Once and for All - Softcover

CHAPTER 1
 
WELL, THIS was a first.
 
“Deborah?” I said as I knocked softly, yet still with enough intensity to convey the proper urgency, on the door. “It’s Louna. Can I help you with anything?”
 
According to my mother, this was Rule One in dealing with this kind of situation: don’t project a problem. As in, don’t ask if anything is wrong unless you are certain some­thing is, and as of right now, I was not. Although a bride lock­ing herself in the anteroom of the church five minutes after the wedding was supposed to begin did not exactly bode well.
 
From the other side of the door, I heard movement. Then a sniffle. Again, I wished William, my mother’s partner and the company’s appointed bride whisperer, was here instead of me. But he’d gotten hooked into another crisis involving the groom’s mother taking issue with preceding the bride’s mom down the aisle, even though everyone knew that was how the etiquette went. Work in the wedding business long enough, however, and you learn that everything has the potential to be a problem, from the happy couple all the way down to the napkins. You just never know.
 
I cleared my throat. “Deborah? Can I bring you a water?”
 
It wasn’t ever the true solution, but a water never hurt: that was another one of my mother’s beliefs. Instead of a response, the lock clicked, the door rattling open. I looked down the stairs behind me, praying I’d see William ap­proaching, but no, I was still alone. I took a breath, then picked up the bottle I’d grabbed earlier and stepped inside. Hydration for the win.
 
Our client Deborah Bell (soon to be Washington, ide­ally), a beautiful black girl with her hair in a bun, was sit­ting on the floor of the small room, her fluffy white dress bunched up around her. It had cost five thousand dollars, a fact I knew because she had told us, repeatedly, during the last ten months of planning this day. I tried not to think about this as I moved quickly, but not too quickly, over to her. (“Never run at a wedding unless someone’s life is liter­ally in danger!” I heard my mother say in my head.) I’d just opened up the water when I realized she was crying.
 
“Oh, don’t do that.” I eased down into what I hoped was a professional knees-to-the-side squat, drawing a slim pack of tissues from my pocket. “Your makeup looks great. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
 
Deborah, one false eyelash already loose—some lies are necessary—just blinked at me, sending another round of tears down her already streaked face. “Can I ask you something?”
 
No, I thought. Now we were at nine minutes. Out loud I said, “Sure.”
 
She took in a shuddering breath, the kind that only comes after you’ve been crying awhile, and hard. “Do you . . .” A pause, as another set of tears gathered and spilled, this time taking the loose eyelash with them. “Do you believe that true love can really last forever?”
 
Now someone was coming up the stairs. From the sound of it, though—large steps, lumbering, with a fair amount of huffing and puffing already audible—it wasn’t William. “True love?”
 
“Yes.” She reached up—God, no! I thought, too late to stop her—rubbing a hand over her eyes and smearing eye­liner sideways up to her temple. The steps behind us were getting louder; whoever they belonged to would be here soon. Meanwhile, Deborah was just looking at me, her eyes wide and pleading, as if whatever happened next hinged entirely on my answer. “Do you?”
 
I knew she wanted a yes or no, something concise and specific and if this were any other question, I probably could have given it to her. But instead, I just sat there, silent, as I tried to put the image in my head—a boy in a white tuxedo shirt on a dark beach, laughing, one hand reached out to me—into any kind of words.
 
“Deborah Rachelle Bell!” I heard a voice boom from be­hind us. A moment later her father, the Reverend Elijah Bell, appeared, fully filling the space of the open doorway. His suit was tight, the shirt collar loosened, and he had a hand­kerchief in one hand, which he immediately pressed to his sweaty brow. “What in the world are you doing? People are waiting down there!”
 
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Deborah wailed, and then I saw William, finally, climbing the stairs. Just as quickly he dis­appeared from view, though, blocked by the reverend’s girth. “I just got scared.”
 
“Well, get it together,” he told her, stepping inside. Clearly winded, he paused to take a breath or two before continuing. “I spent thirty thousand nonrefundable dollars of my hard-earned money on this wedding. If you don’t walk down that aisle right now, I’ll marry Lucas myself.”
 
