***
Bente and Ryan returned with a huge bouquet.
“It was the biggest one they had,” said Bente, thrusting them at me. “Is it okay?”
I studied the mixed posy closely but Adam answered for me. “It will be in a minute.”
He knew me too well. Bente gasped in horror as I began modifying my bouquet, plucking out the white carnations, pink larkspur and white sweet peas and handing them to Ryan.
“Do I even want to know what you’re doing?” he asked, closing his fist around the snubbed flowers.
“They’re bad luck,” I explained. “Sweet peas mean departure. They’re a big fat thanks for everything, I’m out of here.”
“And the others?” asked Bente, curious.
“Pink larkspur.” I said it acidly, as if it was a noxious weed rather than a pretty flower. “It symbolises fickleness. I don’t want it in my bouquet.”
Bente’s sideward glance was aimed at Ryan. He dropped his head, smirking. Adam’s eyes remained firmly on me, unfazed by my craziness.
“What about the other flowers?” asked Bente, pointing at the bouquet. “Do they make the grade?”
I double-checked, twisting the posy to look it over. “Yes. It’s fine. Pink roses, perfect happiness; gardenias convey joy and freesias symbolise thoughtfulness.”
“Oh my God,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “She’s some kind of flower savant.”
Ryan looked at the scrunched-up petals in his hand. “What about carnations?” he asked, frowning at me. “What’s wrong with carnations?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. They’re just ugly.”
***
Finally our number was called. “About time,” muttered Ryan under his breath. From the corner of my eye I saw Bente elbow him sharply in the ribs.
Adam took my hand and we made our way to one of the ceremony rooms. Standing in front of the celebrant was when the first hint of nervousness kicked in. Adam’s palms were sweaty and my hands trembled enough to make my bouquet shake. We must have managed to look normal, though. Georgette, the celebrant, didn’t seem alarmed at all.
Georgette was a pretty woman in her mid forties, dressed in a smart but unfashionable powder blue satiny skirt suit with puffy short sleeves. The pink rose in her lapel looked jagged, and I wondered how many weddings she’d officiated wearing it.
I tried to listen to her. She was saying some of the most important words I’d ever hear in my lifetime and I just couldn’t concentrate. It was as if she was speaking under water. Fearing I was missing vital information, I put my hand up.
She stopped talking. That was the moment I probably became one of the few brides in history to interrupt her own ceremony.
“Charli, what’s wrong?” whispered Adam from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were still fixed firmly ahead, probably on the celebrant’s half dead boutonnière rose.
“Can we have just a minute, please?” I directed the question at Georgette, who nodded and stepped aside to give us some space. She lightly touched Adam’s elbow in a sorry-you’re-about-to-get-jilted gesture. Maybe she’d seen it before.
“Adam, I have to ask you something.”
“Now?” He sounded absolutely terrified.
I nodded. “I have to be absolutely sure about something.”
“What is it?”
“Two years, right? After law school, we move on.”
It was the only part of our plan that I considered to be grey area. It was one of only two promises I needed him to make. The other was pledging to love me forever. Truthfully, I was more secure with that promise than the first. Adam had proved he could love me whether we were together or not. I just had to be sure he was prepared to do it outside of his Manhattan bubble.
He smiled. “I promise you. Give me two years here and we’ll go anywhere you want to.”
“Okay,” I replied, a little unsteadily. “Let’s get married then.”
“Finally,” muttered Ryan from somewhere behind us.
“Shut up,” scolded Bente.
We both turned back to face the celebrant. She opened her book and continued reading as if she’d never been interrupted.
This time, I heard every word. And fifteen short minutes later we were married.
19. Fallout
I didn’t keep my promise to Adam about being beside him when he woke the next morning. Sitting on the hardwood floor in the kitchen at six in the morning was where he found me.
“What are you doing out here?”
I waved my phone at him. “Working up the courage to call Alex.”
Adam sat beside me, resting his back against the cupboards. “And you need to sit on the floor to do that?”
Some of the most important conversations I’d had with my father since being in New York had taken place on the kitchen floor. Sometimes I was a broken mess and sometimes I was so full of excitement I needed to sit down in order to finish my tale. I had no idea how the conversation regarding the nuptials of his teenaged only daughter would pan out. Then I looked across at the man beside me and realised it really didn’t matter. Any problems Alex had were his own.
“I need to call him. I don’t want him to hear it from anyone else.”
“I’ll call him if you want me to.”
I pulled away as he made a move for the phone. “No. I’ve got to do this.”
He kissed me lightly and walked out of the kitchen. I half wondered how I’d got so lucky and half wondered how I’d make it through the day.
It was Christmas day. Even if I lived through the conversation with Alex, I still had to endure dinner at the Décarie’s that night.
I punched his name on my phone, refusing to let myself back out of calling him. He answered straight away but the line was bad. “Merry Christmas, Charli,” he beamed.
“Thank you. Where are you? I can hardly hear you.”
Alex was at the beach. In all the time I lived in Pipers Cove, we were never able to get phone reception at the beach.
Just my luck, I thought.
