The Week Before the Wedding Read online

  “We’re never leaving,” Emily informed him. “I’m serious. We’re taking up residence.”

  Grant laughed as he unbuckled his seat belt, then got out of the car and came around to open her door before he unloaded two suitcases and a garment bag from the Audi’s trunk. The breeze blowing in from the lake was thick with humidity and mosquitoes.

  “Ooh, I’ll get that.” Emily grabbed the garment bag and carried it with her hand above her head so that the bag didn’t fold or touch the ground. “That’s the dress.”

  Grant watched her, his brow furrowed with confusion. “It’s made of cloth, right? Not plutonium?”

  “It’s sixty-year-old lace and tulle. I’m afraid to even look at it the wrong way.”

  He led her up the stairs to the lobby. “Let’s stash that in a closet somewhere and see if we can squeeze in some quality time before anyone else figures out we’re here.”

  Emily gave him a flirty little hair flip. “And by quality time, you mean…?”

  “It’s almost the Fourth, right? We can get the fireworks started early.”

  She dabbed at her forehead with her free hand. “How convenient. I’m already hot and sweaty.”

  He picked up the pace and approached the front desk with brisk efficiency. “Grant Cardin, checking in. We need a room and a door with a lock on it, stat.”

  But the clerk, apparently a longtime employee of the hotel, recognized Grant and settled in for a newsy little chat. Soon a throng of staff members was clustered around them, offering handshakes and hugs of congratulations:

  “You’ve gotten even handsomer than the last time I saw you.”

  “Heard you’re a big-shot surgeon now. You always were a smart kid.”

  “This must be your beautiful bride.”

  “We’ve reserved your mother’s favorite room for her. Is she bringing her famous macaroons?”

  Clearly, Grant was Valentine, Vermont’s version of a rock star—and Emily had dated enough musicians back in the day to know this was her cue to stand back and let him have the spotlight. Ever mindful of the delicate wedding gown, she ducked out of the crowd and waited under the huge wrought-iron chandelier for the groupies to disperse.

  A few minutes later, Grant extricated himself and urged her down the hall toward the guest rooms. “Now where were we? I believe you were hot and sweaty?”

  When they reached their suite, he dropped the bags and smacked his palm to his forehead. “I left my laptop in the backseat of the car.”

  She unlocked the door and ushered him inside. “Be right back.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get it.”

  “Honey, you’ve done more than enough.” She slipped her hand into his pants pocket and fished out the car keys. “Go inside and prepare to be seduced. Oh, but first, please hang the dress up. And make sure you don’t look at it, touch it, or breathe on it.”

  “No looking, no touching, no breathing. Got it.”

  Emily managed to retrieve the computer from the car in three minutes flat. Running the gauntlet in the lobby proved a bit more time-consuming. For fifteen minutes, she answered questions about the wedding cake and appetizers, harpists and hairstyles. She listened to hotel employees gush about the Cardin family in general and Grant in particular, and by the time she got back to the room, her thoughts had veered from hot and sweaty sex to bouquets and boutonnieres.

  When she opened the door to their guest suite, she found Grant sprawled across the bed, snoring with one arm flung over his eyes.

  The closet door was open—before he’d passed out, he’d stowed the garment bag safely away.

  Poor guy. He’d been working for forty-eight hours straight before he started the four-hour drive. In slumber, his face had gone slack and unguarded. After years of grueling all-day surgeries, he’d become expert at hiding his fatigue, but despite his constant show of stamina and strength, he was only human, and as she gazed down at him, she felt both protective and vulnerable.

  He was her future husband; her partner, for better or for worse; the kind of man she’d always wanted but hadn’t dared to hope for.

  She hated to wake him, so she tiptoed across the carpet to the French doors leading to the patio, and looked out at the darkening sky.

  A series of early fireworks exploded over the lake. She watched the dazzling display of lights and colors through the spotless glass, then reached out to touch the smooth, hard surface with one finger.

  The mothers arrived the next morning.

