2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) (15 page)

“I don’t need perfection,” Catherine huffed. “I just need
Fynn.”

“Well, if this is the timeline, then we don’t have a
moment to spare. Get me?” Georgia shifted into drill sergeant mode. “I want you
to research the options in these magazines and by Saturday you need to have
plans in mind. You seriously
need
to make a decision on location—”

“Here,” she blurted.

“Are you sure?” Georgia asked, noticeably less
angst-ridden by the prospect.

She nodded tightly, trying to be certain.

“Okay then. Already a big decision made. I’ll start calling
wedding coordinators and make some appointments.” Shock over; she was ready to
go all in on the task.

“You know, I have a cousin in Philly who does wedding
planning,” Tara offered. “I can see—”

“That won’t be necessary. We want someone who
specializes in New York to do a New York wedding.” Georgia waved her off snottily,
and Tara shot her the bird before going back to her nachos.

“So we’ll start bright and early on Saturday,” she commanded
the room, closing her journal. “And don’t think you can jet off to see Fynn every
weekend. I’m grounding you,” Georgia added, staring Catherine down like only a
mother could.

“What?” she whined in full teenage tone.

“You can’t have the pre-thirty-five wedding of your
dreams and go off on mini Fynn-cations too. It’s unrealistic. You have to
focus.”

Thursday, January 6
^th

“Dad?” she said, bewildered. Her mother was the
receptionist and communications director of the Hemmings household, and yet again
her father had reached the phone first. It was like the whole world was turned
on its side.

“Catherine?” Sounding as surprised on his end that she
would be calling twice in as many days. “What can I do you for, my daughter?”
he asked playfully.

“You sound terrific,” she noted. He wasn’t talking
extra loud or sounding otherwise much older than his actual years.

“I can’t complain. Did you call to compliment me? Or
did you want to talk to your mother?”

Catherine hesitated. It would be easier to just say it
now, but she couldn’t help herself; she wanted to hear all that motherly
excitement as she, the daughter, announced her wedding date. It was one thing to
announce her engagement; of course her mother was reserved. Plenty of women had
fallen victim to open-ended engagements that never reached the aisle. But she
wasn’t going to be one of those. She had a date set… or almost set. She felt
herself swelling with pride and excitement. “Put Mom on the phone.”

“It’s going to take her a minute. She’s in the middle
of a new puzzle I got her for a late Christmas gift.”

“Isn’t that sweet.”

“It was the least I could do seeing as how she picked
up a real honest-to-goodness phone in her after-holiday shopping spree.” 

“So that’s why you sound so content.”

“This thing goes back to the basics. Corded to the
wall. I don’t know how anyone uses that other crap. Or who wants that kind of
mobility. If I’m not in my chair here at home, I don’t need people to reach me,”
he said simply, case closed.

Catherine felt a smile spread across her face. “Let me
guess, Mom made you promise you would answer it if she let you have the phone.”

He chuckled on the other end. “Something like that.”

KA-THUNK

“What was that?” she asked, startled.

KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK

“That would be your mother.”

“What is she doing?”

“Working on that damn puzzle,” he said breezily.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you know your mother had her heart set on
building that log cabin in Wyoming with her bare hands… said it was going to be
the puzzle of her life—”

“She did not!” Catherine guffawed.

“I figured letting her install hardwood in the living
room would take the sting out of not moving.” He gave a full belly laugh,
getting a genuine kick out of himself.

“Catherine?” Her mother’s voice was in her ear,
slightly out of breath. “Perfect timing; you caught me at the end of a row.”

“Dad
is
helping you, isn’t he?”

“Oh, don’t mind him. He just likes to pull your leg. I
told him to take a break, watch a little golf. We need to stop for dinner
anyway.”

“So, hardwood floors? Whatever will we do now that we
don’t have to preserve the vacuum lines in the carpet for company,” she said
flippantly.

“The living room is still for company, Catherine. The
floor doesn’t change that,” her mother cautioned.

Of course
.

