2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) (31 page)

Completely done wrong by Tara and her insane family of
misfits and mobsters, Catherine swung her apartment door wide in a rage,
stopping the excitable chatter on the other side in midstream. Unlike the last
time she’d found the same three in her living room, this time she was the one
ready to ambush. Her eyes honed in on her mark like a laser.

“You!” she blared, holding Tara at long-range
fingerpoint, imagining how Elizabeth Hemmings would drop dead in a faint at
this untenable welcome. She only wished her friend were as easy. But Tara
didn’t even drop the chips on the way to her mouth let alone waver the drink in
her other hand.

“Wait! This is supposed to be a celebration!” Georgia
exclaimed, attempting to inject good cheer where it was unsustainable. She and
Lacey both held up wine glasses in cheers. “We’ll have to pump and dump after
tonight, but we figure it’s worth it.” Lacey nodded in agreement. “Though Niki
and Nell are in your bedroom napping so we might want to keep it down,” Georgia
warned.

“I just can’t fucking believe this,” Catherine said
darkly.

“Cat, what’s wrong? I thought that everything was—”

“Why don’t you ask her?” Catherine seethed, interrupting
Georgia and maintaining her stance with a finger holdup on Tara.

“What did
I
do?” she asked, her mouth full. “Is
it ‘cuz I brought chips here? I know you’re on a diet but some of us have got
to eat.”

“This isn’t about
chips
,” Catherine growled in
disgust. “This is about my wedding—and your cousin who
you
got me mixed
up with.”

“You’re welcome for that.”

“Oh no you don’t. I don’t
have
a wedding
anymore thanks to him.”

Georgia gasped and Lacey dropped her glass of wine on
the carpet at her feet.

“That’s coming out of your deposit,” Tara asserted,
pointing at the blooming stain. “I’m not getting that pinned on me when I don’t
even live here yet.”

“Out of my deposit? Here, I’ll pay you out of my
deposits.” Catherine flung the envelope of cash Vinnie had forced on her
straight at Tara—at least it hit the couch within three feet of Tara (accuracy
wasn’t her strong suit).

“Shit! Where’d you get all this?” Tara asked with
glee.

“
That
is what’s left of my wedding dreams.”

“I’m not following. What the hell is going on here?”
Georgia demanded.

“Well, it seems that
Cousin
Vinnie
is
running a friggin’ wedding chop shop…. How do you like them apples?”

Georgia’s mouth hung open in shock, looking from one
to the other of them as if waiting for a punch line to appear and everything to
right itself.

“He dismantled my entire wedding. Piece by piece. Sold
it off to the highest bidders. Now some other brides-to-be will be enjoying
my
wedding on March 4
^th
and I’ll be—”

“I’m still not following,” Georgia said slowly,
shaking her head.

“Of course you’re not following. No one could follow
this. It’s insane,” Catherine said, holding her head with both hands to stop it
from exploding.

“So the wedding is still off?” Tara asked plainly.

“Because of your damn cousin,” she charged.

“My
damn
cousin made your quickie wedding
possible in the first place. When everyone else told you no,” Tara pointed out
firmly. “You needed a wedding and I found you a wedding. Besides, he gave you
all your money back, so you’re not out anything—”

“Except a
wedding
!” Catherine screeched. “One
that guests will start arriving for any day now.”

“I’m sure he can set you up with something. If not
right on the 4
^th
then within a few weeks.”

“I don’t want it within a few weeks. I want it when
the invitations say, where the invitations say, how the invitations say.”

“Then you shouldn’t have wigged,” Tara said simply.

Catherine narrowed her eyes at her supposed friend. “You
knew what he did there all along, didn’t you?” she hissed.

“Of course I knew.”

“Okay, so tell me one thing, Miss Cursed-Wedding-Dress,
why is a recycled wedding a perfectly fine start for a marriage while a replica
of a wedding dress that might or might not be attached to divorce or death is an
omen of horrible things to come. What kind of rainbows and sunshine do you
think cause weddings to break up, huh?”

“Something that hasn’t even happened yet can’t carry
bad juju. These people didn’t even
use
their weddings.”

“You have a fucking answer for everything, don’t you? Well,
if there is nothing wrong with it, why didn’t you tell me what I was walking
into?” she demanded.

“I figured you saw the sign.” Tara shrugged, grabbing
more chips.

“What sign?”

“The writing on the door.”

Catherine stared at her blankly, not registering her
meaning.

