Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Nate wasn’t in the greatest mood as he walked back to Married in Malibu.
Although he truly did believe that his friendship with Tamara was too important to risk, he was unpleasantly surprised to learn just how okay she was with staying in the friend zone.
He’d never gone from hot kiss to done so quickly before. The disappointment was palpable.
Kate was outside in the garden, as always, weeding. She was wearing a broad sunhat and gardening gloves, and a navy-and-white-striped T-shirt in her typical French style.
She smiled as Nate approached. She yanked out a dandelion weed with surprising force, then said, “You must be excited about the wedding. The livestreaming sounds like a fun challenge.”
He nodded. “It’ll be so great to work with Zach Jarrs and a honor, really, to make his digital wedding dreams a reality.”
Though Nate and Kate couldn’t have more different jobs, they’d found common ground on several projects.
Nate had set up an automatic ordering system for the flowers she most often needed so she could spend more time in the garden and less sitting behind a computer.
And when he’d needed to film the garden to showcase it on the Married in Malibu website, she’d made sure he went out at the perfect time of day for the lighting to look just right.
She’d even directed him to the most beautiful clusters of flowering plants on the property.
Kate nodded. “I’m excited about combining the Japanese and Western elements for their wedding,” she told him. “There’s a long tradition of bringing Japanese plants, flowers, and trees to North America, like the Japanese maple we have near the lily pond in the back.”
“That’s one of my favorite trees on the property,” he said with a smile.
Though Kate was always friendly, she didn’t normally chat this much. He couldn’t help but think something was on her mind, which she confirmed a moment later when she said, “I keep thinking how weird it is that it’s just you and me left now that everyone else here has paired up.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing this morning during the meeting.”
“Even Tamara seemed a little dreamy when I was over at her café getting tea this morning,” Kate noted. “Has she said anything to you about a new guy?”
Nate swallowed. “Tamara? A new guy?” He shook his head so hard that his neck twinged. “No, I haven’t heard anything about her kissing anyone.”
Kate frowned. “Wait… Who said anything about kissing?”
Nate silently cursed his accidental reference to their kiss. Thankfully, Liz appeared and came to his rescue.
“Nate, there you are, just in time!” Liz normally looked the epitome of the calm professional. Now, however, she looked seriously stressed as she hurried over to him.
“Is something wrong?” Nate asked.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Liz said, “but Zach Jarrs just messaged me to ask if we could have a Zoom meeting about certain aspects of the wedding. He wants to talk now, and I’m guessing a man like him doesn’t always have a lot of free time.”
In fact, none of their clients had much free time, but Nate suspected that for Zach Jarrs the problem would be twice as bad.
Apart from operating in multiple time zones, Nate knew what tech startups were like.
Zach’s life would probably involve meeting after meeting, call after call, missing lunch and suddenly finding it was midnight.
Married in Malibu couldn’t afford to risk its reputation by not being available when he wanted to talk.
It was probably just as well he’d made a hasty exit from Tamara’s shop.
He’d probably be declaring his passion for her right now and making an ass of himself.
“I have another appointment soon, so it needs to be now,” Liz added. She always seemed to have a next appointment, whether she was trying to set up new clients or talking with suppliers. It was probably one of the things that made it possible for Married in Malibu to continue to run so smoothly.
“And you want me in on the meeting?” Nate asked.
Liz nodded. “Yes, please. I’ll set up a meeting with Yuriko to gather most of the details, but the technical side of things needs an expert. He’s not going to be impressed if no one on the call understands what he’s talking about.”
Nate nodded. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”
It was a good thing to have something like this to deal with right now.
He had a job to do, and his friends were relying on him to do it well.
The others had all had big moments in some of the previous weddings.
Now this was his chance to shine. Or at least remind everyone there was a reason he belonged on the team.
So, he needed to focus on work, and if he could throw himself into it, then maybe he could get Tamara out of his head, and everything could go back to normal. It was just a question of time.
He followed Liz into Married in Malibu, waving bye to Kate.
