28. Carly
CHAPTER 28
CARLY
B y the time I’m finally out of Ohio and into Pennsylvania, I call my client.
“Are you here?” Ellen demands.
“I’m just into Pennsylvania,” I say. “I’m going to have to meet with you tomorrow morning, I’m afraid. Even if I drive all the way to New York tonight, it’s going to be really late by the time I arrive, and I think it’s dangerous for me to keep going. I’ll stop at a motel, get up early and be in the city by nine o’clock to meet with you.”
Ellen hums uncertainly, but I hear mumbling in the background from someone who I can only assume is her groom. “I suppose that’s all right,” she says in the kind of tone that suggests it’s really not all right at all, but out of the goodness of her heart, she’s going to allow it. “We’ll expect you at nine o’clock sharp.”
She hangs up without so much as a goodbye, and I take a shaky breath. I hope I didn’t sound too much like I had been crying. Because I have. My head is pounding, and my eyes feel raw.
Even at the end, Gabe still managed to give me such mixed signals. His face was hard and cold, but his words screamed of caring. Almost sounded like he might even want me. But if he had wanted me so much, why didn’t he say? Why didn’t he tell me to call or ask me to stay?
When I pull over into a motel, it’s late, and all I want to do is sleep. But my mind is racing, so I pull out my phone and stare at Gabe’s contact. Gabe Mechanic. It’s so simple, makes it sound like such a business transaction. No emojis, no last name, just mechanic. Like that’s all I am to him. Like that’s all he is to me.
I toss and turn all night, and the snippets of sleep I do manage to get are punctuated by dreams of Gabe holding me. Every time I wake up to an empty bed, I’m disappointed.
I kept driving as late as I could manage, but I still have to be up early in order to make my nine o’clock deadline.
Just like that, I’ve been thrown back into the real world, launched into the land of brides who need the universe and people with more money than sense.
I should feel refreshed after a break from that, but all going back really does is fill my stomach with dread.
When I finally arrive in Manhattan, it takes me half an hour to find parking, and by the time I show up at the offices Ellen Sinclair directed me to, it’s nine o’clock on the dot.
I’m whisked up to an office room and deposited under the harsh fluorescent light like I’m about to be interviewed by the police for a crime I didn’t commit. It doesn’t do anything to stop my headache, and I really want a cup of coffee, but I don’t dare ask. Clients like this don’t tend to be too happy when you’re the one asking for things.
To them, I’m a robot who gives them what they want.
The woman waltzes into the room, her golden hair pinned on top of her head, her makeup sharp, her clothes perfectly tailored. She’s glamorous, like a model, but her dark eyes tell me everything I need to know about her.
She has money, and she wants a perfect wedding.
I stand up when she comes in and offer my hand. She doesn’t take it, but the man who follows does. This must be her fiancé, Nicholas Enkel. He is, as far as I could see when I did my research, a top city banker. And from the small amount of research I did on her, she was a model in her youth but is now chasing an acting career that isn’t going too well because she’s not that great.
I don’t say any of that out loud, of course.
“It’s Callie, isn’t it?” she says.
“Carly,” I correct her, but she keeps going like she wasn’t even listening to me.
“You’re supposed to be the best, so they tell us. What’s the best way to show everyone that our wedding is the greatest wedding that has ever happened?”
“Flowers are a good start,” I say. “Getting out-of-season blooms is a great way of making a statement.”
“No, no, sweetie,” she says. “You listen to me now, okay?”
I clamp my mouth shut despite the fact that she asked me to speak, and she spends the next half hour explaining to me that she wants to get married in a country club with white horses and have the ceremony in the middle of a lake so she can walk on water like some sort of weird Christ figure. Nicholas doesn’t say much, and I guess he either agrees with her or is going along with her to make her happy, because she’s definitely not the kind of person who is easy to say no to.
When Ellen’s ideas finally run out, I slide a word in edgewise. “Well, these are all great ideas and so useful to me at this stage. Thank you.” She beams. “Of course, we want the big day to be all about you.”
“Oh, no,” says Nicholas, cutting me off. “That’s not important. What’s important is everything looks like a million dollars. If it’s not luxury, we don’t want it, right?”
“Right,” I say, trying not to let the already weak smile on my face waver. “Well, why don’t we talk about venue first? Getting the right place is so important for making a splash.”
As they start telling me about country clubs and mansion estates, I let my mind wander back to Ruth and John. This wedding couldn’t be further away from that. These two might like each other, and maybe they even love each other, but nothing about this wedding has to do with love. All of this is just to show off to their friends or business rivals.
No doubt they’ll invite every C-grade celebrity they have ever met to make themselves look relevant. And no doubt they’ll end up splashed on some magazine for people who don’t have anything better to do with their lives than read that sort of stuff.
For the first time in years, I put together a ceremony that was intimately about the couple and nothing else. Thinking about it now is making me ache to go back. To be around the kind of genuine love that Ellen and Nicholas will never have.
They’re too busy showing off to show each other how much they care.
“So,” I say in the next pause in the relentless monologue that’s been directed at me. “Fall is a great time to get married. There are so many seasonal color palettes we can work with.”
“Ugh,” huffs Ellen. “Orange and brown is gauche. And there’s no way of making yellow look attractive. No, we want greens and blues.”
“Gold and silver,” adds Nicholas. “And red for fortune. And purple for royalty.”
“We have to look like royalty,” agrees Ellen.
I take down some notes on my laptop. Purple and red and silver and green. I’m struggling to see how those colors fit together, but if I’m honest, that’s the least contradictory thing that they’ve said to me so far. This is going to be a challenge. And it’s one I will rise to.
Of course I will. As usual, my reputation is at stake.
But knowing that I will succeed doesn’t stop the nausea from grabbing me. Everything that they say is making me feel sick on the inside, and I can’t tell if it’s the lack of sleep or the anxiety over making all this work.
We hit another pause, and I see my opportunity. “Excuse me for a minute. I have to use the ladies’ room.”
Ellen looks at me as if to say, how dare you have a natural bodily function? But I need a moment alone to take a breath or else I am going to vomit all over this expensive carpet.
I step into the restroom, and I’m met with a huge, polished mirror showing me a reflection of myself. I look pale and unwell, and even when I try to smile at myself, it looks fake. Why is this so hard? It must be the sleeplessness.
I splash some cold water on my face and take some deep breaths, willing the sickness of my stomach to go away. It resists, but eventually I’ve taken enough breaths to make it fade, and I take a final shaky one to steel myself for going back out there. I know for a fact that people like this love the sound of their own voices, so it’s going to be more hours yet.
I can do this. This is my life. I can put Mullen Falls behind me. Why is it so hard to let that damn place go?