At this, Deborah burst into fresh tears. As I put my hand out to her, helplessly patting a shoulder, William managed to squeeze past the reverend and approach us. Calm as always, he didn’t look at me, his eyes on only the bride as he bent close to speak in her ear. She whispered a response as he began to move his hand in slow circles on her back, like you do for a fussy baby.
 
I couldn’t hear anything that was said, only the reverend still breathing. Other footsteps were audible on the stairs now, most likely bridesmaids, groomsmen, and others com­ing to rubberneck. Everyone liked to be part of the story, it seemed. I’d understood this once, but not so much anymore.
 
Whatever William said had made Deborah smile, albeit shakily. But it was enough; she let him take her elbow and help her to her feet. While she looked down at her wrin­kled dress, trying to shake out the folds, he leaned back into the hallway, beckoning down the stairs. A moment later the makeup artist appeared, her tackle box of prod­ucts in hand.
 
“Okay, everyone, let’s give Deborah a second to freshen up,” William announced to the room, just as, sure enough, one bridesmaid and then another poked their heads in. “Rev­erend, can you go tell everyone to take their places? We’ll be down in two minutes.”
 
“You’d better be,” the reverend said, pushing past him to the door, sending bridesmaids scattering in a flash of laven­der. “Because I am not coming up those stairs again.”
 
“We’ll be right outside,” William told Deborah, gesturing for me to follow him. I did, pulling the door shut behind us.
 
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. “That was beyond my skill set.”
 
“You did fine,” he told me, pulling out his phone. With­out even looking closely, I knew he was firing off a text to my mom in the code they used to ensure both speed and privacy. A second later, I heard a buzz as she wrote back. He scanned the screen, then said, “People are curious but there is a minimum of speculation noise, at least so far. It’s going to be fine. We’ve got the eyelash as an explanation.”
 
I looked at my watch. “An eyelash can take fifteen minutes?”
 
“It can take an hour, as far as anyone down there knows.” He smoothed a wrinkle I couldn’t even see out of his pants, then adjusted his red bow tie. “I wouldn’t have pegged Deb as a cold-feeter. Shows what I know.”
 
“What did she say to you back there?” I asked him.
 
He was listening to the noises beyond the door, alert, I knew, to the aural distinction between crying and get­ting makeup done. After a moment, he said, “Oh, she asked about true love. If I believed in it, does it last. Typical stuff pre-ceremony.”
 
“What did you say?”
 
Now he looked at me, with that cool, confident counte­nance that made him, along with my mom, the best team in the Lakeview wedding business. “I said of course. I couldn’t do this job if I didn’t. Love is what it’s all about.”
 
Wow, I thought. “You really believe that?”
 
He shuddered. “Oh, God, no.”
Just then the door opened, revealing Deborah, makeup fixed, eyelash in place, dress seemingly perfect. She gave us a nervous smile, and even as I reciprocated I was more aware of William, beaming, than my own expression.
 
“You look beautiful,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
 
He held out his hand to her and she took it, letting him guide her down the stairs. The makeup lady followed, sigh­ing only loud enough for me to hear, and then I was alone.
 
Down in the church lobby, my mother would be get­ting the wedding party into position, adjusting straps and lapels, fluffing bouquets, and straightening boutonnières. I looked back into the anteroom, where only a pile of crum­pled tissues now remained. As I hurriedly collected them, I wondered how many other brides had felt the same way in this space, standing on the edge between their present and future, not quite ready to jump. I could sympathize, but only to a point. At least they got to make that choice for themselves. When, instead, it was done for you—well, that was something to really cry about. At any rate, now the or­gan music was rising, things beginning. I shut the door and headed downstairs.
 
My mother picked up her wine. “I’m going to say seven years. Long enough for a couple of kids and an affair.”
 
“Interesting,” William replied, holding his own glass aloft and studying it for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll give it three. No children. But an amicable parting.”
 
“You think?”
 
“I just get that feeling. Those feet were awfully cold, and asking about true love?”
 
My mom considered this. “Point taken. I think you’ll win this one. Cheers.”
 
They clinked glasses, then sat back in their chairs, each taking a solemn sip. After every wedding, when the bride and groom were gone and all the guests dispersed to their homes and hotels, my mom and William had one last ritual. They’d have a nightcap, recap the event, and lay bets on the marriage it produced. Their accuracy in predicting both outcome and duration was uncanny. And, to be honest, a little unsettling.
 
