You’re Invited Too (11 page)

Lauren snaps shots of Becca sitting, Becca standing, Becca leaning mournfully against her closet door, Becca jumping up like a cheerleader, and Becca strumming her guitar. Sadie scooches across the floor to where I'm sitting.

“Something's up with you,” she says.

I sigh. “It's Becca's party. I don't want to ruin it by being all grumpy.”

“What happened?” Sadie's eyebrows are knitted together.

Now I have to tell her, or she'll assume someone died. “It's my dad. I asked him to quit, and it . . . didn't go like I planned.” I rifle through Becca's jewelry box. I know she decided at Founder's Day to start collecting brooches, and I guess she's really committed. There are a ton of them in here. I push the old-fashioned pins aside and find a long beaded necklace to wind around my neck.

“Is he mad at you?”

“No, but I think I really hurt his feelings. I just feel so . . . awful. And mean. My dad's always been there for me, and I was so horrible to him. Now he thinks I'm embarrassed by him, and that he's not good enough, and officially, I am the worst daughter who ever existed.”

Sadie leans over and wraps me in a bear hug. “I totally get it,” she says.

Wait, she does. Sadie said she's still going out of her way not to bring up any wedding talk around her mom because it always gets awkward.

“Um, helloooo?” Becca's snapping her fingers. “No whispering! It's group-shot time! Vi, you put on that red velvet dress. Sades, you need the faux-fur-trimmed coat. It'll look
très
cute on you! And someone needs to wear these adorbs gold sandals!” She scoops the shoes up and tosses them to Lauren, who falls back into a mountain of clothing as she catches them.

Sadie giggles, and I can't help smiling.

I'm pulling on the hem of the dress to try to make it longer (because Becca is shrimp-size and I'm what she once called “statuesque”), and Lauren's wrapping a hot pink scarf around her neck (I might not be the fashion queen of Sandpiper Beach, but even I get that a scarf doesn't really go with sandals), when Sadie's phone rings with the RSVP theme song that Becca wrote this summer.

La la la la la la la la, life is so much more . . .

Sadie freezes mid–camera shot.

“Maybe it's just Izzy,” I suggest.

“Or someone who's heard about the awesomeness of RSVP and wants to book a party,” Becca adds. “Of course, we'll have to turn them down like the others, though.” We'd agreed after we booked the wedding that it was all the party planning we could handle with school and stuff.

La la la la la la la la, shared among us four . . .

“Or your mom, calling to remind you about something,” Lauren says.

Sadie pulls the phone from her purse on the floor and glances at the screen. Her shoulders sag. “It's her,” she announces before she puts the phone to her ear. “Hello, Miss Worthington?”

“This woman is way more trouble than this wedding is worth. Seriously, we'd make more money if we quit, because then we could book other parties. You know, for normal people,” Lauren whispers.

“Shh!” I say to her. If that bridezilla can hear Lauren, we'll get kicked off the wedding for sure. And getting fired isn't exactly great for business.

“But it's true! I can prove it. See, I have this spreadsheet that logs how much time we're putting into this wedding and then calculates what our hourly rate would be based on the total amount of payment she's offered us, and—”

Sadie kicks at Lauren's leg.

“Ow!” Lauren hops up and down on one gold-sandaled foot.

“I see, Miss Worthington, but . . .” Sadie slumps onto Becca's bed. “How about tomorrow morning? . . . Oh . . . No, of course we want to do everything we can, but right now we're . . .”

I sit next to her. I'm dying to know what Miss Worthington is talking about. I poke Sadie's leg.
What?
I mouth.
What's she saying?

Sadie waves a hand at me. “Yes, we still want the job! . . . No, I understand. . . . Okay, thirty minutes. See you then.” Sadie clicks her phone off and falls backward onto the bed.

“What was
that
all about?” Becca asks.

