For fifteen solid hours now, wedding crap was all she’d had time for.
“Are you almost done with those?” Kristin popped her head around the corner, a giant look of concern crinkling the space between her eyebrows as she took in the stack of unfilled cloth and bucket of birdseed. “Because I need help with the place cards and you have better handwriting than me.”
And this was the excuse for all the work she’d been doing unassisted since she accidentally fell into the job of wedding coordinator yesterday afternoon. April was apparently better at everything. Better at making birdseed bags. Better at polishing bridesmaids’ shoes. Better at stacking monogrammed matchbooks inside clear glass hurricanes. Better at everything.
And now better at writing names on place cards so that everyone in attendance could sit at chairs preassigned by Kristin. April didn’t care where anyone sat. April didn’t care if anyone sat at all. At this point, April didn’t care if her sister flew away to Jamaica or Aruba—wherever crazy, high-maintenance brides went to elope with their poor, unsuspecting husbands-to-be.
But as had become customary, she smiled. Sucked it up. And answered. “I’ll be done in just a minute and then I can help you.”
“Okay, thanks.” Kristin waved her fingers and walked away, only to pop her head in a second later. “Oh. One more thing.”
Something about the way she said those three words made April’s blood run cold. Maybe it was the slight lilt in her voice at the end brought on by the artificial effort to sound casual. Maybe it was the way each word was carefully enunciated, as though Kristin needed extra time to really make sure her sister knew what came next was important. Or maybe it was the simple fact that every piece of bad news Kristin had ever delivered in life began with those same words. When April was seven: one more thing, your goldfish died. When she was ten: one more thing, Santa Claus isn’t real. When she was sixteen: one more thing, I accidentally made out with your boyfriend. And when she was nineteen: one more thing, Jack Vaughn’s song “Confidence” hit number one on the country charts.
April was sick of One More Things, and it was about time her sister knew it. She tied a bow around another bag and tossed it in a box. “What did you do now?”
Kristin’s eyes went wide, the picture of false innocence. “What makes you think I did something?”
“I know you did something. Spit it out, Kristin.”
She shifted in the doorway. “The wedding singer quit this afternoon.”
April blinked, waiting for the rest of the story. She would like to say the news surprised her, but in reality she was shocked the whole hired staff hadn’t quit by now. Kristin was a diva. Verged on a tyrant. Would probably go down in the books as the worst bride ever in the history of brides, and she’d seen the movie Bride Wars so this was saying a lot.
“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but then that would be a lie and lying is a sin and—oh my gosh, do you want me to sing? Because I’ll do a lot for you, Kristin, but I’m not singing in your wedding.” April flattened another piece of material and spooned a small pile of birdseed in the middle of it.
“No, I’m not asking you to—wait, why wouldn’t you sing in my wedding?” Kristin crossed her arms and glared down at her. “It’s not like you don’t sing in public all the time. And don’t tell me you’ve developed a sudden case of stage fright because I won’t believe you. You sing for a living, April. And you’re telling me you wouldn’t sing in my wedding if I needed you to?”
Her sister, ever the drama queen. April sighed. “I don’t have stage fright, but I do have a very real fear of crying in public. So if you don’t mind, I’d really rather not look like a sobbing idiot in front of three hundred people while I sing twelve stanzas of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings.’ ”
“Aw, you think you’ll cry at my wedding? That’s so sweet.”
“Of course I’ll cry. You’re my sister and I love you. Plus, I cry at Hallmark commercials.”
Kristin made a face. “You’re so emotional. But ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’?” Kristin made an unflattering noise. “As if I would choose that overdone song. But I don’t need you to sing. I hired someone.”