I seriously can’t believe we pulled it off.
I was baffled when Damon and I lived through the Vegas operation. But this, here, today, seems like we accomplished something really impossible.
The FBI could learn a thing or two from women facing a party deadline.
Three chicken-salad sandwiches and half a piece of pie later (I feel like I earned it), my nerves are finally starting to settle. My wedding dress is hanging in Mom and Dad’s closet (Delia was mortified when she found out I’d left it in the trunk). Bridget already set the box of lights in Dad’s office. The boutonnieres are safely stowed in the kitchen under a backup pie Mom always bakes just in case. Everything got done.
And more importantly, Mom hasn’t stopped smiling since I got here.
I have to admit, this is a rockin’ party. My parents’ house has always been stuck in another era—nappy carpets, a pink stone fireplace, aggressively beige walls lined with those nineties-tastic family portraits where we’re sporting matching outfits and teased hair. But she’s given the entire living room a facelift for this party. There are plush area rugs and a calmer shade on the walls with some updated photos. She even distressed the brickwork on the fireplace to soften the color. It looks almost trendy.
And I’m not sure how the great toasted marshmallow debacle ended, but the cozily clustered tables with their tablecloths and brilliantly pink centerpieces look gorgeous. Unlike the fuchsia streamers and plastic plates I expected to see, she’s draped fabric in shades from the endless pink pallet and strewn vases of more fresh flowers across the mantel and buffet bar, which is positively bursting with goodies. All those pies and cupcakes on their gleaming tiered towers . . . I finally understand the meaning of temptation.
And the meat platter does look pretty glorious.
I’m lurking by the pudding, calculating how many sit-ups would be required to undo the damage, when Mom makes her way over to me. Other than a quick hug when I first entered, she’s been preoccupied as hostess and we haven’t interacted much. She’s totally in her element, laughing, chatting, refilling glasses of punch, and making sure every platter remains symmetrically stocked. I’ve never seen her happier.
But there’s an uncertainty about her as she places her hand on my arm and asks, “So . . . what do you think?”
I set aside my plate to give her my full attention. This is the moment the hundreds of texts and phone calls and couriered dinner mints have led to. My grin is completely genuine as I say, “It’s incredible, Mom. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful party.” I squeeze her in a hug as I add, “Thank you so much for all your hard work. I really love it.”
I hear a little sniffle before she pulls back, all smiles. “Well, good. I wasn’t sure about some of the details.”
“Are you kidding? It’s fantastic!” I glance around appreciatively. “I should’ve just hired you to do the whole thing.”
“Oh, this was plenty!” She laughs, but I can tell she’s pleased by my response. “I’m just glad it turned out.”
“If the rest of the wedding is half this good, I’ll be happy.”
“It will be.” She brushes back my hair. “It will be perfect. Just you wait.”
“Well, you’ve made sure this part is.” I smile. “Perfect, I mean.”
Mom’s glowing as she moves off to chat with some relative or other, and I subside against the table, weak with relief. In this moment, I honestly don’t care how the rest of the wedding goes. Validate. Validate. Mission accomplished.
I’m daintily licking at a single tablespoon of pudding when Aunt Wanda comes up to me.
Muriel is Mom’s only real sister. But Wanda became an honorary aunt when she lived next door to us. She and Mom were always baking and gardening together, and she was the go-to babysitter for Mom and Dad’s date night.
Wanda’s one of those ladies who leans just a tad too close to your face when she speaks to you, but only because she’s determined to show that you’re the most important person in the world to her at that moment. So I’m prepared for the grip on my forearm as she comes close. Wanda’s lipstick breeches the parameters of her mouth, giving her smile a slightly clownish proportion. But I’ve always found that endearing. Like a regular smile isn’t big enough for her sunny disposition.
“Jacklyn!” she grins. “What a wonderful occasion!”
“Yes,” I agree. “Mom really outdid herself.”
“No, I mean your wedding! Celebrating your marriage gives me
such joy!”
I’m honestly touched. “Thanks, Aunt Wanda. That means a lot.”
“Your life has become so exciting!”
You have no idea, I think wryly. That has been the one letdown of this party so far. Every time someone says, “So you’re still working retail?” I have to force out a “Yep. That’s it.”
Aside from the broken bones and the souvenir PTSD, my second stint undercover yielded absolutely zero bragging rights.
“And I’m so relieved that you’re . . .” She comes closer and whispers conspiratorially, “Back on track.”
