An (Almost) Perfect Love Story (Love Story Book Three) (13 page)

“You probably have to order at the counter,” I said, pointing at the line. My mother narrowed her eyes slightly. Table service was very high on her list of must-haves in any establishment. “What do you want?” I asked.

“Thank you, Ashley. Just a coffee, please,” she said. Eager to get away, I headed over to wait in line, watching out of the corner of my eye as the wedding planner arrived and greeted my mother. She was a little taller than me with dark hair, cut in a stylish bob, the sleekness of which could have rivaled my mother’s. I sighed, fearing the worst.

“Ashley, this is Jennifer Thompson,” my mother said, once I had returned. I set our drinks down on the table, and the wedding planner stood to meet me. “Mrs. Thompson, my daughter, Ashley.”

“Call me Jen, please.” The lady held out her hand for me to shake, smiling warmly at me. On closer inspection, she looked to be about my age. In addition to her sleek hair, she had a very warm smile. I noticed that the skin around her eyes crinkled slightly when she smiled, and I got the sense that this girl laughed a lot. I felt myself start to warm to her immediately.

“So your mother was just filling me in on the basics,” Jen said, sitting again and pulling a notebook closer to her. “You’ve been engaged for about a month now?”

“That’s right,” I said.

She caught sight of the ring on my finger and grinned. “May I?”

I held out my hand and she took it in her own, sighing happily. “It’s beautiful.” She leaned a little closer to me and said, almost conspiratorially, “How’d he propose?”

I told her the whole story, realizing as I did so that my mother had never heard it. I remembered how excited I’d been to tell her, to giggle with her and hear her squeal at all the good parts. As I talked, she remained silent, drinking her coffee. It struck me that she probably didn’t want to admit to this stranger that this was all news for her as well—or was she just sad, as I was, that we never had this moment together?

Jen, on the other hand, was a great audience. She sighed and laughed along with me, almost seeming to get teary at the end when I told her about coming inside to find Emily, Brooke, and Ryan waiting to congratulate us.

“Working in this industry, I’ve heard a lot of engagement stories,” she said, leaning back in her chair with a grin. “But I think that might have been the best one.”

I grinned at her, liking her already. “It was pretty great. I’m a romance junkie, and Chris totally isn’t. The fact that he went to all that trouble just to make me happy…”

“You hang onto that one,” Jen said, pointing at me. “He’s a keeper.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

“Jennifer, can I get you a coffee?” my mother asked. I had almost forgotten she was there, and I felt a flash of irritation that she had interrupted Jen’s praise of my fiancé. But Jen merely smiled and declined, saying she’d been drinking coffee all afternoon.

“We have a big event this weekend,” she explained. “I’ve been burning the midnight oil to get all the last-minute stuff finished.” Jen glanced back down at her notebook. “So, Ashley, why don’t you tell me what kind of wedding you’re envisioning?”

It was not a surprise when my mother started talking before I could even open my mouth. “We definitely want a memorable event for all of our friends and family. I’d say we’re looking at two hundred guests, at least. And we want the wedding to be very nice, very classy. Formal. I was thinking perhaps the local country club or the yacht club we belong to.”

Jen met my eyes briefly before turning back to her notebook to begin writing. She looked almost as if she felt sorry for me. I got the sense that I had met a kindred spirit in her. “Okay, that sounds lovely. What time of year are you aiming for?”

“If possible, I’d like for it to be this summer. I know that doesn’t give us a lot of time.”

Jen nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sure it can be done. If you decide to go with us, we do have quite a few contacts, close associates we can usually persuade to squeeze our brides in, even when we’re cutting it a little close.” She winked at me.

“I think we’ll definitely use your services,” my mom said. “We’ve heard such wonderful reports about you from very good friends.”

I turned to gape at my mother. Was she seriously going to hire this woman without even discussing it with me? She merely raised her eyebrows at me, looking innocent.

I saw Jen watching us closely. “Well, why don’t you talk about it first, involve the groom in the decision. You should all feel comfortable with your choice. I can leave a contract with you to look over. It will give you an idea of the kind of work we do, what you can expect from the service, and so on.”

