Chapter 3
Chapter three
Izzy
“Now that both your sisters are engaged or married, are you going to start thinking about dating more seriously?” my mom asks as I help her put together a charcuterie board for the family to munch on before dinner.
“Oh, don’t worry, Mom,” I say. “I went deep down a rabbit hole about getting a mail-order husband. He should be here in time to be my date for Bryn’s wedding.”
Ever since Jameson proposed to my younger sister, Bryn, a few weeks ago, my dating life has become everyone's favorite conversation topic.
Especially since my older sister, Kelsey, shocked us all last year by returning from a work trip with a boyfriend who quickly became a husband.
So now, with one sister married and the other sporting a diamond the size of a peanut butter M&M, everyone’s focused on my love life.
I, in turn, have made it my mission to make them as uncomfortable as possible with my answers when they start to pry into my nonexistent love life.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” my dad says, grabbing a piece of salami off the wooden board in front of me.
“Maybe you’ll finally have one son-in-law you can be proud of,” I offer. “One out of three isn’t terrible.”
“It’s about time,” my dad teases. “I mean, did you see Jameson’s golf tournament last weekend when he missed that putt for eagle on hole eighteen?”
Because, yes, my younger sister is about to marry a professional athlete—not a high bar or anything.
“I hope you told him not to come to dinner tonight,” I say.
“I’ve actually banned him from all family events.”
I catch my mom’s eye roll as she mashes avocados for the guacamole.
“Who are we banning from dinner?” my older sister, Kelsey, asks as she walks into the house.
“Jameo,” Dad and I reply at the same time.
Kelsey laughs. “Because of that putt on eighteen?”
“Obviously,” I reply. “What a schmuck. Out there ruining the family name.”
“To be fair to him,” Kelsey’s husband, Carter, says, “he did still win a major golf tournament.”
“Ew. We’re not being fair to him,” I say as I sit at the island to chat. Now that Kelsey’s here, she’ll help Mom with the cooking. Which is for the best. I somehow manage to mess up frying eggs regularly.
“Speaking of wildly successful people we’re pretending are normal, how’s security for the comedian’s tour going?” I ask my sister and brother-in-law.
“It’s crazy how much different it is from Jaxon’s tour last year, but it’s been a lot of fun,” Carter replies.
“Far fewer stalkers,” my sister adds.
Carter nods. “But also a lot more protesters.”
I turn to face Kelsey. “So you let Carter deal with the protesters since he’s better at dealing with other people than you are?”
“I just choose not to deal with them. I’d be fantastic at it if I did.”
“Sure,” I reply. “And Becca’s the one on our team who’s client-facing because that’s what I chose, not because we’re both worried I’d tell the client they’re being a complete dumbass.”
“Isabel,” my mother chides.
“I just call it how I see it,” I say. I also have a healthy dose of undiagnosed social anxiety, which means any meeting with a stranger sends me into a spiral for a solid twenty-four to forty-eight hours beforehand—but that’s beside the point.
“Plus, Becca is the most likable person anyone has ever met, so it’s really just playing to our strengths. I make a mean spreadsheet.”
“Oh, have you started using macros like I suggested?” Kelsey asks, once again interested in the conversation.
“Not exactly,” I hedge. I know I could learn macros, and it would maybe make things a bit easier, but for the work Becca and I do consulting companies on how to improve their operations, it’s not as necessary as Kelsey seems to think it is.
Last week, she and Bryn spent twenty minutes surrounding my desk, offering ideas about how to improve the spreadsheet on my screen—the one I’d already sent to our client. So, that was cool. A real confidence boost.
“Hey, everybody,” Bryn says as she and Jameson walk through the front door.
Thank goodness. Saved by the engaged couple—never thought I’d say that.
“Hey, B,” I say. “How’s wedding planning going?”
It’s a surefire way to change the subject.
I care a lot about my sister and her happiness, but we’re not that far into this engagement, and I’m already tired of hearing my mom discuss the pros and cons of various flowers. I suggested fake flowers, and I swear to God, my mom almost cried. There was a tear.
Mom then promptly asked me to go check on my dad—the dismissal was not subtle. The only benefit was that, as I headed downstairs to my dad’s man-cave, I could see the desperate pleading in Bryn’s eyes not to leave her alone with MOB-zilla.
No such luck.
And, if I have to hear about my unattached relationship status at a higher frequency now because of her life decisions, the least Bryn can do is suffer through our very well-meaning mother’s thoughts about her wedding.
“Great, actually,” Bryn says, surprising us all. “Tell them the plan, Jameo.”
“Oh shit,” I tease. “I think this is a test to make sure you were paying attention. Don’t mess up.”
Jameson flashes me a conspiratorial smile before saying, “Wedding in eight weeks at Wild Bluffs Country Club. Invitations go out at the end of this week. Jen and Ken, you have until then to get your guest list to Cathy. She’s going to be running point on coordinating with our wedding planner.”
Bryn adds, “We decided that instead of stressing ourselves out about everything, we’re just going to outsource it all.”
