Chapter Four
They may have known that pillows came in different shapes and styles, but they certainly didn’t care. And with their strict workout regimes, because good gosh they had abs for days, they deprive themselves of sugar.
She littered their place with continental pillows, bolster cushions, and decorative cushions in every shape, size and inners. She forced them to taste test quadruple chocolate brownies, peanut butter cups, macaroons and sweet tea, and helped them discover the joys of eating caramel popcorn with pickles. Then a turmeric shot now again for balance. She was basically showing them how to live a happy life.
“I can’t believe they did that, Alicia. Burn your scrapbook? What? The sexy, gorgeous, shits,” Holly exclaimed, outraged on Alicia’s behalf. Holly thought there were no men better looking than Cade, Eli, and Baxter and she had a boyfriend who was no slouch in terms of looks either. Alicia didn’t care either way.
Well, she cared a little when she bumped into near naked giggling women in the morning, grabbing cups of coffee Alicia had made and then bouncing back to their bedrooms.
Argh.
Although after the first month of her living there, they hadn’t brought their bed buddy’s home. They probably just did it in hotel rooms, or even in their offices, now. As if she were stupid or something and thought she assumed they’d turned into monks.
Her point was that Holly and the whole world’s female population thought of them as the cat’s whiskers where she thought of them as nothing but three heavy, burdensome, annoying unmovable obstacles she had to maneuver around to get through her day until she turned twenty-two in one hundred and sixty-four days.
Yes, she had a count-down spreadsheet for when she finally honored her dad’s wish to the fullest and moved out on her own on her twenty-second birthday.
“Triple the shits,” Alicia agreed. “But it’s all good. I realized I was thinking too small.” And now she would finally get to read her mom’s letter. She also didn’t mention the letter to Holly who she told everything to, but Alicia wanted it to be a secret just between her mom, her and the guy the universe was going to send her way.
“Too small?” Holly asked, almost hesitant.
“I needed something on a grander scale. Something completely and utterly life-changing. They gave me the idea, so I’ll definitively be crediting them in my scrapbook.”
“Alicia, you know I love you, but have you checked your status yet?”
Alicia’s stomach turned a little. She didn’t want to think about that right now, but she could see where Holly was going with this.
Because yes, that was the other thing. Like a good daughter, she’d applied to Harvard Law, ready to follow in her father’s footsteps. She just hadn’t worked up the courage to see whether she’d been accepted or not.
“I have not,” Alicia said, biting her lip.
“You know you got accepted, don’t you?” Holly asked with all the confidence in the world. “You’re a freaking genius.”
Getting accepted somehow wasn’t the problem.
“It doesn’t matter, because right now I’m getting married.”
“What?” Holly cried, her eyes widening to twice their size.
Alicia always fantasized like every other girl out there about her wedding, Prince Charming himself standing there and waiting for her, eager to make her his wife. Her mom had done the same when she married Alicia’s dad. They were so madly in love and that love reflected on Alicia too. Alicia and her mom had lots of conversations about a fairytale wedding.They look at dress designs, and flowers and her mom even went as far as sewing little miniature wedding gowns for Alicia’s dolls.
And now suddenly it was all Alicia wanted.
She always wanted a husband, four kids, three dogs, two cats, and a parrot called Pirate. And she wanted to read her mom’s letter to her, on her wedding day.
So manifesting marriage was not that far out of her wheelhouse of dreams.
“Holly, I present: Scrapbooking manifestation 2.0. The Marriage Clinch .”
Now that Alicia had spoken it out aloud: Scrapbooking manifestation 2.0. The Marriage Clinch , the idea, just got better and better.
While V Card Nixed had been a good one, she’d been looking for a one and done instance which would leave her essentially back at square one, sans her virginity.
What she needed was one man who could do it all. Take her virginity and be her husband. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?
She trusted that once she started scrapbooking her wedding, the venue, the flowers, the seating arrangements, the cake, her dress, her ring, the soundtrack, the universe would hand her a perfect husband. The only one requirement she made, and which would go into the scrapbook as well, was that his favorite book had to be Pride and Prejudice .
After hanging up with Holly yesterday, she finished cleaning up her room and was grateful to Alfred who brought her up a sandwich and a brownie as a peace offering. It had been the tall immaculately dressed housekeeper, who had ratted her out to Cade. Eli, and Baxter, but given the change of the events after his snitching on her, she could hardly be mad at him. Besides, he made the best sandwiches in the world.
She then spent the rest of evening combing through hundreds and hundreds of images all wedding related, and printed them all out, and stuck them into her new scrapbook, filling up page after page of the happy event that was coming soon to a wedding venue near her.
On her other laptop, her Harvard login page blinked insidiously at her. She ignored it and dived deeper into the creation of The Marriage Clinch .
It was then she came upon a vintage porcelain tea set that looked incredibly old but so precious that she just had to have it. It reminded her of something her mom had had, and she had no idea what happened to it. It would be part of trousseau, Alicia decided, and surely this kind of real-life manifestation could only aid in the universe sending her what she wanted.
Now, showered and dressed in a summer dress and heels, she grabbed her handbag, keys and sunglasses and rushed out the door, the address of the warehouse style store where they sold both second-hand and newly manufactured crockery, saved in her phone’s GPS. She just needed to fill her thermos cup with coffee in the kitchen, then she was out the door.
With her meticulous planning. there was no room for her to get lost and she arrived at her destination right on time. The obscure warehouse, located in the busiest part of town, with no designated parking space, made finding anywhere to park even harder. And while she was a diligent planner, she wasn’t exactly a rule follower, which meant she wasn’t adverse to taking huge risks to see her plans through.
She made a quick decision to park her car in a no-parking zone. She was going to be no longer than ten minutes. She’d already spoken to a person at the warehouse, so the tea set Alicia wanted was already packed and waiting for her. All she had to do was swipe her card, and she’d be off again.
Except her universe seemed keen to play a really hard and painful trick on her… head.