Czytaj książkę: «Bridesmaid For Hire»

Chapter One

Eight-year-old Adelyn Loren nodded her approval as she watched, mesmerized, as her aunt adjusted a light blue, floor-length bridesmaid dress. There was a touch of wonder in the little girl’s soft brown eyes.

“Aunt Gina?” the little girl, known to her family as Addie, asked hesitantly.

The dark-haired little girl jumped off the bed. She had followed Gina into the room when her aunt had asked her if she wanted to see what the dress looked like on her. A fashion buff, even at the tender age of eight, the girl came in eagerly.

She finally had the dress right, Gina thought, looking herself over in her sister’s full-length mirror. “What, baby?” Gina asked absently.

Encouraged, Addie’s voice sounded a little more confident as she asked, “How many times do you have to do it?”

Gina turned away from the mirror. The dress her latest client had initially picked out had been dowdy and downright awful. With a little bit of subtle hinting, Gina had managed to convince the young woman that being backed up by an attractive-looking bridal party would only serve to highlight her own gown on her big day. That succeeded in making everyone happy.

Satisfied, Gina gave her niece her full attention. The little girl had a very serious expression on her face. “How many times do I have to do what, sweetie?” Gina asked.

“How many times do you have to be a bridesmaid before you get to be the bride?” Addie asked.

Gina laughed softly. She knew where this was coming from. “You’ve been talking to your grandmother, haven’t you?”

Addie shook her head vigorously, sending her long, coal black hair bouncing from side to side.

“Uh-uh. Mama said you’ve been in a lot of weddings and that you were always a bridesmaid so I was just wondering when you get to stop being a bridesmaid and get to be a bride.”

Judging by her expression, Gina could tell that it seemed like a logical progression of events to Addie.

Wiggling out of the bridesmaid dress, she draped it on the side of the bed as she threw on an old T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Dressed, Gina sat down on the bed and put her arm around her niece, pulling the little girl to her.

“That’s not quite the way it works, sweetie,” Gina said, managing not to laugh.

“You mean you’re always going to be a bridesmaid?” Addie asked, her eyes opening so wide that she resembled one of her favorite stuffed animals. “Doesn’t that make you sad?”

“No,” Gina assured the little girl, rather touched that the girl was concerned about her. She hugged Addie closer. “It makes me happy.”

The small, animated face scrunched up in confusion. “How come?”

She did her best to put it in terms that Addie could understand. “Being a bridesmaid is my job.”

But it was obvious that this just confused Addie even more. “Being a bridesmaid is a job?”

“It is for me,” Gina answered cheerfully. “The truth of it is, baby, for some people weddings can be very confusing and stressful.”

Addie’s smooth forehead was still wrinkled in consternation. “What’s stressful?”

Gina thought for a moment. She didn’t want to frighten the girl, but she did want to get the image across. “You know how when you play your video game and if you’re not fast enough, suddenly the words game over can come on your screen and your tummy feels all knotted up and disappointed?”

“Uh-huh.” Addie solemnly nodded her head.

“Well, that’s what stressful is,” Gina told her. “Organizing a wedding can be like that.”

Addie looked at her uncertainly, doing her best to understand. “Weddings are like video games?”

A warm feeling came over Gina’s heart and she grinned. “Sometimes. Your mom almost called off the wedding when she was marrying your dad. Everything suddenly felt as if it was just too much for her.”

That had been the first time she had found herself coming to a bride’s rescue. In that case it had been her older sister, Tiffany, who needed help. And that had been the beginning of an idea for a career.

“Really?” Addie asked in wonder.

“Really.” Gina didn’t emphasize how much of an emotional mess her normally level-headed older sister had been a few days before the wedding. “I saw what your mom was going through so I took over and helped her out. It was just a matter of untangling the order to the florist and maybe threatening the caterer,” she added as more facts came back to her.

That really caught the little girl’s attention. “Did you say you’d beat him up?” Addie asked in an impressed, hushed tone.

Gina laughed. “Worse. I threatened him with bad publicity.”

Addie looked up at her in confusion. “What’s bad pub-lis-ity?” she asked.

“Something everyone lives in fear of,” Gina answered with a smile. “Anyway,” she continued matter-of-factly, “I realized that I was pretty good at organizing things and that I could help brides like your mom really enjoy their day and not get caught up in the hassle.” She decided that Addie didn’t need to know anything beyond that. “And that’s how your aunt Gina got the idea to became a professional bridesmaid.”

“Can I become a professional bridesmaid?” Addie asked eagerly. It was obvious that her aunt’s story had completely won her over.

