Take Two (23 page)

“Okay, well we here at The Lighthouse can definitely accommodate
that number
and four
hundred more if you were to need it,” the woman wrote on her pad. “Shall we take a look outside?”

Selena tugged my arm
and we
followed the woman out onto the deck. As she an
d Selena talked about potential
set up ideas
, I leaned against the railing.

I couldn’t deny that
The Lighthouse at Chelsea
Piers
was a beautiful place to have a wedding
.
Its floor to ceiling windows overlooked
a large stretch of
the Hudson River
, i
ts
gleaming hardwood floors stretched from room to
room
,
and its
exposed ceilings
with oil burning lamps added a bit of authenticity to the place.

I just didn’t want to waste such a lovely space on
mock
nuptial
s
with Selena.

“Thank you for having us,” I
extended
my hand to the woman. “Miss?”

“Miss Davidson. It’s been a pleasure
sir
.”

“
Wait,” S
elena popped her gum
. “
Mr. Sterling and
I
wanted to discuss
food arrangements
.
Is it true
you only have
one
exclusive caterer?”

Here we go…

“Yes. Abigail Kirsch,”
Miss Davidson
suddenly
looked nervous.

“
I’ll need to see some of her work
,
and not in a photo book or online. I want it delivered to me and Mr. Sterling
sometime
next
week.
I’ll give you the address.”

“
Miss Ross,
” Miss Davidson shifted her weight
from foot to foot
,
“
I can assure you that Miss Abiga
il Kirsch is the best caterer in all of
New York City.
”

“And I can assure you that
I’ll
be the judge of that. If she’s amazing we’ll keep her, but I have gu
ests with all types of palettes
so
we
may need to bring
other chefs on board.”

“What do you mean
,
Miss Ross?”

“
I mean that
I’ve spoken to other chefs who would love to cater my wedding, and they’re
willing to b
e here
in person
. From what I understand, Miss Kirsch may not be available the day of my wedding
. I
need someone who can give each meal personal
attention, not a bunch of bumbling staff members and a
junior
chef.
”

“Miss Ross, if
you and Mr. Sterling choose this
venue,
and I hope you will,
” Miss Davidson blinked rapidly,
“
I can assure yo
u that Miss Kirsch will be here with her best team members
and attend to every single detail.”

“She better be.
Can I borrow your notebook for the address?”

“Certainly.”

The driver shut the door behind Selena and she leaned against the window. We’d tasted over thirty wedding cakes, walked through five other venues, and visited two floral houses—all in
perfect view of the paparazzi.

“Matt?
” Selena reached over and touched my arm. “Can you do o
ne more craving run
before you go
?
There’s a CVS three blocks up.
”

“
We did one this morning!
”

“But we won’t see each other again until next week. Unless—”

“No. Once a week
until the wedding, Selena. A cou
ple of hours with you are
already
torture enough.”

She frowned, but I didn’t care.
Until my l
awyers
found a loophole in
th
at
contract, I was limiting my time
with her to once a week. Even that was begi
nning to feel like too much
.

“Do you
read
The New York Appeal
?”
she
sighed
.

“Sometimes. Wh
y?”

“Th
ere was
this amazing piece about being left at the altar today,” she reached into her purse and pulled out the paper. “The woman who wrote it is a
hell of a writer.
I was thinking we could
get her to write about our wedding!
”

Melody?

“I don’t think that would be a good—”

“Of course it is!
” she flipped the paper open. “
My new publicist says Melody Carter has the most readers in the city.”

“You fired
another
publicist?”

“Y
es
! The la
st one
was starting to think she and I were friends. Please.”

“It’s hard to believe you were once a likable person,” I snatched the paper from her and began reading:

“
Dear New York
,

“
A little over a month
ago, I was standing at the altar, ready
to
be married. I wholeheartedly believed that
the
man
standing across from me
was the love of my life, that I’d finally found my Prince Charming.

“
I thought that a
ll th
o
se years of
believing in
love
, all those years of wishing I was a character in
the
romantic comedies
—the good ones, not the instant fluff
types
that Hollywood serves up these days
—
had come to an end.