He began to think through the kind of technical considerations that would be required when trying to broadcast a wedding over the Internet.
Bandwidth would be a big part of it, and they needed to get enough servers involved to handle the demand.
Then there would be issues of frame rate, pixilation… His mind began to work overtime.
They went up to Liz’s office and placed the call. A day or two ago, this meeting would have felt like something out of a fantasy. Now, he was actually going to talk with Zach Jarrs himself. He had to concentrate.
Soon, Zach Jarrs appeared on the screen, and both the video and audio were pretty flawless.
He was in his forties now, but he still had a youthful look about him.
In fact, he looked as if he’d only recently left college.
A slight thinning of his hair told the truth, and that hair was artfully out of place, as though he hadn’t thought about it in a while. He immediately smiled at Liz and Nate.
“Hi, you must be Liz,” he said. “I’m Zach. It’s good to speak with you face-to-face… well, more or less. And you must be Nathan Waterson.”
He’d obviously looked at Married in Malibu’s website. Nate found himself wondering how much else he knew about them. Probably nothing. Zach Jarrs was too busy to concern himself with that kind of thing.
“Nate’s here to help with the technical details of the wedding arrangements,” Liz said, gesturing to Nate in a way that reminded him of a game show host unveiling a prize.
That brought another smile. “That’s good to hear. As you can imagine, Yuriko and I are looking forward to making this a very special day for us, for our families, and for the people around the world who have helped to make my technologies so successful.”
“With that in mind,” Liz said, “the more you can tell us about what you need, the better we’ll be able to make sure we can provide it for you.”
“Well, some of this is Yuriko’s department,” Zach said.
“I’m sorry she can’t be here for this call, but she has a TV appearance.
I know she’s looking forward to chatting with you.
But, basically, we’re looking for a real fusion of styles for the wedding.
A meeting of our worlds and our cultures, but without anything feeling forced or out of place.
We want it to feel as natural as it was when I finally asked her to marry me. ”
“When you finally asked her?” Nate asked.
That brought a nod from the businessman, although Nate was aware of Liz’s slight frown.
“That’s right,” Zach said. “I never thought I would fall in love. I guess I always assumed that I was just going to be this solitary guy, stuck behind a computer. Or maybe I never imagined I could find someone like Yuriko.” Just the way he said his fiancée’s name made his love feel tangible through the screen.
“The crazy thing is that we tried to fight it for so long. Finally, we realized that it was simply meant to be.”
“So,” Liz said, obviously trying to bring the conversation back to wedding details, and probably very aware that her next meeting was coming up, “how can we help you to make things the way you want them to be?”
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Zach said, “and Yuriko is my best friend as well as my fiancée. We want our wedding to reflect both of us—small and private for our friends and family, but big and open so that the world can see how much we love one another.”
This explained the reasoning behind their desire to broadcast the wedding. Nate should have been concentrating on the complexities of bringing that about, but instead there was one question that wouldn’t leave him alone. It nagged at the back of his skull, until he knew he had to ask.
“Why did you both fight it?” he asked.
This time, Liz’s look was unambiguous. It was a look that said she wanted to know what the heck he was doing and whether he was actually trying to lose them an important client. But Nate needed to know. He couldn’t let this conversation pass without getting an answer.
Zach laughed. “I like people who ask difficult questions. I believe most innovation comes from asking the right questions. If I tell you more about us, then you’ll see where we’re coming from for this wedding.”
Liz clearly looked relieved, and Nate was grateful for that. He didn’t want to ruin things here at Married in Malibu. He just needed to understand. Was he messing things up with Tamara by putting their friendship first?
“Yuriko and I met while I was over in Japan doing some work with their tech companies. We’d both had problems in previous relationships.
She’d had one relationship with a guy her parents thought would be perfect for her, but it ended up breaking down.
I’d had… Well, let’s just say I was never the most successful guy when it came to women.
And our families don’t exactly have the best histories when it comes to staying together. ”