“Well anyway,” her mother said, clearly not satisfied with Nicole’s lackluster response, “Marcie Tilly does wedding planning now.”
Nicole’s mouth went dry. Oh no. This was not a conversation she wanted to have today. “That’s nice,” she said, already thinking of a way to get off the phone.
“And when we were talking the other day,” she continued, “Marcie mentioned that she’d love to help you plan your wedding.”
“Oh, that’s really sweet of her.”
“So what should I tell her?”
Nicole bit her nail. “I don’t know, Mom.”
“What’s to know? She’s a great resource, Nicole.”
“Let me think about it. I’m not sure I even need someone like that. This is going to be a really small affair.”
“Well it can’t be that small. Your father has six siblings and you have many cousins. And what about Red’s family?”
Nicole’s stomach suddenly felt as though a lead ball had been dropped into it. “We haven’t gotten into those kinds of details yet. We’re just in the preliminary stages.”
“That’s exactly why Marcie could help,” she said. “It can’t hurt to have a consultation with her, at least.”
Nicole sighed. “Can I get back to you on that after I talk to Red?”
“You need to talk to him about having a consultation with someone?”
“Yes, Mom. We discuss everything, we’re partners now.”
“Partners, not Siamese twins.”
“This is what works for us.”
“Nicole…”
“I’ll get back to you tomorrow, okay?”
Her mother sighed heavily. “Everything’s such a big deal with you lately. Okay, okay. Get back to me when you can. I’d love to tell Marcie that she can at least chat with you, she’s such a great person.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Nicole got off the phone and wondered how things with her mother always managed to turn so messy. She felt aggravated and edgy.
Probably not the best time to go into the media room and bother Red, but she couldn’t seem to stop her feet from carrying her there.
He was sitting on one of the large movie theatre style seats, with his feet up, eating popcorn like some teenager. On screen, two bare chested men were pummeling each other and blood and sweat was flying off their faces. Nicole could barely stand to look at the movie, so she just averted her gaze and went to where Red was sitting.
“Can we talk for a second?”
He looked at her. “Can it wait until the movie’s over?”
“You’ve been watching it again and again,” she said. “It’s not like you don’t know what happens next.”
“But I’m enjoying myself—it gets me pumped up.”
“I think we should discuss the wedding,” she said.
On screen, loud horns were blaring from the soundtrack, a recognizable theme that was incredibly annoying just the same.
“Rocky! Rocky!” Chanted the crowd.
“There’s nothing we need to discuss,” Red told her. “I said you have carte blanche when it comes to our wedding.”
“Still, we should probably talk about a few things just in case.”
He turned to her, his expression one of impatience. “Okay, fine.”
“Could you at least pause the movie for two seconds?”
He held up his remote and paused the film. It was stopped on an extreme close-up of the man that Red had told her was “Mr. T.” She hadn’t known anything about him, which seemed to surprise Red to no end.
“Okay. Movie paused. But I don’t want to sit here and pick over every nuance of this wedding stuff, Nicole. That’s your job.”
“Relax, I never said you had to do that.”
“I’ve got a new company to build and run.”
“Clearly,” she said, gesturing to the screen, “you’re hard at work rebuilding.”
His eyes narrowed. “I have my own process.”
“Listen, I don’t want to argue. I’m just trying to figure out what we want in terms of our guest list.”
“Like you said, fifty people sounds good.”
“But I was just on the phone with my mother—“
Red waved his hands. “Oh, God. Oh, no. No. No.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to get into a back and forth with your mother over who we should invite to our wedding. She’s not coming in here and running the show, Nicole. You need to stand up to her.”
Nicole felt attacked. She recoiled. “Who said she’s running the show? You haven’t even given me a chance to explain.”
He looked at her but she could see he wasn’t in the mood to listen.
“Fine, Red,” Nicole said. “You want me to handle this? I can make every decision on my own without checking with you first?”
He locked eyes with her. “I’ve already told you that I trust you one hundred percent.”
“Except when it comes to standing up to my mother, apparently.”
He didn’t smile. “Pretty much.”