“
However,
I
realized
that not only was I finally
emulating a woman from
a
romantic
comedy, I
w
as emulating
the woman tha
t no bride wanted
to be: the woman wh
o gets left behind at the altar,
for another woman,
in front of everyone.

“
I realized that I
had
never
thought
about th
at
woman when I
watch
ed
the
movies.
I was too busy rooting for the one
who stole
the groom’s
heart.

“
In most
of those
movies, t
he jilted bride is
just a
minor
charact
er, an insignificant vehicle used
to move the
sub
plot forward. She’s even
made out to be an awful person, someone who
never
deserved to be married to the
nice and
handsome
male lead
in the first place
.

“
While the man and the
real
love of his life embrace and begin their new life together, the jilted bride is barely given a half second of camera time before the credits roll.

“
What happens to that
woman who was left behind? What happens to the honeymoon, the well-wish gifts, and the wedding dress?

“
I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you exactly what I did with them.

“
The day of the wedding, after I recovered from fainting, I cried.
I
told
my family to leave me
the hell
a
lone and
I
checked into a Doubletree
to cry some more.

“
While m
y mom was arranging
to have the gifts
and decorations
shipped to Memphis,
I was sitting on the floor of a
hotel room
,
bawling in a
custom
Vera Wang gown.

“
I sat like
that
for four
more days. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or think. All I could
do
was cry.

“
Whenever the housekeepers came to “clean” the untouched bed and furniture, the
y
slipped me boxes of Kleenex and bottled water. Looking back, I owe them a great deal of gratitude and hope that my words
will
somehow reach them.

“
Once I finally gained the strength to face
the world
, I called my parents and told them I was coming home. I took a cab t
o the brownstone
my ex-fiancé and I still shared and changed clothes. I threw whatever outfits I could into my oversized Herm
é
s bag
and headed for the airport.

“
When I made it to Memphis, I lay in bed for what felt like years, ignoring the numerous phone calls and voice messages that p
oured in. There was nothing any
one could say to
ease my pain. There was nothin
g any
one could do to erase the humiliation and hurt of my fiancé’s betrayal.

“
I’ll
admit
I opened the wedding gifts with
utter
excitement and kept all things of value. I felt that I deserved each and every one of them.

“A
fter two weeks of Southern comfort,
I returned to work,
only to be turned away.
So,
I
convinced my sister to join me on the
two week
honeymoon my fiancé and I would’ve taken.

“
Although I cried the first
few days
, I enjoyed the next week and a half
immensely.
I even managed to
spend time with a handsome guy, time th
at ended in a soul searing kiss.

“
Yet, a
s
my
vacation came to
an end and
I returned to
reality in New York, I
realized I
was still reeling from the
pain.

“
Adding salt to my
wound
was the fa
ct that few people even cared.
It was as if I was supposed to
quickly g
et
over it, as if my heart
was supposed to magically mend.
It was if I was supposed to get over the fact that my wedding dress—which
took six months to perfect
—was now a symbol
of
waste
d
money and time. (It now has a home in a black trash bag
,
and
when
I stop trying it on every night, it will find its way to the nearest Goodwill.)

“
I’ve spent
the past few
days going over what I did wrong, what I could have done better. I’ll even admit that despite my fiancé’s infidelity, I temporarily blamed myself.

“However, I’ve finally accepted that
I did not deserve to be left at the altar. I did not deserve to be cheated on, and I did not deserve to have the past six years of my life ripped away in six seconds.

“
I’m by no means perfect—I procrastinate on most assignments, I never pay my bills on time, and
I have a tendency to use all
the dishes in my cabinet before opening the dishwasher.

“
But do any of these traits make me a horrible person? Do they make me any less worthy of marrying than the next woman?

“
I don’t think so.

“
Next time you watc
h a romantic comedy where the groom leaves his
fiancé at the altar, r
emember that not everyone in that
movie gets
the
happy ending
.