Page 23 of To Have and to Scold

Why do I feel a bout of shame at that? I lean closer to my computer, trying to distract myself from his embarrassing comment and the way his gaze is boring into me. “What about the other night would tell you that? I mean, I was a little weirded out about seeing Holden and McKenna—”

“You’ll have to tell me the story sometime.”

“The story? About my ex and my cousin? It’s not worth telling, trust me.” I finally glance at him. “It’s basically a non-issue.”

It really isn’t.

He abandons that awkward subject and tries another, equally awkward one. “Since you asked me if I’m a romantic, I figure I can ask you this question. Does the fact that you deal with weddings all day every day make you…” He pauses, his gaze darting around the room like he’s searching for the right word. “…More or less likely to want to get married…or to believe in love?”

My stomach lurches. “It’s tricky because I don’t want any sort of cynicism to impact how I present myself to my brides and grooms, but—” I slide my computer to one side and lean on my elbows, looking him square in the eye. His gooey, chocolate brown eyes. “Let’s just say…” I lower my voice to a whisper. “I’ve seen too much.”

Beck’s brows go in the air. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, except I feel fortunate to know what I know. My friends sometimes say I’m ‘Always a wedding planner, never a bride.’ And honestly, I’m okay with that.”

“Hey. You do you. Except, if love comes a knockin’…” He lifts his palms up likeYou gotta do what you gotta do.

Even though this conversation has veered off the path we have to stay on, I feel the beginnings of a smile tip the corners of my mouth as I shake my head. “Nope. No love is coming a knockin’, Mr. Billingsley. I’ve got a five-year plan that requires I stay single.” I bring up a hand as he opens his mouth to contradict me. “Holden was an unfortunate and temporary lapse in judgment.”

I want to say more, like I don’t need a man in my life. That I really meant what I said when I told him I’ve seen too much. That this conversation has rolled off the rails of professionality and we need to rein it back in.

But his phone rings.

“Sorry,” he offers, holding up the phone and standing from the easy chair.

“It’s fine. Have a good day,” I tell him.One in which you don’t have any need to come to my office again.

I don’t need the distraction that is Beck Billingsley.

I watch him leave, half surprised there isn’t a trail of dust following after him. I do some work on my mom’s graphics for a while, but I have a hard time thinking of anything besides Mr. Billingsley. In an act of catharsis, I stand from my desk and step to the particle board. With quick efficiency, I pull down the wedding invites of the couples who didn’t make it. There are three more today—as per the list I practically force my assistant from Amore, Kaia, to send me periodically. As much as she hates doing it, she’s surprisingly effective at cultivating a top-secret list of former clients who have gotten divorced—the Death List.

It’s pathological, she often says when I ask her to send me more names of the couples who didn’t make it. Or,you need therapy.

I know. My mom reminds me of that fact periodically. And I do go to a session every once in a while, but I’m not going to mention something as inconsequential as the Death List to my therapist. She charges like a hundred fifty every appointment.

I’m superstitious, I can admit it. And my superstitions surrounding planning weddings veer into the “It’s my fault they’re divorced” zone.

I know it’s silly. I know it’s not my fault. But there’s a side of me that blames myself, a part of me that says, “If you’d given them a better wedding, they’d still be together.”

All weddings have failures—bad things that happen here and there just to keep you feeling human and humble. Sending the wrong wedding cakes to two receptions was definitely up at the top of the list of things gone wrong. But as the wedding planner, I’m witness to the start of a family, of what’s supposed to be a beautiful love. When it falls short of that, I feel some measure of responsibility.

A sharp zing slices through me as I yank down the McCord’s invite from a few years ago, bright florals and greenery embossed perfection. Their smiling faces, cheeks pressed together, call out to me, “Don’t make the same mistake we did! Run away while you still can!”

They were one of the first couples I worked with and now they’re divorced. They’d been so cute and so in love—definitely hashtag relationship goals.

Now they’re just another statistic.

I open the McCord’s wedding file on my computer and pore over every word, making notes in my “Death List” doc about what I could have done differently.

Again, I realize it’s crazy.

A while back, I realized it might have something to do with when I was a kid.

I was easily distractible and not serious about schoolwork. When I forgot to do my fifth-grade science project until the day before, tensions were high in the house. And when my sloppy job ended up receiving an actual “F,” my parents were understandably upset. Things morphed into a big blow up, an argument unlike any I’d ever remembered, and my dad left the house for a few days.

It ended okay, I guess. Dad eventually came home, and it wasn’t mentioned again.

Except, if I’d only done my assignment well, their marriage wouldn’t have been threatened, right?

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