Actually, Mom, I called to tell you the latest news….”
She was going to wait for a drumroll or a pregnant pause worthy of big news,
but the words just tumbled out. “We’re going to have a March wedding. March 4
^th
,”
she added, throwing out her first choice for a date. But as soon as the words
were out of her mouth she could hear her mother suck wind on the other side.

“What’s wrong with March?” she immediately countered.

An almost imperceptible pause. “I didn’t say anything
was wrong with March,” her mother said plainly.

“You didn’t have to say it,” Catherine grumbled,
frustrated that her mother always said so much even when she wasn’t actually
saying anything at all.

“It’s a lovely month.”

“For other things,” Catherine added for her. She could
hear pots and pans knocking around on the other end and could tell her mother
was starting dinner, making her stomach perk up at the thought of a real meal
rather than that frozen dinner she’d eaten and burned off just picking up the
phone.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Elizabeth reprimanded.

“I just wanted to let you know to save the date,”
Catherine said, trying to sound nonchalant and uncaring, though her whole point
with this call was to extend the olive branch to her mother and include her in
the wedding process. She’d assumed that Elizabeth Hemmings would be honored,
but instead she had taken the branch and broken it in half over her knee.

“I don’t even have a calendar that goes that far into
the future, but of course my daughter’s wedding will outweigh any other plans,”
she said briskly.

“It’s in March, Mom, not the next millennium.”

“
This
March?” Elizabeth’s voice was edged in
disbelief.

“Yes,
this
March.”

“But two months is hardly enough time to plan a
wedding, Catherine,” she chastised. “Connor and Lacey planned for a year.” As
if that brought home the point and won the argument.

“Connor and Lacey can kiss my ass,” she groused,
certain this would be just the first of many comparisons to Lacey and Connor’s perfect
nuptials.

“Catherine Marie,” her mother warned.

“Lacey had real blossoming cherry trees as a backdrop,
Mother. She
had
to wait a year for the bloom. Besides, I’m already
past-date. We all know it would be easier to just be married now.”

“Don’t tell me you’re pregnant,” her mother groaned.

“No. Jeez, is that the only way you think someone
would actually choose to marry me?”

Her mother wouldn’t dignify that with a response—
probably
because that is exactly what she thinks.

“Two months is plenty of time. People get married in two
days’ time,” Catherine said, continuing her argument by copping a
go-with-the-flow attitude she didn’t feel. People were raining on her choice of
date left and right and it was getting tiresome defending herself… especially
since she really had no idea about the probability of pulling this off, having
never planned a wedding before in her life. But she wasn’t going to just lie
down and let thirty-five come for her. She was going to be ready for it.

“Not
real
weddings,” Elizabeth Hemmings said,
sounding elitist. The cacophony of cooking sounds on the other end was rising
to a crescendo to match her mother’s inner turmoil. It was a phenomenon she was
all too familiar with; Elizabeth’s pace increased exponentially with the level
of discomfort or disbelief she felt—she could have broken land speed dishwashing
records when Uncle Henry got caught screwing a cocktail waitress young enough
to be his daughter and Aunt Kathy threw all his things out on the lawn and set
fire to them.
My word, both a cheater and a pyro in the family!

“Yes, real weddings,” Catherine retorted. “Even
getting married by Elvis in Las Vegas is a real wedding.”

“Have you considered that? You can definitely do
that
in March.”

“I could do that tomorrow.”

“If that’s your prerogative.” She sounded completely
divorced of the substance of the conversation.

“You
want
me to elope?” Catherine choked out.
How
could I be so wrong?

“I’m just saying that planning takes time, and it’s
not really—”

“My strong suit?” she offered.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Catherine. It sounds
like you called me just to start an argument.”

“No, Mother, I called you to keep you in the loop. I
wanted you to share this special moment with me. It’s your only daughter’s
wedding and you don’t even give a crap.”

