But she wasn’t having a party—quite the opposite, in fact. She felt sick and depressed and out of control, both of her wedding and her relationship.
Nicole thought that at least the worst of it was hopefully over, but she was wrong. The morning of her cake tasting at Lady Cakes Bakery with her mother and Marcie—things actually, somehow, got worse.
Red came into the bathroom while she was putting on makeup and handed her his phone. “Well we just got the biggest leak of them all,” he said, almost sounding proud of it, as Nicole looked at the screen.
There was yet another article in The Rag that revealed not just the date and time of their wedding, but the location as well. It went into detail about the kind of huge event the wedding would probably be, and of course made plenty of fun of Red and Nicole and the notion that the wedding would probably last longer than the marriage itself.
“I’m even impressed at just how badly our privacy has been compromised,” Red laughed. “I mean, this is a whole new level.”
Nicole bit her lip and tried to steady her nerves. “I don’t understand how this happened. I thought Danielle was the leak!”
“You didn’t send her an invitation? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m positive,” Nicole said.
“Well, we only sent out four hundred invites—who’d have thought one of those random idiots we invited might leak the story?” he said, laughing again—but not really.
“Please don’t make this worse by poking fun at me,” she told him.
“Nicole, if I can’t even make a joke about how badly this whole thing has gone, then what can I do at this point?”
She didn’t have an answer.
Nicole wasn’t in the mood for cake tasting after that, but she had no choice. Her mother and Marcie drove all the way down from Syracuse for the appointment, and so she put on her best fake smile and tried to pretend everything was hunky dory.
The bakery was a cute, small place that Nicole had found online because of its astounding reviews. Marcie and her mother loved it from the moment they set foot inside.
The baker was a short, lithe blond woman with a pastry chef hat and tiny hands. She gestured constantly as she spoke and gave tons of information about what services she provided.
During a break, the baker went in back and Nicole took the chance to tell Marcie and her mother about the leaking of all the important wedding information.
“Honey, in a year and a half, no one will remember anything except that you had one of the classiest, coolest, and funnest weddings in recent memory. Nobody cares about those stupid stories on the Internet. And besides, a little publicity can be fun for a happy occasion,” Marcie told her.
Nicole reminded herself that it would be inappropriate to slap her wedding planner at the bakery during a cake tasting, so she refrained from responding to Marcie’s inane dispensing of folk wisdom.
The baker at Lady Cakes came to the front again and started taking all of them through the cake choices and flavor combinations, setting one of her cakes down in front of them to taste and discuss.
That’s when Nicole got a phone call from Danielle.
While Marcie and her mother tried the white cake with vanilla buttercream icing, Nicole stepped away from the table.
She almost didn’t answer, but something in her gut told her she should take the call. “Hello,” she said, uncertainty in her voice.
“Nicole, it’s me. Danielle.”
“How are you?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“I’m fine. Listen, I know you don’t like me very much right now, but I still care about you and I’m sorry about what happened between us the last time I saw you.”
“Me too,” she said softly into the phone.
Suddenly, from behind Nicole, came the sound of roaring laughter. “Nicole, honey, you just have to try this cake! The frosting is to die for! No, I take it back—it’s to kill for!” More unruly laughter. Nicole put a finger in one ear and walked further away from them.
“But that’s not even why I’m calling you right now,” Danielle continued. “I can tell you’re busy so I won’t take up much more of your time.”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. I’m glad you called.” She realized it was very true—she missed the sound of Danielle’s voice.
“Kane mentioned that The Rag ran another article about you today. It really pissed me off that they did that to you.”
“It’s okay, I know you’re not the leak, Danielle,” Nicole said. “I’m so, so sorry I accused you of that.”
Behind her, there was more laughter—cackling, ridiculous braying that caused Nicole to move to the door of the bakery and then finally outside to escape. It shouldn’t have been Marcie and her mother at the cake tasting with her, she realized. It should have been Danielle, and Red if he’d wanted to come. They could have had a nice time together.