Page 19 of The Wedding Favor

—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,

Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes

The next day, the Sit-n-Eat was slammed. It seemed a whole herd of people were driving through from Houston. That meant I’d spent most of my day explaining that no, we did not have any gluten-free, dairy-free options like organic oat milk and smoothies made with spinach. On top of that, someone with an unknown number had been calling me all morning. I kept sending it to voicemail only to have the number call again.

By eleven, things had settled down enough for me to spend ten minutes listening to a random woman complain about our lack of vegan bacon. (Did I even want to know what that was made of?) So, when the unknown number called again, I happily excused myself to answer.

I ripped my phone from my back pocket and answered. “What?”

“Is this Iris?” The voice on the other end was high-pitched and… chipper, like a Disney princess. The kind of voice that would make me want to strangle the owner of it after listening to it for more than five minutes. The little hairs on the back of my neck rose as I realized why the voice sounded familiar.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Missy, silly.” She giggled.

Aidan’s Missy. The blushing bride. The same woman I was pretty sure hated me.

“Missy. Hi.” Even though she couldn’t see me, I straightened my apron and ran my fingers through my hair.

“I hope it’s okay to call,” she said. “Aidan gave me your number. Thank you for being in the wedding so last minute. I told Aidan my brother would be happy to step in. I said it might be… uncomfortable for everyone given your history. But Aidan insisted.” There was a hint of sharpness in her tone.

“If your brother would rather do it, I would understand,” I said quickly. I’d still have to go to the wedding but at least I wouldn’t have to stand up next to Aidan and pretend everything was okay.

She laughed in that high-pitched, shrill way people did when nothing was funny. “No, no. Aidan would be so disappointed if you backed out.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s already settled.” Again, with the tone. “Anyway, I wanted to make sure you were kept in the loop about all the wedding details.”

“Wedding details, yeah.”

“Of course, I’ll add you to the group text.”

“A group text. Great.”

“Plus we have to find you an outfit for the wedding. Let’s arrange a day that would work. I’ll be driving from Austin to see family in Houston in a couple of weeks. We’ll need to find something off the rack because of the time crunch. It has to fit the vision. What size are you? Oh, never mind. We’ll figure all that out. It might take all day, so clear your schedule.”

“I’ll… do that.”

“It’ll be so fun.”

Not even a little bit. “Yeah.”

She sighed. “I can’t wait to get married. I know you’ve never been engaged, but one day, you’ll understand.”

I didn’t know why I thought Missy didn’t like me. Not a passive aggressive bone in her bird-like body. “That must be it.”

“Anyway, I’ve got to go. We’re doing a cake tasting in an hour. I’ll text you with deets about shopping. I want to tell you all about my wedding colors. I found the perfect shade of pink.”

She hung up before I could reply. I sat down heavily at the counter and stared down at the phone, feeling a little dazed by the whole conversation. I started when a text came through seconds later.

MISSY: I forgot to tell you. The rehearsal dinner is Western-themed. All the ladies are wearing pink cowboy hats and boots.

With a groan, I planted my forehead on the counter. Really, there was no one else to blame but myself.

“You doing okay there?” someone asked.

“Sure, everything’s great.” I sat up and tried to smile at Abe, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “You’re back again. Can’t stay away from this place, can you?”