Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Monday morning meeting, all hands, 9:30 a.m.
Nessa
At least she hadn't slept with an actual priest.
Nessa knew enough about various religions to understand that Protestant ministers could marry and have kids. Catholic priests couldn’t. Rabbis and imams could. Unitarian Universalists confused her a bit, because they weren’t quite Protestants, and they believed in Jesus... sort of.
Some of them did, at least, so some of them were Christian Universalists, some were Buddhitarians, there were Jewnitarians, and – the more she researched it, the more whole religion struck her as being surprisingly messy.
Messy was what she was trying to avoid.
Pulling up a browser on her phone, she hid her screen from prying eyes and typed, Do Unitarian ministers take vows of celibacy?
Convinced she was being silly, she couldn’t help herself. She had to make sure.
Two minutes of scanning results made it clear: nope. She hadn’t helped Matt commit a mortal sin. Whew. They may have done things in bed that violated the law in a few conservative states, but no vows were broken.
Her colleague Ashanti's inspiration this morning had evidently been Teddy, Kari's toddler son. Teddy spent two mornings a week in the office, until his dad, Caleb, picked him up at noon. So the sideboard in the conference room held a platter of small pancakes in the shape of hearts, with maple dipping sauce; clusters of sweet red grapes, to be cut in half for Teddy; and for the protein crowd, ceramic cups with baked eggs. A highchair was pulled up to one end of the table.
Teddy had a naturally sweet disposition, but it didn't hurt that his time in the Wedding Protectors office was spent with a group of adults who adored him. There was never a lack of arms to hold him, voices to read to him, playmates to build towers of blocks for him to knock down. Ashanti's pantry stock now included applesauce pouches, mozzarella sticks, and a jar of home-baked animal crackers made from all organic ingredients.
Nessa found Teddy to be cute and charming but as exotic as a baby leopard at the zoo. When he was an infant, she had been afraid of doing the wrong thing and possibly breaking him. Now that he was a toddler, he was predictably unpredictable: Would he play quietly with a toy truck or race unsteadily up and down the hall? Laugh when he was tickled or squirm away?
And then there was the mess factor–you picked him up at your peril, and your cubicle did not look the same after he'd visited.
She wanted to be Auntie Nessa, but he made her nervous.
So when she entered the conference room, she wiggled her fingers at him in his chair, then chose a seat at the other end of the table. The rest of the staff drifted in, pouring coffee, filling plates, tapping iPads.
"Good morning!" Katie began.
"Mormin!" Teddy responded cheerfully. Nessa could see both Caleb and Kari in him, and she felt a fluttering inside her. Did her mom and dad feel this way when they looked at her?
"Before we look at what's coming up, let's have a quick review of Nessa's event on Saturday. I understand there were a couple of issues–including a broken bone–but I have emails from both the bride and her parents raving about Nessa's handling of the situations. Supported by Ranney, of course. Great work on the poisonous plant and the dog."
Big smiles all around. Picking up on the vibe, Teddy clapped his chubby hands. “YAY!” he squealed.
Nessa cleared her throat, learning to debrief with more finesse, working on speaking with confidence. "It was really nothing too challenging. The mother of the bride did break her ankle, but that was basically just a 911 call. The, uh, minister had some first aid training, so that helped with triage. And the dog ate a poisonous leaf before that, so Ranney took her to the animal hospital. She was fine, too–the dog, I mean. That was all at the rehearsal–the actual wedding went according to plan, except for the wheelchair for Mrs. Barr. We had to figure that out at the last minute, but Lesley helped."
At work, Nessa always called her mother Ranney. Mom was just too weird, and impossible in front of clients. She slipped once in a while, though not today.
“Excellent,” Katie replied. “Rough rehearsal, but smooth sailing on the wedding itself.”
“Yes. I do want to add that we might want to consider having security at rehearsals, in the future,” Nessa said, which made Archie perk up, then look at Katie with a defiant expression.
“I’ve been saying that for years,” he declared, ending his sentence with a harumph.