  At first, Beverly had insisted that she’d take a shuttle van from the airport to the resort. “I don’t want you kids to go to any trouble,” she’d said on the phone. “Heaven knows you’ve got enough to deal with already.” She and Stephen, Grant’s father, used to drive up to Valentine Lake in their wood-paneled station wagon, but after Stephen died two years ago, Beverly had balked at making the drive alone.

  Grant had overruled his mother’s insistence, and after a ten-minute volley of increasingly heartfelt entreaties that the other not go to any trouble, Grant played his trump card (“It’s what Dad would want”) and arranged to meet her at the baggage claim at the Burlington airport. Emily accompanied him, a bit nervous. She’d met Bev only once before, at the Cardins’ holiday celebration, and was anxious to earn her mother-in-law’s approval.

  Emily hadn’t realized what a huge potential stumbling block in-laws were until she announced her engagement to her girlfriends. The initial reaction was always the same: First, the friend would ooh and aah over the ring, but then she would pull Emily aside to ask, in the manner of a drug fiend trying to score black-market heroin, “So? How’s the mother-in-law situation?” Emily laughed it off the first few times, then started to really freak out. But she couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of people to marry into. To hear Grant tell it, his family was devoid of rivalry or feuds. Emily had been skeptical until she sat down to Christmas dinner with all of the aunts and cousins and grandparents. No one bickered. No one screamed or drank too much or argued about politics.

  Instead, everyone inquired with genuine interest about one another’s lives and helped to set the table with Bev’s holly-themed china plates. After the meal, everyone gathered around the baby grand and sang along while Grant’s sister Melanie played Christmas carols. Bev and her sisters, Rose and Darlene, exchanged thoughtful gifts like hand-knit sweaters and framed family photos. At the end of the evening, Emily and Grant were sent home with a round of hugs and kisses, a cooler full of leftovers, and a pair of rose-scented candles that Aunt Darlene had crafted with love in her own kitchen.

  “Oh my God,” Emily had said as they backed out of the driveway and started home. “Norman Rockwell is alive and well and hiding out at your mother’s house.”

  Then she had called her own mother on her cell phone, and Georgia had answered from a beachside resort in Hawaii where she’d gone with her beau of the moment: “I can’t talk now; we’re about to go snorkeling. But Merry Christmas, baby girl. I’ll have a cranberry cocktail in your honor tonight. Cheers!”

  Bev was one of the last passengers off the plane, but she didn’t seem impatient or annoyed. With her sensible shoes, tasteful pearl earrings, and matronly gray pageboy, she maintained an air of perpetual serenity. She greeted Grant and Emily with long, tight hugs, then unzipped the large, floral-printed tote bag over her shoulder.

  “I made your favorite.” She handed Grant a ziplock bag full of cookies. “Coconut macaroons.” Then she handed a small cardboard box to Emily. “And I wasn’t sure if you liked coconut, dear, so I whipped up a batch of double-fudge brownies, too.”

  “I adore coconut,” Emily assured her. “Brownies, too. But I’m on a strict diet until the wedding. Have to fit into the dress.”

  “Of course you’ll fit into the dress,” Bev said. “I can’t wait to meet your family. Has your mother arrived yet, dear?”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that she’ll be here sometime today. I begged her to send me her flight schedule, but she ke
pt saying she hadn’t finalized her plans yet.”

  At this, a slight ripple appeared in Bev’s calm complacency. The Cardins all prided themselves on their organization and punctuality, and it was beyond comprehension that someone would be unable or unwilling to pull together an itinerary for her own daughter’s wedding.

  Emily looked to Grant for guidance on how to defuse this potential source of in-law tension, and he put his arm around his mother’s shoulder and steered her toward the baggage claim. “Georgia will be here soon enough, Mom. You’ll love her. She’s the life of every party.”

  Bev, whose idea of partying began with a game of bridge and ended with half a glass of white wine and a ten p.m. bedtime, looked even more dismayed.

  “She’ll want to hear all about your knitting,” Emily said, ignoring Grant’s raised eyebrows. “She loves crafts.”

  Bev brightened at the mention of knitting. “I had to put my yarn tote into my checked luggage. The nice young men at the security station said I couldn’t bring my knitting needles on the plane.”

