A Previous Engagement (18 page)

So far, so good. I let myself breathe, watching their faces as they flipped through the colorful glossy pages that contained so much of myself. I should’ve been overjoyed to see my work getting smiles and nods, even a few excited whispers from the stuffy board members. Even Marty, sitting in the corner with a critical eyebrow raised at me, seemed impressed.

Instead of reveling in triumph, I absorbed it like any other meeting on any other day at the office. I glided through the last few slides—ideas for future issues and focus group reactions—and then fielded some questions. As I concluded the presentation, relief washed over me in a wave strong enough to weaken my knees.

I shook each board member’s hand as they filed out. “Excellent work, Ms. Monroe. We’d love to see your kind of talent moving up to the higher ranks,” said one, a husky man in a blue tie.

“Agreed,” said his friend, a leaner man wearing glasses and a red tie. “Well done.”

Marty stood by, absorbing the steady stream of compliments, each one further pinching his face. He was jealous, the sniveling jerk.

Jealous of me: Tessa Monroe, future Vice President of Marketing at Prime Investing, Boston.

****

On Friday, I did something bold, daring, and completely unprecedented: I called in sick to work just because I could. Because it was a gorgeous day in May and I wanted to enjoy the sunshine. Because I knew a certain little boy who needed to go to the playground with his godmother. Because Kendra deserved a break. Because I
deserved a break.

As I walked through the park, pushing a snoozing Riley in his stroller, I let my mind wander onto all the things I hadn’t made time for lately. The gym: I should take up running again now that summer is here. My friends: maybe I could “cook” a reconciliation dinner and beg forgiveness. My family: maybe a vacation was in order, just the four of us. And my life.

Once upon a time, I had one of those.

I let Friday pass me by, a calm and peaceful day. I took a bubble bath, read some of the novel on my nightstand—after I blew the dust off the cover—and tried to cook a steak for myself. It was tough and over-seasoned, but did not catch fire. For once, I just enjoyed being, not ‘being in a hurry’ or ‘being busy.’ Just being Tessa.

I slept in on Saturday until some unnatural hour adults aren’t supposed to sleep until, only to be jarred awake by my cell phone. I hadn’t slept so late since I graduated high school.

Groggy, I answered the call without reading the screen.

“Tess! Oh my God!” It was Savannah. I shot straight up in bed, preparing for horrible news. “I need your help!”

“What?! What is it?” Instantly alert, I bolted from my bed to find clothes. After several seconds of hopping around, I wiggled my way into a pair of sweatpants, then located one of my sneakers. I slid it onto my left foot, discovered it was a right-foot shoe, and switched. Then I jumped up and flew around the room, searching for its mate.

Savannah was talking at great length, but I only caught the important bits. “The wedding, I can’t make it.”

I stopped, my head in the closet, my arms elbow-deep in my tote of shoes.

“I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can even get out of bed. I think I caught that stomach thing. I’ve been throwing up since Thursday night,” she added a retching noise that brought back memories. “Didn’t you get my message at the office?”

“I wasn’t in yesterday.” I extracted myself from the closet and sat back on my heels.

“Oh, well I’m glad I called!”

“Does Christian know? Why are you calling me?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” she said slowly. “I wanted to see if you could sub in for me. I hate to abandon him, not without a competent assistant by his side. I’d feel so much better if you were there with him.”

Competent, but not threatening. That was the subtext I heard.

“This always happens to me when I’m stressed. My immune system takes a vacation and I wind up with some weird illness. I really hate it.” She made another heaving sound, this one for real, and I heard the phone clatter to the floor. “Sorry, I dropped you. I think that was my seventh or eighth vomit. Can you run out of vomit?”

Now I was just concerned for her. “Have you seen a doctor? Are you going to be all right? Can I bring you some soup?” How lame, to offer soup. But that’s what you do when someone is sick, isn’t it?