For a moment I’m baffled. Back on track? Wanda’s never been one of those women who considered my singledom a curse. She was always telling me, “No need to rush, Jackie”—she’s the only person in the world who gets away with calling me that—“You take time to make the right choice!” So I can’t imagine she’s referring to me being single until the age of twenty-six.
Suddenly I wonder if she means the whole FBI thing. Maybe she knows I was involved in the Vegas operation that was so huge in the media. But no one knows about it. And more importantly, no one can know about it.
It’s imperative our cover story stays in place. Besides the fact that Carmella and Trey’s deaths support the FBI’s case against the Solokovs (and about two dozen Russian assassins employed as dealers in their casino), there’s the matter of safety. None of the criminals associated with that case have any idea who Jack and Damon are. They believe two very important facts:
To contradict those two facts would put me and Damon in serious danger. Even though the bad guys are now standing trial or working in cooperation with the FBI, they still wouldn’t be thrilled about Carmella and Trey running around.
Then there are the guys who didn’t get caught. The FBI bust on Tropicali was successful, but there were a couple of dealers who managed to run while the others were getting rounded up. Not to mention those who weren’t on the casino floor that day. It’s a minor number of individuals who ended up in the wind after the whole thing went down. But any number above zero is enough to be worrisome.
Those guys would be especially unhappy that Damon and I are alive and well, knowing what we know, having witnessed what we witnessed. If they knew the Carmella they met in Vegas was actually a retail sales associate from Utah, they would maybe want to pay me a visit. Put an end to my associate status.
Even if they weren’t afraid of what I might know, they might want to kill me just for kicks. I helped—however ineptly—bring down a profitable criminal system from which they all benefited. Even the guys who ran went from fat paychecks and a swanky Vegas lifestyle to hiding out somewhere, probably holed up in some filthy motel in the stifling heat with only a lowly fan to cool the anger sweats. Probably throwing tiny dagger-darts at my picture on the wall.
I start to go off the rails whenever I think about it.
The point is they don’t even know I exist. “They knew you as Carmella,” Damon always says with the subtle rhythm of a mantra. “And they think Carmella’s dead. You are in no danger from them.”
Still, that worry had inspired some overreaction on my part. The minute we got home from Vegas, rather than splashing our engagement all over Facebook, I deleted my profile. On the plane ride home I’d gotten it into my head that one of those Russian assassins had been trolling pages and come across my profile. He happened to recognize me (even though I looked entirely different in my Carmella persona) and was already lying in wait at my apartment with a gun and a playing card to leave on my dead body as some kind of poetic justice thing.
That was the first big spiral. After trying to talk me through it for a few days, Damon finally called Agent McNair—the head of the Vegas task force—and had him assure me that having a Facebook profile wasn’t putting either of us in any additional danger. McNair even promised to have a qualified agent comb through my profile and delete any pictures that, in their professional opinion, looked, what I called, “too Carmella-ish.”
I doubt McNair actually wasted FBI resources on it, but I appreciated the reassurance from someone so high up in the Bureau.
So I reactivated my profile, announced our engagement, and tried to cope with the aftershocks of panic.
It took some time. The broken bones I’d gotten from the fall seemed to heal much faster than my fractured psyche. I stayed in my old room at Mom and Dad’s house for a couple of weeks, so whenever I woke crying from a nightmare in which Pasha was bearing down on me with his sniper rifle, it was my parents who came running. Something about their soothing tones in the dark and being surrounded by the shapes of my childhood room helped me recover faster.
The nightmares have lessened a lot. I was able to move back to my own apartment and stopped wearing dark sunglasses and a hat in public (the better to avoid being assassinated while buying frozen pizza at the grocery store).
That blonde wig I wore for a couple of bad days there isn’t even worth mentioning. Damon insisted mine was a normal reaction.
And after all that, I still don’t get to brag.
I don’t get to say, “Yeah, working retail between undercover work for the FBI. Oh, you didn’t hear about that? It was a pretty major operation. I was undercover as an arms dealer. I helped foil an assassin ring. And I even shot a rocket-propelled grenade.”
Nope. I don’t get to mention any of that. Relocation through the witness protection program wouldn’t be worth five minutes of shock and awe on relatives’ faces. But it sure is tempting sometimes, especially when people like judgy Aunt Muriel say at Sunday dinner, “Oh, I’m sure things have been very exciting for Jacklyn. Like a sale on shoes at that store where she works.” Muriel has an unmatched talent for making ordinary words sound absolutely shameful.
