Diary of a Single Wedding Planner (Tales Behind the Veils Book 1) (22 page)

Sunday, December 8th

Well, I can now cross “freeze to death on beach” off my bucket list. We took blankets and wore sweatshirts with gloves, but the wind whipping off the water proved too much for us. Poor Cabe. His first trip to the beach since moving back from Seattle, and the weather screwed him over.

We ended up in a little dive called Jack’s Shack instead. We had a great view of the Atlantic with windows to block out the wind. I told him the highlights of my trip to see Dwayne, and he seemed mildly disinterested. This is one area where it is a disadvantage to have a dude as a best friend. If you’re talking to a girl, you can give her every detail of the entire evening with every line of the conversation, and she’ll be cool with it. She’ll even ask questions to get a more complete picture.

Guys are different. Cabe wanted to know if Dwayne came on to me, if he paid for my dinner, if he asked to see me again, and if I wanted to see him again. That’s it. He didn’t care that Dwayne had lost a ton of weight, and he wasn’t interested in my whole wishy-washy feelings over the whole thing. (I kind of glossed over the kiss part. I certainly didn’t mention comparing Cabe’s kiss to Dwayne’s.) I summarized Laura’s viewpoint that it was okay that I wanted to talk to Dwayne.

“Look, Ty,” Cabe said in between bites of crab legs, “I think it’s perfectly natural for you to be curious. I don’t blame you for wanting to go see the guy and figuring out what’s what. I think that’s all it was, though. I mean, this guy’s your past. He’s not your future. You don’t want to go back there and live, and he’s damned sure not coming here. I think you guys might have had a lot in common then, but now you don’t. So don’t lead him on.”

“Lead him on? How am I leading him on? I had dinner with him, that’s all,” I said.

“I realize that, but hell, he takes one look at you and he can clearly see how hot you are and that you have it together. Much more than he does right now. His wife just took off. He sees you as a way to make himself feel better. I’m just saying if you know it’s not going anywhere and you can tell he thinks it might, you need to be aware of how you come across. Don’t lead him on. Don’t take him somewhere you have no intention of staying.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t even talk to him?” I asked.

“I can’t say you should or you shouldn’t, but you need to seriously think about what you’re doing. Especially when you’re driving over three hours for dinner, ya know?”

The waitress came and refilled my Coke and Cabe’s beer, and he switched the subject to a new blues band performing downtown. I couldn’t help thinking about Dwayne, though, and wondering if I had screwed up by going to see him when I didn’t know what I wanted.

“Brown Eyed Girl” came on the jukebox, and I started bouncing in my seat a little bit.

Cabe smiled, shaking his head as he wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Still love this song, huh? You never get tired of it, do you?”

I shook my head no as I swayed my shoulders and snapped my fingers, singing along with Van Morrison.

“When are we going out dancing?” I asked. “We used to go dancing all the time.”

He put his napkin on the table and stretched his hand across to me.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“What? Leave? We’re still eating.”

“No, not leave. Let’s dance. Get up.” He stood up and grabbed my hand to pull me up with him.

“Cabe, no, oh my God, no. This is not a dancing place. No one is dancing.” He continued pulling my arm. “Cabe, we can’t dance here. I meant later, another time. We can’t dance here.”

“Why not?” he asked. “There’s plenty of room, and this is your favorite song to dance to. Get up and let’s dance.”

“Cabe, no. I can’t. We can’t. They’ll tell us to leave. Everybody will stare at us,” I protested, but he had already pulled me to my feet.

“They’re not going to ask us to leave because the place is damned near empty, and they need the business. Anyone staring at us will just be envying us because they wish they had the guts to get up and dance.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted my other arm high, and we were dancing.

In the middle of the aisle at Jack’s Shack, right beside our booth.

Once I got over my initial shock and embarrassment, I had a blast. I hadn’t danced with Cabe in so long. I had forgotten how much fun it is with him leading. He twirled me, spun me, dipped me, and caught me in a whirlwind dance that left me breathless and laughing so hard I got a little dizzy from it all. When the song ended, the other five patrons in the restaurant applauded, and the waitress brought us another round of drinks on the house.

“It’s so refreshing to see a young couple madly in love,” she said as she set our drinks on the table. “You don’t see the real deal every day.”

“Oh, no ma’am, we aren’t—” I started to protest but Cabe stopped me.

“Now, honey, don’t be shy,” he said to me before turning to the adoring waitress. “Ten years we’ve been together, and I still love this little lass just as much as the first day I saw her. She was only fifteen then. We had to sneak around so her parents didn’t know we were dating. It was all worth it, though, as happy as we are today!”

I wanted to slink under the table and die of embarrassment. She beamed at us like she’d just heard the most romantic story ever.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” she crooned. “I hope y’all never stop dancing.”

