A Wedding in Truhart (23 page)

Even Charlotte knew not to cross the line. She glared at Ian before stomping out of the room. Ian shook his head and turned to guide Aunt Addie into the dining room. I stayed behind to make sure Mom was all right. Her eyes glittered and her chin wavered as she stared at the swinging door.

I reached out and touched her arm. She put her hand on top of mine.

“I just wish your father were here, Annie. He would know what to do at a time like this.” She was thinking about more than just the wedding, I knew. There was so much that I wanted to say.

“I love you, Mom.”

“Oh, Annie. What would I do without you?” Nodding her head toward the door, she said, “Come on, let's try to make the best of this.”

When we sat down to eat, the tension in the air was so thick you could cut it. Henry must have read my mind because he tried to lighten the mood.

“Well, that cake is so beautiful I wonder if anyone would notice if I cut into it with a knife and stole a piece right now.”

“It certainly is beautiful,” chimed in Travis. Even Brittany nodded her head and smiled nervously at the strain in the air. Everyone, including my cousins, looked toward Charlotte for confirmation, but she stared sullenly at the ornaments around the room and said nothing. Aunt Addie blotted the corner of her eye with a tissue and Ian's frown deepened. He set down his napkin and rose from the table, heading over to the piano. He nodded toward the video crew to come closer as he fished out a sheet of music from the piano bench and turned on the microphone nearby.

Sitting down, he flexed his fingers.

“Uh-oh,” I heard Nick say from the other side of the table. He realized what was happening before I did.

Ian's fingers flew over the keys as he started playing. Charlotte's water goblet was halfway to her mouth and froze in midair as Ian began to sing the sappiest song Barry Manilow had ever written.

He was only halfway through the first verse when Charlotte slammed down her glass and stood up. Stomping across the room, she grabbed the lid of the piano and tried to slam it shut.

Henry jumped out of his seat, but I was closer. I put my hand on the lid before Charlotte broke Ian's fingers.

“Hey,” Ian said. “I was playing a song.”

“Stop it!” she hissed.

I pushed Charlotte away from Ian. “That's enough,” I said in a low voice.

She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. A rumbling sound caught our attention. The roar grew louder until it shook the walls. From the corner of my eye I caught a flash of white out the window. Was that snow cascading from the roof? It sounded as if a freight train was racing above our heads. The chandelier shuddered. I looked up, wondering what was happening.

Suddenly, a sharp crack of splintering wood ripped through the air.

Then a chorus of cries erupted from the table. I could hear Alain yelling above the din, “Avalanche. Everyone run!”

Most of us were too shocked to do anything but stand with our feet glued to the floor as dust poured from the ceiling. When the noise finally ended we still felt the echo vibrate through the room.

It took me a moment to realize two things. One, the ceiling in the corner of the room was completely open to the night sky. And two, it wasn't dust falling down. It was snow. My eyes followed the shower to the floor. Where the cake once stood, a pile of snow and frosting lay in a rubble on the floor. A sickening heap of white on white.

Oh my God!

A rush of cold air swept through the room and I realized in astonishment that the years of patching the roof hadn't worked. The wood must have been rotting in the rafters.

A crowd of people stood in the doorway where they had been cowering and stared at the wreckage. Mom put her hand on her chest and moved toward the pile of debris. She crouched down in shock and reached for a piece of wood as if she thought she could salvage something. Aunt Addie followed her, holding her arms up to protect Mom from the falling snow. She realized the futility as she looked up at the gaping hole and tried to pull Mom away. But Mom resisted. She knelt in the layer of rubble and tried to put things back together.

A sense of loss hit me. My old camera lay under a pile of wood, broken into pieces.

I looked back at Charlotte, who still hadn't moved. She stared at the spot where her wedding cake had been. Her face was drained of all color. Except for her eyes. They were on fire.

“My wedding is completely destroyed!” Her voice broke and she balled her fists at her sides. Henry put his arms around her, but even he looked scared at the sight of her unraveling right in front of us. She turned to him with wild eyes, “We should have stayed in Atlanta. Even that wedding hall with the pink fountain and bubbles would be better than this . . . this catastrophe!”

Then she twisted toward my mother and screamed, “It's ruined. You have all ruined everything!”

Without thinking I stepped toward Charlotte and drew back my hand.