“Really?” Kari asked Nessa. “Why?”
“We could have used some help. Between the dog poisoning mess and the bride’s mom breaking her ankle, if there had been a stalker, we might have been vulnerable.”
Katie made a face. “That’s what pre-screening is for. The Barr-Hopper wedding intake showed no issues in terms of security.”
“Just the name,” Nilly snickered, earning smothered grins from the rest of the staff.
“Just a thought,” Nessa added nervously, now wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
“A very, very good thought,” Archie chipped in.
Kari and Katie exchanged a look, then Kari said, “We’ll take it under consideration.” She slid Teddy a pile of Cheerios, which he began munching on happily, one sticking to his chin.
"I just want to say," Ranney spoke up, "that Nessa did a great job–and I'm not saying that because I'm her mother. It was an objectively great job. Cool as a cucumber, during medical and fashion emergencies."
Nessa cringed silently. Of course you're saying it because you're my mother.
"I heard that the minister was God's Gift!" Nilly could barely contain herself, fluffing her black curls. "He finally did one of our weddings! What is he like?"
Ranney’s eyes narrowed with amusement. "I hardly recognized him. He didn't look much like the videos. He looked like a minister, I guess, except younger and handsomer. Right, Ness? What did you think?"
"I didn't notice anything special about him," Nessa answered, looking down at her iPad. "You know. Minister. Nice guy. But I was busy.” She tapped and brought up an app. “Look, the first casual photos have been posted by Emily."
"Send me the link, please," Katie said. "I do want to say, with everyone here, that these emails from the Barrs were really gratifying for Kari and me to read. It has been a pleasure to watch you grow into such a competent and totally professional project manager, Nessa. I have yet to see the situation, no matter how awkward or surprising, that you could not handle."
I can show you an awkward and surprising situation that I can't handle, Nessa thought. On Instagram. And TikTok. And YouTube. He’s hot and muscled and popular and oh, yeah, he’s definitely not celibate anymore.
Katie's praise for her professionalism made her want to drop through the floor in embarrassment. If they only knew.
"Totally agree, Ness," Kari added. "You do us proud." Then she giggled. "At least God's Gift said all the right words. Remember the young priest–it was his first wedding–instead of 'lawful wife,' he said 'awful wife'?"
She was laughing so hard, Katie had to fill in the rest: "And the poor groom just repeated it the way he said it? 'I take you, Belinda, to be my awful wife…'"
"What about the minister who led the ChaCha Slide all around the dance floor and out the front door into the parking lot?" Candace–their photographer–contributed. "I got some great shots of that."
"Dance! Teddy dance!" Wiggling ensued, and Ashanti lifted him out of his highchair.
"Come with me, little man, and I will teach you a Buddhist cham dance. You can play the cymbals."
"There was one who never showed up at all," Archie recalled, grinning. "Kari was having trouble finding a sub, and she tried to make me put on the robes. Lucky for us all they didn't fit."
"You never told me that!" Katie turned to Kari in mock horror.
"Or–oh, my God, worst of all!" This was Kari again. "Remember when I walked into the coat room at that wedding in Providence, and the minister and the maid of honor were making out?"
"No!"
"No!"
Nessa felt her cheeks flame.
"Now that you mention it," Ranney said, "there was a bridesmaid who seemed very interested in–what was his real name, Ness? Draper? Reverend Draper. So I guess you never know."
Reverend DickPic . She almost blurted it out.
"Yes, and she seemed like a total airhead," Nessa snapped. "I am quite sure a person like him would have nothing to do with someone like her . He has better taste than that." Standing up, she stomped over to the coffee tray and refilled her cup.
Puzzled glances were exchanged.
"Well," Katie said, "moving on to the Gustafson wedding in two weeks…"
He said all the right words, all right, Nessa thought as she tightened the carafe lid.
Taking her full cup back to the table at this business meeting now, the memory of yesterday’s hot kiss making her cheeks flush, she sat sipping it quietly. It wasn't very good coffee, she realized. She should tell Ashanti to try Ethiopian.