“That sounds good,” I said, my voice tight.

“I would work very closely with my partner to ensure all your expectations are met,” Jen went on. “Between the two of us, you’ll always have first-class service.”

“Wonderful,” my mother said, nodding happily. I felt another flash of anger at her. She had clearly already decided we’d be hiring a wedding planner, regardless of how I felt. Or how her estranged husband felt—and he’d be the one to foot the bill.

“Do either of you have any questions?”

Before my mother could say anything, I took a deep breath. “How much will it cost?”

“Ashley!” Mom cried, looking shocked. My parents weren’t rich, but they were very comfortable. The way my mom acted sometimes, you’d think they were loaded. “Well-off people never talk about money in public,” she would always remind me. It was one of my mother’s most ironclad rules.

“What?” I asked aggressively. “We haven’t discussed any kind of budget. You’re all prepared to spend Daddy’s money. Have you even talked to him about this?”

My mother looked livid. Across the table, I could see that Jen was uncomfortable, and I felt bad for letting my temper get the best of me.

“That is something to discuss in private,” my mother hissed.

“Budget is an important factor,” Jen said, clearly trying to smooth things over. “It’s all laid out in more detail in the contracts there, but generally our fee is fifteen percent of your total wedding expenditures. Sometimes, for more involved requests, that number might vary.”

“That sounds just fine, Mrs. Thompson,” my mother said through clenched teeth, still glaring at me.

“Well, if you don’t have any more questions, I’ll leave the two of you to discuss things.” Jen stood. “Please take your time. If you have any questions for me at all, you can give me a call at the office or shoot me an email.”

She held out her hand for my mother before turning to me. Her eyes met mine again as she shook my hand. “It was very nice to meet you,” she said. Did I imagine a note of pity in her voice? A moment later, she was gone, and I was alone with my mother.

“I cannot believe you would be so rude, Ashley,” she said, her voice shaking. “I thought I raised you better than that. To bring up personal family matters in front of a stranger—”

“Well, she had to find out sometime, didn’t she?” I snapped back. “Or were you planning on going through the entire wedding pretending you and Daddy are still together?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Excuse me for wanting to throw my daughter a beautiful wedding,” she said. “Excuse me for wanting to put our best face forward to family and friends.”

I groaned inwardly. “Put our best face forward” was another one of her rules. She invoked it often, any time my clothes or hair or behavior didn’t match her expectations.

“Do you know who that girl’s partner is?” she went on. “Her sister-in-law. Kiki Barker-Thompson.” When I looked blank, she groaned. “The only daughter of David Barker. Who, I shouldn’t need to remind you, is one of the most influential men in the entire state. I believe he funds quite a bit of research at your own fiancé’s university. Why wouldn’t you want to associate yourself with these people, Ashley?”

Oh, great. Now she was going to start talking about the importance of networking and developing good social circles. Hoping to cut her off at the pass, I changed the subject. “I’m not comfortable with you spending Dad’s money on my behalf,” I said. “Does he even know about all of these plans you’re making? Have you even talked to him since you left?”

She sighed loudly, as if I was being unreasonable. “Fine. I will call him tonight and we will determine a budget.”

“Mom, Chris and I could just pay for it. There’s no reason for Daddy to feel like he needs to spend so much money. It doesn’t have to be that big of a deal.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you think your father and I have never discussed our daughters’ weddings? He always had every intention of paying for you girls when the time came. What happened between him and me doesn’t change that.”

“Fine,” I said, feeling defeated. How did my mom always find a way to beat down every argument?

“Thank you,” she said. She smiled, looking peaceful and content once more—the look of a woman who always got her way. She sipped her coffee and looked around the café. “You know, this place really isn’t that bad.”

* * *

My dad called me that night. “Ashley, how on earth could you think that I’d mind paying for the wedding?”

I sighed. “I take it Mom called you.”

“Yes, she did. Honey, of course we want to give you your dream wedding. We’ve had an account set aside since you were a little girl.”