When I hear that, I want to throw down my fork and say, “Yeah, things were pretty exciting when I was dangling from a hotel balcony while a Russian assassin had me in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. I think about it all the time while I’m folding T-shirts at that store I work at. What do you think of that, Auntie Muriel?”
Instead I just bit my tongue and finished off my measly tablespoon of mashed potatoes. Muriel and reduced portion sizes—a miserable combination.
I didn’t take on the Carmella persona for the glory. I was too consumed with fear at the time to even think of such a thing. I did it because I knew it might help people. It wasn’t until the whole thing was concluded that the selfish stuff reared its ugly head.
Thoughts like, “I sacrificed so much, and no one gets to know about it?” And “I did so much for the FBI, and I still have to go back to untangling accessory chains for minimum wage?” I’m trying to work through it. Been reading lots of helpful general conference talks.
But I now know that if you search Talks about Recovering from Being Undercover for the FBI on lds.org, nothing comes up.
So now, when Aunt Wanda says my life has gotten exciting, I just smile and nod along and start composing a letter to the General Authorities in my head: Not to impede inspiration, but is there any way you could just ask Heavenly Father about advice for recovering undercover people . . . ?
But “back on track”?
“I . . . don’t know what you mean,” I say at last. “Back on track . . . from where?”
“Well, you know.” Wanda’s eyes have widened slightly, and she’s nodding. The way someone does in a wink-wink way when they think you know exactly what they’re talking about.
“No,” I say slowly. “I really don’t.”
Wanda inches even closer, almost nose-to-nose with me. “You know.”
“I really don’t,” I insist.
But Wanda just keeps nodding with a sly smile like we’re sharing some secret. “Sure you don’t.” She brushes the side of her nose like we’re in The Sting and some heist is about to go down.
Again I wonder wildly if maybe she knows something about the undercover gig and she’s trying to mention it stealthily. But how would she have found out? For a while my paranoia flavor of the week was being convinced someone I know would recognize me from the news footage of Carmella plunging into the Tropicali dive pool. What with all the assassin and Russian criminal stuff, it was a pretty big story for several days. Even people here in Utah were talking about it, which was seriously trippy.
It was like a Twilight Zone thing to go back to school and hear classmates chatting:
“Did you hear about that bust in Vegas?”
“So insane! I can’t believe they were actually hiring assassins out of a casino and no one had any clue!”
“Did you see that girl fall off the balcony?”
“And the guy fell after her—”
“So brutal! Nobody lives through something like that.”
“You okay, Jack?”
Only when one of them addressed me did I realize I’d stopped in the middle of unloading supplies from my bag and was standing like a statue, half-bent over the desk with my theory book in hand, totally un-
blinking.
“Oh yeah, yeah!” I answered too brightly, dropping the book and a handful of pens at the same time in an attempt to look more normal. “Crazy stuff. Craaaazy.”
“What happened to your leg?” the other classmate asked. “You look pretty banged up!”
To which I responded with the first thing that came to mind: “Dirigible accident.”
“What’s a dirigible?” one asked.
“It’s like a”—I did a propeller-type motion—“like a blimp and a boat had a baby.”
And then I spent fifteen minutes before class concocting some ridiculous story about being at a Victorian steampunk convention and getting hit by the dirigible that was giving rides to people in costume.
I even changed my class email address to “steampnk26.”
But anyone who happened to mention the whole Vegas thing around me or even to me did so in total innocence—just one person talking to another person about something nuts they heard on the news. No one suspected a thing.
When the footage was seriously analyzed (and I did so), you really couldn’t tell it was me. The video people got on their cell phones of the fall was too far away and fast to see clearly. It looked like some girl in a dress with darkish hair. That was about it.
Damon was even less recognizable. His back was to the cameras during the duration of the plummet.
It would’ve been easier to get footage once we were both unconscious in the water and being trawled out by the emergency-response people. But FBI agents were on the scene before we fell and ushered people away pretty quickly. No incriminating shots of us floating around, looking like us, were out there in the media.
So how could Wanda know?
I knew it hadn’t come from Mom. The FBI sent a stony-faced agent over to my parents’ house a few days after we arrived home from Nevada to give what he called a “debriefing.” That sounded cool but turned out to be a lengthy sermon about not telling anyone about the operation under penalty of perjury or some other legal jargon. I lost the “How cool are we, getting debriefed?” tingles about two minutes into his lecture.