The conference room phone rang and Carly, the receptionist, answered in a low tone. All hands meant all hands for Monday morning meetings; Carly needed to know what was on the schedule for the week.
"Wedding Protectors, good morning." A pause. "Yes, she's in. May I tell her who's calling?"
Carly pressed the Hold button. "Nessa? Matt Draper?"
I suppose this timing could be worse, Nessa thought, but I'm not really sure how.
"Could you get a number where I can call him back?" she asked in her best imitation of a calm voice. That number was still in her contacts, but there was no need to let everyone know that.
Thankfully, Katie and Kari were paying no attention, wrapped up in a discussion of the logistics involved with a bridal couple who wanted to depart from their reception on water skis. Candace, thinking of the photographic possibilities–a rooster tail of water, a veil billowing out behind, rose petals floating in the wake!–was lobbying heavily in favor of the idea. Archie was typing something on his phone, oblivious.
Ranney and Nilly, however, had heard every word and were both staring at Nessa in surprise. But while Nilly wore a mildly curious expression, Ranney was assessing her daughter with a practiced eye. No one, after all, knew Nessa better.
"What? He must have left something at the Barrs’ by accident and he wants it back," she said crossly. Taking the post-it note that Carly handed her, Matt's number written in purple ink, she crumpled it up in a tiny ball.
Twenty minutes later, she was back at her desk, alone and in relative peace. While she normally avoided checking social media during the workday–it was, after all, an unproductive rabbit hole–she could use a distraction right now, just a quick mental escape. Two minutes, no more. Picking up her phone, she opened Instagram and there in her palm was a tight close-up of–
Matt's abs.
On Insta, he was the gift that keeps on giving. And giving, and giving… as her thumb scrolled up, sliding suggestively across his stomach, the next post appeared, this time his pecs. And the next, and the next…
What had happened to the usual cute-kitten videos? The tiny-house tours? Where were the bachelorette weekend photos of women she barely knew in college, the ones that always drove her crazy? Sosie Bacon performing with her dad in the Genetic Lottery Family Band?
How did God's Gift become the dominant account in her feed, almost to the exclusion of everything else? She'd only looked him up a few times, right?
Slowly, she lowered her forehead to her desk, which was how Ashanti found her when he entered her cubicle with the lavender-filled neckroll he had just removed from the microwave.
"So much tension in such a small body," he murmured, draping the warm silk pad across her shoulders.
"Ash? How many times can you look at someone's posts before they take over your feed like an invasive species?"
"Two," he said authoritatively. "After that, it's the Burmese python of the internet."
"For how long?"
"Until a bigger predator comes along."
"I don't think that's possible in this ecosystem."
"You've got it bad, girl."
She nodded.
Her phone buzzed. Matt.
I really would like to see you again. And just so you know, that coffee meeting with Kayla is about her own June wedding.
“Oh!” she gasped, inhaling sharply, her grin unable to be suppressed.
“Something good?” Ranney asked, suddenly at her shoulder.
“Um, a, um, social media thing. You know. Good metrics. Corporate sponsor business thing.” She inhaled sharply, suppressing a grin.
“Should you be doing that on Wedding Protectors time?” Ranney asked softly. “The two really need to be separate.”
Nessa put her phone down before Ranney could pry. “Mom,” she said tersely, “I’m not a kid. I can handle my own career and my side gig, okay?”
“Of course,” Ranney said, moving toward the breakfast bar down the hall. Nessa hated to admit it, but her mom was right. She found her way out of the cubicle and texted in the hallway, away from staff eyes.
Before she sent the text, she did something she shouldn’t have.
A quick search for Kayla’s name showed plenty of social media.
All of it said relationship status: single.
Either Kayla was lying to Matt, or Matt was lying to Nessa.
All of it was too much. Too....
Messy.
Nessa the Mess was last year. No more.
She closed the text stream and followed her mom to the breakfast spread. There was more clarity in Ashanti’s pancakes than in Matt’s missives.
Pancakes it was.