  Grant’s mouth was too full of macaroon to reply, so Emily made sympathetic noises while they waited for Bev’s bags to appear on the revolving carousel.

  “I had some trouble deciding what to wear to the wedding,” Bev confessed, as she pointed out one giant suitcase and then another. “So I just brought a little bit of everything.”

  Emily grinned. Maybe there was a chance Georgia and Bev would get along, after all.

  Back at the hotel, as the desk clerk handed Bev her room key and Grant helped the bellhop load a flotilla of tan leather luggage onto a wheeled cart, Emily heard a familiar voice singing with Broadway-level gusto and volume:

  “Now I’ve…had…the time of my liiiiiiife….”

  A round of applause broke out at the far end of the lobby.

  “Goodness.” Bev looked taken aback. “What in the world is that?”

  Emily plastered a smile on her face and braced herself. “That would be my mother.”

  Right on cue, Georgia rounded the corner with a theatrical twirl, both hands swishing her skirt in time to her a cappella performance. She’d been the belle of the ball in her youth and had refused to concede to middle age without a kicking, screaming brawl. In accordance with her personal motto—“All glamour, all the time”—she wore a tight leopard-print top with a long black peasant skirt and glittering jewelry bedecking her ears, throat, fingers, and wrists. As always, her thick red hair was impeccably coiffed. She looked like a cross between a carnival fortune-teller and a Saks-y socialite.

  Reveling in the attention, Georgia sashayed across the lobby with a group of hotel guests and employees trailing behind her, as though she were the pied piper in inhumanely high-heeled gold sandals.

  “There you are! The young lovers!” She kissed Grant’s and Emily’s cheeks, leaving smears of pink lipstick on each. “Bonjour, bonjour. I have arrived!”

  “So I see.” Emily stepped to one side to introduce Bev. “Mom, this is—”

  “I simply adore this hotel.” Georgia flung out her arms. Her gold bangle bracelets clattered. “It’s so Dirty Dancing!” She finally deigned to acknowledge Bev with a tight little half smile. “Don’t you agree?”

  Bev started to speak, but her lips seemed incapable of articulating the word “dirty.” After a moment, she cleared her throat and replied, “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.”

  Emily jumped in to explain. “It’s a movie. Set in the Catskills in the 1960s.”

  Georgia threw back her head and laughed. “I’m expecting Patrick Swayze to show up at any moment.”

  Bev reached back and clutched Grant’s arm for support. But she stood her ground and seemed more determined than ever to make a good first impression. “Care for a coconut macaroon?”

  “Thank you. How kind.” Georgia took a tiny nibble of the cookie Bev offered, then folded the rest into a tissue. “Long flight, Mrs. Cardin?”

  “Please, call me Bev.”

  Georgia motioned Bev in for a bit of girl talk. “Frankly, honey, you look positively bedraggled. Care to borrow my lipstick? I’ve got a lovely shade of plum that will do your complexion a world of good.”

  “Mother,” Emily hissed.

  “What? I speak the truth.”

  Bev patted the corner of her mouth with her index finger and tried to keep smiling. “You know, I think I’ll just go to my room and freshen up.”

  “Nothing more refreshing than a cocktail.” Georgia clapped her hands. The bellboy abandoned Bev’s tower of luggage and snapped to attention. “Two Bloody Marys, please.”

  “Oh, I don’t drink,” Bev said.

  Georgia craned forward as though she couldn’t have possibly heard this correctly. “At all?”

  “Well, I might have a glass of wine with dinner,” Bev said. “On special occasions. Certainly not hard liquor in the morning.”

  “Fascinating.” Georgia glanced at Grant as though this cast his entire family under a dark cloud of suspicion.

  Bev tried to duck back behind Grant, but found herself blocked by Georgia at every turn. Finally, she gave up trying to escape and faced Georgia head-on. “Emily mentioned that you enjoy knitting?”

  Before Emily could die a slow death of shame and humiliation, a hotel employee with the body of a personal trainer and the face of a boy band singer emerged from the back office.

