| |
The following evening, Charlotte invited the Sheridan Sisters to her home to go over the immense strategy she’d plotted for the upcoming Sheridan-Gasbarro wedding. Charlotte had told Lola once that she considered her career as a wedding planner to be like a chess game. She had full control over the pieces on the board, the caterers, the venues, even the bride and the groom. She just had to orchestrate when and how to move them around to maximize winning potential. “You really know how to take the romance out of weddings,” Lola had teased, but at this, Charlotte’s eyes became glossy as she’d said, “No. In fact, romance is the reason the game begins at all.”
An hour after rehearsal finished for the week, the handsome photojournalist Everett opened the door to the home he and Charlotte had recently purchased. He peered out onto the snow-covered Lola, Christine, Susan, Amanda, and Audrey, together with babies Max and Mia and enough wine to get them through the chilly night. Everett’s mischievous smile was one for the record books. He beckoned them in and said, “I don’t know what I did right to have the likes of you darken my door on this Friday night.”
“Are they here?” Charlotte appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer, still in an apron that sported wisps of flour. Her smile was electric. She tore off the apron and hustled for Lola first before delivering hugs to the rest of the clan. “Claire should be here in a jiffy. The girls are all upstairs, as usual, although I have a hunch you’ve had enough of Rachel, Gail, and Abby for one week.”
“They aren’t exactly the most well-behaved of all our orphans,” Lola teased. “But they bring a certain charm to set.”
“I just hope you don’t fire them,” Charlotte told her. “What else would they do? Who knows what kind of trouble they’d get themselves into?” Her eyes were glistening, proof she was joking. She beckoned them into the living area, where she’d set up large charcuterie boards featuring juicy grapes, slabs of camembert, various meats, brie, crackers, dates and slices of cucumber and mixed nuts.
“The pizza will be out of the oven soon,” Charlotte announced.
“Homemade dough?” Christine asked, impressed as she perched at the edge of the couch to bring the sleeping baby away from her chest.
“Nothing but the best from Charlotte,” Everett affirmed.
“Well, you did move across the country for a reason,” Charlotte teased.
“Yes, I did. The reason I moved here from LA was based on your cooking alone,” Everett returned, rolling his eyes sarcastically. “I’ll get the pizza out of the oven in a few minutes. You ladies have a lot to discuss. I’ll let you get started.”
Claire arrived several minutes later with a bountiful display of freshly-cut flowers and a big dollop of donut jelly on her otherwise perfectly-ironed button-down shirt. She laughed outright as she walked in, drawing attention to what she’d done.
“I was starving before I left work and crammed one of the Frosted Delights donuts into my mouth. This is what I get. Proof that I’m a slob.”
“Come on. We’re all foodies here. We get it,” Audrey said. She quickly flipped through her purse and drew out a Tide-to-Go pen, which Claire thanked her for. “Max is almost one. Quick clean-up options are necessities at this point. Especially since I’m, you know... dating. Noah’s found one too many spit-up stains on my t-shirts.”
“But you said he also has them sometimes,” Lola added. “Because of his little sister.”
“Yes. I’m lucky to be dating someone just about as messy as me,” Audrey agreed.
Charlotte disappeared for a moment to fetch a vase for the flowers. When she returned, Everett was hot on her heels with two large pizzas, fresh out of the oven and already sliced. Everett set the pizzas on a little table off to the right of the sofa to allow the women to serve themselves. As Claire slid the flowers into a vintage vase, Charlotte set up a large bulletin board, on which she’d positioned a number of facts about the approaching “big day.”
“I’ve already booked the gorgeous Union Chapel for Sunday, February 27th,” Charlotte said. “It’s absolutely perfect for your number of guests. I almost wept thinking about you in your wedding dress and Tommy in a tuxedo, saying your vows there to one another.”
“She really did!” Everett called from the next room.
“If Mom ever finds a wedding dress, that is...” Audrey teased.
“It’s been crazy with rehearsals,” Lola admitted as she grabbed a cracker.
“Oh, come on. You’ve had time. You told me you’ve tried on twenty-five different dresses,” Christine countered. “You’re just picky.”
Lola laughed outright. It was unimaginable to her that they sat in this room discussing the intricacies of her own wedding. Lola Sheridan! Married?
“We’ll start the ceremony at four-thirty and then depart for the reception afterward. I have three options for that...” Charlotte began.
“I want to have it at the Sunrise Cove,” Lola interjected.
Charlotte blinked back at her, perplexed. “Are you sure you don’t want to hear my ideas?”
“It’s... it’s my family’s inn,” Lola tried to explain, her smile faltering. “It’s where my mother and father basically raised us. It’s one of the reasons I came back and ultimately met Tommy in the first place. It means so much to me. I can’t imagine it not being a part of the service.”
Susan arched her brow and added, “I suppose your guest list isn’t as big as mine and Scott’s was. It could work.”