“Annie!” Nick grabbed my arm.

“Stop it, Charlotte! Just stop it!” I said. My voice was low and harsh. I barely recognized it. “Stop thinking about yourself and grow up! You and this wedding—you aren't the center of everything!”

Charlotte stepped back, startled by my outburst.

“Mom has been doing everything she can to make your wedding special!”

“Annie—” Mom said in warning behind me, but I ignored her.

“Did you ever consider what this has cost her? You and your expensive dress and your trip to Vegas could have paid off half of the bills in Mom's office. They could have kept us from losing the inn. Did you even know about that? Or were you too busy telling the world about origami ornaments on that phony morning show to figure out what was going on in your own family?” My voice rose as I spoke.

I felt a hand pull on my arm and I shook it off. I was trembling with anger. “There is a lot more going on here than your wedding, Charlotte. But you wouldn't notice because you're so busy trying to be perfect for everyone else, you never considered your less-than-perfect family. Your wedding is a day in your life. Just one day! But this family has been there for you your whole life. Does that count for anything?”

I stopped for breath and became painfully aware of the hush in the room. Even the snow coming from the hole in the roof was falling in silence.

“Well, the viewers will love this segment with their morning coffee,” Ian said, breaking the stillness in the room.

I turned around and saw the cameras pointed straight at me. If they kept this segment, my tantrum would give
The Morning Show
a ten-point boost in their ratings.

A
ll at once everyone began to talk. I stood, unable to breathe, wondering if I was going to faint from lack of oxygen. A pair of strong hands grabbed my shoulders and steered me out of the room. I wasn't aware of where I was going or how my legs were holding me up. A door closed behind me. Then I heard Nick saying soothing words that didn't register.

I felt cold all over. He propped me up against a wall and ran his hands along my arms, holding me as I tried to stop my body from shivering. When I could stand on my own, everything started to come back into focus. I looked up at him and realized we were in one of the guest rooms.

My mouth was dry. “Did I really just do that?” I put my fingers up to my lips, hoping that he would tell me I had imagined everything.

Nick smiled and he tilted his head sideways. “I'm afraid you did, sweetheart,” he said gently.

“Oh my God. I can't believe I said all that. I just yelled at Charlotte. And everyone heard . . .”

“Well . . . yes.”

“How could I? I completely lost it. Everyone must think I'm terrible for yelling at her.”

“Well, actually, several people were cueing up behind you to do the same thing. I kind of think you were just the first in line.”

I couldn't believe he could joke at a time like this.

“Nick! I almost slapped her.”

“Well, I felt compelled to stop that one. I remember too many of your fights when you were little. You have a pretty vicious punch.”

I lowered my forehead to his chest. The gravity of the situation began to sink in. “And the roof. The cake . . . What are we going to do?”

“Who cares about the cake? I may only be the best man, but it seems to me that there is a hell of a lot more to a wedding than the cake. And a lot more that needs to be fixed than a roof.”

True. My sister probably hated me. My mother must be mortified. Aunt Addie was doubtlessly still crying over her macaroni ornaments. And Ian? God knew what Ian was thinking, but I couldn't imagine he would be smiling as Charlotte walked down the aisle at this point. As for the Lowells and the rest of the guests, they probably thought we were all crazy.

I looked up at Nick. A light by the bed cast a dim glow on his face as he gazed down at me.

“Nick, why are we in a guest room?”

“Never mind about that. You're still shivering. Come on. Let's get you warm.”

He guided me to the bed, lifted the comforter, and sat me down. Then he kneeled down and removed my shoes.

“I'm not a child,” I complained.

“Oh, come on, Annie.” He sounded mildly irritated. “Just let someone do something for you for a change.”

I squeezed my lips together. Well, okay. If he insisted.

He lifted my legs up to the bed and tucked the covers around me.

“Tell me this isn't Scarlett's room.”

He chuckled and put his hands on either side of my hips. “No. Some of those Adler cousins wanted to stay together. My mom has the whole Chicago contingent at her house tonight. So I gave up my bedroom and switched with your cousin who was in this room.” Then he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “I'll be right back, all right?”

I hid my smile when he smoothed my hair and turned to leave the room. Despite all my worries and the gravity of what had just happened, a thought intruded in my head.

