The Bridesmaid (4 page)

Abby parked her white van in the strip mall parking lot in front of Spencer’s Bakery, got out and slammed the door as hard as she could. The van had been around since Abby was a toddler and slamming was a necessity if she wanted the door to stay shut. At one point it had been the Dove’s Roost equipment van—the vehicle her father used to run around town and pick up supplies and decorations. When Carol got her license, her dad had painted over the old Dove’s Roost logo—two doves holding a string of wedding bells with their beaks—and given the behemoth to the girls. The thing was unreliable and unsightly, but at least Abby had wheels.

The door bells tinkled as Abby walked into the window-fronted bakery, but no one came to the counter. The shop was empty. Abby inhaled that particular Spencer’s Bakery smell, the combination of hot bread, butter, sugar and freshly brewed coffee that always made her feel both cozy and hungry. She’d been coming to this bakery for so long it felt like home.

There was music coming from the back room. She ducked behind the counter and strolled into the bakery kitchen. What she saw there made her slap her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Noah, with a smudged apron over his clothes and flour all over his face, stood in the center of the kitchen, playing air guitar along to the classic rock station on the radio. His eyes were squeezed shut in concentration.

Could he
be
any cuter?

“And you play your game!”
he sang at the top of his lungs, the other bakery workers looking on and laughing.
“You give lo-o-ove a bad name!”

Noah opened his eyes, spotted her and froze. Abby walked forward into the room, clapping. Noah’s face flushed scarlet under the flour.

“Wow. You really missed your calling,” Abby said. “That was cover-band gold. And trust me, I know cover bands.”

“Nice to tell me we had company,” Noah scolded his coworkers.

“Hey, Abby,” a couple of the bakers greeted her before getting back to work.

“Hey, guys,” Abby replied.

Noah walked over to the desk in the corner where he usually sat when he was taking orders or keeping the books. He dropped into his seat and started tapping on the computer as if he’d just been in the middle of something very important.

“What can I do ya for?” he asked, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. Abby pulled a folded sheet of paper out of her jacket pocket. “Last-minute change for the Stewart wedding.” She handed over her mom’s scrawled note. “Thought I’d drop it off personally, but I didn’t know I was going to be treated to a rock show.”

Noah laughed and looked down at the note. “Tell your mom I’m on it.”

“Okay! Catch ya later!” Abby turned to walk out. There was a freshly iced batch of cupcakes sitting on the counter and she grabbed one on her way.

“Hey! Those are for a birthday party!” Noah shouted after her.

“Good thing I know you always make extra!”

She walked outside and bit into the cupcake, smothering her lips with pink icing. There was nothing better than a postschool sugar fix. Not to mention a little postschool Noah fix. She was going to have the image of his air guitar solo burned into her brain for the rest of the week.

Abby finished up her snack, tossed the wrapper in a garbage can and was about to get back in the van when something caught her eye. In the window of Sports Expert, the mom-and-pop sporting goods store a couple of doors down from the bakery, was a Help Wanted sign. A Help Wanted sign in the window of one of her favorite stores on earth.
You can’t do this,
Abby thought, her hand on the van’s door handle.
Mom and Dad will kill you.

But somehow that thought didn’t stop her from walking into the store and grabbing the sign out of the window. This was her shot. She was never going to escape the Dove’s Roost unless she started taking control.

Barb Miller’s face brightened when she saw Abby come in. “Abby! What can I do for you today? We just got in a shipment of the new Adidas shorts. . . .”

“Sounds great,” Abby said. “But first, let’s see what I can do for you.”

She placed the Help Wanted sign down on the counter and looked up at Barb hopefully. Sixty years old and she still ran the Boston Marathon every year. She had sold Abby her very first pair of shin guards back in the day. This woman was her hero. “You want the job?” Barb asked, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Abby said. “I’ll fill out an application, I’ll give you references. Whatever you need.”

“No application necessary,” Barb said with a smile. She tossed the Help Wanted sign in the trash can behind the counter. “You’re hired.”

