Chapter 1 #3
I pulled the top bundle and checked the heading on the first program.
The ink had dried clean, no smudging, no bleeding.
The kerning between the ‘C’ and the ‘e’ in Celia sat exactly right.
I'd been doing this long enough that I didn't need to check.
My hands knew the spacing, my eye caught errors before they happened.
I checked anyway, because checking is the difference between good work and perfect work, and I don't deliver anything less than perfect.
Another cramp.
This one held longer, maybe five or six seconds, in the same place and with more force. It still wasn't painful, and I could breathe through it and explain it away.
I had a week. I'd been pushing my heat back three weeks, suppressants on schedule, monitored for efficacy, and the system said a week left before they tipped from effective to making me sick. Not today. Not this cramp. I'd done this before. I knew the math, and the math had never once betrayed me.
I shouldered the bag, the bundles settling against my hip. I could carry them. I'd hauled heavier. Years of other people's ‘forever’s, and I'd never once dropped one.
The ballroom sat two corridors over, just far enough out of my way that I could sneak a look without running into Celia's two betas, her alpha, or Marshall.
I knew the route from the rehearsal dinner, when I'd spent most of the night at a corner table proofing place cards by phone light while Celia's relatives told stories about people I'd never met.
Now I wanted to see it. The place where Celia would toast and the cake would be cut, where somebody's grandfather would make a speech that embarrassed everyone who shared his last name.
The part of the day that wasn't my responsibility.
The part I could walk through and appreciate without fixing anything.
The ballroom doors stood open a crack, wide enough to slip through, probably left ajar by the florist, the caterer, or anyone running back for a forgotten thing. I pushed one wider with my hip and stepped in, and for a moment I just stood there, basking.
The tables were set. Round, eight or ten seats each, draped in champagne linen that fell all the way to the carpet.
Gold chairs, some with white bows, some bare.
Every setting had a charger, a menu, a place card, and a sweep of stemware that caught the pendant light.
The place cards were mine, designed by hand and delivered yesterday.
The menus were a masterpiece. The header was clean.
I'd checked it three times before the files went to the printer, and I checked it again now.
I drifted to the nearest table and ran a finger along the edge of a menu. The paper was still crisp, the ink dried perfectly, as it should have. I'd finished these three weeks ago, before the suppressants started a faint tremor in my hands in the mornings.
The centerpieces were tall, built to lift the eye: slim stands topped with spheres of pink and white roses, pale greenery threaded through, the whole thing airy and abundant.
At the base of each, low vessels held smaller arrangements: hydrangea, more roses, something white I couldn't name.
The flowers were fresh. I could smell them from the doorway, that green-sweet pollen note that clings to everything in a room full of arrangements.
The bar ran along the far wall. My cocktail sign sat on the counter in a little acrylic stand:
Celia's Signature Spritz
It was in my best formal script, ingredients beneath in a lighter weight. The sign wasn't complicated but I'd still spent an hour making the lettering feel like Celia, warm and direct with a little play in the curves. The ‘C’ had a flourish I'd redone four times before it satisfied me.
The guest book table sat near the entrance. My sign there was smaller, a folded card tent:
Please leave a note for the newlyweds
Same script, a stack of blank cards and a pen beside it. I'd made the cards myself, offcuts from the invitation suite trimmed to postcard size, a thin gold border. Someone had already left one. I could see its edge poking out of the card box, blue ink, and I made myself not read it.
The gift table sat empty, waiting.
I did a lap, the slow circuit I run before every event, checking for anything out of place. A place card at table seven sat a little crooked. I straightened it. Everything else was exactly where it belonged.
I checked my watch. Forty-five minutes to the ceremony. Enough to get the programs to the rooftop, drop my bag in my room, top off with one more dose of suppressant, and make it back to the bridal suite with ten minutes to spare.
The ballroom was perfect. I'd done my job.
Flowers arranged, tables set, signs in place, and in two hours this room would fill with love, joy, and whatever chaos this many relatives generate in one space.
Not my problem. My problem was the programs in my bag, the elevator at the end of the hall, and the open-air ceremony on the roof where my best friend was about to marry the four people who looked at her like she'd invented light.