To me, though, the real test was in the departure. There was just something so telling about that moment when every­one gathered to see the bride and groom off. It wasn’t like the ceremony, where people were nervous and could hide things, or the reception, which was usually chaotic enough to blur details. With the leaving, months of planning were behind them, years of a life together ahead. Which was why I’d always made a point of watching their faces so carefully, taking note of fatigue, tears, or flickers of irritation. I didn’t make a wager as much as a wish for them. I always wanted a happy ending for everyone else.
 
Not that the clients would ever know this. It was the secret finish to what was known in our town of Lakeview as “A Natalie Barrett Wedding,” an experience so valued by the newly engaged that both a spot on a waitlist and a huge fee were required to even be considered for one. My mom and William’s price might be high, but they delivered, the results of their work bound in the four thick, embossed leather al­bums in their office sitting room. Each was packed with im­ages of glowing brides and grooms getting married in every way possible: beachside, while barefoot. Lakeside, in black tie. At a winery. On top of a mountain. In their own (gor­geous, styled for the occasion) backyard. There were huge wedding parties and small intimate ones. Many billowing white dresses with trains, and some in other colors and cuts (signs, I’d found, of second or third marriages). The differ­ence between a regular wedding and a Natalie Barrett one was akin to the difference between a pet store and a circus. A wedding was just two people getting married. A Natalie Barrett Wedding was an experience.
 
The Deborah Bell Wedding—it was company policy that we referred to all planned events by the bride’s name, as it was Her Day—was pretty much par for the course for us. The ceremony was at a church, the reception at a nearby hotel ballroom. There were five bridesmaids and five groomsmen, a ring bearer and a flower girl. Their choice of a live band was increasingly rare these days (my moth­er preferred a DJ: the fewer people to wrangle, the better) as was the dinner brought out by waiters (carving stations, buffets, and dessert bars had been more popular for years now). The night had wrapped up with fireworks, an increas­ingly popular request that added a permitting wrinkle but literally a final bang for the client’s buck. Despite the earlier dramatics, Deborah had run to the limo clutching her new husband’s hand, flushed and happy, smile wide. They’d been kissing as the door was shut behind them, to the obvious dis­approval of the reverend, who had then dabbed his own eyes, his wife patting his arm, as the car pulled away. Good luck, I’d thought, as the tail lights turned out of sight. May you al­ways have the answers to each other’s most important questions.
 
And then the wedding was over, for them, anyway. Not for us. First, there was this recap and wager, as well as a final check of the venue for lost items, misplaced wedding gifts, and passed out or, um, otherwise engaged guests (you’d be surprised—I know I always was). Then we would pack our cars with our clipboards and file folders, mending kits, double-stick tape, boxes of Kleenex, spare power strips, phone chargers, and Xanax (yep), and head home. We usually had exactly one day to recover, after which we were right back at the office in front of my mother’s huge whiteboard, where she’d circle the next wedding up and it all began again.
 
Despite how my mom and William joked otherwise—often—they loved this business. For them, it was a passion, and they were good at it. This had been the case long before I’d been old enough to work with them during the sum­mers. As a kid, I’d colored behind my mother’s huge desk while she took meetings with anxious brides about guest lists and seating arrangements. Now I sat alongside them, my own legal pad (in a Natalie Barrett Wedding leather folio, of course) in my lap, taking notes. This transition had always been expected, was basically inevitable. Weddings were the family business, and I was my mother’s only family. Unless you counted William, which really, we did.
 
They had met sixteen years earlier, when I was two years old and my dad had just walked out on us. At the time, my parents had been living in a cabin in the woods about ten miles outside Lakeview. There they raised chickens, had an organic garden, and made their own beeswax candles, which they sold at the local farmers’ market on weekends. My dad, only twenty-two, had a full beard, rarely wore shoes, and was working on a chapbook of environmentally themed po­ems that had been in progress since before I’d even been conceived. My mom, a year younger, was full vegan, waited tables in the evenings at a nearby organic co-op café, and made rope bracelets blessed with “earth energy” on the side. They had met in college, at a campus protest against the public education system, which was, apparently, “oppressive, misogynist, cruel to animals, and evil.” This was verbatim from the flyer I’d found in a box deep in my mother’s closet that held the only things she’...