Three Girls And A Wedding (20 page)

***

It was a great night—what I
can remember about it anyhow. Annie had arranged to have our waiter bring over
the gifts we got for Ginny (lots of sexy lingerie she would probably have
little chance to wear with a one-year-old keeping her awake half the
night—but still) along with a crown and sash for Ginny to wear and lots
of “naughty” themed necklaces for us.

 
We ended up pretty tipsy before we even
left the restaurant, and after that, all bets were off. I know we went
club-hopping and dancing and I had a vague recollection of teaming up with
another bachelorette party and joining them on their party bus.

Apparently when we got home we
thought it would be a good idea to have a slumber party, because I woke up the
next morning on a blow-up mattress in the living room, with Annie snoring next
to me. Somewhere in the course of the night I had acquired a pink feather boa.

I had some work to get done that
day—Jason wanted to see a sample of the gift baskets we would place in
the hotel rooms of out-of-town guests—but looking over at the girls,
makeup smeared and hair mussed, sleeping soundly, I just couldn’t bring myself
to get up and leave. Would this be the last sleepover we would ever have
together? Ginny and Josh were all set to move into their new place when the
honeymoon was over. We certainly wouldn’t have many more nights like last
night.

I adjusted my pillow so I was more
comfortable, and gazed over at my two best friends. In a little while I would
get up and make them breakfast—maybe pancakes, Annie’s favorite. We could
drink mimosas to help fend off our hangovers and have a lazy morning around the
table before Danny was brought home.

We would do all those things, and
soon. But for now I was content to lay there, watching the girls as they slept.

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘Are you having
out-of-town guests come in for your wedding? Giving them a special welcome is a
great way to start your celebration off right. Some brides choose to put a
special welcome gift in their hotel rooms—this need not be expensive! Try
to think of something unique that represents your hometown. If time and budget
allow, it might be fun to host a special welcome dinner for these guests. You
can never have too many parties!’—
The
Bride’s Guide to a Fabulous Wedding!

Just
three more parties
, I told myself.
Three
more. Welcome dinner, rehearsal, wedding, and we’re done. Then I can
concentrate on Ginny and everything will be fine.

I hadn’t actually seen Ginny, or Annie,
in more than a week. I’d been working pretty much non-stop, trying to wrinkle
out all the last-minute disasters that seemed to be never-ending. I’d been
getting home well into the morning hours, and leaving the house before seven
every day. There was just so much to do, and I had no idea how it would all get
done.

Now that the week of the wedding
was upon us, it was almost pointless to go home anyway. I was so nervous I was
barely sleeping at all. On the rare occasions I did manage to fall asleep, I would
wake up in a panic, convinced there was something I was missing, something I
had forgotten.

I looked at my watch, pacing in
front of the locked door to the restaurant. I was supposed to be meeting Kiki,
Eric, and Jason here so we could go over the final details for the welcome
party the next night. It wasn’t the most complex event we had to plan, but I
still wanted to make sure it was nice. In addition to family, a lot of
important business associates of Mr. Barker’s would be at this dinner. It would
be their first impression of the wedding and I wanted it to be perfect.

I heard the sound of an engine and
I scanned the empty parking lot eagerly, expecting to see Eric’s car. I was
therefore quite shocked to find Matt’s pick-up pulling up to the building,
Kiki’s sleek SUV close behind.

“Hi, Jen, hi!” Kiki called, jumping
out of her vehicle and running toward me. Eric and Matt climbed, at a much more
normal pace, out of the truck and made their way to me.

“Hi,” I said brightly, determined
to hide my disquiet at seeing Matt. We were a week away from the wedding and he
was the best man—of course I would be seeing him. It was really no big
deal. Really.

“Have you seen this place yet?”
Kiki asked, throwing her arms open for a hug. “I haven’t. It’s brand new, never
even been used!”

“So I heard,” I told her, hugging
her back. “Talk about exclusive!”

Kiki laughed. “Well, its one of
Daddy’s newest developments. He thought it would be perfect for our party.”

“Hey, Jen,” Eric said as he and
Matt joined us.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at them both.