I had just been tucked in.

Nick would make a great father someday.

 

On a snowy winter afternoon when I was ten and Charlotte was six, we were given permission to take a freshly washed sheet off the housekeeping cart and turn it into a fort using chairs as stanchions and a broom as the center pole.

Aunt Addie and my mother were hosting a church luncheon and I was put in charge of Charlotte and told to stay out of trouble. Mom said she was going to give me this one chance to redeem myself. Just the week before I had discovered how fun it was to slide down the stairs in my sleeping bag and had been scolded by my dad when Charlotte had copied me and we had been caught. I was determined to prove I was responsible and could be a good babysitter.

Charlotte and I lay underneath our white 250-thread-count roof in our sleeping bags, pretending we were safe from the wilds of the jungle outside. We played for almost two hours, reading books and drinking pretend tea at our tea party. I was so proud of myself, and I couldn't wait to tell my dad.

When I took myself off to the bathroom it never occurred to me that Charlotte would return to our toboggan game. I came back to our fort and realized she was missing. Then I heard a gigantic crash. I ran to the lobby to find Charlotte sprawled halfway down the landing beside the shattered remains of Aunt Addie's favorite crystal vase.

“Run!” I whispered to her before anyone found her.

Aunt Addie and Mom discovered me next to the smashed vase and it hadn't occurred to me that I should tell the truth. Aunt Addie cried over her loss and Dad was furious when he found out. I took my punishment and did odd jobs for Aunt Addie after school for the next month. I even accepted a lifetime of teasing for my crystal-smashing ways, never saying a word in my own defense.

Neither Charlotte nor I ever talked about that incident. But I couldn't help but think about it now as I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Why didn't I get mad at Charlotte all those years ago?

I tried to remember everything I said during my rampage in the dining room. But my memory was one big blur. I had trouble distinguishing between what I had been thinking and what I had actually said out loud.

Images of all that led up to my meltdown flashed before my eyes. The look on Aunt Addie's face when Charlotte demanded her macaroni menagerie be removed, the controlled anger that burned behind Ian's eyes before he unleashed his revenge with the Barry Manilow firebomb, and the despair in my mother's eyes as she watched her family fall apart.

I thought of Charlotte's reaction to the roof cave-in and realized that tonight was the first time in my life I had felt pure anger toward my little sister. I had let Charlotte have the full brunt of my fury. And I had done it in front of my family, her friends, and her future family. Oh yeah, and perhaps even half of America.

I was a walking disaster.

I threw back the covers and swung my feet over the side of the bed. I was just starting to put on my shoes when I heard Nick return. He stood in the doorway holding a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and two glasses. He shook his head at me.

“You never could follow directions, Annie.”

“I can't sit here while all hell breaks loose. We're in the middle of a wedding crisis and I have to help figure out what to do. I can't imagine what my mom is dealing with.”

He shut the door with his foot and leaned back against it as if he would physically bar me from leaving the room. “For once, just let it go and take care of yourself,” he said.

“Take care of myself? Why would I do that? I'm fine. It's this wedding that's in trouble. I just screwed up everything.” My voice wavered and I blinked away the moisture that had invaded my eyes. This was not a time to wallow in self-pity.

Nick walked across the room and sat down next to me. He placed the bottle and glasses on the nightstand and put his arm around my shoulder. “Your mom is fine. She and Charlotte are tucked away in the annex having a mother-daughter conversation. I didn't hear any yelling or sobbing, so I figure they're working things out.”

I took a shaky breath. “My poor mom. I feel like I made everything so much worse.”

Nick's hand moved to the back of my neck and he massaged the muscles I didn't even know were tense. He touched a particularly sensitive spot in my neck and I almost purred. Then he kissed my brow. “Henry is pacing outside the kitchen, but he says he has Charlotte handled. Ian and the guys are working on covering up the hole in the ceiling. Travis is giving orders to your cousins as if he has a degree in roofing. He says he shingled roofs one summer when he was in college and he knows all about them.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know. I find it hard to believe too.”

“Is the hole in the roof very bad?”

He paused. “I think so.”

“Dad always wanted to build a bigger dining room for banquets. He had all these ideas about rustic pine planking and big windows. I can't imagine what we are going to do now. The church basement is pretty small and I can't think of any other place nearby that could hold everyone.”