But Mom took it very seriously. For a few months, whenever one of my sisters (they’d also gotten debriefed, along with Damon’s family) brought it up strictly in the privacy of Mom and Dad’s living room among people who already knew, Mom would get all pink in the face and say, “Shh! We’re not supposed to talk about it! We could all go to jail! They’re probably listening right now!” And then she’d go around checking up inside lampshades and under tabletops for bugs.
Mom went through a bit of a paranoid phase too.
So I know she never would’ve breathed a word to anyone. She’s too afraid of “federal imprisonment,” as she always says in hushed tones.
I can’t imagine where else the information could’ve come from.
Just as I’m about to ask Wanda who blabbed, she whispers again, “You know, sweetie. That you and Damon were able to come back from . . . your little blunder.”
Like an undercover op—that kind of “blunder”?
“What blunder is that?” I ask. Despite how I’ve reassured Mom, the words “federal imprisonment” are starting to give me the sweats too.
“You know.” Wanda looks a tad uncomfortable. She’s fingering the chocolate-covered pretzels on her plate. “It makes sense now why your wedding date changed. I understand working through these things with the . . . proper Church authorities can be a little uncertain.”
When the meaning of her words hits me, I’m light-headed.
“Are you . . . do you . . . ?” I wet my lips. “Do you think Damon and I . . . messed up together?”
Wanda’s eyes swipe to the side like maybe someone else will field this question for her. “Well, yes.” She looks pained to admit it. “You know, that’s what I heard, at least—”
“From who?”
Her gaze swivels across the room to the woman with the towering beehive hairdo.
Muriel.
My loving, judgmental, rumor-spreading Aunt Muriel.
“Excuse me, Wanda,” I say sharply, setting down my plate. I stride across the room and land in front of Muriel just as some cousin walks away from her. In an instant we’re face-to-face, ready for the confrontation.
“What have you been telling people?” I demand so quietly no one else will be able to hear.
Muriel’s eyebrows lift slightly, as though in amusement. “What do you mean? You’ll have to be clearer, Jacklyn. Though clarity has never been your strong point—”
“What have you been saying to people about my engagement?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Have you—” My voice has spiked slightly, and I reel it back in. “Have you been telling people my wedding date changed because Damon and I messed up? And we were unworthy together?”
Muriel shrugs one large shoulder. “I may have mentioned something about it.”
“Why?” Rage is literally trembling in my skin. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“I thought people deserved to know. I’m nothing if not truthful.”
“It’s not true! Damon and I have never—” I take a shuddery breath. “Our date changed because Damon was assigned to a state case. Not that it’s any of your business, but we’ve done nothing that would make us unworthy.”
Muriel doesn’t look chastised. She just narrows her eyes at me in scrutiny. “Can you honestly say no issue with worthiness has affected your marriage?”
I’m about to shout, “Yes, I can honestly say that!” when I realize. If I said so, it would be a lie. True, Damon and I have never done anything to hold us back. But he’s been working through some of his past actions with his bishop. So technically she’s right.
When I can’t definitively argue without lying or betraying Damon, I clamp my mouth shut. I turn and hurry away from Muriel on wobbly legs, certain that behind me she’s smiling triumphantly. I’ve just given her exactly what she wanted.
I reach the seclusion of the laundry room before the tears come. My body jolts with tremors. I can’t tell if I’m sad or angry or outraged or all of the above—just that my skin can’t contain it.
Both hands are clamped over my mouth to keep from making noise and alerting someone at the party. But still the door opens, and Delia and Jen slip into the tiny space. Suddenly there are too many arms around me, and the air is filled with empty reassurances.
“Muriel!” Jen spits out when I recount the conversation. “I could just . . . rip off her eyebrows!”
“She hasn’t got any,” Delia reminds her. “She draws them on.”
“Then clearly someone beat me to it!” Jen is pacing across the miniscule square footage of tile. As always, when something bad happens to me, my sisters take on the biggest part of the emotions for me. Delia has absorbed my sadness and is patting my back and watching me with large, forlorn eyes. Jen has snatched up all my anger and is letting it propel her from the dryer to the wall and back at a frenzied pace. Their adoption of my feelings has left me a bit empty, slumped on top of the washer, suddenly feeling all the long days and nights I’ve been collecting lately.