“SG Weddings,” she prodded.

Again, Catherine’s face was a dim bulb of confusion.

“What did you think the SG stood for?”

“Oh!” Georgia suddenly exclaimed.

“What? What are you talking about?” Catherine felt
like the idiot who didn’t get the joke.

“Let me put it this way,” Tara said, “it ain’t Shining
& Glittering, or Sparkling & Gleaming, or Silver & Gold. And it
sure as hell ain’t Spencer Gifford—”

“Oh, now
they’re
terrific. I tried to get them
to do Connor and my wedding but they are booked
years
in advance—a smart
bride books them by the time she has her fourth date with a guy. It’s a gamble
since you never know if it will work out, but sometimes that’s the only way to
get what you really want for a wedding,” Lacey offered.

“They also have the highest divorce rate of any
wedding planning consultants,” Georgia noted.

“Their clients are all about the wedding, not so much
the marriage,” Lacey agreed.

Catherine watched the conversation move from one
person to the other, traveling entirely out of range of her problem. “Ahem,”
she cleared her throat theatrically.

“Sorry,” Lacey said quickly, at least having the
decency to seem embarrassed by her conversational detour.

“Out with it,” Catherine said, turning her attention
back to the point at hand here.

Tara crossed her hands in front of her, each one
pointing like a cocked and loaded gun.

She felt her throat go dry, her hands shrinking into
fists at her sides. “And people
know
this?” she choked out, picturing
the fancy scrolled “SG Weddings” and the ribbons and doves roosted on sticks that
were engraved on the door—those peculiar sticks that were most certainly
not
sticks at all… but shotguns. She groaned.

“It isn’t a closely guarded secret or anything,” Tara
admitted. “But unless you’re in the wedding business, or have been married or
happen to have gone to a wedding in the area, there is no reason why you would know—”

“You just mentioned the entire adult population!”
Catherine squealed.

“Not really…
you
didn’t know what SG did or
even who they were,” Tara pointed out.

Catherine’s face turned red in a combination of
embarrassment and rage.

“I didn’t know, sweetie,” Georgia pointed out
placatingly. “And considering how far and wide I worked on my wedding a few
years ago—”

But Catherine focused on Lacey instead. Lacey who
married Connor in Philly. Lacey who grew up there. Lacey who was being
awfully
quiet, working the wine stain with the vengeance of an obsessive compulsive or
perhaps a woman who knew too much. “Did
you
know?”

“Well, I—I’d heard of them,” she said carefully.

“And just
what
had you heard of them?” But
Lacey was now a deer in the headlights. “Lacey Stemple,” Catherine said
sternly, wishing she knew her sister-in-law’s middle name too so she could properly
shame her.

“Two girls in my class who got pregnant in high school
had SG Weddings.” Lacey rushed the words out. “Actually it was one double
wedding. But it was done up nice and classy. Their parents had money so they had
all the bells and whistles. Really spectacular.” She tried her best to soften
the blow.

“Vinnie does quick weddings for preggos, so what?”
Tara countered.

Catherine rubbed her belly. “So people think that
I’m—”

Georgia sucked in audibly, holding her breath like she
was about to witness a horrible calamity, a crime—Catherine gutting Tara right
here, right now.

“I’m sure not
everybody
does….” Lacey said
charitably.

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Tara piped up.
“Vinnie makes a lot of people happy giving them big weddings on short notice.
And if a lot of them are plumper than usual, who gives a fuck? He has more
heart than that Spencer Gifford guy.”

Lacey nodded her head enthusiastically in agreement
and Georgia gave a swift nod of her own.

Catherine’s lips started to tremble and tears filled
her eyes as she realized that their buoying approval meant nothing—she didn’t even
have an SG Wedding anymore.

“So what’s the plan?” Georgia asked, not a trace of told-you-so
to be found even though had they done things Georgia’s way in the first place, Catherine’s
wedding wouldn’t have disappeared in a cloud of shotgun fire.

“I don’t have a plan,” she wailed, the dam breaking
and despair overwhelming all else.
FUCK ME!

“No thank you,” Tara said glibly.

“Huh?” Catherine grunted.

“I’m into guys.”

Catherine was bewildered; she hadn’t even realized that
she had spoken out loud. Either that or Tara was suddenly psychic—

“Except for that once when I was
really
drunk,
but I thought she was a guy so I don’t think that counts,” Tara noted. “Had a
full mustache if you can believe—”

“NOT helping,” Georgia groaned at her. “There are more
important things right now than rehashing your mistaken lesbian encounter with
the Bearded Lady.”

