3. Chapter Three Lucy
Chapter Three: Lucy
“ L ucille Annabeth Montgomery, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you don’t trust me to do my job well enough. Never mind that I’ve been in business for longer than you’ve been alive, young lady.”
I give Mrs. Whitten, owner and operator of Shoreside Flower Shop for the past thirty years, my most angelic smile.
“Not at all,” I assure her. “I like to double-check things, just in case. You know how it is.”
She laughs, her short gray bob swaying as she tosses her head back. “Double-check? More like triple-check. Can’t blame you, though, dear. I know you want to make sure Josieandelijah’s wedding is perfect.”
I grin at the older woman. That’s how all the locals know Josie and Elijah. Not as two separate beings, but as a single unit that’s destined to stay together forever and ever. Even during the years when Elijah lived in California and their romance was nothing but a shared memory, a lot of people in Mermaid Shores struggled to get used to the idea of just Josie. I know that bothered her sometimes, but she’s certainly not wasting her worries on it anymore.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answer. “So, the lilacs…”
“The lilacs will be trimmed the morning of to make sure they’re fresh and fragrant,” Mrs. Whitten assures me. “And before you ask, yes , Mr. Linden already confirmed that the wisteria in the manor’s conservatory is blooming beautifully. Mostly white, with hints of mauve.”
I nod. “And the peonies for her bouquet?”
“They’ll be pink and fluffy, just as they should be.”
Josie’s color scheme is unique, but definitely pretty. It’s mostly white, of course, but with strategic pops of pastel blue, soft lavender, and the barest touch of delicate pink. She couldn’t decide on a simple two-color combination, so we opted for a more complex spectrum that reminds me of the summer sky at dawn.
I sigh wistfully as I imagine how amazing it’s going to look in just three days’ time.
Three days. I have so much to do.
“You’re the best, Mrs. Whitten, but I’ve really got to get going. I need to confirm that Gigi managed to get all the final ingredients needed for the reception dinner menu.”
The florist snorts. “So, you’re on a mission to harass all of us diligent, hardworking businesswomen today, huh?”
“The business men , too. I need to make sure Mr. Dechaine has the Mercedes ready.”
Mayor Dechaine’s father was kind enough to volunteer his vintage white convertible for Josie and Elijah to make a very stylish getaway in at the end of the reception. He’s a collector of classic cars, and he occasionally rents them out. Not for joy rides, but for things like photoshoots or locally produced movies, which happens a lot more often than one might imagine. Luckily, he’s a huge fan of the town’s beloved Josieandelijah, so we got a discount.
“Oh, don’t you worry. I saw him scrubbing down that pretty little car earlier this morning when I drove by.” Mrs. Whitten chuckles and winks at me. “But I’m sure you’d rather see it with your own eyes.”
I flutter my eyelashes innocently. “You know me too well.”
“You’ve always been such a lovely, smart lady, Lucy. I always knew you Montgomery girls would do something great. And I’m sure Josie is going to give just as much effort and attention to detail to your wedding one day.”
At that last comment, my smile wavers ever so slightly. Mrs. Whitten doesn’t seem to notice, being too busy fussing over a stem of foxglove.
It’s not that I’m anti-marriage. Obviously not. I’m the co-owner of an event management company, and a lot of the events we manage are, in fact, weddings. It’d be a weird career path for me to follow if I didn’t like them.
Still, even though it’s been so much fun to plan Josie’s wedding, I have a hard time imagining any of this stuff happening for me someday. After all, don’t you typically have to be in love with someone to want to get married?
Falling in love sounds like more trouble than it’s worth, if I’m being completely honest. I mean, maybe I’ll get around to it someday, and then Josie can plan my wedding when I’m well into my forties or whatever, but for now…
For now, the thought of having a wedding of my own sounds like something out of an alternate reality.
Instead of admitting any of that out loud to Mrs. Whitten, I let out an easy laugh and say, “Yeah, maybe someday.”
“Indeed. Now, don’t you dare worry about these flowers. If I see you marching in here one more time in the next three days to micromanage me—”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs. Whitten,” I promise her, offering her my brightest smile. “I know you’ve got everything under control.”
She tuts her tongue, but there’s a twinkle of humor in her eyes.
“Bye!” I chirp, twirling away toward the exit.
“Bye-bye, dear.”
