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I continued to stress over the upcoming wedding plans as Elara passed out in a drunken milk stupor on the floor, using Meep Meep as a pillow while a trickle of white drool dribbled from her pink lips. Gah, she was beautiful.
Moments like this, just the three of us, were my happy place.
The following day the Christmas tree came down and all of the new ornaments we bought were neatly wrapped and placed safely in storage bins for next year. This wasn’t like the post-holiday shit show my family threw down every January when we wrapped dollar store decorations in crumpled newspaper and stuffed them into cardboard boxes. No sir. Davenports closed up Santa’s shop in style.
All the bins were made of the finest red plastic and each ornament went into a uniquely designated cubby. Some decorations even came in individual velvet-lined boxes. Bubble wrap protected every fragile ball and some of the gold—yes, actual gold—ornaments returned to custom-fitted satin-lined jewelry boxes complete with latching hardware. The Davenport’s Christmas packaging alone was of higher quality than my family’s entire holiday display.
When I was a kid we just wrapped the ornaments and hoped for the best. Whenever we pulled the boxes down from the attic, everything reeked of wax and dust. I loved that musky, nostalgic smell and it made me a little sad that Elara might never associate that scent with the holidays.
The Davenport ornaments would smell of cedar because they weren’t going into the attic. No way, no how. These bougie bangles were getting stored in one of many cedar closets throughout the house.
Hale had a crew for most things, so wrapping up the holiday was as simple as turning a page. One moment it was Christmas then it was not. Was that how our wedding would be, here one day then gone the next?
I sort of wished I could have helped with the undecorating. It would have distracted me from obsessing over our meeting next Saturday with Quinn Carter, the wedding planner Hale hired.
When Saturday arrived, I dressed myself and Elara for the meeting, then went to find Hale. He was in his office, phone to his ear, several hours into his day, and his serious enema-scowl in place.
“No, that’s not going to work,” he said in a voice he reserved for business. “Tell them to do it again and this time exactly how I instructed.”
A shiver raced up my spine. He could be so intimidating when he wanted to be in-that custom tailored suit, platinum cufflinks, and designer leather belt. I wanted to drop to my knees, call him sir, and fulfill his every command, but we had wedding-gate to deal with.
“Dah dah dah dah,” Elara said as soon as she spotted her father.
He grinned and reached for her little hand, while listening to the person on the other line. His scowl returned. “I’m done wasting time on this. Notify me as soon as the drawings are ready for my review.” He ended the call and his business façade shifted flawlessly into doting father and handsome soon-to-be husband. “You ready for our meeting?”
“I think.” I was dressed, teeth brushed, and face washed. That was about as prepared as I would get.
He pulled a jacket off the back of his chair and I frowned, wondering if my sundress and cardigan were too casual. Elara wore one of her dresses from Santa, which probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.
“Should I change?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “What do you mean? You look great.”
Great was an overstatement. I got this dress at a tourist shop and I was pretty sure it was a coverup, not a dress. The sweater was from my college days.
I looked down at my toes. At least they were painted. I should probably put on shoes. “Can you take Elara?”
After handing off the baby I went to find my flip-flops. The moment I had them on my feet the doorbell rang.
Quinn was a middle-aged woman with mild plastic surgery and blonde hair that didn’t match her dark brows. But she smiled the moment she saw Elara, so I immediately categorized her as friendly.
“Your home’s beautiful,” She complimented as we invited her inside. “I love what you’ve done with the landscape out front.”
Hale’s home was posh and masculine with enough sophisticated technology to make me regret never taking STEM courses in high school. Everything was digital and coded to the point that I struggled to operate the microwave.
He claimed having a smart home made life easier, but for an old-fashioned girl like me, it often led to a great deal of frustration, like when I can’t get the damn buttonless dishwasher to work. But if I bitched, Hale’s solution was to leave the dishes for the cleaning service, which seemed somehow worse in my mind.
We led Quinn to the dining room where the enormous wedding planner binder waited. I’d started nosing through it and filling out some of the pages, but my handwriting only seemed to muck-up the perfect book so I stopped.
Quinn, too, had a wedding binder of sorts. On the front, it said Davenport Wedding. I silently wondered if I should feel slighted that it didn’t read Meyers Davenport Wedding.
Quinn opened her binder. “I always like to use this first meeting to get a feel for what the bride and groom envision as their perfect day.” She paused and I realized she was finished speaking so I looked at Hale.
“Our vision’s pretty simple,” Hale said as his phone buzzed. His attention turned to whoever was texting him.
Quinn looked at me expectantly and I wondered why Hale kept mis-categorizing his vision with words like simple.
“I’m sorry. I have to take this,” Hale said, rising from the table and drawing his phone to his ear before I could stop him.