“
Mustached
Lady—I mean she wasn’t a total freak
show. What do you take me for?”

Georgia turned her back on Tara to prove it wasn’t
worth discussing. “So what did Fynn say when you told him?”  

“I’m not telling him.”

“You have to tell him. What if we can’t fix—”

“We
have
to fix this. We have to make this
happen. He already thinks I’m a fruitcase as it is—”

“That would be nutcase,” Tara offered.

Catherine brushed her off. “I don’t need him to know
that I screwed everything up even more, like some kind of total spaz.”

“
That
ship already sailed,” Tara noted.

“I’m not a spaz…. Right?” she asked the room.

“More of an emotionally challenged space cadet—hey,
maybe
that
should be your new career!” Tara announced helpfully.

Catherine waved her off. “I am perfectly grounded.
Absolutely normal.” But she noticed that Georgia was sitting the conversation out.
Obviously you agree with Tara, bitch.

“I am not a bitch,” Georgia said righteously,
whispering her indignation as if Nell’s little ears were vacuuming up words
while she was sound asleep in the other room.

“What?” Catherine turned a deep radish red. She hadn’t
just called her a bitch, only
thought
it—

“You just mouthed
bitch
at me,” Georgia said,
looking over her shoulder to Catherine’s bedroom like she feared she’d be
caught swearing—twice.

“I did not.” But her voice wavered uncertainly.

“You did. In fact you’ve been mouthing a lot of stuff.
Mostly unintelligible, but
that
I could certainly read,” Georgia assured
her.

“I think you’re developing a tic,” Tara noted.

“A tic? I can’t have a tic!” She touched her face to
feel whatever they were seeing. “My wedding pictures!”

“What wedding pictures?” Tara asked.

Catherine groaned audibly. Tara was right. There was
no photographer. No pictures to pose for.
No fucking wedding!

“Oh my God! There it is again!” Tara squealed.

“What?” Catherine demanded.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” Tara asked Georgia, who
nodded tightly, as did Lacey who’d taken her eyes off the carpet for a scant
moment to observe Catherine’s latest syndrome.

“What do you see?” she screeched.

“It’s like a scowly face and a Tourette’s thing. You’re
mouthing swear words.”

Catherine’s lips trembled as she imagined this was the
beginning of the end. Soon her bodily functions would begin to fail—

“Sweetie, we can figure this out,” Georgia said placatingly.
“There are four of us and only one wedding. We’ll get you married on the 4
^th
—”

“Or die trying!” Tara announced, as if calling for
revolution.

“You said Vinnie sold it off in pieces. What do we
have left to work with? Anything?” Georgia prodded.

“The location, but we may or may not have any food—he’ll
be in touch, he said…. And we have a DJ.”

“Wait a second, I thought you booked a band,” Tara
clarified.

“Yes, I booked a band,” Catherine snapped. “It turns
out that he doesn’t only dissect and sell off weddings, he also takes trades. When
I canceled, some stupid bitch snatched up my band and left me with her useless
DJ.”

Tara let out one single inappropriate guffaw.

“It isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Tara squeaked.

Friday, February 18
^th

“Okay girls, we’ve had three days to pull something
together,” Georgia said, like she was calling to order a meeting of the Wedding
Warriors—not that they’d named themselves. “Where did you get with the flowers,
Cat?”

“No bouquets or boutonnieres, but it seems that my
centerpieces were ‘hard to unload’,” Catherine said, air quotes on Vinnie’s
exact words. “I guess the whole sundae thing is a bit personalized and—”

“Total cheese,” Tara offered, a mouthful of Fluffernutter
garbling her words, mocking Catherine even further.

“That
cheese
saved the centerpieces,” she
countered.

“Too bad we don’t have any tables to put them on,” Georgia
noted.

“That’s not true. There’s a local church that is
willing to donate tables and chairs in exchange for a monetary gift to their
fundraiser to build a youth center,” Lacey announced.

“So basically they’re willing to rent them,” Tara
asserted.

“It’s perfect.” Georgia waved her off and checked
another item off her list.

“Plus, I cashed in a favor with a friend of mine who
works at a hotel in Philly. We can get plain cream linens from her as long as
we pay for laundering and any damage,” Lacey added helpfully.