“I don’t want you to get this from me. What if it’s something different? Or its mutated into something stronger?” How noble of her, I thought darkly. “I’ll call the doctor now, I promise. But if this keeps up, I’ll probably be out Monday too.”

“Don’t worry about that at all. I’ll take care of paying out your sick time. Just rest, okay? Call me if you need anything at all.”

When I shut my cell phone, I wandered numbly into my walk-in closet. I riffled through my rack of dresses, collected for just this sort of occasion, and tossed them in all directions until I found the right one. Christian needed an assistant in about one hour. There was no time to waste.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Well, well, well,” I said when I found Christian standing outside the church, camera at the ready. “Don’t you clean up nice, Mr. Photographer.”

Christian was one of those classy wedding photographers who showed up in a tuxedo, neatly pressed and impeccably professional. I had yet to meet a man who didn’t look smoking hot in a tuxedo. Well, maybe Marty Bensen. Him aside, tuxedoes are an instant hot factor for any man. Christian’s good looking already, so the tux just… Wow.

He turned toward my voice, took a moment to register that it was me, and took my picture.

“What was that for?” I said, a bit taken aback. He’d never done that to me before.

“Consider it a photographer’s greatest compliment, Tessie.” Christian greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then stood back to admire me. I’d chosen my favorite, a strapless black cocktail dress with an empire waist—it gave me actual cleavage. “That dress is amazing. Are you my gorgeous assistant for the evening?”

“Yeah. Didn’t Savannah call you?”

“She did, but I didn’t know if I was getting you or Kendra. Or Grant,” he chuckled. Because to Savannah, the three of us are interchangeable? Super. Anyway, I was thankful to him for jumping right back into our easy breezy conversation like the last two Coffee Wednesdays never happened. “Do you remember how to do this? I know it’s been a while.”

“Of course I remember. It’s just like riding a bike. Carry the stuff and dish out the goods.” For the first few years that Christian was in business on his own, Kendra and I rotated duty as his assistant. I might’ve been rusty, but what’s so hard about lugging a bag around and handing him fancy camera parts when he asks? “Just do me a favor, big shot.”

“What’s that?”

“Get it? Big. Shot.”

He rolled his eyes at me.

“Fine, don’t enjoy my stunning wit.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t. Did you want something or not?”

I chose to ignore the dig. It just felt good to be myself again. The Old Tess, new and improved. “When we’re out there on the battlefield…” Christian’s eyes grew big at this metaphor, which he might have thought was excessive but I felt was more than apt. “Don’t use those fancy pants names for these pieces, okay? You want a really big lens, you say, ‘Tessie, darling, hand me that really big lens.’ Not, ‘Hey, you, give me a 12-3000’ or something because I have no frigging clue what that means. Deal?”

“Deal, but I think you mean 17-300,” he said, chuckling. I stuck my tongue out at him. “You know, most of them are labeled, right?”

“You know damn well when that Kodak moment happens, you’re not going to be patient enough for me to read labels, Christian. All right, enough out of you. We’ve got memories to capture.” I slung his camera bag over one shoulder and braced myself under its impressive weight. These things were heavier than they appeared. I made sure to pull up the front of my dress so the camera wouldn’t accidentally cause me to flash the guests, then wrapped my arm through his. Back at his side again after all these years. “Where to, boss?”

We spent a fair amount of time in the back of the church, Christian snapping shots of guests, me serving as a human golf cart. I loved to watch him work. He knew just how to turn the camera to find that perfect angle, spin the flash bulb around for the perfect lighting, and wait for the
exact
perfect moment to snap the photo.

Thanks to Christian, Kendra and Grant decorated their home with some of the most beautiful baby portraits ever taken. My daisy prints were pretty breathtaking too, as a matter of fact.

After a while, just when I was starting to get bored, Kendra showed up in a gorgeous plum purple dress with a black trench coat slung over her arm. Grant, also stunning in a tuxedo, held her hand tightly in his. I’d forgotten they would be here today, as friends of the groom. They spotted Kendra’s friend Jay from college, whom I’d only met a few times and once had a mad crush on. I mean the guy was god-like, and I’m not usually one to ogle men.

