Page 2 of The Best Man Wins

“Let me help,” I plead.

Letty shoots me a glare that nearly turns me into one of the ice sculptures. “Don’t you dare. Don’t make me remind you that you’re still benched. No one touches a single tassel until I tell them to, understood?”

Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eyes, I see Marlee shake the cage roughly. The doves flutter around frantically and burst out. They don’t quite make it to the beautiful arc through the sky, however; instead, they flop around, confused. One manages to get caught under a bridesmaid’s umbrella dress, causing the woman to flail and shriek, while the second bird topples onto the pastor’s bible and wing-slaps him before it rockets up into the sky.

Letty swears and jumps into action immediately. “I want those birds quartered and shot and served up for dinner!” she snaps. “Thom! I need you now!”

“Pardon me,” Thom says as he retreats with a wink. “I’ve got pigeons to kill.”

“Make it painless!” I joke back, knowing full well Thom couldn’t hurt a fruit fly. Before he dashes off, however, I grab his arm. “And Thom…get the band going.”

He knits his eyebrows. “They’ve already finished their set.”

“Tell them to improvise.”

The idea catches up with him, and his eyes light up. “You’re a genius.” His eyes crinkle with quiet amusement. “It’s good to have you back. Welcome back to the madhouse, darling,”

“You’re not kidding.” I watch as chaos erupts on stage as Letty snaps at Marlee, who chases the birds around while the bridesmaid cries.

It takes them less than a minute to scare away the pigeons and redirect everyone’s attention to the brassy boom of the band. That’s because Letty and her Everlasting Love team are the best wedding planners in the business.

It takes an army to bring two people together. I’m part of that army. At least I was, until I took a mental health break for the better part of last year. But I’m back in the business—recently reenlisted, so to speak. That is, if Letty will have me back.

“Susie!” Marlee pops in front of me, and I blink back to reality. She’s short of breath, arms covered in beak-marks, and shoves a manila folder at me. “Letty told me to give this to you before you go.”

“Thanks, Mar—” As soon as I take it, Marlee dashes back into the fray. No doubt off to find the offending pigeons. Letty has to eat, after all.

I turn the folder in my hands. It’s thick with loose pages. The top tab reads: DALTON/WEST.

It’s a wedding assignment. The first since my hiatus.

My anxiety falls off me like snakeskin, and a grin bursts across my face. I’ve earned my wings back. I grip the folder as though it holds the cure for cancer in its pages. This is it. The most important wedding of my career.

Time to prove to them that I’m back in business. Look out, world. Here comes Susie Posy, wedding planner extraordinaire.

2

Susie

I don’t open the folder then and there. I wait, scandalously teasing its edges with my thumb until I find a nice quiet place to wrap my head around the contents.

Everlasting Love does enough business in the infamous Ritz-Carlton off Central Park that the bartenders will occasionally throw me a glass of wine on the house. I know it’s a stretch since I’ve been out of work for the better part of a year, but I decide to treat myself regardless. I’m going to start this wedding off on the right foot, and maybe the old-fashioned glitz and glam of an infamous New York City luxury hotel will inspire me.

Through the brass-lined doors, the doorman directs me to the Auden Bar in the left wing of the lobby. The seats are maroon leather, the bar table polished wood, and I sequester myself under an antique lamp.

I’m rusty and I know it. I used to fit right into this world, but when I look at myself in the mirror across the bar, I wince. My teased blonde curls have already softened, and my lipstick is starting to fade. I’ve got potential: a year shy of thirty (and clinging to it with everything I have left), a heart-shaped face, eyes that look sometimes hazel and sometimes green under the right light (or with the right mascara), and slender to boot (slender but not skinny—I’m still pinch-able). But I’ve let myself go, and it shows in the bags under my eyes and the wrinkles in my white, flower-patterned shirt. I tug a hand-knit beanie out of my purse and pull it over my head. This isn’t a beanie kind of place, exactly, but my hair is not currently for public consumption, so desperate times and all.

“What’ll it be?” The bartender materializes out of nowhere, smartly dressed with a perfectly coiffed pompadour. He already looks bored with me, and I know he’s got my number. It’s like he can smell that I’ve been drinking out of wine boxes for the past few months.

I hold my own. I clear my throat and ask with my best faux-elegance, “Is Chris Keller here?”

He narrows his eyes, confused. “No one by that name works here, honey.”

Right. I flew too close to the sun with this. No free wine for me. I backpedal with a smile and then say, “A glass of your house white, please.”

That’ll put enough of a dent in my pocketbook. He leaves to pour my glass, and I relax my shoulders a little now that I’m outside his line of scrutiny. The folder waits patiently in front of me, unopened. I’m suddenly less confident than I was when I walked in. Pompadour has crushed my high spirits. Is it possible to be so rusty that you can never un-rust?

Grow a pair of ovaries and open it, Susie.

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