“Oh, we won’t,” Cabe said, taking my hand across the table. “Me and my little brown-eyed girl will be dancing ’til our legs can’t dance no more.”

She smiled and walked away, at which point I yanked my hand out of Cabe’s. He burst out laughing.

“You’re terrible,” I said.

“Me? What about you, traipsing about when you were only fifteen? Lying to your parents and sneaking around? You’re one to talk about someone being terrible.”

“I don’t think I could have snuck anywhere at fifteen. My mother had us all on lockdown in her paranoia that one of us would get pregnant and not be able to finish school like she did. Besides, boys weren’t even on my radar at that age. Not until senior year.”

“Then you went on the warpath, breaking hearts and taking names,” Cabe said, laughing.

“Um, no. Not exactly. What about you? Were you a heartbreaker at fifteen?” I asked.

“At fifteen? I wouldn’t say heartbreaker, but I was aware of the ladies. Working my way through charm school by then.”

“I bet you were,” I said.

I’d seen high-school pictures of Cabe at his mom’s house. Sandy blond hair, clear blue-gray, perfect white teeth, and eyelashes any girl would have killed for. I look back on my high-school photos and cringe. My mother felt convinced my thick, wavy brown hair worked best kept chin length so it didn’t get unruly. Every picture of me before college looked like I wore a hedgehog on my head. Finally after I got out on my own and around other follically-challenged girls, I learned to just wash and wear with minimal product and let the waves fall as they may. I’d worn it long ever since. It was still thick and unruly, but the more I left it alone, the more it cooperated with me.

We sang Van Morrison songs at the top of our lungs all the way back from the beach. Cabe’s passion for music is contagious. I swear that boy can listen to any kind of music and find value in it. He has certainly broadened my spectrum when it comes to that.

He headed home after dropping me off, and I didn’t even notice the two missed calls from Dwayne until I plugged in the phone to charge before I went to bed. I didn’t call him back. I preferred to go to sleep with Van Morrison in my head and dream of dancing the night away.

Monday, December 9th

Mama called at 9:45am. I should have already been at work, but it was a slow-moving Monday morning.

“So when were you going to tell me you’re coming home for Christmas?” She sounded both pissed and excited.

“What? I’m not coming home for Christmas!”

“Well, that’s not what I hear. I don’t like being put on the spot, Tyler Lorraine. I would appreciate it if you would tell me what you’re doing before I hear about it from someone else.”

“Mama, I don’t know what you heard, but I’m not—”

“Well, I walked in the bank first thing this morning and Gilda Robinson says I must be real excited about having you home for Christmas. Then she went on to say how sweet it is of you to help Dwayne through this rough time he’s having. She says you’re spending Christmas with him and his young’uns. Now I’d like to know when you were going to tell me you’re coming home, and I would love to know when you were going to mention you’re getting back together with Dwayne Davis.”

Oh, the joys of dealing with small town grapevines. “Whoa, slow down a minute. First of all, I am not getting back together with Dwayne Davis.”

“
Then
I went to the drug store to pick up my prescription, and Diane Smith tells me she heard I’m having a visitor for Christmas. Now, how do you think that made me feel? My own daughter isn’t telling me what’s going on. I’m the last to know. I raised you better than to do me that way.”

“Mama, I didn’t tell anybody I’m coming home. I’m not even—” She wouldn’t let me finish.

“You didn’t even tell me y’all were talking, much less getting back together. When did this happen? You didn’t even wait for the ink to dry on them papers, did you? Does his whole family know? Did you tell your sisters? Am I the only one you’re not talking to?”

“Mama! Please take a breath and let me talk! I am not getting back together with Dwayne Davis,” I started.

“Then why on earth would you spend Christmas with him and his kids? Am I supposed to invite all of them over here when I didn’t know anything about this? Do I need to buy presents for some young’uns I don’t even know?”

“Good grief! Would you please just listen to me? I am not getting back together with Dwayne or spending Christmas with him and his kids. I’m not coming home for Christmas. Everything you’re telling me is news to me, too. You didn’t get left out of anything.”

“Well, why on earth would everybody in town be telling me that if it’s not true? Did they make it up?”

I groaned and slapped my palm against my forehead. “Maybe Dwayne is telling people that. I don’t know.”

“Why would Dwayne be telling people that, Tyler?”

“He asked me to come home for Christmas,” I said, vowing silently to ream Dwayne out for his big mouth.

“So you have been talking to him! Are y’all getting back together?”

“No. We’ve talked a couple of times. It’s not a big deal, so I didn’t mention it.”

“Not a big deal? You’re coming here to spend Christmas with Dwayne Davis and his kids, and you don’t think that’s a big deal? You ain’t been home to spend Christmas with your own mother in years, and you don’t think it’s a big deal that you’re coming home for him?”

