Ellen Hartman - Married by June

She took the little booklet and saw that he’d drawn a picture on the cover. The people in the picture were quick sketches in the spidery black ink she recognized from his fountain pen. The man was about twice as tall as the woman, who had a binder under one arm and a slice of cake in her other hand. She and Cooper, no doubt. He’d drawn a heart around the couple and underneath had written, “To be continued…”

She turned the page and started reading.

It was a fairy tale—the worst kind of romantic nonsense.

Her hands shook as she read each page.

He’d imagined their relationship, the way it would have been if her mom weren’t sick. If they waited to get to know each other better, to cross all their bridges and find all their necessary compromises. He was a speechwriter and knew how to pull his reader in with the perfect phrase.

On August 24, I invite you over for dinner. You thought it would be takeout because you’ve never forgiven me for the frozen pizza incident, but I’m a man who learns from his mistakes. I make you shrimp kebabs because you like seafood and I like food on sticks. We eat on the balcony and during the Perseid meteor shower we see exactly seven shooting stars, which is an omen of good fortune. We wish on each star and our last wishes are exactly the same. “I wish to spend my life with you.”

He described it all. Their first fight followed by their first make-up sex. (He kept the description to a minimum but she gave him credit for creativity. And also optimism.) The first time he took her to a college reunion and introduced her to his buddies who still called him Lefty, which she hadn’t known, but which suited his two left feet perfectly. The first time they slow danced on New Year’s Eve, Cooper stepping on her toes while she hummed along to “Love and Marriage.” The day he took her back to the Antietam Museum where they’d had their first date. He proposed as the bugle blew for the last cavalry charge in the Civil War battle reenactment, and she said yes while the fireworks display started.

He’d imagined an entire relationship, writing each scene with a deft eye for detail and his uncanny way of knowing what would make her happy.

On the second-to-last page, he’d described their wedding. They walked down the aisle, Jorie in a lace wedding dress with a huge tulle skirt, Cooper in a top hat, her mom between them, with a hand on each of their arms, as “Ode to Joy” played. On the last page another simple heart surrounded the words, “And so on…”

Her own heart was pounding. She should say no. They didn’t know each other well enough, and for most of the time they’d been dating, her mom had been dying.

Still, he’d written their fairy tale, and all she needed to do was believe.

Her tears made it hard to see the pages. When she looked up his eyes were full of the power of his story.

And so on…

Cooper didn’t know how precious those words were to her. He took it for granted that they could marry each other and live happily ever after. He was offering this dream to her.

“I love you, Jorie.”

“I love you, too, Cooper.”

“Then marry me, already. That’s how it works.”

Maybe that’s how it worked in his world, but it had never been that way for the Burkes.

“Don’t do it for your mom, do it for us,” he said. He kissed her, and she felt the same thrill she had the very first time. His shoulders were warm and strong under her hands. Here he was, and here she was, and they loved each other even if it hadn’t been long enough or any of those other arguments she couldn’t remember right now.

“Yes, Cooper. I’ll marry you.”

When they kissed again, his story got caught between them and Jorie could feel the pages against her heart.

Seven months later

“MOM, IT’S AN April Fool’s joke,” Nadine Richford said. “No one would seriously propose this for a wedding. You totally got her, Jorie.” She shook her head in admiration. Except, Jorie thought nervously, this wasn’t a joke.

It was eleven-fifteen on April Fool’s Day and she was meeting with Sally and Nadine Richford at one of the round ironwork tables in the lobby of the St. Renwick hotel. The fountain, whose water had doused the flames when the White House was burned by the British, was close enough that drops of spray tickled the back of her neck. Tossing pennies in the famous fountain was supposed to be good luck. Sitting in the splash zone conferred no such benefits, Jorie realized, watching as her fortunes turned as quickly and thoroughly as a wedge of Brie left on a sunny buffet table at an outdoor wedding.

The Richford wedding was the only contract standing between her and a total collapse of her wedding planning business. Maybe she should have known better than to have such an important meeting on April Fool’s Day. But Jorie had fully expected to wow the Richfords—mother and daughter—with her plans to turn the Lilac Garden and Filigree Ballroom of the St. Renwick into a fifties-themed, full-on James-Dean-Rebel-Without-a-Cause fantasy wedding. She was positive she’d nailed the interviews with the bride and groom-to-be, working her trademark magic to capture the essential elements of their relationship and the way they’d want to present themselves to their guests. They were supposed to love her concepts so much, they’d fall over themselves to sign on the dotted line.

Sally Richford frowned when Jorie mentioned the skinny ties and gray suits for the groomsmen. Her daughter, Nadine, giggled nervously when Jorie started to describe her idea for red-and-white accents in the flowers and linens, based on the colors of James Dean’s iconic jacket and T-shirt.

“I really don’t think…” Sally pushed back the gold bangle bracelets on her slender, tanned wrist.

Okay, maybe they needed a visual. Jorie pulled out the planning binder she’d put together for Nadine. During her first year in business, she’d searched long and hard to find functional but pretty binders. This style, handmade by a boutique stationer in Aspen, was one and a half inches thick and bound in linen in shades ranging from pale lemonade to ice-blue to peppermint-pink. The corners were covered in white leather, as was the spine, which was constructed so the binder lay flat when it was opened. Jorie had yet to meet a bride who didn’t fall deeply in love with her wedding binder. Nadine’s was silvery-gray to go with the old-time movie theme.

“In our conversations, you mentioned that you and David went to the movies on your first date.”

“The Sing-Along Sound of Music,” Nadine said. “David sang ‘Edelweiss’ to me on the way home in the taxi.”

“Doesn’t everyone die at the end of Rebel Without a Cause?” Sally asked. She didn’t sound as if it were really a question, though. She uncrossed her legs and stood up before Jorie could answer.

“Sal Mineo’s character dies, but he’s meant to be a symbol of…” She was losing them. “That’s not the point anyway…the point is…”

Nadine clutched the strap of her purse to her chest. The corners of her eyes were red. Brides were always crying about something. Normally, Jorie would have offered her a tissue, but in this case, she didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that she’d made Nadine cry. When a bride signed the contract, she and her mother both received a green leather, custom-designed envelope perfectly sized to hold a travel pack of tissues. Gloria Santana (September 2008, four hundred guests at the Widmere) had had the tissue envelope replicated as the favor for her shower guests. Tears and tissues were a big part of Jorie’s business. The higher the tear count, the better.

Nadine’s tears, however, were the wrong sort.