That evening Abby sat at the table in the catering kitchen with her mother and father, putting together the favors for that Saturday’s wedding. This week’s bride had wanted to donate money to her favorite charity in lieu of favors, while her groom’s mom had insisted that her friends deserved to go home with some little goody in their hands. In the end the family had ordered two hundred silver heart frames and now Abby and her parents were stuck placing cards into each of them that read, “A donation has been made in your name to the Free Cable Society.” Abby’s mom was cutting the cards into heart shapes using a template she’d made from the frame glass, her dad was using an eyeglass screwdriver to unscrew the tiny latch that held the backs of the frames in place, and Abby was removing all the paper inside, replacing it with the cards, then screwing the frames together again. They were going to do this two hundred times in a row.

Two. Hundred. Times.

“What’s the Free Cable Society, anyway?” Abby asked.

“Damned if I know,” her father replied. “People for gratis HBO?”

“Free cable car service in San Francisco?” her mom put in.

“Or maybe they want liberation for all the cable-knit sweaters of the world,” her father continued.

Both Abby’s parents laughed.

“Okay, you guys scare me,” she said.

“I bet not as much as the thought of thousands of sweaters roaming free and wild!”

Abby smiled and struggled to slip the frame-back into the little slot cut in the metal. She was too nervous to get her fingers to work properly. She had already put off telling her parents about her new job all afternoon and through dinner. Do-or-die time was rapidly approaching.

Abby’s mother’s cell phone rang—a tinny version of “Here Comes the Bride”—and her mother picked up the flip phone to check the caller ID. She groaned and tossed the phone into a box full of grosgrain ribbon, where it rang six more times before going silent. Abby and her dad exchanged a look.

“Sorry,” her mother said. “It’s just that Wentworth woman is getting on my last nerve. I think she may be a contender.”

“For Most Horrendous MOB?” Abby’s father sounded intrigued. “
Real-
ly?”

While Abby always found the Bridezillas to be the most obnoxious people in the wedding process, Abby’s parents had a thing about mothers of the brides. They kept a running list of the most evil. It had been a while since they’d had a real possibility for the number one slot.

“She can’t be worse than Mrs. Rosen,” Abby said. “We had to redo her seating arrangement thirty-eight times. Thirty-eight!”

“I know,” her mother said with a sigh, picking up the scissors again. “But I logged the number of minutes I spent on the phone discussing cake toppers with this woman. Anyone want to hazard a guess?”

“Half an hour?” Abby’s father asked.

“Higher,” her mother said.

“An hour?” Abby asked, incredulous.

“Two hours and forty-seven minutes,” her mother said flatly. “Should they be crystal or ceramic? Modern or traditional? Do we know any good wood-carvers? Last night I spent half an hour explaining that unless she wanted to spend a thousand dollars on the cake topper, that no, there was no way I could commission someone to make one in the exact likenesses of the bride and groom.”

“Is that how much it would cost?” Abby asked.

“I have no idea! I only said it in a vain attempt to make her hear herself,” her mother replied. “But the joke’s on me. She’s actually considering it. Now I may have to find an ar
tiste
to do the job.”

“Wow,” Abby’s father said. “I think we have a contender.”

Her parents laughed and her dad put his hand over her mom’s. They looked at each other and shook their heads, baffled.

“Just when we think we’ve heard it all . . . ,” her mother began.

“There’s always a real original waiting in the wings,” her father finished.

Abby smiled. She loved how her parents were always finishing each other’s sentences and how they took everything in stride.

At least they’re in a good mood,
she thought as they got back to work on the favors.
Just do it. Just . . . get it
out there. Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.

“So . . . guys. There’s something I want to tell you,” Abby said finally, laying her latest frame aside.

“This sounds serious,” her father said jokingly.

“It is. Kind of. Well, not really,” she added. Maybe it’d be best to act like this was no big deal. “It’s just that I got a job today. That’s all.”

There was a prolonged moment of agonizing silence.

“You did
what
?” her mother demanded.

“You already have a job,” her father said. “Here.”

