The Ex (29 page)

I turned and stomped out. The rest of the family staying with us had come off the elevator, and I gave quick hugs and pretended that I needed the bathroom to quickly excuse myself. Once I was safely closed behind my bedroom door, I let myself rage-tremble.

“Hey, Soph?” Marie called through the door. “Are you okay?”

I opened the door a crack and peered through. “Not really.”

She pushed her way into the room and looked around. “Wow, this is nice.”

“Thanks. You should see the closet.” I gestured toward it.

Marie went over and gave herself a quick tour of the dressing room then came back and said, “Your mom driving you nuts yet, or what?”

Marie looked a lot younger than her late forties and masked her gray hairs with a blonde dye job. She had a way of asking a serious question while still smiling that had always put me at ease.

I flopped down on the couch in front of the fireplace. “Yes. Hello, my wedding is not about her issues—which, by the way, she needs to get the fuck over.”

Marie sat beside me. “She needs to take a little chill. How about I shadow her and provide a buffer?”

“Don’t you guys want to go out and see the city and stuff?” I asked. “You don’t want to be stuck here with us.”

“Nah. Jacob and Leanne and them can go out. Besides, we’ll be here until Tuesday. And thanks for letting us all crash here, by the way.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “You weren’t afraid we’d steal the silverware, huh?”

“No. But thanks for coming.” I blinked my eyes and stretched the skin beneath them. “I can get through this. I can survive this wedding.”

“I hope so,” Marie deadpanned. “You can’t afford this place on your salary.”

* * * *

I
breezed into Friday night thinking,
yeah, this is okay. Just the rehearsal. Nothing to get nervous about.

I needed to stop listening to myself. When we went to the Plaza, I was woefully unprepared, emotionally, to act out every detail of our ceremony.

“The quartet will be playing, dah da dah,” Shelby coached me at the back of the room. We’d already run through the steps of the wedding on paper, but she would still guide us through it three times tonight. She motioned to Holli. “Okay, I need bridesmaid behind the bride…”

“They should do this at every wedding, so the bridesmaids don’t look like dipshits,” Holli whispered over my shoulder. She stood behind me, miming holding my train.

“Don’t hold it up that high,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“I’ll put it over the back of your head if you don’t shut up,” she warned.

I took a deep breath. This was so weird. I was going to practice walking down the aisle to Neil? It seemed like it was cheating if I already knew what it was going to be like.

“Once the entrance music starts up, then we’ll open these curtains—” Shelby snapped her fingers to the two hotel-assigned attendants, who pulled cords to smoothly lift and part the pale gold brocade curtain. Beyond, the space was still in a bit of chaos; I wouldn’t see the flower arrangements Neil had dreamed up until I was walking down the aisle. I think he liked the idea of surprising me. I knew orchids were involved; Shelby had told me that it was going to be “a hell of a job” getting the fragile blossoms into place without them dying, but that it wasn’t anything the Plaza couldn’t handle.

The lighting was set exactly as we had planned, though; rich and warm gold tones cascaded from the fluted art deco lights that lined either side of the colonnade. I’d heavily argued for the lighting scheme because it was going to go amazingly well with my dress. Chandeliers hung low on either side of the golden marble aisle—I was so glad I remembered to bring my day-of shoes to practice in so I wouldn’t bust my ass during the actual ceremony—and were draped in gold filigree ornaments and twinkling, smoky crystals. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine them with their cream-colored votives lit.

“Now, you’re going to take your time walking down,” Shelby said, following along behind us. “The runner will be laid out, so it won’t be as slippery, but we don’t want any accidents.”

I’d been concentrating so hard on my feet I hadn’t taken the time to look at Neil standing in the front. His lips were clamped together as he tried not to laugh at me. I’m sure I looked like a fool, taking measured steps in my towering heels and invisible dress. Maybe there was some goddess of grace I could light a candle to or something.

“You look so nervous!” he called, and Holli snorted behind me.

“Yeah, you kind of look like you’re on the way to the gallows.” She laughed.