Alex had a different take on it – a more ethereal Blake take on it. “It must be a sign, Charli,” he crowed.
Obviously the man had no idea I was about to drag him to the brink of a major meltdown. I’d done it many times before – just not quite to this extreme.
“Maybe,” I agreed half-heartedly. “Dad, I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.” He sounded worried. My tone wouldn’t have done it – the fact that I called him Dad would have been the disturbing part.
I took a deep breath and told him exactly what I’d done in four short words. I married Boy Wonder.
Alex didn’t speak for a long while. At first I thought the connection had dropped out. Then I realised I could hear the ocean in the background.
“I want to know how you could possibly think that was a smart decision, Charli.” His voice was monotone and flat. Clearly he was trying to keep his cool. I was grateful he was at least giving me an opportunity to explain.
“I know I’m going to want him forever.”
“And a piece of paper is going to do that? Ensure that you keep him forever?”
Trying to plead my case was impossible. All I could do was beg for understanding. “Please, Alex.”
“Please what, Charli? Please understand that my daughter has just monumentally screwed up her life?”
“Is that what you think?”
“You’re just a kid, Charli. My kid.” He spoke as if the whole situation was nothing less than tragic.
I decided to change tack, remove all emotion and do what I did best – rattle his cage. “Are you going to recover from this, Alex? I need to know because I’m standing by the decision I’ve made. I’ve done nothing wrong. If you’d like me to tell you some of the things I’ve done wrong over the years, just say the word. You’ll realise then that marrying the boy I love is a drop in the ocean by comparison.”
“You change your mind at the drop of a hat, Charli!” Finally, his voice was
appropriately raised. “This can’t be easily undone.”
“I have never changed my mind about him.”
“And I hate that,” he groaned. “I have always hated that.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, Alex. I know you hate that too.”
I couldn’t even be sure he’d heard my hurtful rant. The line dropped out. I tried a hundred times to call him back but couldn’t get a connection. I wondered if that was a sign. I wished I hadn’t gotten through at all.
I could tell by the look on Adam’s face when I walked into the room that he’d heard everything.
I flopped down on the couch beside him, resting my head on his chest, and listening to his heart beating. I would have been content to stay there for the rest of the day – or the rest of the entire yuletide season if I’d thought that was all it would take to make the drama disappear.
“Alex will calm down,” he assured me. “You weren’t really expecting him to be jumping for joy, were you?”
Of course I wasn’t. I was expecting the exact reaction I got. I’d even prepared for it, which made flying off the handle and saying dreadful things even more stupid. “I should have handled it better.”
“Charli,” he murmured, leaning across to breathe the words into my hair. “Forget about it, just for a while. Today should be about us.”
I snuggled closer. “You’re absolutely right,” I agreed. “We should stay here all day and all night – and not go to your parents’ house for dinner.”
“Nice try, Coccinelle,” he replied, chuckling. “You told Alex; I have to tell them.”
Twisting I retrieved my phone from the pocket of my pyjama pants and handed it to him. “In my experience, these things are best handled over the phone.”
Adam took the phone and dropped it on the coffee table. He pushed me back, covered my body with his, and managed to take my mind off everything other than him for the rest of the day.
With an hour to go before we were due at Adam’s parents’ house, I decided to try making peace with Alex one last time. I took my usual position on the kitchen floor and dialled his number.
It barely rang. Alex answered immediately.
“What do you need, Charli?” I hated his cold tone, but knew I deserved it.
“Nothing. I just wanted to apologise.”
“I appreciate that, but I have to tell you, I can’t deal with this right now. I need a few days to get my head around it.”
I didn’t know quite what to make of it. I couldn’t even work out if he was blazingly angry or devastatingly hurt. Over the years I’d inflicted both emotions on him, but Alex’s recovery time was usually only hours, not days.
Unable to stop myself, I burst into tears. “Please, Alex.”
“Don’t cry, Charli. You’re supposed to be a happy bride.” He sounded totally disconnected from me. For once, my crying had no effect. “I’ll call you in a day or two. I love you.”
Pleading with him to stay on the line would’ve have made no difference. He ended the call, leaving me blubbering like an idiot.
Adam appeared a few seconds later. “Please don’t cry. It’ll work itself out,” he promised.
“It’s all a big mess,” I sobbed.
“No it’s not. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Alex hates me, and I can’t wear my curly fry rings anymore.” I sounded positively mental.
“Why not?” he asked, calm as always.
I shook my hand and both rings flew off my finger, tinkling as they hit the wooden floor. Adam picked them up, pieced them back together and slipped them up to the knuckle of his pinkie finger.
“I can’t wear them, Adam. They’re too big. I’m going to lose them.”
“I don’t think I can get them resized. Not without messing up the setting. I’ll get you a new ring.” He spoke as if it was no big deal.
Furiously, I shook my head. “No. It’s bad luck. You wear the rings you were married with. That’s it.”
Adam slipped his own wedding ring off and rolled it between his fingers.
“What if I share my ring with you? I’ll get you a ring made from the gold in this one,” he suggested. “Just a simple gold band that you can wear all the time.”
“You’d do that for me?”