“You have to get to be a little taller first,” Gina told her, kissing the top of the girl’s head. “But I don’t see why you can’t be one when you’re grown up if you want to.”

“Will you show me what to do once I get tall enough?” Addie asked seriously.

Gina inclined her head as if she was bowing to the little girl. “I’d be honored.”

“Just what is it that you’re going to show my daughter how to do once she gets tall enough?” Tiffany Loren asked as she came into the guest bedroom.

Addie swung around on the bed and looked up at her mother. “Aunt Gina’s going to show me how to become a professional bridesmaid,” she declared gleefully.

Tiffany looked more than a little dismayed. “Just what kind of ideas are you putting into my little girl’s head?” she asked.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Gina said, disavowing her culpability in the matter. “This was all Addie’s idea.”

“An idea she got from watching you come over here, parading around in all those bridesmaid dresses,” Tiffany said pointedly.

“She could do worse,” Gina answered defensively. “I get paid for making people happy and they get to enjoy their big day. Plus I get to eat cake on top of that. Not a bad gig if you ask me.”

Tiffany looked at her daughter. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted the little girl to hear. “Addie, why don’t you go find your cousins? I want to talk to your aunt Gina for a minute.”

Addie leaned in and told her aunt in a stage whisper, “Don’t let her get you stressed, Aunt Gina.”

Tiffany looked after her departing daughter, dumbfounded. “Where did that come from?” she asked her younger sister.

“I’d say she was just extrapolating on what I told her I did as a professional bridesmaid.” Tiffany looked at her quizzically. “I told her that I made sure the bride didn’t get stressed. I also might have told her that you were stressed on your wedding day—you were, you know,” Gina reminded her sister before Tiffany could deny the fact or get annoyed with her.

Gina grinned as she thought about her niece. “I can’t wait to hear how this is going to play itself out by the time Addie gets to tell her father about it.” She flashed Tiffany a sympathetic smile.

“Terrific.” Tiffany looked momentarily worried. “You know how Eddie jumps to conclusions.”

“But you know how to get him to jump back and that’s all that counts,” Gina reminded her older sister. Her brother-in-law had a short fuse, but his outbursts never lasted too long.

Tiffany smiled to herself. “That I do. Can’t wait until you get married so that I can pass along that wisdom and knowledge to you, little sister.”

“About that, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Gina advised. She saw the doubtful expression on Tiffany’s face. “I’m perfectly happy with my life just the way it is.”

Tiffany looked at her skeptically. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“That, dear Tiffany, is your prerogative. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare to hold a bride’s hand and get her through what she’ll remember as ‘the happiest day of her life,’ otherwise known as tomorrow.”

“Do you have any more weddings lined up after that?” Tiffany asked her innocently.

“Not yet,” Gina replied honestly. “But I will,” she added with the confidence that she had managed to build up with this new career of hers.

Tiffany began to ease herself out of the bedroom. “By the way,” she added, nodding at the dress on the bed, “you performed a miracle with that bridesmaid dress.” She had seen the dress before its transformation. It had been absolutely ugly in her opinion.

“I know.” There was no conceit in Gina’s answer. There was just sheer pleasure in the knowledge that she was good at her chosen vocation.

Tiffany left the room, walking quickly. She waited until there was a room between her sister and her before she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. Making sure that she was alone, she pressed auto-dial 8.

The line on the other end was picked up almost immediately.

“Mom?” Tiffany asked just to be sure she’d gotten the right person. When her mother answered in the affirmative, Tiffany declared, “All systems are ‘go.’ Gina’s got nothing scheduled after she’s done with this wedding.”

“Perfect.” The line went instantly dead.

Anna Bongino wasn’t about to lose any time in calling her friend with the news.

“Gina has nothing immediately scheduled,” Anna breathlessly told Maizie the moment the other woman answered her phone. “Whatever you’re going to do, now would be the right time.”

“I’ll get back to you on this as soon as I can,” Maizie promised.

Maizie had already gathered her best friends and comrades-in-arms together to tell them about Anna’s daughter and her dissatisfaction that Gina was a perpetual professional bridesmaid. Intrigued, Celia Parnell and Theresa Manetti had gotten to work on the so-called “problem.”

Maizie wasn’t surprised that they already had a plan ready to go when she called Theresa with the news. A widow like Maizie and Celia, Theresa had built up a thriving catering service and she had found the perfect solution using that service.

“As luck would have it, the young bride whose reception I’m catering in three weeks is about to have a nervous breakdown,” Theresa announced, sounding far happier than the news should have warranted.

