Page 21 of The Best Man Wins

“Are you coming?” Susie glances over at me. Is that a glimmer of hope in her eyes?

“Wouldn’t want to interrupt girl time. Besides, I’m not big on sweets.” Or sorority sisters. “Have fun, though.”

“They’ve landed!” Cora shouts suddenly and leaps to her feet, waving her phone around. She tugs on Ray’s big arm. “Come on! We have to pick them up, get the cakes set up—do you think they have gluten-free batter? Cynthia has a gluten thing…”

“All right, all right,” Ray laughs and gets up, looking slightly bewildered. “Lady gets what the lady wants.”

Cora is almost rabid with excitement, and I glance down at her plate. It’s practically untouched. The hair at the back of my neck rises as warning bells go off in my head. “Cora,” I tell her firmly. “Eat something before you go.”

“We’re about to eat cake.” She waves me off. “I’ll be fine. Susie!”

“Right, I’m ready.” Susie scoops the last bit of eggs into her mouth before she stands at Cora’s beck and call. Cora is already dragging Ray out of the door, and like that, there’s a vacuum of silence where Cora once was. Susie fumbles to take her plate into the kitchen, but I take her wrist.

“I’ll help Roxanne clean up,” I say. Then, softly, “Keep an eye on them.”

Susie’s eyebrows pinch together, and she sighs. “Give Ray some credit, Braxton. Really, he’s not as bad as you think.” She frowns and says, “Take that black cloud somewhere else. Let us know when you’re ready to join the party.”

With that, she leaves. I don’t even get the chance to tell her it’s not Ray I’m worried about. Something is up with the bride-to-be.

9

Susie

Cora’s energy is infectious, and the next couple of hours happen in a flurry. We take Ray’s big pickup truck, which lugs down the street and clanks and clatters over potholes. First stop, the airport to pick up the sorority sisters. Cynthia and Candace are beautiful, long-limbed women, dressed to the nines. A white Prada dress, a Ralph Lauren pantsuit. The two women sit on either side of me in the back of the car, dwarfing me, and only briefly acknowledge my presence before chattering back and forth with Cora. Small mirrors pop out of their designer purses as they begin reapplying their makeup in the bumpy car.

“The little airport was positively darling.”

“Oh, but the cosmos at the bar were dreadful. The service was worse than Brooklyn.”

“But we’re so glad to be here, precious.”

“Ray, you are adorable. Is that hat real?”

“Where is the nearest Starbucks—?”

Candace lets out a shrill cry, and immediately, Ray lays into the brakes. “Everyone okay?” he says urgently, twisting his neck around.

Candace has her head tilting upward, blinking, and I half expect to see her eyeball punctured at the edge of her eyeliner pencil. Instead, she says, “Sharon, do you see anything in my eye?”

Sharon. That’s me, I think. I lean in and gently pluck a fake eyelash out from the corner of her eye.

“It was an eyelash,” I say, holding it at the pad of my finger.

“Make a wish, dear,” Cynthia chimes in.

Candace thinks for a long, hard moment before she blows on my finger.

Ray forces out a chuckle, though I can hear the strain in his laugh. He remains mostly silent for the rest of the drive, not that he could get in a word edgewise. We pass through swaths of low-hanging maple trees until we get to Simply Sweet, the bakery we’ve chosen to build their wedding cake.

“Simply Sweet,” Cynthia says, sounding out the words as though she’s learning how to read as we exit the truck and approach the store. She clicks her tongue. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“They have a store in Long Island,” I inform her quickly. “We’ve worked with them before. They’re the best in the business, plus, they’re the only bakery that can turn around a cake like this on short notice.”

For a price, I almost add, but money doesn’t seem to be an object in this crowd.

Cynthia hums thoughtfully at that. Ray is the first to the door and holds it open to let the ladies pass through first. The store is pastel pink and stuffed to the brim with displays, large layered wedding cakes, elaborately frosted cupcakes, sugar buttons, and rings of lollipops.

“You must be the Dalton party,” a baker greets us with a warm smile. She’s in a white apron, her red hair tied back in a ponytail, and she gestures us to an open-space room in the back. “The rest of your party is in the back—”

---