“Are you okay—is everyone all right at your house?” Nicole said.
“Well, they are now. But it was touch and go for a while there. First off, I lost my phone—or it was stolen. I’m not sure which. My husband and I went out to eat last night and I realized I’d left my phone in his car in the parking lot. So I went out, assuming it would be on the seat or whatever—and nothing. At first I thought it must be somewhere else, but then we started looking and looking and it just never did turn up.”
“Wow,” Nicole said, swallowing her annoyance. She wasn’t even sure she believed what this woman was telling her.
“And you know I would have checked my voicemail from my hubby’s phone, or checked email from my computer, but then Harold started having chest pains on top of everything else. And he’s got a heart condition, mind you.”
“Is he okay?”
“We had to go to the emergency room and then they ran him through so many tests…at one point it seemed certain he’d had a heart attack. But by early this afternoon they seemed pretty sure that he was okay and I could take him home. But I had to stop off and fill some prescriptions for this new medication they put him on and then I went out and immediately bought a new phone.”
“Did you get my messages?”
“I did, honey and I put in a call to the vendor.”
“They’ve already sent them out, haven’t they?” Nicole said, already knowing the answer.
“I’m so, so sorry, sweetie. I wish I could take it back. I really do. But it was just a run of bad, awful luck.”
Nicole sighed, her brow furrowed, thinking. She didn’t honestly know what to do now but just accept that it had happened and it was a disaster. Mostly, it was her own fault. Had she not been angry and impulsive, they wouldn’t be in this situation. “Well, I’m just glad your husband is okay,” she said, finally. “Health is the most important thing.”
“So true, dear. So true. And I know, having a sick husband, just how true those words really are.”
***
When Red came home that night, Nicole told him about her call with the wedding planner and he listened with a skeptical expression. After she was done explaining, he said, “Do you believe her?”
Nicole shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to believe right now. Do you?”
He smiled slightly. “It’s kind of a stretch, but anything’s possible.”
“What reason could she have for not cancelling the order?”
He laughed. “Plenty of reasons. Maybe she gets a kickback from the vendor on big orders. Maybe because she knows that the more people there are at this wedding and the bigger it is, the more her stock goes up when she says she planned it on her resume and website.”
“Or maybe she lost her phone and her husband got sick.”
Red smiled. “Wedding pictures on her site will look a heck of a lot more impressive when there’s a huge crowd in attendance.”
“I blew it and it’s all my fault. Let’s just call a spade a spade,” Nicole said.
Red didn’t reply. He just gave her a meaningful look.
“Oh, so you do think it’s all my fault,” she said, suddenly angry and guilty all at once.
“I didn’t say anything. I think I’m being pretty nice about the whole thing, considering we just went from a little intimate wedding with our closest friends and family to becoming Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Maybe we should just invite the paparazzi in while we’re at it.”
“Fine with me,” Nicole said. “I’m not ashamed to be marrying you.”
He made a disgusted face. “Don’t pull that crap with me, Nicole.”
“What crap?”
“Ashamed to be marrying you? Seriously? Is that the best you’ve got?”
“I’m not trying to prove I can keep up with you in the witty banter department, Red. That’s not one of my life goals.”
He shook his head and walked away from her.
She wanted to yell and scream and get his attention, but it was a lost cause.
This stupid wedding had nearly ruined everything.
***
A couple of days had gone by and things hadn’t gotten any better between them. Red was immersing himself in work and Nicole was still planning their wedding, which had now become so elaborate and expensive that it was defying explanation and reason. Simply having the deposit in for the venue, the booze, the catering, the tables and chairs and custom decorations—all of it had become an issue because everyone needed the money yesterday.
She’d lost track of how many times she’d been told that large weddings like this were usually planned further in advance.
It became embarrassing to keep going to Red for a new series of checks to be written for the gigantic wedding that he didn’t approve of and she didn’t truly want. Finally, he’d just handed her his checkbook and told her to “have a party.”