“I’m not coming home!” I started to say that if I had been planning on it, this phone call would have changed my mind. Luckily, I stopped before that flew out of my mouth.

“Why would he say you were?” she asked.

“I don’t know! I will be happy to ask him the next time I talk to him. Like I told you, we’ve only talked a couple of times, and I’ve seen him once.” I decided to go ahead and get it all out in the open while she was already pissed.

“You saw him? When? How? You saw Dwayne and you didn’t tell me? Did you come home and
not tell me
?” she yelled, and I swear I thought she might cry.

Maybe full disclosure wasn’t the best move, but it was too late to back up now.

“We met for dinner Friday night,” I said, digging myself deeper.

“For dinner? Where?” she asked, still yelling.

“We both drove halfway,” I said. “Look, Mama, it’s not a big deal. If it was, I would have told you about it, I promise. You gave him my number. He called and asked me to meet him for dinner, and I did. That’s it.”

“He just called you up out of the blue, and you traipsed off to meet him for dinner? Ain’t you got no self-pride? Good Lord in heaven, child, play a little bit hard to get.” She did start to cry then.

“Mama, for Christ’s sake,” I started, but her loud shriek interrupted me.

“Don’t you dare take the good Lord’s name in vain on top of everything else you’ve done!”

“I’m not, I mean, I didn’t mean to. Look, I have to go to work. If I decide to get back together with Dwayne, you’ll be the first to know. Maybe the second, since I’m thinking Dwayne would need to know as well. But don’t start getting your hopes up.”

“He’s got babies, Tyler. He ain’t leaving them babies. He’s got his daddy’s business to run. Don’t think you’re gonna talk him into moving off down there. He already broke up with you one time for trying to make him leave here.”

“That’s great, Mama. Just great. I’ve had a couple of conversations with the boy and one dinner, and you’ve not only got us back together, but you’ve already got us breaking up. Has it ever occurred to you this is why I don’t tell you stuff?”

“Don’t you be hateful to me,” she said, but I didn’t let her finish.

“I’m hanging up, Mama. I have to go to work, and I’d rather do it without mascara pouring down my face. I’ve said all I’m going to say. I’m hanging up.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Tyler Lorraine.”

I pushed
end call
and looked around the room in shock. A few minutes ago, I had a peaceful, lazy Monday morning. Although my apartment still looked exactly the same, my mind felt like I had been ambushed in a war zone. My coffee wasn’t even cold and my emotions were scattered all over the place.

I texted Cabe,
“I need to talk to you.”

He called me back immediately. “What’s up, Buttercup? You okay?”

I told him the whole conversation, and by the end of it, he had me laughing at the absurdity of it all. Mama having a fit from seven hours away didn’t have to affect my life. I hung up much calmer and more relaxed.

Until I got to work, that is, where the stress in the office was almost tangible.

One of Laura’s March brides had called in hysterics. The father of the groom had stopped responding to treatment after battling cancer for several months. The doctors told them he likely had only weeks to live, so the bride and groom wanted to move the wedding up to happen as soon as possible. We scrambled all hands on deck in the office, with each of us calling vendors and venues to pull the entire wedding into the month of December.

The venue proved to be the biggest challenge. With so many holiday parties already on the books, no weekend nights were available, and the family needed a weekend to make travel easier for everyone’s work schedules. The hotel they originally booked graciously offered to cancel the event without any penalty if we could find another venue. Which we couldn’t.

So Lillian called a friend with a large yacht. He agreed to host the reception onboard if Laura could get one of the lakeside resorts to cater the event and arrange docking space for the yacht, which she did. The hotel offered lobby space in the convention center for the ceremony and agreed to duplicate the menu from the original venue as much as possible. We confirmed the new date of December 28th, roughly three weeks away. We even found a photographer, videographer, and DJ to be onboard. Literally.

The bride and groom were thankful beyond words. If the groom’s dad could hold in there for three weeks, he would be able to be at his son’s wedding.

It felt good to know so many people were willing to pull together in the face of tragedy, but I still felt sad. The happiest day of their life had a huge, dark cloud hanging over it. Even if his dad made the ceremony, he wouldn’t be here long afterward. The whole thing tasted bittersweet.

It all, of course, made me think of my own sweet daddy not being able to walk either of my sisters down the aisle. If I ever do find my Prince Charming, my daddy won’t be there to give me away. I settled into quite a gray funk thinking about Daddy and how alone Mama must have felt when he died. I still feel guilty for leaving her, even though she has two other daughters and a son who are equally responsible for her.

All that thinking led me to call Mama and apologize for this morning.

Somehow I ended up saying I’d come home for Christmas. She’s overjoyed. I feel like I’m going to throw up.