“Excellent.” Georgia perused her list. “For my part, I
have a woman in one of my moms’ groups whose sister has just started catering.
She says she is ready and willing to do an hors d’oeuvres wedding for one
hundred twenty people. She’ll even do the mashed potato sundaes.”

Catherine’s heart began to swell tentatively with hope.
Could it possibly be that she’d worried for nothing? This wouldn’t be
exactly
like the prior plan, but only the four of them would even know—

Her phone rang and she snatched it up quickly. “Hello?”

“Hey, Cat.” Vinnie Delrio’s greeting was more attuned
to a casual meeting of friends than a swindler calling his swindlee.

“It’s Catherine,” she said firmly.

He ignored her iciness. “Listen, I was trying to touch
base with you’s about your wedding plans. I have an offer—”

“One I can’t refuse?” she quipped brusquely. “Believe
me, Vinnie, I can.”

“Still need those centerpieces?” he asked, undeterred.

“Of course I need them! I need my whole wedding! Don’t
tell me you’re still trying to weasel the last of it out from under me. I
told
you I was still getting married. I
told
you to cease and desist—”

“But I got a huge upgrade for you’s. April 8
^th
.
Everything’s top-a-the-line, but I’ll give it to you’s at the cost of the last
one. Call it a family discount.”

“We’re not family. And I don’t want an upgrade. I want
my
wedding.”

“Babe, seriously, this is a steal! Better everything!”

“I have guests expecting a wedding on March 4
^th
and I intend to give them one,
without
your help. If you try to sell off
what little is left I’ll—”

“I’m just sayin’, I got a bidding war on my hands—a bat
mitzvah and a sweet sixteen duking it out for flower sundaes. Who knew?”

“Aren’t you a
wedding
broker?” she asked
bitterly.

“A smart businessman always diversifies. My E-Hour
Events branch does all occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, corporate—”

“E-Hour?”

“Catchy, huh? Eleventh Hour. Kids think anything “E”
is hip. It’s all in the marketing,” Vinnie said proudly. “Anyways, like I said,
I got two families chomping at the bit for your centerpieces. You’s could make
some extra dough on this. A nest egg for—”

“Stop. Just stop. Please. You’re killing me.” 

“We could be
making
a killing—”

Catherine hung up on him and gave the evil eye to
Tara, but Georgia quickly stepped between them as a barrier. “So, Tara, how is
the photographer coming along?” she prompted.

Tara pulled out a crumpled ball of paper, part of
someone’s lost dog flyer, an entirely different method from Georgia’s tried-and-true
journals in which she proudly ticked off her to-do’s and done’s. “I’ve narrowed
it down to prom guy, porn guy, and pet chick.” She counted them off on her
fingers.

Catherine’s phone rang yet again and she picked it up,
immediately blasting Vinnie. “I said no. I don’t have time for any more games.
I don’t care
how much
they offer.”

“Excuse me?” The melted butter oozed into her ear, the
one un-crazy person in her life on the line.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else.” She felt
like she was just caught red-handed.

“Is this about the promotion?” Fynn asked warily.

“No,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing.” She fought to
put a smile in her voice so as not to betray that it was indeed not nothing; it
was DEFCON-1 in regards to their wedding.

“If you ask me I’d choose porn,” Tara said
definitively.

“As a career?” Lacey asked, confused.

“As a photographer,” Tara clarified.

“You are supposed to be looking for
wedding
photographers.” Terror was luminous in Georgia’s eyes that she had left
anything so important up to Tara.

“Pickings are slim with such short notice, oh fair
leader,” she mocked. “So I’ve narrowed it to three willing and available
choices.”

“What kind of porn—hardcore or softcore?” Lacey asked.

“What does it matter?” Georgia’s tone was righteous
indignation that they would even discuss such a thing in regards to the
occasion.

“Gay, straight, hard, soft—it’s a big difference,”
Tara said expertly. “This guy is hard but not fetish hard.”

“What is going on there?” Fynn asked, a bemused smile
in his voice.

“Same old thing,” Catherine said evasively.

“Sounds like you girls are planning a dirty
bachelorette party,” Fynn dug.

Catherine was frozen, unable to think quickly enough
to remove herself from the middle of the conversation that was broadcasting clear
to Minnesota. “Um… you got us. That’s what we’re doing. Porn and… Pico de Gallo…
and Pinot Grigio.” She’d thought she could be cute and think up something
catchy, but other than piñatas and pillows and assorted paper products, those
were the only “P” words she could come up with quickly.