“Where does she get off?” Jen demands. “Seriously, where does she get off? Deciding everyone deserves to know every detail of your private life and that it’s her job to inform them like a good citizen.”
Like Muriel, Jen has a talent for being able to make innocent words inspire instant rage.
“But she’s lying!” Delia reminds her. “She’s just making stuff up!”
“Which is exactly why we should go out there and set her straight!” Jen is practically jumping with the desire to march into combat. She’s had several barely avoided confrontations with Muriel. That face-off would be like a scene from the Roman Colosseum. Jen’s got that war-gleam in her eyes now. “We should go throw it back in her face—tell her how wrong she is—”
“No,” I say.
“No?” Delia repeats.
“No?” Jen looks like I’ve tripped her just before she reached the front line of the enemy. “Why not?”
“Because the only way I could honestly argue would be to admit Damon’s had to work through some things. And I won’t do that.”
Delia brushes my hair back. “You think it would upset him?”
“No, I don’t think he’d really care. He’s always been more worried about what people would assume about me.” I give a tiny laugh. “He offered to send a mass email to all our wedding guests with the subject line: I’m to Blame, Not Jack.”
“That’s sweet of him,” Delia says.
“Yeah, but it’s not worth it.” I sigh, feeling wrung out. “The people who really matter know what’s what. And the rest . . . don’t need to know.”
Delia and Jen exchange a look of concern, and Jen adds, “That’s very adult of you.”
“Well, adult-ish.” Remnants of hurt pluck at my insides. “In what world is changing your wedding date suspicious?”
Jen snorts. “Muriel’s world.”
“And it’s not fair having the public fallout of breaking covenants when I didn’t even do it.” My voice ramps up slightly. “It’s not like I haven’t had opportunity. I have my own apartment, and so does he. My life has been lousy with opportunity!”
“We know, Jack,” Delia soothes, stroking my hair again. Delia has the gift of making anyone in distress feel like a cat. Like if you could just curl up in a patch of sunshine while she plays with your hair, your troubles would disappear.
“And that’s what matters,” I say. “You guys know. That’s the important thing.”
Jen still hasn’t quite given up. “Can I just pounce on Aunt Muriel—just a little?”
“I’m afraid not. Deserved as it is, it would ruin the party. And we all know how hard Mom’s worked.”
“Fine, I’ll behave,” Jen says at last. “But if she pulls something else nasty, I make no guarantees.”
“Understood.” I slide off the washer and straighten my dress. “How am I?” I ask, lifting my face for them to survey the damage to my makeup. “Smudgy?”
They spit-fix my smeared mascara before we return to the living room. I keep Muriel on the opposite side of the room, countering like a boxer anytime she makes a move in my direction. Jen, guided by Delia’s firm hand, does the same, and we get through the mingling and casual shower games without incident.
As the party winds down Bridget gets a bag and starts gathering trash. My sisters and I linger with Mom near the front door, thanking guests on their way out.
When I see Muriel’s tall head bobbing toward us, I tense. Delia already has a viselike hold on Jen’s elbow, and Jen mutters, “I get it. I get it.”
Muriel thanks Mom for a “singular occasion,” which from her sounds like an insult. But the harshness rolls off Mom like it always does.
“Thank you so much for coming!” she gushes. “It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”
“That is sooo true,” Jen agrees, and Delia tightens her grip. She’s going to cut off the circulation soon.
Then Muriel turns to me.
Like a rabbit in the gaze of a hawk, I have nowhere to run. Nothing but fluff and fur to defend against the talons—
“Oh, Jacklyn, I forgot to mention.” From within her ancient, embroidered clutch she draws a business card and offers it to me.
“What’s this?” I read the name Henry Phillips and some address in Provo.
“He’s a lawyer. He handles life insurance claims—things like that.”
“Why would I need a life insurance lawyer?”
“Well, I thought you might just want to protect yourself,” Muriel drones. “Damon does have a high-risk job, after all.”
Again I’m rocked by her meaning and find myself blinking like I’m trying to push reset on my brain. “You think I should . . . take out a life-insurance policy on Damon . . . before we’re even married?”
“It’s only logical.” Muriel shrugs. “If you’re foolish enough to marry someone in . . . law enforcement”—there it is again, like she said he sells babies on the black market or something—“then you should at least plan for the eventuality.”
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing emerges. For once she’s left me speechless.
“And what business is it of yours, Muriel?”
These words, from my brain but spoken in someone else’s voice, have come from Jen.