I felt a rush of affection for my dad. “I appreciate that, Dad, I really do. But it’s not necessary. Chris and I can put together something small—”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You’re my daughter. I’ll take care of everything.”

I knew I should feel be grateful, that I was totally lucky to have such a generous father. But I hung up feeling worse than ever. I wished he’d told me that he hung up on my mom, that he told her to go jump in a lake, that he did
something
, anything, to show her that he wasn’t okay with what was happening. If my wedding had to suffer in order to help him prove his point, so be it.

My mother seemed to take my dad’s agreement on budget as a personal victory, like it granted her the authority to go ahead and start making decisions. Without discussing it further with me, or waiting to hear what Chris had to say, she went ahead and hired Ever After Events to handle the wedding. In no time at all, I was getting cc’d on emails every day between my mother and Jen Thompson. I felt bad for Jen; the sudden onslaught of my mom’s enthusiasm must have come as quite a shock.

For her part, Jen tried to make sure nothing was signed off on without my approval, though my mother seemed dumbfounded as to why it was necessary. A lifetime of me agreeing with everything she said had apparently taught her I had no opinions of my own.

“How do you feel about the country club?” I asked Chris after reading the latest email from Jen. She and my mother were very concerned about finding the venue, as nothing else could be decided without knowing where the wedding would take place. If we didn’t decide on something soon, we’d have no choice but to push the wedding back to the autumn.

“What country club?” Chris asked, barely looking up from his laptop. He was sprawled on my bed in his boxer shorts and an undershirt, working on some complicated-looking algorithm. He had the dreamy, little boy look on his face that he always got when he was working hard. He looked adorable.

“Where my dad golfs?” I said, looking back down at my phone. “You’ve been there with him a few times.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking up at me and squinting. “It’s nice. They have good greens.”

“Yeah, but how do you feel about it for the wedding?”

“The wedding? You want to get married at the country club?”

“They have an opening,” I said, holding up the phone so he could see the email. “My mom and Jen went out there and talked to someone.”

Chris raised his eyebrows. “They did, huh? How do you feel about that?”

I shrugged. “It’s a nice place. And if they have an opening…” The truth was, I was feeling pretty ambivalent about it. Part of me wanted Chris and me to go out and pick the site ourselves, somewhere special without any help from anyone else. But I knew my mom would never go for that. What was the point of arguing?

“If you’re happy, I’m happy,” Chris said, leaning forward to kiss me before returning to his work. I felt an irrational flash of irritation that he didn’t have an opinion of his own. It wasn’t fair to get mad at him for something I had pretty much just thought myself. Sighing, I typed out a reply to Jen, letting her know that Chris and I were on board, and no, we didn’t need to go out and see it ourselves as we’d both been there before.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Chris said, looking up again. “My parents want us to come up there soon. They want to do a family dinner, to celebrate the engagement. To congratulate us, you know? Is there a weekend you’d be free?”

We hadn’t seen his parents or his sister since getting engaged. The idea of getting away from all this—specifically the planning and my mother—was exactly what I needed right then. A whole weekend at the farm with Chris and his family, out in the woods where my cell service invariably failed—it was almost too good to be true. Before I could respond, a response from Jen pinged on my phone. “Hang on one sec,” I said to Chris, looking at the email.

That’s great! Your mom already made an appointment for a food tasting this weekend, just in case. Will you be able to make it?

I looked up at my fiancé. “How about this weekend?” I asked. “Is that too soon?”

He grinned. “Not at all. I’ll call her now.”

As he got up to find his phone, I sent a quick message back to Jen letting her know that I was sorry but Chris and I had a previous engagement, and she could feel free to sign off on whatever my mom liked.

Chapter Twelve

“So, you excited for Green Acres?” Ryan asked as we filled our water bottles during a break in boot camp.

I shoved him. “Be nice.”

“Ashley, does the boy live on a farm, or does he not?”

“The boy lives in a very nice apartment, twenty minutes from you, as you well know.”

“True. But none of that changes the fact that when he takes you home to see his parents, you’ll be going to stay on a farm. With cows and horses. They even have pigs.”