“Bridezilla emergency. She's found some guy called ‘the Italian Tenor' she wants to sing at the wedding, but he's only available to Skype with us about predicted wedding-day humidity conditions that could affect his vocal cords tonight, because then he's heading off on the Australian leg of his world tour. Please ask me if I understood more than six words of the sentence I just said.” Sadie pushes herself up onto her elbows. “The part I got loud and clear is that she wants one of us at her house. Right now.”

TODAY'S TO-DO LIST:

■
 google “ways to deal with bridezillas”

■
 figure out what an Italian Tenor is

■
 appoint a vice president to deal with all this stuff from now on

S
o when she says right now, she means—” Becca starts.

“Right
now
!” I cut in.

“But, but, but . . . it's my birthday party! Did you tell her that?”

I shake my head, sigh, and gather my hair into a ponytail. Time to get down to business. Literally. I slide off Becca's faux-fur coat and scrub at the glitter she applied to my cheeks earlier. Nothing says unprofessional like glitter cheeks!

As the tiny sparkles disappear, my sparkly mood does too. I'd been soooo looking forward to tonight. A sleepover with my very best friends was supposed to have been the perfect way to escape all the stress of this stupid wedding and the awkwardness of things at home. Mom's been acting like her normal self, distracted but Mom-ish, although she
has
been around an awful lot, which is actually not normal (yesterday she and Izzy played Monopoly for approximately three hours). But whenever anything about her party-planning company
or
mine comes up, the air gets chillier than the ice-cream freezer at the Variety Shoppe.

And speaking of my company, it really does feel like mine most days, with all the responsibility that comes with that. I know RSVP belongs to all of us, but I'm the president and I'm the one whose cell-phone number is on all our flyers, which means
I'm
the one getting each and every “Sadie-babe, I was thinking” phone call from Alexandra Worthington. And there are a lot of “Sadie-babe, I was thinking” phone calls. It's like the woman is incapable of making a decision and sticking to it.

Plus
everything
is urgent. Everything. Like two days ago when we had to figure out right away if the birdseed that people would be throwing on her and Ike instead of rice as they left the ceremony could be a diet variety because she'd noticed all the seagulls around Sandpiper Beach seemed fat and she didn't want to contribute to the Great Gull Obesity Epidemic.

And now I'm gonna have to miss half of Becca's party all because
I'm
the one in charge. I'm so totally over it.

Next to me, Vi is tugging a pair of sweats on under her too-short Becca dress. “Wait up,” she says. “I'll come with.”

I smile at her, grateful for the offer even though I'm guessing it has every bit as much to do with being able to take off the tiny dress.

“I can't believe y'all are really going!” Becca cries. “This mega stinks. Queen Alexandra needs to know there are limits! What if you just told her you were stuck somewhere important? Like, um, the hospital, or something.” Becca's voice is getting high-pitched as she tosses clothes from her bed, looking for a place to sit. Finally she gives up and plops down on top of a pile of sweaters.

I puff my bangs out of my eyes and tug the laces on my sneakers. “She knows I'm not, Becs. I just told her I was on my way. Besides, she'd probably just fire us or something, and then my mom would know we couldn't hack it as wedding planners. No way am I letting that happen. Although I
am
starting to get a new appreciation for all the times Mom's had to skip out on us for bride stuff, that's for sure.”

“But it's already dark out!” Now Becca's voice is getting whiny. I love the girl to pieces, but it's hard not to get annoyed when she whines. It's not like leaving is my choice. At all.

Lauren peers out Becca's window. “It is pretty pitch-black out there, Sades.”

I know. I know all of these things. But I still have to go when duty calls. Isn't that what being president is all about? Now I get why Dad used to say you couldn't pay him enough to run for mayor. Responsibility kinda stinks.

Vi grabs her sweatshirt with one hand and my arm with the other. “We'll be fine. We'll stick together. Besides, it's Sandpiper Beach. What's gonna happen?”

