Page 4 of The Wedding Twist

“Let’s just order takeout,” Celeste said. If Jeannie cooked, it would be an hours-long affair, and all she really wanted to do was eat dinner, then go to bed.

Everett was down at the rec center for his Monday-night house-league curling and wouldn’t be home until late, so after Celeste checked in with the evening desk attendant, they returned to Jeannie and Everett’s house behind the lodge. Elodie and Quinn read Sam some stories, then tucked her in while Jeannie ordered Indian takeout.

For their mom’s sake—or maybe theirs?—they opened a bottle of Cab Sauv, turned on some reruns ofThe Officeand spent the rest of the evening pretending everything was normal.

*

In the morning,Celeste sat at the computer in the lodge’s office, grinding her teeth and trying not to smash her laptop against the desk. The lodge’s new accounting management software, which they’d been forced to migrate to after the former company had gone defunct, was as intuitive as wandering backward through a maze. Part of her short fuse likely had to do with a sleepless night, head spinning with her parents’ news, panic mode about the future of her job fully activated. She wasn’t trying to make this about her. But itwaskind of about her, wasn’t it?

And now she had to figure this new software out—and fast. Taxes were due at the end of April, and their bookkeeper in town would be expecting everything to be up to date and error free. With the last system, Celeste had known exactly where to plug in numbers in order to keep track of money coming in and going out, even though she’d had no idea how it all ended up getting reconciled. That was what the bookkeeper was for. The new system, however, asked all kinds of questions about percentages going to OTAs and PIE settings and other acronyms, and she couldn’t figure out what to do with the damn thing.

“What’s wrong?” she heard from over her shoulder. Celeste turned to see Ava in the doorway, wearing her high school track hoodie and a pair of faded jeans. Of course it would be Ava, whose commerce degree had set her up to do this task in her sleep, but through her annoyance, Celeste was glad to see her sister looking casual and relaxed for once.

“Nothing,” Celeste said. “When are you heading back to the city?”

“I’ll work remotely for the rest of the week,” she said. “Sam’s basically ahead of everything at school, so I don’t mind her being out of class. I think it’ll be good for Mom and Dad too. They seem a little…on edge.”

“What does Tyler think of that?” Ava’s new boyfriend had traveled with her the last few times she and Sam had visited the lodge, although Sam only knew Tyler as Ava’s “friend” and nothing more. Tyler was nice enough, but Celeste could tell Ava wasn’t all in. Ava was guarded and private; no one even knew who Sam’s father was, and anyone who was bold enough to ask promptly had their head bit off.

“He’s fine. He’s out of town anyway,” Ava said, and Celeste detected something in her eyes. “Your cheeks are splotchy,” she said, coming to look over Celeste’s shoulder. “Something’s wrong. Whatcha doing?”

Celeste took a deep breath in. “I’m just inputting some petty-cash purchases. Or at least I’m trying to. This new software is really confusing.”

“This is easy. You just…” Ava reached over to point at something on the screen, and Celeste swatted her hand away.

“Maybe easy for you,” she said and slumped back in her chair. “We’re not all financial-whiz kids.”

“It’s just simple accounting,” her sister insisted. “I can show you.”

“You might be able to show me this one thing, but everything else in this program is different. And I have no idea how to use it. Which makes me pretty much useless in my job, and no one is going to want to hire me once this place is gone.” Her voice wavered, and she willed herself not to cry.

Ava’s expression softened. “It’s not gone yet,” she said. “And whoever buys this place would be crazy not to keep you on. You know everything about the lodge. And you’re so good at your job.”

“There are no guarantees,” Celeste said. “And there are plenty of people with training who could easily slide into this role.”

“You’ve always been good at math. You can learn this quickly—with some online tutorials or something. Or there’s no reason you can’t take an online accounting class. All of this will make sense, no problem.”

Celeste didn’t want to take an online accounting class. She didn’t want to learn this dumb new software. She wanted to go back to using Hospitality Hub version 4.3, to when her parents hadn’t been selling the lodge, to when she’d still had a job with a future to talk about at her monthly cocktails with friends. Was that too much to ask?

She looked over to see Ava typing on her phone. “Here,” Ava said, flashing her screen. “Oakview College offers a course. It starts next week. Every Monday night from six to eight.”

Ava read the course description out loud, which had a lot of the language Celeste recognized from the parts of the new program causing her trouble. Oakview College was only a twenty-minute drive south from the lodge, just east of Canmore, and offered courses in everything from woodworking to introductory Spanish to digital marketing. Monday nights were slow at the lodge, so she wouldn’t be missed.

“How much?” Celeste said. She didn’t love the idea, but Ava might be onto something. Getting a paper credential would be important when she was forced to search for a new job, and in the meantime, there was this stupid petty-cash report that needed reconciling.

“My treat,” Ava said, tapping furiously into her phone. A minute later she looked up and grinned. “Confirmation’s in your email. Consider it an early birthday present.”

“Happy birthday to me,” Celeste grumbled.

“I’ve got to make a couple of calls for work. See you at dinner,” Ava said and left Celeste alone in the office.

Her sisters all had their thing: Elodie, her passion for teaching and biology. Ava, her success in the business world. Quinn, her burgeoning social media empire. What did Celeste have? Had she too easily fallen onto the safe-and-accessible path and piggybacked off her parents’ success?

She sat in her chair, staring at her laptop. Sitting around and sulking about it wasn’t going to help. She’d do the course, update her resume, and keep her eye out for good opportunities.

Some clattering sounded from the kitchen as the intoxicating aroma of apples, butter, and cinnamon floated into the office. Celeste stood up and made her way to the source of the delicious scent.

She might soon be jobless, but in the meantime, there was pie.

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