“What?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not important,” she said quickly,
making violent hand motions toward the others in the room to stop the conversation—or
at least for God’s sake stop
saying
porn
every other word.
“Listen, Fynn, can I call you back later? They aren’t going to let us alone to
talk.”

As soon as she hung up she whirled on the group. “He
doesn’t know what we’re up to, remember? Do you want him to find out?”

“I don’t really—”

“Let me answer that for you,” Catherine growled,
shutting Tara up before she could finish. “You don’t want him to find out. You
want me to go happily off into the sunset as Mrs. to his Mr., got it?”

They all nodded their heads like reprimanded children.

“Good. So, Tara, you were saying about the
photographers…”

“Well, they’re all totally legit. Not just some Joe Shmoe
types with cameras. Real businesses. Now prom guy only does stills, but formal
is his trade—stiff and awkward formal. Pet chick is good with the hard-to-capture
motion stuff like dancing… and she’s a wiz at the unexpected extreme close-ups—good
for drunk uncles and whatnot. And porn guy… well, he does it all.”

“I’m sure he does,” Lacey quipped.

Catherine felt like she was going to faint. This was a
multiple choice question with no right answer.

“What exactly do you mean?” Georgia asked.

“I mean photos. Get your mind out of the gutter,” Tara
chided. “Still, action, candid—you name it. Ooh, and another plus for him, he
can do video too. The guy even worked with—”

“I don’t think we need a rundown on who he worked
with,” Georgia warned.

“I’m just sayin’ he has a
lot
of movie
credits.”

“I think they’re called flicks,” Lacey chirped.

“Great. My grandmother can be shot by the same guy who
shot
Cum a Little Closer
,” Catherine said facetiously.

“I don’t know if he did
that
one.” Tara checked
her crumpled list, scratching her head.

Catherine rolled her eyes, wondering if she just so
happened to have stumbled onto the name of an actual flick.

“I’d like to know who
didn’t
make the cut… you
know, considering,” Georgia challenged.

“My-ass,” Tara said.

“No need to get snippy.”

“If you must know, my neighbor Tom got cut.”

“Let me guess, Peeping Tom?” Georgia asked, resigned.

“Don’t besmirch Tom. It’s just healthy curiosity,”
Tara noted. “He’s actually great with a camera, but I figured you wanted
creds.”

“Creds would be nice.”

“So that brings us back to porn guy,” Tara said
simply.

“Speaking of porn, what if he forgets what job he’s on
and starts calling for it?” Lacey asked.

“He
did
want to know about doing video in the
dressing room of the bridal party…” Tara admitted, “… but I think that people
do those things all the time—”

“Pet chick it is.” Catherine shuddered. “And make sure
she knows what the traditional wedding shots are—wedding party, father-daughter
dance, the cake feeding—”

“Which I forgot all about,” Georgia said, adding to her
list. “Is the cake gone too?”

“Probably,” Catherine groused. She couldn’t even wrap
her head around all of the things that were gone. And it wasn’t like Vinnie had
given her a deposit receipt when he handed her the wad of cash, so who could be
completely sure of anything anymore?

“I’ll talk to Vinnie about the cake,” Tara assured
them. “My cousin is getting married this weekend. Vinnie is the best man
and
the planner.”

“Seriously, how many friggin’ cousins do you have?”
Catherine demanded.

“As many as I want to have.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean?”

“Delrios are loving people. What more can I say?”

“
I
can say that we need to get back to the real
issues here. Lacey and I will handle the bridesmaid dresses,” Georgia said
certainly. “We’ve worn enough of them and had our own bridesmaids to dress. Plus,
we’ve done the whole pregnancy thing, so I’m sure we can find something
suitable for Drew too.” Then she turned to Catherine. “So all you need to do is
make sure you can fit in that dress of yours in two weeks’ time.”

“That’s
all
I need to do?” she said dubiously,
wondering how anyone could intimate that was the easy part.

“I can handle the rest of the flowers,” Lacey offered.

“And Tara,
promise
you’ll talk to Vinnie about
the cake,” Georgia warned.

“Didn’t I already say I would?” Tara countered.

“It’s the one thing that Fynn picked out,” Catherine
said wistfully. “Everything else he left to me… but the lemon cake was his
choice—”

“We
need
to have that cake,” Georgia stressed
again.