  Georgia pointed one long, glossy fingernail at him. “And here he is—Patrick Swayze!”

  The young man looked behind him, obviously confused. When Georgia continued to coo over him, he said, “I’m, uh, Brad. Brad the concierge.”

  “Even better!” She coaxed him out from behind the counter and looped her arm through his. “I just checked in and I’m positively parched. Show a girl the way to the bar, won’t you?”

  Brad glanced at his manager, who nodded. “I’d be happy to, ma’am.”

  “Darling, men with muscles like yours”—she gave his biceps a little squeeze—“call me Georgia. And I’m sure you’re too much of a gentleman to let a lady drink alone.” She turned her tractor-beam smile on Grant. “Care to join us?”

  Grant took half a step toward her, then noticed his mother’s expression and hung his head. “I’d better help my mom get settled.” He pushed the luggage cart across the lobby. “Let’s catch up in a bit. We can all have lunch together.”

  “Anything you say, Doctor.” Georgia shifted her focus to her daughter. “Emily.” It was not a request. “Care to join me.”

  As Bev and Grant headed toward the elevator, Emily could hear Bev’s voice, urgent and despairing: “Who on earth does that woman think she is?”

  “I’m a woman who knows how to use fashion, hair dye, and makeup to my advantage.” Georgia tossed her auburn mane and waved her hand dismissively. “Though I certainly can’t say the same for that mousy little creature.” She whirled around, pinning Brad the concierge with a sly, demanding smile. “How old do you think I am?”

  Brad’s complexion went from pink to red to sickly white. “Well…uh…”

  “Don’t be shy,” Georgia purred. “I’ll give you a hint: I had my daughter when I was practically a child myself.”

  Brad adjusted the collar of his maroon polyester uniform jacket.

  “Just say she looks like my sister,” Emily told him. “My younger sister. It’s the only answer she’ll accept.”

  “Darling, don’t be a wet blanket.” Georgia whapped Emily with her woven straw handbag. “Like that dowdy old lady Bev.” She wrinkled her perfectly powdered little nose in disgust. “Bev. What a name. So provincial and old-fashioned.”

  “Be nice to her,” Emily warned. “Grant’s whole family’s going to be here this week, and I want both of us to make a good impression.”

  At this, Georgia came to a halt and dug her stiletto heels into the carpet. “Don’t you talk to me about making a good impression. Little Miss Lemon Lips ought to worry about making a good impression on me. I am the mother of the bride.
I am the hostess of this wedding.”

  In actual fact, Emily and Grant had paid most of the expenses, but Emily knew that her mother was in no mood to be bothered with such trifling facts. She was on a roll.

  “Traditionally, the wedding is supposed to take place in the bride’s hometown,” Georgia pointed out. “But did I make a peep of protest when the Cardins insisted on making all the guests trek up here to the back of beyond? No, I did not. And when that woman—”

  “Beverly,” Emily supplied.

  “When that woman bullied you into wearing her threadbare old pile of rags from the fifties—”

  “It’s actually a lovely vintage gown. Wait till you see it. And nobody bullied me; I wanted to wear it.”

  “—did I kick up a fuss? Indeed, I did not. You’re my only child, and I’m supposed to be planning your wedding. Especially since I wasn’t even invited to your first wedding.”

  “Mother.” Emily held up her index finger and got serious. “We do not speak of the first wedding. Ever.”

  Georgia ignored her. “Then that June Cleaver wannabe insists on doing everything her way, even though she already had her chance when her own daughter got married. But have I complained?”

  “Um…”

  “No!”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not bitter about the whole thing. But listen, Mom, I’m not kidding. I don’t want you bringing up my first—”

  “You know I make a point of being gracious under difficult circumstances, but really. Women like Bev give the fairer sex a bad name.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t think I care for your tone, young lady.”

  “Sorry about the tone,” Emily said. “It’s just…sometimes I think you have unrealistic expectations of other women.”

  Georgia threw back her shoulders and resumed walking toward the bar. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Be honest, Mom. It’s not like you’ve ever had a lot of female friends.”