CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I sneaked into Sadie’s villa and was glad to see that Mary-Ellen’s face had continued to improve. Krista was getting her hair done and patted the seat next to her so that I could wait my turn. Sadie was with the makeup artist and everybody seemed calm, which was what I was going for.
Getting ready for a wedding was a bit like what I imagined a theater actor went through—putting on costumes, getting their hair and makeup done, going out to a beautiful set/backdrop, standing up in front of an audience to put on a show that was going to make them laugh and cry and cheer.
“You have Camden face,” Krista told me.
“What?” My thoughts had been in such a different place that I wasn’t even sure what she meant.
“There’s this expression you get when you’ve just seen Camden.”
“That’s not true,” I disagreed.
“It is. And you did see him.” When I didn’t argue back she grinned, sitting up straighter in her chair. “What’s going on? I want all the details.”
I was supposed to be her boss. Setting the example. Not breaking the rules. I didn’t have many rules for my employees, but this was one of the big ones. It made me feel like such a hypocrite that I not only had fallen for a wedding guest but also was now actively looking for a way that we could be together.
But I thought it would be so nice to talk to someone who had all the information and who would have my best interests at heart. I glanced up at her hairstylist, but she had earbuds in, so I figured it was safe to talk.
“Okay, there is something I want to tell you.”
“This isn’t going to involve the location of a body, is it? Camden’s still alive somewhere out there, right?”
“It’s not like that. I like him.”
I expected some kind of reaction from her, but her expression didn’t change. “Oh. Sorry. Imagine that this is me making a performative gasp.”
“What?”
“It means I’m not surprised.”
Oh yeah? I could fix that. “I made out with him. Multiple times.”
Now she looked utterly delighted. “Seriously? I wish I was drinking something so that I could do the spit take this moment so obviously deserves. Oh, I am one hundred percent behind this. I’m going to be so supportive of you two that I’ll be like your own personal Spanx.”
“I can’t let anything happen. He doesn’t know about ...” I let my voice trail off as I looked around the room, making sure that nobody was paying any attention to us. “He doesn’t know about what we do.”
“So?”
“He has this thing about lying. A big lie wrecked his knee and his Olympic future. His dad had qualified for the Olympics when he was younger and Camden wanted to honor him by—” Realizing that I was about to go on and on, I stopped myself. “He’s going to feel betrayed.”
“Shouldn’t you let him decide how he’s going to feel? You don’t get to preemptively decide how people will react before you even give them the chance.”
I shook my head. I had done that before in my life—given people the benefit of the doubt, and it had screwed up everything. I hadn’t done that in years. I predicted how people around me were going to behave and then acted accordingly. I saved myself a lot of heartache that way.
Before I could argue my viewpoint with her, she added, “You always want to control everything, including relationships. That’s not how this stuff works.”
“This isn’t a control issue. And maybe it’s not just about him,” I admitted. “Maybe I don’t want to see the look in his eyes when he finds out. I was going to ask Sadie if she could tell him. According to Gerald, there’s nothing in the contract that prevents her from telling the truth.”
Krista gasped and reached for both of my hands. “That is so great! That’s the answer to everything! Sadie can tell him and then you won’t see the disappointment and he’ll get over it and declare his undying love for you and you guys will live happily ever after!”
“Isn’t that kind of the cowardly thing to do? Letting Sadie take the brunt of it?”
“The cowardly thing is to walk away from the first guy you’ve had feelings for since I’ve known you.”
It was scary to take a chance again. Part of me didn’t want to. It would be easier to just go back to my quiet, ordered life.
I pictured Camden’s face and realized that giving up like that would also be much sadder. I resolved to talk to Sadie when she was alone. Which, given the way so many people were fussing over her, might not be for a while.
The stylist finished with Krista and gestured for me to take her spot. As she started brushing through my hair, I heard Stefan bellowing behind me.
“Where is the bride’s other shoe?” He put out his hand. “Somebody better put it in my hand right now or heads are going to roll.”