“Here, let me open that,” Matt
said, gesturing me away from the door as he pulled out a set of keys. “Mr.
Barker gave me these when I saw him at my work site today.”

Matt unlocked the door and we all
filed through the lobby, which looked really chic—lots of ivory and
silver with minimal decor.

“Ooh,” Kiki sighed. “Pretty.”

Matt led the way toward a set of
stainless steel doors, which he threw open to reveal a large room with a few
dozen low tables and cozy booths. Much like the lobby, the room had a chic,
almost night club feel. Unlike the lobby, the room was not painted with cool
white tones. Instead, the walls were a deep gorgeous color of red.

“Oh, my God,” I muttered,
horrified. “Red.” I felt like I might faint. How could this be happening?
Hadn’t Jason seen the room before he signed off on it?

“What?” Eric asked, clearly
confused at the looks on mine and Kiki’s faces.

“The walls are red,” Kiki said
weakly. “Red.”

“And that’s a problem?” Matt asked,
bemused.

“Everything else is purple,” I
said, sitting down. “Everything we’re bringing in. Linens, flowers,
china—every single thing is a shade of purple. The whole room is going to
clash. It’s going to be hideous.”

Kiki let out a little squeak and I
realized I should probably be putting a better spin on this. But what could I
say? As soon as we started bringing our stuff in, this room was going to look
completely awful.

“Didn’t Jason see this?” I asked
her.

“I thought he came by with my dad,”
she said. “Why the hell didn’t my dad mention that the walls were red? He
totally should have known that my colors were purple and pink—we talked
about this!”

She looked close to tears. I knew I
needed to pull myself together, get a handle on the situation. Days of little
sleep seemed to be pressing down on me, fogging my brain. Where the hell was
Jason?

I pulled out my phone and found his
number in my contacts, holding my breath as it rang. And rang. When he didn’t
pick up, I left a curt message asking him to call me as soon as he could.

“Okay, let me think,” I told them,
rubbing my forehead. “I can fix this, I can…”

“I’m assuming you can’t change the
colors of everything else to something more neutral?” Matt asked.

“There’s no way the vendors can
change our orders overnight,” I said, shaking my head.

“I guess we’ll have to change the
color of the walls then,” he said simply. I looked up at him, bewildered. “We
can paint,” he said, smiling a little. “I’m sure Mr. Barker won’t mind.”

“He better not,” Kiki said,
sounding uncharacteristically dark as she pulled out her phone and stomped over
to a corner, Eric on her heels.

“But…the party is
tomorrow
,” I said to Matt bleakly. “And
this is a really dark color—we’re not just talking one coat to cover it.
It will take hours and hours to paint the whole thing. And where am I
gonna
find a crew at this time of night?”

Matt smirked a little bit. “Jen,
it’s one room. We don’t need a crew. We can do this.”

“But Kiki and Eric have to go to
the airport to get her grandparents,” I pointed out. “They can’t help me.”

“Yeah, but I can.”

I stared at him, hope blooming in
my chest. Maybe this wasn’t totally a disaster.

“You would do that?”

Matt rolled his eyes. “I
am
the best man,” he said. “I kind of
have an obligation. Besides, I have tons of painting experience. Contractor,
remember?”

Kiki and Eric rejoined us, Kiki
looking as angry as I had ever seen her. “He says it’s fine if we paint,” she
said, shoving her phone back in her purse. “He said he never even noticed what
color the walls were.”

“Kiki, I’m really sorry about all
of this,” I told her, standing up. “Jason approved the room; I can’t believe he
didn’t catch this. This is completely the firm’s fault, and I apologize.”

“Jen, you so don’t have to
apologize,” she told me. “If Jason screwed up, that’s on him. I know you’ve
been working yourself to the bone.” She looked at me more closely, a worried
look on her face. “In fact, you look exhausted. Jen, you better not be making
yourself sick on my account!”

“I’m fine, Kiki,” I told her,
waving her protests aside. “Look, you guys should go and get your grandparents
now and take them back to the house. I know you have a lot of family coming in
and you should be there.”