“Solid choice,” Kelsey says. “Wedding planning is the worst.”
“We barely had a month to plan your wedding,” my mom replies.
Kelsey takes a piece of cheese from the board in front of her.
“And I was particularly glad it wasn’t longer.
No one cares about centerpieces, but you have to have centerpieces, so someone has to decide what they will be, and turns out, that person is the bride.
So suddenly, you care about something you don’t care about.
And don’t even get me started on charger plates.
Why do those only exist when you start planning a wedding? ”
“Exactly,” Bryn agrees. “So now it’s Cathy and the wedding planner’s job to care. I sent them ten vibe pictures from the internet, and they’re on their own from here.”
“And we gave some direction on the reception,” Jameson cuts in.
“Sure,” Bryn agrees. “We told them we want the full bar open and for them not to run out of your favorite whiskey.”
“Exactly,” Jameson says, sending her a smile that makes my chest ache. “And, as long as you’re the woman at the end of the aisle, that’s all that matters to me.”
At that moment, a text comes through from my phone, and I stare down at a list of dates and times, all from an unknown number, confused.
“Oh!” Bryn says, looking at her phone as well. “That’s Cathy. She’s coordinating wedding dress shopping, bridesmaid dress fittings, and the bachelor and bachelorette party.”
Kelsey lifts an eyebrow. “But these aren’t date options, they’re just dates we’re doing those things.”
“You’re both your own bosses! I have a couple of work trips in the next few weeks, so I asked her to plan around those.”
“I’m sure I can make them work,” I say, mentally shuffling my to-do list so I can make sure I don’t fall behind on my work. Just because I don’t have a boss telling me what to do doesn’t mean I don’t have timelines to meet.
“We’ll see how it times out with my work schedule,” Kelsey replies.
Wow. How does Kelsey manage to agree without making it sound like she’s willing to adjust her full schedule to accommodate a list of dates in a text? I should be taking notes.
“Great,” Bryn replies. “Bachelor and bachelorette party will be at Wild Bluffs Country Club. Annie is working on getting rooms and a dinner reservation and everything since it’s coming up soon. I’ll get you two a list of my friends to invite.”
“Oh, are you just assuming we’ll be your bridesmaids?” Kelsey asks.
“Yeah. Keeping the bridesmaids to just family, so you two and Lila,” Bryn replies.
As Jameson’s sister, it makes sense Lila would be included too.
“The groomsmen will be Carter, JT, and Conrad Ferguson,” Bryn continues.
Carter, who’s Bryn’s brother-in-law already, and JT Johnson, a professional golfer friend of Jameson who’s now dating his sister, Lila, make perfect sense, but Conrad?
“Your boss is going to be a groomsman?” I ask Bryn skeptically.
“He was Jameson’s friend long before I started working for him,” she says with a shrug. “We spend a lot of time socially with him now. We’ve figured out the friends and employee thing. Plus, it’s not like you have a boyfriend or husband we could ask to be the third.”
Okay, rude. I expected comments like that from my mom, but my sisters have always been on the same page as me about dating and getting married: great if it happens, also great if it doesn’t.
“Until my mail-order husband arrives,” I say.
“Just make sure you get the version that comes with a tux,” Bryn teases.
“It was an extra twenty-dollar upcharge, but really, what good is a husband if he doesn’t have a tuxedo?” I ask. “It feels like it should be part of the standard package.”
“Speaking of Conrad,” Jameson cuts in, clearly familiar enough with Bryn and me to know that when we get on a roll like that, there’s no stopping us until we’re on the floor laughing, everyone around us completely forgotten.
“We had dinner with him the other night, and he was raving about how Bryn closed a deal a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, she had them eating out of the palm of her hand during the meeting. Even Conrad was impressed with her skills, and he’s about the best in the business at winning people over. ”
“That’s amazing, honey,” my dad tells Bryn.
“Thanks, Dad.” Bryn leans in to him to hug him. “After everything with Hungry Guy, it’s nice to not only have a job I’m good at but also be appreciated for it.”
“And you deserve it.”
My mom announces dinner is ready just as Carter’s mom, who joins us most weeks for family dinner, arrives with JT and Lila. We all find seats around the table, the one that’s now twice as big as it used to be to accommodate our growing family.
I look around at my sisters and their significant others, plus the new family members that they bring along with them, and my chest tightens, a low ache settling in.
Finding someone to spend my life with has always been something I thought would happen when the time was right.
I wasn’t interested in pushing it, tying my life to someone’s just to be married, but I was also a relationship kind of woman.
All through my twenties, I had long-term relationships with nice guys who could’ve been the one—they just… weren’t.
Though now that I think about it, it’s been a few years since I even went on a date. I definitely haven’t since I turned thirty. Which…was three years ago now. Shit. How did I lose track of the fact that it’s been three years since I last went on a date?
Not a problem. This wedding will be the perfect motivation to start looking again.
A date for the wedding. That’s all I need.