I got up out of my chair and Krista came to my side, ready to offer me silent support as we figured out a way to calm this situation down. Sadie didn’t need the stress. “What’s happened?” I asked him.
“Sadie’s left shoe is missing.” He enunciated each word carefully.
“Did you—” I was about to ask him if he’d looked for it but figured that might cost me a limb.
“It’s not here,” he retorted. “Somebody took it.”
“Why would someone take just one of Sadie’s shoes?” Krista asked me under her breath. “Like there’s a Shoe Fairy who takes your heels and instead of a quarter leaves behind drama?”
Valuing my life, I knew better than to laugh. I put a hand over my mouth in order to hide my smile. When I knew I had my face under control I asked him, “Didn’t you bring multiple sets of shoes?”
“Yes.” He rolled his eyes so hard I half expected them to detach and flop onto the floor. “But I chose this pair because they match her dress.”
“The dress that goes all the way to the floor? Where no one’s going to see her feet?” This didn’t qualify as a tragedy. They could use a different pair of shoes. “You could put her in hiking boots and nobody would know.”
Stefan looked like I’d just announced that I wanted to murder his entire family. In an imperious tone he announced, “It’s fine. I will figure it out. I don’t need your help.”
Okay then. He’d kind of just made it everyone’s problem by freaking out, but whatever.
“Rachel?” I turned to see Sadie waving me over from the doorway to her bedroom.
“What’s up?” I asked her as I followed her into the room.
She closed the door and said, “I need to get changed into this robe before I get put into my wedding dress. Would you mind helping me get my shirt up over my head so that I don’t screw up my hair? It has a wide neckline, so I think it’ll be okay, I’m just scared of doing it alone.”
“Anything you need,” I said. Sadie went over to the closet to retrieve her robe. “And while I have you alone, I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. I feel bad even asking. I don’t want to take away from your day. It’s so selfish.”
“You haven’t done a single selfish thing since I’ve met you,” she said as she laid her robe on the bed. “What do you need?”
“I ...” How would I even phrase this? “I think you were right about the Camden thing.”
“How so?”
“I have feelings for him. I want to spend time with him. But I’m deceiving him. He thinks that you and I ...”
“... that we’re best friends,” she finished.
“Right. And I can’t try to be in a relationship with someone I’d have to lie to. I would never, ever break our NDA, but my attorney tells me that you can.”
“Rachel! I would love to do that! I will tell him first chance I get.” Her eyes sparkled brightly, her smile lighting up the whole room. “The fact that you’re falling for Camden and want to date him adds to my day. Just think—someday we might look back on my wedding photos and tell our kids this is how you two met.”
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Stick your arms up.”
She held her arms over her head and I lifted the shirt. I moved it carefully around her hair but gasped when I saw what the shirt had done to her skin.
“What?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
I yanked the shirt up over her hands. “Your skin ... you’re blue.”
The shirt obviously hadn’t been made of an expensive material and it had stained her armpits and the sides of her bra a faded indigo. She ran over to the mirror, holding up her arms. “This is not happening. It looks like I tried to smother a Smurf under my arms.”
With her arms still held aloft she added, “I can’t get in the shower. It will wreck my hair and makeup. But I can’t get married with blue armpits.”
“This is fine,” I told her. “Let me grab Krista and we can clean this up.” I hoped regular soap would be enough to get her clean. I lifted my own shirt to check out my skin, but there was no blue.
“I bought the shirts from different websites,” she said.
That was good at least. We only had to worry about getting blue off her skin. Conscious of the camera crew still filming in the room just beyond us, I opened the bedroom door and called Krista’s name calmly.
She came quickly and when she saw Sadie’s armpits she gasped. I closed the door, hoping no one had heard her.
“I need your help washing this off,” I said. Krista nodded and they both followed me into the bathroom. I got two washcloths wet with warm water and grabbed the bar of soap from the counter. I laid down a bath towel and had Sadie stand on it. I took her left side and Krista the right.
“You know, when they said you needed something blue for your wedding, I don’t think this is what they had in mind,” Krista said.