“But—”

“Seriously, Kiki,” I interrupted.
“Matt and I are
gonna
take care of this. It’s not a
problem. You can’t leave your grandmother waiting at the airport.”

Kiki looked unsure, but Eric took
her arm. “It’s in good hands, sweetie,” he said, gesturing to us.

“But she’ll be up all night!” Kiki
cried.

“I can sleep in tomorrow,” I lied.
“Please, Kiki, just go.”

“You’ll get some sleep tonight?”
she asked me. “You promise?”

“Of course,” I told her.

“Okay then.” She still didn’t look
too thrilled, but she allowed Eric to steer her out to her car.

I looked up at Matt, feeling
totally exhausted already. “Well,” I said. “Now what?”

***

A few minutes later we were on the
road in Matt’s pick-up. “We should hurry,” he said, looking down at the clock.
“We need to make a few stops.”

“A few?” I asked. “I thought we
just needed paint.”

“We should stop somewhere cheap and
get some clothes to paint in,” he said. “And we’re grabbing some food.”

“Food?”

“This is
gonna
be a long night,” he said. “We need provisions.” He looked over at me. “Kiki
was right, you look half-dead on your feet already.”

“It’s been a really long week,” I told
him.

“Jen, it’s Sunday,” he pointed out.
“The week hasn’t even started.”

“Well, it feels like the last one
hasn’t ended yet.”

We went to the home improvement
store first, eager to get what we needed before it closed. Matt helped me find
a paint that provided good cover with a single coat. “We probably still have to
do two,” he told me. “But if we use primer first we might get lucky.”

I looked at the color on the card
he had picked. “Worse case scenario, if the red shows through it will hopefully
look pink under this cream.”

Matt laughed. “I like the positive
vibe,” he said, recalling my words from the final food tasting. “Let’s keep
that going.”

After we put the paint—and
rollers, brushes, tape, and tarps—on my company credit card, Matt drove
us to a discount superstore, where he followed me to the meager women’s
department. “Don’t you need paint clothes?” I asked him.

Matt shrugged. “These are work
jeans anyways, and I have an undershirt on.”

Trying not to dwell on the image of
Matt in an undershirt, I turned my attention to the clothes in front of me,
picking out a black tank top and a pair of yoga capris. “This will do,” I told
him.

“I hope you use the company credit
card for that too,” he said, as we walked over to the grocery section.

“Oh I will,” I said sourly. “And
for the food. Seeing as how this is all Jason’s fault, I think it’s only fair.”

I saw Matt scowling out of the
corner of my eye. “Where is Jason, by the way?” he asked. “I thought he was
supposed to meet us at the restaurant.”

“He was,” I said, pulling out my
phone to make sure I hadn’t missed his call. Nothing. “I have no idea where he
is, but he’s
gonna
hear it from me when I’ve found
him.”

That seemed to perk Matt up a
little, and he cheerfully started pulling chips and cookies from the shelves.

I pulled a twelve-pack of beer out
of the cooler and held it up to him.

He grinned. “You read my mind.”

Finished with our shopping, we
headed back to the restaurant where we unloaded everything. “Have you ever done
this before?” he asked me.

“Yeah, loads of times.”

He raised his eyebrows, clearly
skeptical.

“My dad does this for a living,” I
told him, mimicking his expression. “I’ve been on lots of work sites with him
over the years.”

Matt smiled. “And she surprises me
again.”

I looked up into the corner of the
room where a set of speakers was clearly visible. “Think you could figure out
how to get the radio on in here?”

He disappeared into the kitchen and
a few minutes later a classic rock station came blaring into life. I smiled.
Just what I would have picked.

We set to work taping the doorways
and the lines around the ceiling, floor, and the booths that ran the length of
one wall. I gave a silent prayer of thanks that the designer of this restaurant
was into minimalism—there wasn’t much in the way of trim or fixtures in
here; it was basically just four large, empty walls. That should make things
easier. When we had finished we pulled the furniture into the center of the
room and laid the tarp down around the edges of the floor.

Matt poured out the primer and
handed me a roller. “You ready for this?” he asked.