He reached for my hand. “I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
***
I wondered if the queen was dreading the idea of me being in her home for Christmas dinner as much as I was. Even Adam seemed a little keyed up. And as many times as he assured me his fidgety mood had nothing to do with his altered marital status, I couldn’t quite believe him. He checked his reflection in the mirrored elevator as we rode up to their penthouse apartment a hundred times.
“Your tie is straight,” I assured.
He smiled a little sheepishly.
What sort of family dinner calls for a suit and tie, for crying out loud? It was another warning bell going off in my head. Combined with the other warning bells, I had a complete orchestra ringing in my ears.
Adam reached for my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “You look beautiful.”
I looked straight ahead, studying my reflection in the mirror. My outfit came courtesy of Bente. She’d raided her wardrobe and pieced together an appropriate outfit to wear to a Décarie soiree, a long grey satin skirt and pastel pink cashmere cardigan. If I’d worn a string of pearls and horn rimmed glasses I could have passed as a librarian. If I’d perfected a scowl and skipped a few meals, I could have passed as Kinsey.
“Adam, do you really think I look beautiful?”
The mirror in front of us made it impossible for him to lie. “Always. But I think you look uncomfortable and unhappy in those clothes.” I felt elated that he knew me so well. “And your hair is too neat.”
“Oh, thank God,” I groaned, undoing the plait and fluffing it out with my fingers. “It was a French braid, you know.”
“I like the Tasmanian tousle better.”
By the time the elevator doors opened, I’d just about made myself presentable again.
It blew my mind that he rang the doorbell.
“Your parents live here. Don’t you have a key?”
“Shush,” he whispered.
A lady called Mrs Brown answered the door.
I’d already conjured up a mental picture of what I expected Mrs Brown to look like. Adam talked about her all the time. She’d worked for the Décaries since he was a child, first as a nanny and then as a housekeeper when the boys were grown. Mrs Brown was the reason he hadn’t learned to do laundry until the ripe age of twenty. In my mind, she was old, grey and frail. It was a terribly clichéd thought, but the only experience I’d had with nannies was with the one from Peter Pan – and she was a Newfoundland dog.
Mrs Brown wasn’t old, grey or frail. She was a spritely woman in her mid fifties with jet-black hair and bright pink lipstick. She hesitated briefly before greeting Adam with a warm hug. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to.
“Mrs Brown, I’d like you to meet Charli,” he said, motioning toward me.
I didn’t know whether to wave or shake her hand. Luckily, she made the first move, sneaking a hug from me too.
“So much better,” she crooned darting her eyes between him and me.
Adam replied in French. I wanted to kick him. Mrs Brown giggled at his comment, took our coats and disappeared.
“What was that about?”
He smiled. “Nothing. She thinks you’re lovely.”
I didn’t get a chance to demand more information. Adam slid open the huge opaque glass door in front of us and suddenly we were in Décarie land.
It was too much to take in at once. It was reminiscent of an English drawing room from a bygone era. Dark mahogany furniture dominated the room – probably all antiques worth more than some small nations. The massive glass cabinet showcasing a beautiful collection of crystal and china held my attention for a long time. I would have killed for a closer look, but was
afraid to step on the spotless cream carpet.
Large floor to ceiling windows were dressed with heavy red velvet curtains and opulent swags. The four long brown leather couches positioned in the middle of the room did nothing to diminish its size. It was huge. It was also archaic, decadent and unwelcoming.
Adam must have sensed my discomfort. The vicelike grip I had on his hand probably gave it away.
“A couple of hours and we can get out of here,” he mumbled, as his mother glided into the room.
“Hello darling,” she said, pointing to her cheek, giving her youngest son instruction. “Merry Christmas.”
Adam kissed his mother’s cheek. “Merry Christmas to you, too. You remember Charlotte, don’t you?”
Charlotte? I hated playing the part of Charlotte. It wasn’t one I was good at. It was like trying to act a scene from Shakespeare without a script. I was never going to pull it off.
“Of course,” she purred. “How are you, darling?”
“I’m fine, thank you. You have a lovely home.” Somehow, I managed to choke out the rehearsed words without stammering.
“It can get a little crowded over the holidays, but we make do,” she replied. I glanced around. We might as well have been standing in a museum after closing time.
“Is Ryan here yet?” asked Adam.
“Not yet. I’ve warned him not to bring that wretched Aubrey. We can’t accommodate every drifter in town.”
Adam’s grip on my hand tightened, almost restricting the circulation in my fingers. It confirmed what I already knew. I was the drifter she was referencing. Fiona excused herself from the room on the pretence of checking on dinner.
Adam led me to one of the couches. It was so quiet; I could hear the ticking of a clock. I scanned the room in every direction, unable to find it.
“Is your mum really cooking dinner?” I asked, unable to imagine her slaving over a hot stove in her couture dress and six-inch heels.
“No. She has staff.”
I looked across, studying his face for a long time before speaking. “Is this how you grew up, Adam?”
He broke the lock I had on his eyes and looked straight ahead. “And you thought you were the sheltered one. You’ve given me everything, Charli.”