Since we weren’t in a church, I felt comfortable giving Neil the finger. “I’m trying not to fall down!”

“Maybe you should have picked flats,” Mom suggested, her brash voice echoing in the huge space.

“Since the wedding is tomorrow, that’s kind of unhelpful.” Whatever. I could totally walk in these. “But maybe we need to remember to bring flats for the reception.”

I had four different outfits for the reception. Which may have seemed like overkill to my mom and Neil and basically everyone, but it was necessary. Dare I say, practical. I had my wedding gown for the ceremony, a similar gown sans train and giant skirt for dinner and dancing, a cocktail dress for when the real dancing kicked off, and then something pretty, but comfortable enough to travel in for when we raced off to our honeymoon.

“Nonsense.” Neil laughed. “You look beautiful.”

“Wait until you see me tomorrow,” I promised him with a saucy flip of my hair.

Once I made it down the aisle, the minister ran us through his part of the ceremony. It was pretty basic; he would say some stuff, we would recite the vows we’d written to each other, we’d do the “I do”, and then, we’d be pronounced.

“It doesn’t seem like this is going to be a terribly long affair,” Neil said, casting his eyes around the room. “Perhaps we overdid it on the decor.”

“It’s your wedding. It could be seven seconds long, and it wouldn’t be overkill,” Shelby said. Though, since it was her salary we were talking about, she may have had an interest in keeping us grandiose.

“And we need it to look good for the society pages,” I reminded him. “I own a fashion magazine, for god’s sake. I can’t have a drab wedding, or it’ll be bad for business.”

“Which is exactly why you need four dresses,” Holli added in my defense.

I nodded. “Right. See, Holli gets it.”

“Well, I’m just glad the two of you won’t be living in sin anymore,” my grandma piped up from her seat beside my mother. “Even though you’re being married by a Protestant heretic—no offense, reverend—the lord has to let you in to heaven if the marriage is legal.”

Neil’s eyebrows shot up.

“It’s a thing,” I assured him. Then, to the minister, I mouthed, “Sorry.”

He didn’t look as understanding.

Unlike Emma’s rehearsal, ours went off without a hitch—unless my grandmother practically building a bonfire to burn our non-denominational officiant at the stake counted as a hitch. I decided it was my lack of bridesmaids. I’d picked Holli, and only Holli, because I hadn’t wanted to make Emma get fitted for a dress while she’d been pregnant, and I hadn’t had that many friends besides Holli to begin with. Holli was my very best friend; if anyone were going to make the cut, it would have been her.

We ran through the ceremony twice, and I started to feel strangely calm about it. I could totally do this. I could get married.

“I think we crushed it, baby!” I squealed once Neil and I were in our car. I grabbed my mirror from my purse and touched up my lipstick.

He put his hand on my knee and rolled the fabric of my Michael Kors wrap dress between his thumb and forefinger. “Oh, undoubtedly. No one stormed off screaming, no one showed up drunk. If the wedding goes half as well tomorrow, we’ll be in the clear.”

“You sound like we’re planning a bank heist.” I slumped against him and sighed contentedly. “Do I still look okay for the dinner? Not too deflated?”

“You look as beautiful as you did in that airport the day I met you.” He buried his nose in my hair. “And you smell much better.”

“Hey. I’d just been on a cross-country flight.” I sat up and gave him a little push. “Besides, never tell a woman she looks
as
beautiful as when she was in an airport.”

Our rehearsal dinner was held at One If By Land, Two If By Sea, one of my favorite restaurants in the city. We had the main dining room reserved to fit all of our out-of-town family and friends who’d flown in. Everyone was already assembled when we got there, and their cheers when we walked in sent a lot of mortified blood rushing straight to my head.

“It’s good practice for tomorrow, darling,” Neil teased, lifting our joined hands to kiss my knuckles.

The restaurant was beautiful, with glittering silver chandeliers and soft candlelight against the otherwise dark wood and brick of the room. The tall oil paintings of historical people on the walls made me think of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World, but obviously with no alligators waiting at the bottom to gobble up Paul Revere.