“And I think it would make Dad really happy,” Lola added, her voice softening. “And I know that he’s felt so good lately. He’s seemed so chipper. But I’m reminded several times a week that we don’t fully know the nature of his disease. We don’t really know how—”
“How much longer we have with him,” Susan finished, eyeing the floor. “I think about it, too.”
“All right. Well. It sounds like we’re all in agreement, then,” Charlotte said, her voice returning to chipper brightness. “If the Bistro’s all right with you, then it’ll have to do. We’ll have it looking like a magical fairytale in no time. Make it extra special.”
“That’s right. Plenty of flowers,” Claire winked before adding. “I was thinking French Tulips. Holly. Jasmine. Orchids... Winter flowers that exude beauty and light.”
“You’re a true artist, Claire,” Lola smiled at her cousin.
Charlotte continued with her ideas, discussing her contacts in the wedding industry, and displaying some of her favorite wedding photographers, making it easy for Lola to make quick decisions.
“I never imagined finalizing my wedding would seem so seamless,” Lola said, genuinely flabbergasted.
From the next room, Everett called, “It’s definitely not as easy as Charlotte makes it look.”
Lola giggled. “I think you have a hype man in the next room.”
“He’s too good to me,” Charlotte replied as a blush crept up her cheeks. “But in all honesty, you told me to keep it simple, and I kept it simple.”
“It took enough time to get these two to the altar,” Susan offered with a shrug. “We don’t want to scare them away.”
Lola dropped her head back against the headrest of the coach as her stomach swelled with pizza and wine. “Imagine if I really leaned into all the wedding tropes. Four hundred guests with a huge Barbie-style wedding dress with little flower girls running around. Tommy would take one look at it and run off on his sailboat for the rest of his life.”
“We’d be like, ‘Where’s Tommy?’ And the answer would be, ‘Somewhere near South America already,’” Audrey joked as she lifted a sleeping Max from her lap and headed off for his baby carrier, where she positioned him gently so he could continue through his sleep unperturbed.
“Naw. I’ve been around a lot of couples,” Charlotte affirmed. “The way Tommy looks at you... I don’t see that with every couple. It’s something special. I really mean that.”
“Gosh, I think I’m going to cry.” Susan bent her head low and dabbed the edge of her eye with her sleeve, blotting her tears away.
“Pull it together, sis,” Lola said, shifting her weight to place her head on Susan’s shoulder beside her on Charlotte’s couch.
Amanda, seated on the floor at her mother’s feet, tried to explain. “It’s been a hard day at work. One of our clients had an all-out meltdown in the foyer. Bruce had to take him out. Mom took the brunt of his anger.” Amanda then lifted a hand to her mother’s and gently wrapped her fingers around her wrist.
“But all that doesn’t matter, now,” Susan affirmed, sniffling as she lifted her chin. “Because I’m here planning my little sister’s wedding to the love of her life. It’s like a dream come true.”
“Let the world know that Susan Sheridan’s gone full sap on us,” Christine teased as she joined Lola and Susan on the couch and struggled to wrap her arms around the both of them.
“Don’t you dare tell anyone,” Susan cried. “It could ruin my cred as a criminal lawyer.”
With the plans relatively finalized, the flowers decided upon, the photographer emailed to confirm, and even the four-course meal a done-deal, the Sheridan and Montgomery girls found themselves with nothing but a whole night of gossip, wine, snacks, and conversation before them. It was a relief, Lola thought, not to consider the weight of the approaching performance of the musical theater troupe, nor the chaos of the wedding festivities, and just lean into the beautiful rhythm of the voices she adored the most in the world.
Soon after, Gail, Rachel, and Abby hopped down the steps to show off their new dance, which they’d apparently been upstairs rehearsing for the previous three hours. At sixteen, the girls danced along the edge of youthful silliness and womanhood, not fully comprehending the weight of their approaching powers. When Rachel misstepped during the dance, she burst into childish giggles and fell to the floor, and Gail and Abby joined her, laughing outright.
“All right, that’s it,” Charlotte cried, half-joking, half-serious. “The three of you are wound up on chocolate bars. I can feel it.”
“Mom...” Rachel cried as tears brewed in her eyes.
“No, no. Do it again,” Lola said as she scampered to her feet. “Audrey? You want to join me?”
“You honestly think you can learn the dance?” Abby asked, with the jagged sass of a teenage girl.
“Try me,” Lola shot, inching her smile from ear to ear.
Over the course of the next thirty-five minutes, a nearly-married woman of forty, her twenty-year-old daughter, and her cousins’ daughters traced through the frantic motions of a silly dance, cackling as they made mistakes and taking frequent pauses for snacks and pizza. Lola wasn’t sure what it was that made her feel so youthful, so rejuvenated. She marveled that it was simply the power of Tommy’s love and the life they’d built together. She marveled at the strength it had given her to become better, brighter, more alive (even if, admittedly, it didn’t make her a better dancer).