“What did you say?” Muriel asks, like she had no idea Jen could even speak.
“I asked what business it is of yours.” Jen’s hands are fisted at her sides.
Recognizing the warning signs, Mom chides, “Jennifer—”
But it’s too late. “I’m not saying life insurance policies are a bad idea,” Jen rushes on, her voice hushed with fury. “Steve and I have them. You know, that’s my husband. The man I was foolish enough to marry despite the fact that he’s in the military. He’s the one who suggested he get a life insurance policy so our son and I would be secure. But it was his choice and our decision as a family.”
Jen glances at me, her face full of that fierce protectiveness. “If Jack and Damon want to do that, it’s their choice. But that decision, like everything else in their lives, is their business, not yours. It’s not your place to discuss their private lives at a party. It’s not your duty to inform anyone about what’s going on with them. If you don’t have enough happening in your own life, I suggest you work on that instead of trying to fill your time judging the rest of us.”
There’s a stunned silence. Muriel stares at Jen, penciled eyebrows lost in her bouffant.
Finally Mom gives a strained smile and says, “Thanks so much for coming to the party.”
She’s holding out a goody bag, and after several mute seconds, Muriel takes it. Without a word, she strides out the door.
In the fading heel-click of her departure, we’re still quiet. Then Delia gives a smothered giggle.
“Delia,” Mom scolds, though there’s no conviction in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” Delia says, both hands clamped over her mouth to suppress the shower of giggles. Though Delia is probably the most sensitive of the siblings, she’s also the first to break into unbidden laughter when something uncomfortable happens.
Like when Grandpa wore Grandma’s old floral-print pants to a holiday dinner by mistake. Mom hustled him down the hall (while he insisted, “These are my dressy pants!”) to find an alternate outfit, and we all hung our heads over our plates in embarrassment. But sweet Delia at the end of the table was nearly hysterical with choked laughter.
Now Mom turns to Jen. “Jennifer, that was—”
“Long overdue,” Jen says, taking a drink of punch. Now that she’s finally been allowed a tiny eruption, she’s looks much happier.
“I’m not sure it was entirely appropriate—”
“She wasn’t appropriate,” Jen counters. “It’s about time someone tells her to mind her own business.”
“She’ll get over it, Mom.” Delia, still pink in the face, wraps an arm around Mom’s shoulders. “Besides, it really wasn’t her place to tell Jack something like that.”
“Right.” Mom’s gaze shifts to me, and suddenly her brow knits. “I’m sorry, Jacklyn. I hope this didn’t—”
“Didn’t ruin a thing, Mom,” I say quickly. “I promise.”
My great-aunt Ethel shuffles up just then, and Mom excuses herself to walk Ethel to her car. The second they’re across the threshold, I grin at Jen. “You’re my hero.”
“That wasn’t even half of what I wanted to say.” Jen shakes her head, swigging more punch like it’s something stronger. “That woman. How is it possible she and Mom are sisters?”
“It happens.” I shrug. “Just look at us.”
Jen flicks my ear.
“Oh, don’t pretend to be mad.” I laugh.
“Well, it’s your fault! If you had let me yell at those bridal-shop people—”
“Yeah, what happened with that?” Delia asks. “How in the world did they lose your dress?”
“Ugh, it’s a long story,” I say, weary. Now that the guests have departed, I kick off my heels and slump against the entry table. “And I’ve already hit my pudding quota.”
“They were totally incompetent,” Jen pipes up, and I happily let her take over the story. I don’t have the energy to be outraged anymore.
Chomping on the ice in my cup, I pull out my phone to check messages. About twelve from Delia before we arrived at the party, asking how far away we were. A few of the same from Bridget.
The next few are from various wedding-supply people, including a confirmation from the florist and a question about lighting from the manager of the venue. We were able to find this amazing old brick building with an attached garden in Provo. They provide chairs, tables, plates and utensils, and we’re bringing in the rest. I shoot back a quick text assuring them the café lights will be delivered and strung tomorrow night, as well as a thumbs-up to the florist.
I get that familiar swoop in my stomach when I see the last message is from Damon.
Hey, beautiful, it reads. How’s the party? Validating?
An involuntary smile spreads across my face. Just seeing those few typed lines is like that moment at the eye doctor when he finally clicks the right lens into place and you can decipher all those teeny letters at the bottom of the test chart.
Crazy afternoon, I type back. You up for meeting halfway?