Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Tessa
Iarrive at the first venue with my notebook clutched against my chest like a shield, still replaying the moment Eleanor called to confirm our "little girls' day" with a warmth I absolutely did not deserve. My palms are damp against the cover. I wipe them on my coat before anyone can notice.
Eleanor is already waiting in the foyer with Beth beside her, and the moment she spots me through the glass her face opens with delight.
She crosses the marble floor with her arms already opening, and I barely have time to brace before she folds me into a hug, all expensive floral perfume and easy affection, like this is the most natural thing in the world.
Margaret stands two steps behind her, watching me over Eleanor’s shoulder. I give her my best professional smile, the one assembled from excellent posture and controlled facial muscles.
She returns a single, deliberate nod.
Progress, I think, unless I have wildly misunderstood the standards by which Margaret Maddox evaluates human beings.
The venue coordinator appears with every visual marker of someone who has spent the morning herding expensive opinions from one room to another. Tall. Clipboard in hand. Headset on, but attention fully on us.
Eleanor immediately loops her arm through mine and says, “This is Tessa, my brother’s girlfriend." I shake the coordinator’s hand aiming for confidence. Even if behind my 'I have everything under control' smile, I have no idea what I'm doing.
The ceremony space opens ahead of us. High ceilings, stone archways, afternoon light falling through tall windows in long pale columns.
It is, objectively, stunning. Eleanor squeezes my arm and whispers, "Can you imagine?
" and I make a soft, appreciative sound instead of answering, because the honest answer is yes, I can, and that is exactly the problem.
I redirect my attention to the sight lines from the back row.
Eleanor falls into step beside me while the coordinator describes the floral installation options, and in the easy, sideways manner of someone who has been curious for a while but too polite to ask directly, she says, "So what is it you actually like about George?"
My heart performs a small, undignified lurch.
"He pays attention to things most people miss," I say, because it's the truest thing I know about him and it costs me nothing to admit it out loud.
Eleanor tilts her head at me. Her expression could mean I've given either the right answer or a deeply suspicious one. "He does," she agrees, quietly.
I exhale. I passed, I think. I file that away and keep walking.
The coordinator gestures toward the altar position and mentions something about the light being "particularly romantic at golden hour," and I catch Beth clasping both hands together and mouthing perfect at no one in particular, which makes me want to laugh loudly and inappropriately.
I press my lips together and look at my notebook.
Eleanor asks me three more questions about George, and the answers come easier than they should.
How surprised I was that he takes notes by hand.
The way he holds doors without making a ceremony of it.
The fact that he remembers details other people toss aside.
Every answer is true. That is what makes them dangerous.
There is no protective distance of invention between me and any of it.
Eleanor smiles wider with each one, and her smiles are doing quantifiable damage to my composure.
During a lull while the coordinator steps away to take a call, I drift toward the window and stand looking at the space at the front of the room.
I think, briefly, involuntarily, about what it would feel like to walk toward it.
I am, of course, picturing myself as a bridesmaid.
This is Eleanor's wedding. I am a professional.
That is the only reasonable interpretation.
George is standing at the front in the mental image.
I turn away from the window and ask Eleanor a very focused question about catering minimums.
She answers it and then says, lightly, "You must do a lot of this kind of thing at ERS," and I realize she is quietly, carefully trying to understand how I fit into her brother's life. The attention is gentle and entirely terrifying.
"I do help organize lots of high-profile events," I say, "but never as part of the bridal party."
***
The second venue visit, a few days later, is quieter.
There is more marble, stone columns, and the kind of grandeur that photographs beautifully and functions awkwardly.
I am watching the coordinator describe the ballroom layout when I notice the proposed dance floor position will form a complete barrier between the kitchen corridor and two of the primary guest tables.
The first-course service will be a slow-motion disaster.
"The server traffic would be completely blocked during the first course," I say, under my breath.
The coordinator stops mid-sentence.
Margaret, who has been a decorative and slightly terrifying presence since we arrived, turns and looks at me directly for the first time all day. She considers me for a moment with an expression I cannot entirely read.
"That's actually a very good point," she says, in a tone that makes clear she does not deploy that phrase carelessly.
I open my notebook and write down a note I do not remotely need, just to give my hands something to do.
A small, disproportionate warmth spreads across my chest. I recognize it as the professional equivalent of being given a gold star by someone who gives out very few.
Beth leans toward me during the coordinator's revised explanation and whispers, "She said that to me once, in 2017, and I still bring it up at Christmas," which tells me everything I need to know about the Maddox family hierarchy.
I press my smile into something more neutral and take a note I do not strictly need to take.
***
The formality dissolves entirely at the cake tasting, because sugar does that to people.
Beth has somehow already developed a rapport with the pastry chef and is requesting "just a small extra piece" of the lemon layer with the breezy confidence of a returning customer.
Eleanor cannot choose between the champagne elderflower and the salted caramel, and keeps looking at each of us in turn with an expression that is really asking for permission to want both.
Margaret tastes each option in precise sequence, setting her fork down between samples, offering assessments that are brief and unnervingly accurate.
My ERS brain wakes up before I can stop it. I start reading the room the way I do with clients, sorting reactions by instinct. Who needs options. Who needs permission. Who wants reassurance dressed up as decisiveness.
I point out that there is absolutely no law against different tiers having different flavors, and Eleanor looks at me as if I have solved something that has been quietly needling her for weeks.
She points her fork at me and announces to the table, “She thinks about everything,” and Margaret makes a small sound that might, in another family, count as open agreement.
At some point, somewhere between the vanilla bean and the dark chocolate raspberry, Eleanor nudges my shoulder and says quietly, "I'm really glad George has you."
The sincerity in her voice is so uncomplicated, so entirely free of calculation, that it slips past every professional defense I have and lands somewhere soft and unwisely exposed.
I smile back at her and say, “He’s easy to be there for,” and hear the truth in it as I say it, clear and unsoftened.
I do not tell her that George does not technically have me.
Beth, magnificently oblivious to the emotional undercurrent, chooses that exact moment to declare the salted caramel "frankly life-changing" and request a second fork, which gives me just enough time to get myself back under control.
I look down at my notebook and breathe.
I do not need to think about George for the rest of the tasting.
I think about George approximately every four minutes for the rest of the tasting anyway.
***
The afternoon light is low and golden when we finally step outside, the kind of late-day warmth that makes everything look slightly more significant than it is. Eleanor stands on the pavement looking pleased with the world, her coat open, squinting happily into the light.
Margaret pauses beside me before getting into her car.
She does not look at me immediately. Instead, she studies the street as though the thought needs room to gather itself before she says it.
“George is very careful about the people he lets into his life.” Then she turns and looks at me in a way that makes it unmistakably clear this is meant as a compliment, and a considered one at that.
Before I can produce a single useful response, she is already in the car and gone.
I stand there for a moment with my notebook still in my hand, holding the faint and deeply unsettling warmth of being approved of by someone who does not strike me as easy to impress. I am exhausted. And that has nothing to do with the number of venues visited.
Almost everything I said today was genuine, and that, I decide, is the most dangerous kind of performance.
I flag down a cab, get in, and spend the entire ride home wondering how a logistical arrangement could possibly feel this much like something else.