also, though, I could hardly say no to a pleading pregnant woman while I was laid up in stirrups.

I didn’t want to say no anyway. I love my job.

And all its perks.

A common thread between brides in my hometown is the desire to get married anywhere but the town. It’s too common. Everyone has the same pictures. No out-of-town family wants to spend time in a tiny Oregon town whose population hasn’t grown since the gold rush era, et cetera.

That’s how I end up traveling for work. Often. Not a complaint.

This particular wedding was staid compared to the New Orleans wedding I’d gone to the year before, but it wasn’t quiet by any stretch of the imagination. The outdoor dance floor at the lodge had cleared hours ago, and the bar was packed now.

I was buzzing on the triumph of how smoothly everything had gone, how gloriously the cake had blended with the theme and how good it had all tasted. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours. Quinn had been a bridesmaid and I’d been the baker, and I was effervescent with the way it had all gone. In spite of the earlier kerfuffle.

Caitlin had been a beautiful bride. And if I ever had a tendency toward being a romantic it was in these moments.

It’s impossible to resist the glow of a newly married couple.

Because the event itself is behind them, and life stretches out before them in all its infinite possibility, unspoiled yet by reality.

Moments like that, I can admit that I want that. Someday.

I don’t need it right this second, but if I didn’t want to get married, I wouldn’t be in a long term relationship. I’m in the dress rehearsal phase. Can we cohabitate together without killing each other? Can I imagine this man living alongside me like this every day forever?

That’s the thing. I’m not going to get married if I can’t be reasonably certain it will last.

I need certainty.

Though now wasn’t the time to reflect on my own issues. Everyone was happy, the wedding was through and it was time to celebrate.

Quinn was still in her berry-colored bridesmaid gown and her hair still twisted into an elaborate updo with two strands pulled out to ‘frame her face’ (the hair stylist’s words) but Quinn was the sort of person who could pull off any look simply because she decided it worked, and she projected so much confidence no one would dare question her.

I was in black, which was not best practices at a wedding if you were a guest, but I wasn’t really a guest. I was the cake lady. And the cake lady worked best when blended neatly into the background.

My cake was the star, not me.

I was okay with that.

“Drinks are on me, Poppy,” she said, making her way toward the bar. “Because you did exquisite work today, and should I ever get married I’ll need you to make my cake.”

“Should you get married, I’ll be the last one standing.”

“You’ll probably get married before me,” Quinn said. “You and Josh have been together forever.”

Seven years. Four of them cohabitating. And yes it was beginning to feel like if we didn’t get married soon we might not ever. But I also felt . . . paralyzed. I didn’t want to disrupt what we had if he was happy. I didn’t want to take something that worked and make it not work.

But I wanted . . .

I craved the stability of marriage. After my childhood, no one would blame me, I knew that for certain. My therapist had confirmed it was wholly understandable given the circumstances. So . . .

It also made me feel wary of projecting my own issues too aggressively at Josh.

“I’m not in a hurry,” I said. It was maybe a lie. I felt much more in a hurry than I had for a while. But maybe that was just because of . . . well. I wasn’t going to ruminate on that. “Besides, I go to more weddings a year than anyone I know.”

“I’m sure he goes to as many as you do. If not more.” Quinn’s left shoulder shifted outward, a gesture in a direction I was trying to avoid looking in.

Because I already knew who he was. I already knew where he was.

He being the wedding photographer.

He being Ryan Clark.

He being . . . a complication. A scowly, recalcitrant entirely-too-compelling complication.

One who hated me nearly as much as I hated him. Or perhaps hate was too strong of a word.

But then, after today’s events, maybe not.

“Sure,” I said.

It was like her statement conjured him up. Out of thin air.

Because there he was, striding toward the bar – and maybe us – with intent and intensity. A hallmark of his entire . . . thing. It irritated me. We were at a wedding. Well, the afterparty. It wouldn’t kill him to smile.

Except then he did, and I’d never be able to explain the reaction I had to it.

It shifted his whole face.

I’d known him since sixth grade. It wasn’t like I’d never seen him smile.

But on his thirty-year-old face, it seemed new.

And I found myself smiling back.

Only to realize he hadn’t been smiling at me. Or heading my way at all.

He stopped at the bar and clapped a man sitting there on the back, who stood and greeted him like they were long lost brothers.

“Who is that?”

Quinn was looking over at Ryan and his friend with very intense interest.

I wanted to say something cutting and clever about the fact that he was clearly someone important because he’d made Ryan, of all people, smile, like an actual human man and not a robot, or maybe something about how I couldn’t possibly know if Quinn didn’t know.

Instead, I managed a shrug.

And Quinn marched right over there as I shrugged, so I had to hurry and follow along.

“Hi, Ryan,” she said.

This time, Ryan did look at me. And then back at Quinn. “Hi, Quinn.” He looked at me again. Then at the man sitting at the bar. “Quinn,” he paused for a beat, “this is Noah.”

And Quinn looked lit up. “It’s nice to meet you.”