Lori Wilde - There Goes The Bride (29 page)

He looked at the form and an arrow of sadness pierced straight into his heart. He’d gotten what he’d come here for. How come he didn’t feel the least bit happy about it?

***

The packages arrived like swarms of locust. Everyone in Houston, it seemed, was eager to curry favor with the Cartwrights by sending Delaney and Evan wedding gifts.

Now that she no longer had Lucia’s house to worry about and had closed her office until after the honeymoon, Delaney was stuck opening wedding presents and writing thank-you notes. Honey oversaw the operation like General Patton reviewing his troops. Delaney sat at the kitchen table, glumly wielding a calligraphy pen while her mother opened the day’s arrivals.

“That’s the sixth food processor you’ve gotten,” she sniped. “Doesn’t anyone follow the wedding registry? How difficult is it to go to Neiman’s online and type in your name?”

“It’s okay, Mother,” Delaney said. “I don’t mind exchanging them.”

“I think it’s just inconsiderate.”

“You have to realize not everyone stresses over proper etiquette the way you do.”

“Etiquette? I’m talking common courtesy.”

Delaney sighed. “Just let it go.”

“Excuse me?”

“Let it go, Mother. Stop trying to control everything.”

“I’m not. I just think it’s—”

“You are.”

Honey drew herself up. “Well, what’s wrong with trying to control things in order to have the best outcome?”

“It’s my wedding. I should have some say in it.”

Honey sat down beside her and reached out and took her hand. “I just want this to be the most perfect wedding ever. You deserve it. I can’t tell you how much it means to me and your father. We love Evan so much. And you know how I’ve dreamed of this day. Especially since I never got to do this for Skylar.”

Her mother’s eyes misted with tears, and she fumbled in the pocket of her linen suit for a crisply starched and pressed monogrammed handkerchief. She dabbed carefully at the corners of her eyes, taking care not to smear her makeup. “How I wish your sister could be here for this celebration.”

Seeing her normally composed mother tear up wrenched Delaney’s stomach. In a flash, she was thrown back seventeen years to the day when they first heard the news that Skylar had been killed. It was the first time she’d ever seen her mother fracture, cracking like an egg, collapsing sobbing onto the floor.

Delaney had vowed then and there to do everything in her power to make everything all right. To do what it took to be the perfect child, to make her mother smile again. She packed down her anger, packed down her own desires, and devoted her life to being good. Her mother had taught her it was not okay to assert herself, and she’d lifted the lesson to virtuoso status.

The defense mechanism had served her well.

Following her mother’s advice had transformed her from a chubby, unattractive, socially awkward child into a thin, pretty woman with lots of friends. But now, as she stood on the verge of marrying Evan and entering a life not of her own making, Delaney couldn’t help feeling it had crippled her too.

All these years, what she longed to hear was that her presence mattered. That she was as important to her mother as Skylar had been.

But she’d never heard it.

Instead all she’d heard was that it was not okay to be who she really was, to assert herself.

Her mother put the handkerchief away and forced a bright smile. “Enough regrets. Since the other bakery we were using inconveniently went out of business on us, Sunshine Bakery graciously agreed to stand in at the last minute. They just e-mailed a picture of the cake they’ve specially designed for you based on the qualifications I sent them. I think you’re going to love it.” Honey reached inside the portfolio she carried stuffed with wedding details and passed her the computer printout. “The other bakery’s going out of business turned out to be a blessing in disguise.”

Disappointment stole over her as she studied it. Delaney had wanted a traditional wedding cake with lots of tiers and roses and beading made of frosting.

This three-tiered cake was simple, sleek, and smooth. While it was stylish, it had no personality, no heart.

“Isn’t it perfect?” Honey looked at her expectantly. Delaney knew what she was supposed to say; she was supposed to echo “Perfect.”

But her success with Lucia’s house gave her courage. She moistened her lips and met Honey’s eyes. “Mother, I’m not sure this is the right one for me.”

“Of course it’s the right one. I know you think the wedding cake is a bit plain, but darling, it’s simple and elegant. All those colored flowers and excess layers and cream frosting you wanted looked so trailer park.”

“I’m not speaking of the cake.”

“No?” Honey tilted her head. “Is there something else you wanted to weigh in on?”

For years her mother had been able to quell her with a single look that said,
I’m disappointed in you.
Delaney saw the awakening of that look now. One wrong word, and Honey’s face would shift into full-blown disapproval.

“The wedding . . .” Delaney swallowed.
Come on. You can do this. Tell her the truth. Tell her you’re not sure you’re really ready to get married.

“Yes?” Honey crossed her arms over her chest, warning her with her change in body language.

The childhood fear that her mother would no longer love her if she expressed an opinion dogged her.

Don’t let her run over you. Say it.

“I’m not sure . . . August is so hot, and . . . while I love Evan to death, I’m not sure he’s the right one for me.”

“Young lady,” Honey said and sternly pointed a finger at her. “Enough with the cold feet. It’s time to grow up. You are
not
postponing this wedding again. The last two postponements have already cost your father in the neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars. He doesn’t complain because he loves you, but I will not tolerate another postponement. You are marrying Evan Van Zandt on August fourth at three P.M., and I will not hear another word about it.”

“It’s time,” Skylar told her that night, “to play your trump card. Mother might have issued an edict about your marriage to Evan, but you can still rattle her cage enough so she’ll have to let you wear the veil.”

Delaney, who had been growing more and more upset as the wedding plans progressed, was susceptible to Skylar’s words. She climbed out of bed and as she made her way to the closet, she bumped against the dresser where she’d installed the hula doll Nick had given her.

The hula girl wildly shook her hips, and darn if she didn’t appear to be winking.

Shake it up.