I tug my phone out of my back pocket as I push open the door, eager to see if Gigi Lee, owner of the local catering company, is available for me to stop by now. It’d be ideal if I could finish all of these errands by noon so that I can spend the rest of the day putting the final touches on the favors for the guests. The wedding has a fairly large guest list—about two hundred people—which means that I need to tie about two hundred white ribbons around two hundred tiny pots of local organic honey.
And then, of course, I have to adorn two hundred sachets of lavender tea and two hundred individually wrapped lemon cookies with personalized J not even once. As if I’m just some random, unimportant woman he’s never seen before.
As if he doesn’t recognize me.
That can’t be true. I haven’t changed that much since I was sixteen. I mean, yeah, I finally coaxed some curves out of my previously stick-thin and flat-chested body. Also, I definitely take better care of my hair now, so it’s not as frizzy as it used to be, but it’s still the same color as always. The same caramel brown waves that I inherited from my mother. And my eyes are still the same color, obviously—a brown so dark that it’s nearly the same color as my iris. Just like Josie’s eyes, and our fathers’ eyes, too. Montgomery eyes: black as the night , they used to joke.
It’s not like I shaved my head or dyed my hair blue or started using color contacts. Or like I got a bunch of tattoos and piercings.
I shouldn’t be unrecognizable. Not to him , at least.
Or maybe the fact of the matter is that he never paid nearly as much attention to me as I paid to him. Which is tragically pathetic of me.
I sigh heavily and look down at my phone again, only to have my attention dragged away from it yet again by a voice calling to me from the opposite direction of where Theo had just disappeared.
“Lucy? It’s Lucy, right? Oh my goodness, it’s you! I swore I recognized you, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to make a total fool of myself.”
I glance up, confused by the unfamiliar voice. I see a handsome, muscular guy with black hair and twinkly eyes heading toward me with a wide smile on his face. A hazy memory resurfaces, but he must see the vagueness in my expression, because he laughs and does me the favor of introducing himself.
“It’s Eric Kendall,” he says, pausing a couple feet in front of me. “Do you remember me?”
Just like that, the recognition kicks into high gear. Right. Of course. Eric Kendall. He’s way more muscle-y than he used to be, but I know those eyes and that laugh. His family summered here one year a while ago when I was in high school. We became… acquainted.
And by that, I mean that Eric Kendall was my first kiss.
Stranger still, that was the same summer I met Theo.
I glance back over my shoulder toward the private beachside lane, but Theo is nowhere to be seen. When I turn my focus back to Eric, he’s still grinning expectantly.
“Wow,” I blurt out. “Hi. Yes, of course, I remember. It’s been ages! What are you doing here?”
“I came here to confess my undying love for you, obviously. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for the past decade.”
I snort. That’s right. Eric was a real jokester. Hardly ever took anything seriously. I liked that about him.
“How gallant,” I remark. “I’m surprised you recognize me.”
“Are you kidding? How could I not? You’ve always been stunning, Lucy. I could never forget that.”
That sort of comment might sound a little too flirtatious coming from anyone else, but I know that Eric is mostly kidding. Josie used to say the way he talks is superfluous .
“Oh, don’t flatter me.” I sigh, waving him off. “I’m too busy for it at the moment.”
Eric places a hand over his heart as if I’ve wounded him, but he’s still smiling in that easygoing way of his.
“Too busy to grab a drink and catch up with the boy you shared your first kiss with?”
At that, I have to laugh. It’s just so ridiculous and dramatic, and I’m also oddly giddy from his confirmation that I am, in fact, highly recognizable even as a twenty-eight-year-old. Take that, Theo Danvers.
“I seem to remember you not only gave me my first kiss, but also a bad case of mono.”
After kissing Eric, I was sick for the rest of the summer and just barely recovered in time to start eleventh grade. Josie got sick, too. Which meant that Elijah also got sick. It was a whole fiasco that way too many people in town knew about.
Not that I was all that furious at Eric for it. It was a total accident. After all, he didn’t even realize he was sick when he gave it to me. He just happened to share a drink with his older sister earlier that day, and Natalie Kendall was most definitely kissing more than a few people during her brief time in Mermaid Shores, so it’s safe to land the blame primarily on her shoulders.
In fact, me and Eric kept in touch for a while after that summer. We were friends on Facebook. Then, a couple of years later when I was at Boston University, he came down to the city from Dartmouth for the weekend and stopped by a house party I was at. We shared a drink, but then I was dragged away by my friends, and our sort-of friendship fizzled out naturally after that. No hard feelings, just different lives on different tracks.
Which is why I’m desperately curious about how we’ve found ourselves back on the same track again.
All three of us—Theo included.