Nick turned his head and looked at the swirling snow against the windowpane. He seemed to be considering something.

I interrupted his thoughts. “I'm afraid to ask, but what about June and Scarlett?” I didn't even want to ask about Brittany. Nick should understand that even with her movie-star physique and her Hollywood wardrobe, she was far less drama than me.

“June and Scarlett opened a bottle of champagne and have coerced Aunt Addie to drink it with them.” I opened my mouth, speechless. But Nick just smiled back at me. “Really. It's the funniest thing, but the three of them are trading wedding horror stories like war vets.”

I wondered if he was lying just to make me feel better.

“So”—he reached for the corkscrew and opened the bottle of wine—“you don't have any reason to leave this room for a very long time.”

I looked sideways at him. His words were one hell of a prelude to seduction.

He poured the wine and handed me a glass, watching with hooded eyes as I raised it to my lips. My hand trembled.

“Come on, sit back and relax.” Nick shifted and ushered me backward until we were sitting against the headboard. For several moments I just enjoyed the feel of Nick's arm around me and the trail of warmth the red wine left down my throat.

“Tonight was the first time I can remember getting mad at Charlotte,” I finally said.

“Well, usually it was you and Ian who battled. You two fought all the time, but never with Charlotte. Why was that?”

“She has always been everyone's perfect little girl . . . everyone's blond-haired, blue-eyed angel.” I sighed and took another sip. “It was never like having an annoying baby sister at all. She was like my baby too.”

I thought of all the things I had done for her growing up. The times I sat on the edge of her bed and watched her model her new school clothes. When she landed her first job at a TV station in Michigan, I taped her reports and we watched them over and over. Actually, Aunt Addie and Mom still did that. We had all been so proud of everything she did.

“When she was little I remember begging my parents to let me read her bedtime stories. It made me feel so proud, as if she were my own little girl. I can still remember how Ian and I used to fight over who would hold her hand when we crossed the street.”

“Charlotte was the proverbial golden girl,” Nick said, reaching for the bottle and adding more wine to my glass.

I thought about that for a moment. “But the Charlotte who arrived here yesterday was someone I didn't recognize. She was so distracted by the wedding details that she barely noticed us running around trying to make her wedding perfect.”

“I noticed,” Nick said. “I watched you lugging that damn photography equipment through the snow, taking care of luggage, serving meals, and running laps around the inn. It made me so irritated to see you work that hard. This whole weekend has been crazy for you.”

It
was
a lot of work. But what else could we have done? It was Charlotte's wedding.

“It wouldn't have been so bad if things hadn't started going downhill. The dress, the storm, and those damn ornaments. I don't know what happened, Nick, but suddenly it was like Charlotte was replaced with her evil twin.”

“My father used to say that a man isn't measured by how he handles his successes, but how he handles his failures.” He said it softly, as if he was afraid the words might shatter my image of Charlotte. But the fact was, the words sounded like something my father used to say too. Charlotte had been in high school when Dad died. I wondered if she had been listening when he had explained his philosophies on life. Or was she still playing dress-up back then?

“It's not like she actually failed, Nick. I mean, none of this was her doing.”

“That's true.” His words hung in the air as though he wanted to say more.

“Oh God, Nick. Did I really call
The Morning Show
phony? What will Scarlett think?” I was back where I started. “I made things so much worse with my crazy tirade.”

Nick squeezed my shoulder and got up from the bed. “Lie down on your stomach, Annie. I've ordered a massage to go with this wine.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know that was just a stupid thing Ian put on our website. I thought he removed it.”

“This is a special package deal.” He took my glass and put it on the nightstand.

“I can't do this right now. I have to go help.”

He ignored me and turned me over on my stomach. He pulled me down on the bed with strong hands. “Shut up, Annie.”

I felt guilty. I could only imagine the crazy things happening in the rest of the inn.

“There is nothing you can do tonight,” Nick said. He turned off the bedside lamp and flicked on the clock radio to a local public station that played jazz.

It seemed so decadent and self-indulgent to be getting a massage an hour after ruining my sister's wedding. But I lay there anyway, anticipating the feel of Nick's hands on my body again. I felt a tingling sensation wash over me at the mere thought of spending the night with him.