The silence on the other end was deafening. Not a word
or a breath or a faulty move with a dish or utensil. She’d unsheathed a sword
and shoved it right into her mother’s heart. Now she didn’t know what to do.
Her own heart was beating a mile a minute. She wanted to hang up the phone
self-righteously. Her mother had started the whole thing…. And yet Catherine
had crossed an invisible, electrified line with the “only daughter” comment. She’d
just thrown Josey’s death right in her mother’s face.

“Whatever you choose is fine,” Elizabeth said suddenly,
cool control in her voice.

Friday, January 7
^th

“Hi,” she said quietly, almost shyly.

“Hi, yourself.” Fynn’s voiced washed over her.

“I wish I was there with you.”

“Me too.”

“I’m already sick of the whole wedding thing and I’ve
hardly even gotten started yet,” she grumbled. Fynn was silent on the other
end, either mulling what she’d said or waiting for her to continue, a stark
contrast to the way she would have reacted to the same type of incendiary
comment—probably ripping
the ring
off her finger and throwing it all the
way from New York to Minnesota. “Everybody is knocking our wedding date like we
don’t have a clue what we’re doing.”

“We have a wedding date?” he asked, bemused.

“Yes, we have a date.”

“Refresh my memory….”

“We talked about it just a few nights ago.”

“Before, during, or after sex?”

“Is that how you nail everything down?”

“I just want to know how suggestive I was at the time.
Before sex I will agree to just about anything. During, I’m not listening to
anything…. To be honest, after sex is the only time I’m really paying any attention,”
he said playfully.

“It was after.” She rolled her eyes at no one.

“Was I sleeping? You know I like to sleep after sex.”

“Fynn,” she protested. “I woke you up. We talked. I
said the 4
^th
of March. You agreed.” A simple play-by-play—okay, technically
he hadn’t actually agreed.
But he had said it was all up to me.
Tacit agreement
is still agreement. It would probably hold up in court.

“
This
March?” he asked.

“Don’t you start,” she warned.

“So we’re getting married on March 4
^th
. I’m
totally up to speed now. What exactly is the problem?” he asked easily.

“Well, Georgia acted like we’d have to move heaven and
earth to pull it off, and my mom told me we should just elope.”

“Sounds like Connor’s advice runs in your family,”
Fynn said with a chuckle.

“Connor was talking out his ass,” she growled through
gritted teeth.

“And where’s your mom coming from?” he jabbed
playfully, obviously not getting the clue that this was
serious.

“She thinks I must be knocked up to want to get
married this quickly.”

“Elizabeth Hemmings didn’t say that.”

So she was paraphrasing. “Basically,” she asserted.

“You said she always wanted grandchildren. Maybe she
was saying it hopefully,” he offered, pitifully unschooled in Elizabeth
Hemmings’ ways and means.

“She was judging me. Like no one would want to marry
me for
me
, only because I was stupid enough to get knocked up.”

“Babe, I love you but you’re starting to sound a
little nutty,” he said carefully.

“I am just so sick of people assuming that I am a
complete idiot who can’t run my own life without messing it up.

“What’s the big deal what they think? Get yourself a
pretty dress and we’ll do this thing,” he said breezily, like that was all it
took.

“I just thought that my mom would be… more interested.
I thought she would want to help me plan it. I thought I would have to beat her
away from the guest list and seating chart and menu with a stick.”

“Maybe she doesn’t approve of me.” There he was for
her, ready to take the blame.

“Oh no, she loves
you
; it’s me she doesn’t
approve of.”

“I hardly think that—”

“She has all kinds of problems with me,” she seethed.
Her mental gears started to turn and then catch. “I’ll show her.”  

“Catherine, what are you going to do?” he asked
warily.

“I’ll make the perfect wedding. Prove that it can be
done in two months. What the hell does she know?”

“Now there’s the Catherine I fell for. The don’t-take-no-for-an-answer
Catherine. The throw-all-caution-and-sense-to-the-wind Catherine. The one who
gets shit done. Hell, last time you had this much fire you caught a
great
guy,”
he said, throwing a compliment in for himself for good measure.

“I did. And I can do this.”

“I’m a little terrified and turned on all at the same
time.” He paused. “What are you wearing right now?”