I tried to wave to Kendra and Grant, forgetting that about one thousand pounds of equipment was attached to my neck, and nearly toppled over. The clatter caught Christian’s attention as well as that of several nearby guests.

“You doing okay there, Tessie?”

“I’m fine. Really,” I smiled to prove it, then pointed toward our friends. “Just wanted to flag Kendra down.”

Christian snapped a quick picture of them just as Grant leaned over to kiss his wife’s cheek, another intimate moment captured for eternity by my talented friend.

“How do you know when to do that?”

“Do what?” he asked, snapping a few more pictures as other guests meandered in.

“Know when to take the picture.” I watched over his shoulder as he lined up the adorable toddler-aged flower girl in his lens, waited for a moment, and hit the button just when she handed a delicate petal to the equally tiny ring bearer. Five seconds after Christian snapped the photo, the ring bearer tried to kick the flower girl, who ran screaming for her mommy, and the moment was gone. And yet, it would never be gone, thanks to Christian. “Like that. It’s uncanny.”

“Well,” he shrugged, making some adjustments in the final moments before the ceremony started. He checked his battery life, rotated a few things, and then looked me in the eye. “How do you know just when to place an ad to give it the most impact? Or what words will sound the best in a commercial? Or look the best on a billboard? We all have our skills. You, Kendra and I are all blessed that we’ve found ways to use our skills to make a living.”

I wanted to tell Christian he was wrong about me. I wasn’t the marketing genius he and Kendra thought I was. Even if I was, it was hardly that impressive. They both worked at a practical craft that impacted lives in some meaningful way, Christian with his memory preservation and Kendra with her delicious creations. At the end of the day, my talent was for swindling people to give more of their hard-earned money to a giant investment firm, yell at a bunch of underlings that had done nothing wrong, and allow my ass to be not-so-discreetly admired by Jabba the Hut. If only I could break free from Prime and find the joy in my work again, as Kendra and Christian had both done. I longed for the kind of self-fulfillment they found in their work, but now wasn’t the time to start a heart-to-heart conversation. Let the man work, Tessa.

When Pachelbel’s
Canon in D
began, the ceremony attendees fell silent, turning to the back of the church in one collective groan of wooden pews. The tiny flower girl toddled down the aisle, eating more petals than she sprinkled on the aisle runner, while Christian caught every moment. The ring bearer followed, then the bridesmaids, resplendent in a golden yellow that was perfect for a May wedding. The dresses were cocktail length, strapless, and finished off with a sheer band of field green around the waist and a peak of tulle beneath the skirt.

The bride followed, her face framed by a halo of curly blonde hair and a delicate veil. She looked like an angel, dressed in a white, Grecian style dress, pleated like the creases of a marble column. A dipped neckline, fitted strapless bodice, and soft satiny skirt flattered her petite figure from head to toe. Her enormous smile lit up the entire church. Such beauty at weddings, in a lot of ways, made Christian’s job a cakewalk.

As the procession glided past us, I spotted their hand-tied bouquets of daisies. The bride’s bouquet was a bit larger, with white and yellow roses spread throughout, and lots of greenery surrounding them. The arrangements, placed on either side of the altar on small marble columns, also brimmed with daisies, encompassed in baby’s breath and lush ivy leaves.

“Hey,” Christian whispered into my ear, his breath disturbing the tiny wisps of hair at my temple and sending a chill across my skin. “It’s our flower.”

Christian let me sit down during the ceremony while he danced around to take about a thousand shots. From my pew in the back, I admired the skillful subtlety of his movements. The way he crouched down out of the way so guests could take their own pictures, how he made himself invisible but still fully present, how he knew where to stand for all the best viewpoints. Meanwhile, the guests watched the couple exchange vows undisturbed, thanks to his stealth. I tuned in and out, fixated on Christian’s inherent covertness.