Lauren lets Becca's curtain fall back in front of the window and sighs a big, deep sigh. “A one-point-oh-three-percent crime rate is still not zero. It'll be way faster and safer if I drive you there, Sades. Her house has to be a half mile away.”

The three of us stare at her with our jaws
thisclose
to the floor. Vi finds her voice first. “But, Lo, you aren't allowed to drive anyone in your golf cart. Wouldn't your parents kill you?”

Becca smiles sweetly. “They didn't find out when Lauren gave
me
a ride this summer.”

Vi and I jerk our heads to Lauren. “For real?” I ask.

Lauren shrugs and studies the carpet. “It was just one time. Before the Scottish party. She needed to buy too much stuff to carry in her bike basket.”

Becca laughs. “And it was totally awesome. The wind in our hair. The pavement under our wheels. The boys staring at us as we breezed past. I'm totes cut out for convertible living.”

Lauren balls up her sweater and lobs it at Becca before saying, “I'm one hundred percent committed to my schedule, and this party is my fun time. So if we have to answer Miss Worthington's annoying call, the least we can do is have a blast getting there and back, right? Besides, the faster we go, the faster we're back.”

“Fabu!” says Becca. “Mani-pedis will be waiting. Hey, Vi, change out of those icky sweats and back into something fun. I'll fill the tub so we can stick our feet in and soften our cuticles. Ooh, and if you don't want that dress again, try these leggings. They have rhinestones!”

Becca holds up the twinkling pants as Vi looks at me and Lauren with a
Help me
expression on her face. I can't help but laugh. I can practically see the little thought bubble over her head that says
Rhinestone leggings are So Not Vi!
, but she laughs and plops down next to Becca on the bed.

“Don't leave me with Becs too long, y'all. By the time you get back, I'll probably have orange streaks in my hair.”

Becca whacks Vi over the head with a pillow. “You will
not
. Besides, you're a summer, coloring-wise. I'd never recommend orange for you. Now, if you want a nice shade of rose, periwinkle, or sage, we should talk. . . .”

Lauren and I duck out, leaving the other two to their sleepover fun. Halfway down the stairs, we can hear Becca's mom chatting away on the phone. When we get to the bottom, I turn toward the kitchen to let Mrs. Elldridge know where we're headed. We wait in the doorway, but she's so involved in her conversation, she doesn't even turn our way.

Lauren tugs on my sleeve. “Come on, let's just go. We'll be back soon anyway. And Becca and Vi can tell her where we've gone.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Who are you and what happened to Lauren?” She's probably the last person I'd ever think of bending the rules.

She gives me a nervous smile. “I'm supposed to be having fun between the hours of five and eleven thirty tonight. At exactly eleven thirty, my phone will beep to remind me to go to sleep. So let's make the most of it, okay? If we hang around here waiting, it'll take us longer to get there, and we'll have less time for the party.”

I look back at Becca's mom just as she disappears into the pantry. Lauren's right; we need to get going. Plus, Miss Worthington will be mad if we take too long getting there.

We slip quietly out through the front door. Even though she's hiding it well, I can tell Lauren is nervous about the whole driving-people-in-her-golf-cart thing, because she's extra quiet as we slip down the stairs to the spot under the house where it's parked.

“Sure you're okay with this?” I ask one last time as we climb onto the bench seat.

“It'll be fun. And it's the most logical solution,” Lauren answers. When it comes to Lauren and logic, there's no arguing, so I close my mouth.

We pull out onto the dark streets. Even in the months when we don't have to worry about artificial lights causing the baby sea turtles to get confused and head away from the ocean, Sandpiper Beach is so small and quiet that streetlights would ruin the “ambiance” (or so Mom has said). Only the public places and a few businesses, like the square and the marina, have them. On nights without a moon, like tonight, it's so dark you can barely see the shapes of the houses lining the streets, unless they're lit up from the inside. Cooper gives a small woof from the porch of Polka Dot Books as we drive away from Becca's.