“Actually, I was thinking about cutting down on my Dove’s Roost hours.” Abby bit her lip. “Like maybe cutting them out entirely.”

Her mother stared at her in disbelief. “Abby! It’s spring!” she screeched.

“What are you thinking?” her father demanded, pushing his chair back from the table. “Do you have any idea how many weddings we have coming up?”

“Yes, Dad, I know. I know exactly how many weddings we have coming up,” Abby said, reddening. “Don’t you guys even want to know what the job is?”

“Oh, yes. Please tell us what could be so important that you’d leave your family in the lurch like this,” her father said with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

“It’s at Sports Expert,” Abby said quietly. “Barb Miller hired me.”

Her mother shook her head angrily. “Sports Expert? Of course. Better to stock tennis shoes than to help out with the family business.”

Abby stared at her parents, suddenly feeling totally guilty. She hated hurting them, but she also hated how they just assumed she would be there. How they just expected her to be the good little wedding soldier when they knew she totally hated weddings.

Sooner or later her parents were going to have to realize that their kids had no interest in taffeta and tulle or the differences between white, ivory and bone.

“This is unacceptable, Abby. To go out behind our backs and get a job, without even asking us . . . this isn’t like you,” her father said.

“Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you beforehand, but it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I just saw the sign in the window today. And besides, this way I’ll be making extra cash,” Abby added, trying to appeal to their logical sides. “I won’t have to hit you up for new soccer cleats or gas money or . . . anything else. It’ll be good for everyone.”

“But Abby—”

“And you guys just promoted Becky! That girl would sell her Prada on eBay if it meant she could get more hours.” She looked from her mother to her father and back again, her eyes begging. “Please, you guys? I really want to do this.”

Abby’s mother and father exchanged a long look and finally, her dad sighed. He picked up another frame and went to work on it with the screwdriver.

“Well, I guess we can’t keep you prisoner here . . . ,” he said. “So if it means that much to you . . .”

“Yes!” Abby said, jumping up and wrapping her arms around her father’s neck. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

She kissed her dad on the cheek, then sat down again, her fingers a lot less shaky. A tiny little part of her knew she should mention the Italy program, but after their drastic reaction to a mere job she decided to wait a bit. There was no telling whether she’d even get in. So there was no reason to rock the boat further.

Not yet.

• 3 •

With This Ring

The front door flew open and Carol came tearing out.

“Ab!” Carol cried. “Abolina!” It was Friday after school and Abby had just gotten home.

“Carol!” Abby shouted. “You’re home!” The sisters threw their arms around each other and hugged tight. “I thought you weren’t getting here till tomorrow!”

“I decided to forgo the last night of post-graduation partying,” Carol said. She lifted the soft auburn curls around Abby’s face and let them drop back down against her cheeks. “God, why did you get the good hair?”

Carol’s own straight brown locks were tied back in a loose ponytail, random pieces hanging carelessly around her face. She wore a purple T-shirt, beaten-up green cargo pants and Birkenstocks, her wrist-cuff tattoo and a slim silver ring her only accessories. She looked stunningly beautiful, as always.

“So how long have you been here?” Abby asked as they linked arms and walked up the front steps.

“A few hours. Mom is already trying to rope me into manning the ice cream buffet this weekend. What is
wrong
with people, Abby. Don’t they know ice cream buffets belong at birthday parties for seven-year-olds?”

Abby laughed. Her sister had always been a dessert snob.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Abby said. “Finally it’s back to the way it should be. Us against them for the entire summer!”

“Well, Ab, actually there’s something I want to talk to you about.” They entered the foyer and Carol twirled around to face her sister. Carol’s eyes were sparkling and she had a huge crazy-looking grin on her face.

“You’re all hyper,” Abby said. “What’s your deal?”

“You’ll see!” Carol said. She pushed open the door to the catering kitchen.

Their parents were already there, sampling Rocco’s latest pasta concoction.

“Good! Abby’s home!” their father said, rubbing his hands together. “We finally get to hear the big news.”

“She’s been practically bursting at the seams all afternoon,” said their mother.