It made Sadie laugh. And laugh. She laughed until she almost started crying. When she was able to catch her breath she said, “I’m sorry. When I thought about what things could go wrong today, blue armpits did not make that list.”
“It’s coming right off,” I told her. “Everything will be fine. We just have to make sure we get all of it or else Stefan is going to have a full-blown cardiac event.”
Within a few minutes it was like the blue had never been there. The bra was toast, but fortunately it wasn’t the one she’d planned on wearing with her wedding dress.
“See?” I said to her reflection. “Gone. Are you feeling okay?”
“I am,” she said. “This was just a silly bump on my road to getting married.”
Sadie had no idea that another one of those bumps was her groom’s cousin losing her wedding ring. Now was definitely not the time to mention it. “What else can we do?”
“Nothing. You already saved me from having the most humiliating wedding photos ever. I’ll get changed and meet you guys in the other room.”
I nodded and left with Krista, shutting the door behind us. The camera operator closest to us spun his camera in our direction and I fought the urge to put up a hand in front of my face. I reminded myself that this was all being broadcast live and now was not the time to be camera-shy. I smiled instead, hoping he’d lose interest in us.
Mary-Ellen was almost completely back to normal, and I was glad for that. The problem was she had started whining when her face was swollen and apparently hadn’t stopped. At the moment she was loudly talking to her mom and her aunt. “Sadie has everything. Now she gets a rich, handsome husband, too. When is it going to be my turn?”
Before Mandy could reply, Brandy said, “I don’t know why everyone’s making such a fuss. Most marriages end in divorce. What is the point?”
This was just lovely. I walked over and said, “The point is this is your daughter’s wedding day and we’re all here”—I focused in on Mary-Ellen—“to celebrate with her and make sure she has the best day ever.”
That seemed to shut them down, at least temporarily. I didn’t need Sadie to see this later. It would crush her.
I went back to getting my hair finished while Krista sat with the makeup artist. Things generally seemed to calm down and Sadie rejoined us in her satiny white robe. The photographer was taking pictures of the wedding gown on a special hanger and having Sadie stand close to it, looking up at it, looking away from it, everything.
The stylist had just put on the last touches when I got a phone call from a New York number I didn’t recognize. I answered tentatively. “Hello?”
“Is this Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“This is Anton. We’re having a slight problem with someone not being on the list.” I heard a woman’s voice, loudly demanding to be let in. There was a light lunch taking place just before the wedding for the guests to enjoy. The hotel had provided extra security for today. Now that Sadie was streaming live, she had some, shall we say, overexuberant fans who might show up, given that they had her exact location. Everybody wanted to be cautious.
“What’s the name?” I could check with Sadie to see if somebody had been inadvertently left off.
“She says it’s Lilith.”
That name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Let me call you back.”
“Was that Camden?” Krista asked me and the mention of his name made me put two and evil ex-girlfriend together.
Oh no.
“I’ll be right back. Hold down the fort for me.”
At this rate I was never going to be able to finish getting ready for this wedding. I texted Anton back and told him to keep her there, that I was on my way to help.
I wanted to text Camden but couldn’t because his phone might eat my texts, for all I knew. I wondered if he used a horse and buggy instead of a car, too. So I called him and he answered immediately. “Hey, you. There’s good news. That ring finder lived nearby and with her metal detector found the ring in under five minutes.”
Okay, that was great news, but something bad was happening. “Lilith is here. She’s trying to crash the wedding.”
His voice went totally serious. “Where?”
“At the luncheon. Can you meet me there?” I told myself that I didn’t know what she looked like and if she wasn’t still throwing a fit when I got there, I’d never be able to identify her and tell security to keep her far away from the wedding. I totally dismissed the fact that I’d just told Anton to hang around. Much as I wanted to rationalize it to myself, I just wanted Camden to be with me.
“On my way,” he promised and hung up.
I’d been the one telling everyone that things always went wrong at weddings. Just usually not this often or this big. I wondered which plague of Egypt was next. Locusts? The ocean turning to blood? Frogs?
One problem at a time,I told myself. I had this.
And I had Camden as my backup.