We did a few quick hellos on our way to our seats, but we were both starving—I’d heard Neil’s stomach rumbling hollowly in the car, and it was a miracle I’d heard it over mine—so we got to the table like we were running to put out a fire.

The moment Neil saw Emma and Michael sans baby, his joyous expression crumbled. “Where’s Olivia?”

“She’s with the au pair,” Emma said, relief dripping from every word. “And I have pumped enough milk that I can finally have a drink.” Her eyes went wide as she realized what she’d said, and she quickly amended, “Sorry, Daddy.”

He got a strange expression, but in that split second it appeared, he decided to roll with it. “No, enjoy yourself. You’re not going to trouble me.”

I wondered what was going on in his head. I knew Emma had brought up his alcoholism in their phone call. Maybe this was the first time she’d talked about it since?

Neil sat beside Emma at the round table, and I sat between him and Mom. Rudy was seated with us, too; I lost Holli and Deja to a neighboring table, due to seating space.

Mom reached over and patted my hand. “The wedding is going to be beautiful, honey.”

“Thanks.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She’d been so negative about my relationship with Neil for so long, and the recent resurgence of her disdain had set me back in the being-comfortable-around-Mom department. I didn’t know how to respond.

The dinner was delicious. Neil ordered oysters as a starter, and I was so famished I gulped down most of them.

“Hey, hey!” He laughed, smacking my hand as I reached for the last one. I scrambled for it, and he fought back, until we were both laughing.

“Children,” Rudy drawled in mock scolding.

“What?” Neil took a drink of water and dabbed his mouth with his napkin. He was still chuckling when he spoke again. “I ordered them, they’re mine. She doesn’t get half of them until the paperwork is signed tomorrow.”

“Daddy, you’re awful,” Emma said with an amused twist to her mouth.

“That’s why I’m marrying him.” I reached over to pinch Neil’s cheek, and he ducked out of the way to evade my hand. I tousled his hair instead. “Because he’s so fucking awful.”

“Language.” Mom held her hands out of the way as the waiter placed a plate of roasted striped sea bass in front of her.

I had to make an effort to not gorge myself on squab. The last thing I wanted was to walk down the aisle pregnant with a four-pound food baby. Neil must not have had the same worries about his tux, because he tucked into his beef wellington like they would give it to him for free if he finished it in an hour or less.

“I need to be fortified for the bachelor party,” he explained, defensive and joking all at once.

As the course began to wind down, Michael stood and tapped his knife against his wine glass. “Excuse me, everyone.” When the room politely hushed, he continued, “My wife, Emma, Neil’s daughter, wanted to make a toast to the happy couple tonight. Her severe allergy to public speaking, however, prevents this, so I’m going to read her toast for her.”

Michael cleared his throat. “Daddy and Sophie,” he began then ad-libbed, “Again, Emma wrote this.” A chuckle went around the room. “Two years ago, if I’d had a glimpse of the future, of sitting here on the eve of your wedding, I wouldn’t have believed it. After our inauspicious meeting—”

Emma gave us a pointed look, one perfect eyebrow sliding up in a silent expression of, “Yeah. You just heard that.” Neil blushed and used a reach for his water glass to avert his gaze from Emma’s.

Michael went on, “—and the undeniably weird coincidence of our ages, I didn’t have terribly high hopes for you, Sophie. Even though you were all he could talk about, even though he was the happiest I’d ever seen him, I didn’t think it would work out.” Then, Michael paused. “After all, what were you getting out of the deal? I’m not sure any amount of money would be worth listening to my father’s tone deaf car singing.”

Another ripple of laughter followed that, and Neil covered my hand with his on the tabletop.

“I know neither of you like to talk about the time during Dad’s illness, so you’ll have to forgive me for bringing it up now. Sophie, the first time I knew you really, truly loved my father was during a visit to the hospital. I think, for this entire family, that summer was our darkest time. But you were like sunshine in his life. I’m so grateful that you were there with him, and I’m so glad that you’re here now.”