She flung open the closet door, took out both the consignment shop veil and the one her mother had bought for her at Bergdorf’s. Using great care, she sat down at her vanity table, snapped the label from the Bergdorf’s veil, and painstakingly stitched it into the hem of the veil Morag had tatted three hundred years ago.

As she worked, Delaney felt the power of the veil suffuse her. On this one thing, she would have her way. She might not get the chapel she’d hoped for or the wedding cake or the invitations or the dress or the groom of her choice, but by God she would wear Morag’s veil. One way or the other she would have some small bit of magic in her life.

After she finished sewing the label in the veil, she crept downstairs to the closet where Honey kept the wrapping paper. She put the veil in a Bergdorf’s box and then went back to her room to print off a note from her computer. Delaney racked her memory for the name of one of Honey’s Philadelphia relatives and could only recall one. A great-aunt Maxie whom she’d never heard from nor met. Delaney had no idea if the woman was even still alive or not, but at this point she did not care. The note she typed read:

To Delaney—so sorry I cannot attend the wedding. Please accept this veil in lieu of my presence. Wear it in good health—Your Great-Aunt Maxie.

Pleased with her handiwork, she wrapped the veil in elegant gift-wrapping paper, adorned it with a lavish bow, and sneaked back downstairs to put it with the stack of presents yet to be gone through sitting on the dining room table. She couldn’t wait to see the look on her mother’s face when Delaney opened that veil in the morning.

Honey could not believe Delaney was trying to back out of the wedding a third time. Children could be so ungrateful. No matter how much you did for them, it never seemed to be enough. They criticized and complained and generally behaved in a disagreeable manner.

She was going to take the high moral ground and forgive her daughter. Cold feet was an unpleasant affliction. Not that she could empathize. Marrying James Robert had been the best thing that had ever happened to her. She’d never had second thoughts. Even years later, when he’d developed a drinking problem. She knew you had to take the good with the bad.

Delaney was just nervous. That was all. Everything would be fine as long as Honey did not allow her to consider postponing as an option. This wedding was happening. Honey would not be embarrassed again.

“Mother,” Delaney told her at breakfast, “I want to apologize for my behavior yesterday. You were right and I was wrong.”

Honey smiled. There now. That was the daughter she knew and loved. “It’s all right, darling. I really do understand that this is a stressful time for you.”

“Will you help me go through the gifts that arrived since yesterday? I want to keep abreast of the thank-you notes.”

“Absolutely.” Honey beamed. Yes, this was what she’d been wanting from Delaney. Full participation in the process. Honey retrieved the embossed stationery she’d had printed up just for the wedding and her Mont Blanc pen and joined her daughter in the dining room.

The packages that had arrived in the previous day’s afternoon deliveries were stacked beside the boxes they’d already opened and gone through. Honey pulled out her list and settled at the table to write down who had given what while Delaney unwrapped the packages. She brought her orange juice with her from the breakfast table. It rested on a coaster to her left.

“Oh,” Delaney said after she’d pulled the wrapping paper off the first gift. “It’s in a Bergdorf’s box.”

“Who’s it from?” Honey asked, picking up her glass of orange juice for a sip.

“I don’t know. Let me see if there’s a card in the box.” Delaney lifted the lid and took out a wedding veil.

No, not just a wedding veil, but that hideous consignment shop wedding veil Honey had found under Delaney’s bed. The one she’d hidden in her own closet.

She felt the blood drain from her face. What was going on here?

“Isn’t it beautiful? And it has a designer label,” Delaney said, shooting Honey a cool, calculated gaze.

“Who . . . sent it?”

“There’s a note right here. ‘To Delaney—so sorry I cannot attend the wedding. Please accept this veil in lieu of my presence. Wear it in good health—Your Great-Aunt Maxie.’”

Maxie. The name she’d never expected to hear again.

All the air left Honey’s lungs. The glass of orange juice slipped from her hand and crashed to the tile, splattering her white slacks like a Jackson Pollock painting.

“Goodness, Mother, are you okay?”

Honey met her daughter’s gaze, and she couldn’t believe the cunning expression she saw there. It was as if Delaney was channeling Skylar.

“Fine,” she managed to whisper. What was going on?

“Wasn’t that sweet of Great-aunt Maxie?” Delaney clutched the veil to her chest. “I simply have to wear this veil at the wedding. I’m sure you won’t mind if we return the veil you bought me. Right, Mother?”

“Right,” Honey croaked.

And that’s when she realized it was the beginning of the end of her life as she knew it.

On Thursday evening, at the Orchid Villa retirement community, Trudie and Lucia threw Delaney a bachelorette party.

Still flying high on her victory with the wedding veil, Delaney brought it with her to the party.

Everyone oohed and aahed over it as they passed it around. Then Tish told them about how wishing on the veil was supposed to make the deepest desires of your heart come true. Then, of course, everyone wanted to try it on and make a wish. As if it were a birthday cake or a falling star or a wishing well.

Delaney cringed as it was passed from head to head. “Please, you guys, I promised the lady I bought it from that I wouldn’t wish on the veil.”

“You promised you wouldn’t wish on the veil,” Jillian pointed out, just after she wished to win an important court case she was in serious danger of losing. “We didn’t.”

Delaney wrung her hands. “It still feels wrong.”

“You don’t seriously believe in it?” Tish said and then wished to get out of debt, before passing the veil to Rachael.

“The issue isn’t whether I believe in it or not, but the fact that I promised Claire Kelley.”

“But like Jillian said, that was your promise, not ours.” Rachael settled the veil on her head.

“
Et tu,
Rachael?”

Rachael shrugged. “I wish for a grand romance.”

“It’s not Aladdin’s lamp, you guys.”