Page 3 of The Best Man Wins

I flip the folder open and I’m hit with a Post-it note. In Letty’s handwriting, there are these inspirational words: Don’t mess it up.

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. Ironically, her challenge does light a fire underneath me to prove her wrong. I roll my eyes, paste the Post-it note to the inside cover, and start riffling through the contents of the folder.

My mission—should I choose to accept it—involves Bride, herein known as Cora West, and Groom, aka Ray Dalton. Cora is drop-dead gorgeous; even her candids look like headshots. Wide eyes, a tiny nose, and a bird-bone figure. Her smile is just a little too wide for her face, which only makes her seem genuine and all the more precious. I’m not getting any bridezilla vibes from her, but it’s hard to make that kind of prediction without meeting her up close and personal. Weddings do strange things to people.

(You know that firsthand, don’t you, Susie? Or have you forgotten how you broke a lawn chair, smashed a wedding cake, and threw up on the father-in-law all in the span of five minutes?)

There’s that cold prickle at the back of my neck. My wine arrives, so I sip it to distract myself as I drive into Ray’s page. Immediately, my assumptions about Cora’s good nature line up, because he’s the half of the couple that makes people wonder how they ever ended up together. Big-boned with a mess of curly hair that no one ever taught him how to style. He’s wearing plaid in every one of his pictures and, in one, standing in front of a farm labeled Dalton family home.

Popular girl and farm boy. Whodathunk? Already, I can feel the struggle of putting these two disparate pieces together, but I like the challenge. After all, who am I to put true love in a box?

But that’s not my only challenge. When I see the wedding date I nearly spit my wine out.

It’s two weeks from now. Two. I check and recheck to make sure it isn’t a typo.

So Letty isn’t giving me a starter-wedding. This is a shotgun, high-stakes job.

No problem. Right? Like learning to ride a bike on the freeway. Full of potholes. With dogs chasing you.

I get my yellow pad out and start scribbling frantically, notes like rustic and outdoors and rose arbor? My glass of wine has a hole in it. Only explanation for the way the honey-gold line keeps plummeting.

My pen stops suddenly when I flip to the flower selection. A laminated printout of white magnolias stares back at me.

Magnolias. Meaning purity and dignity. Often associated with yin. Femininity. A historically romantic flower.

(Magnolias. The same flowers Ace picked out for our wedding. The wedding that never happened, so the flowers died one by one on my kitchen table. The petals crumpled up and dried out, and then they fell, leaving nothing but empty, abandoned stalks.)

“Hey, I know you.”

I glance upward and immediately regret it. My eyes connect with two men standing at the bar beside me—one is a larger man wearing an “I Love NY” T-shirt, and his friend has a deer-hunting hat. My guess is they’re both tourists.

I get that pit-in-stomach sinking feeling. I try to swallow it back with a smile. “Sorry, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, I do.” I-Love-NY points a stubby finger at me. “You’re on TV, right?”

Yep. Definitely tourists. New Yorkers know better than to accost celebrities in public—or normal people like me who suffered their five minutes of fame.

I shrug and keep up my war-paint smile. “I think you have the wrong girl.”

I turn my shoulders toward them and try to refocus on my folder. Please leave me alone, my body language is screaming. But, of course, they don’t take the hint.

His friend snaps his fingers. “Dude! It’s that chick from the Bride Attacks video!”

I pray that the carpet turns into a sinkhole and sucks me downward.

“Holy shit!” I-Love-NY is all excited now. “Is that you?”

They don’t wait for me to confirm or deny—I-Love-NY has his phone out, and he shoves his whole body against mine. He’s hovering his phone above both of us, his huge thumb trying to get his camera in selfie mode.

He smells like vendor hot dogs and sweat, and this is getting out of hand. I don’t need bad publicity now—not when I just got my new client. I quickly lift my arm and duck my head down. “Please—can you…stop?”

“Hey.” A third guy approaches—great. He doesn’t seem to be part of their duo, though; he’s tucked away in an Armani suit, drink in hand. He smiles and shows off a set of perfectly white teeth. “That’s a nice phone. Want me to take the three of you?”

Oh, crud. I try to protest, but the tourists are already wedging me between them. I-Love-NY shoves his phone at the stranger and thanks him.

Hot dogs. And body odor. Ugh. I’m stuck in this now, and I try to smile.

“Say cheese,” Armani says. Then he sticks the nice iPhone in his glass, submerging it.

---