“Why?” Maizie asked.

“It seems that her photographer somehow accidentally double-booked two ceremonies at the same time, one of them being my bride’s. In addition, her cousin dropped out of the wedding at the last minute because her cousin’s boyfriend of five years just broke up with her,” Theresa explained.

“And we have just the young woman who can handle that for her and smooth out all the bumps,” Maizie replied happily.

“Yes, we do,” Theresa agreed.

“I admit that this does give us a reason to call Gina so she feels that her particular ‘talents’ are being utilized, but as far as I know, we still don’t have any suitable candidates to play the potential groom to her potential bride-to-be—or do we?” Maizie asked when Theresa didn’t immediately respond to her question.

“Hold on to your hat, Maizie. This is about to get even better,” Theresa promised.

“All right, consider my hat held. How does this get even better?” Maizie asked.

She could almost hear Theresa smiling from ear to ear as she asked, “You know that young man Anna felt was so perfect for her daughter?”

“I remember. Shane Callaghan,” Maizie recalled. “What about him?”

Theresa paused dramatically, then said, “Well, I found him.”

“What do you mean you ‘found’ him?” Maizie asked suspiciously.

“Well, actually Celia did,” Theresa amended. “He’s a client of hers,” she explained. “The fact is, ‘Shane’ has been using another name for his line of work.”

This was all very mysterious to Maizie. “The point, Theresa. Get to the point,” she told her friend impatiently.

That was when Theresa dropped her little bombshell. “It turns out that Shane Callaghan has a vocation that ties right into our little scenario. The man designs cakes—including wedding cakes—for a living—and he’s very much in demand.”

“Wouldn’t Gina know this, seeing that she’s in the business of placating jittery brides-to-be?” Maizie asked.

“That’s where the pseudonym comes in. Shane is an ‘artiste’ known as Cassidy. His bakery is called Cakes Created by Cassidy.”

She’d heard of it, Maizie realized. One of her clients had remarked that their son had ordered a cake from this “Cassidy.” At the time she’d thought nothing of it.

“Really?” Maizie asked.

“Guess who I’m going to suggest to our bride to ‘create’ her wedding cake for her reception?” Theresa posed the rhetorical question almost gleefully.

This was playing it close, Maizie thought. “You said the wedding was in three weeks. Are you sure you can get him?”

“Absolutely,” Theresa answered confidently. “It turns out that my son’s law firm did some legal work for Cassidy a few months ago. It pays to have lunch with your offspring occasionally,” she added, although she knew that none of them needed an excuse to get together with their children. Family had always been what this was all about for them, Theresa thought. “That’s how I found out who Cassidy really is. It actually is a small world, Maizie,” she declared happily. “Now all we need is to get Gina on the scene.”

“Well, like I said,” Maizie reminded her friend, “her mother just called me and said that Gina has nothing scheduled after this weekend’s wedding.”

“She does now,” Theresa said happily. “I’d better get on the phone and talk to Sylvie—that’s the bride-to-be—while she’s still coherent. Her maid of honor said she was afraid that Sylvie was going to wind up calling the whole thing off.”

“Something that she’ll wind up regretting,” Maizie predicted. “By all means, Theresa, call her. Tell her about Gina, that she can step in at the last minute and put out any fires that might arise. And then,” she concluded, “you’re going to have to call Gina.”

“All right,” Theresa agreed a bit uncertainly. “But why can’t you call her?” she asked. After all Maizie was the one with a connection to the girl via Gina’s mother.

“I’m a real estate agent, Theresa,” Maizie reminded her friend. “There’s no reason for me to know about a professional bridesmaid, whereas you, as a caterer with a multitude of wedding receptions to your credit, you could know about her through regular channels. Word of mouth, that kind of thing. If I called her up out of the blue with this offer, I’d have to admit to knowing her mother because how else would I know what she does for a living? She’d smell a rat and politely refuse. Or maybe not so politely,” Maizie added.

“Goodness, this matchmaking hobby of ours has certainly gotten more complicated than it was back in the old days, hasn’t it?” Theresa marveled.

“I know, but that’s also part of the fun,” Maizie reminded her friend. “Now stop talking to me and get on the phone to Gina and then to—what did you say was the bride-to-be’s name?”

“Sylvie.”

“Tell Sylvie you know just the person to step in and wind up saving her day,” Maizie told her.

“Wait,” Theresa cried, sensing that Maizie was about to hang up.

“What?”

“I need Gina’s phone number,” she told Maizie. “I can’t tell Sylvie about this professional bridesmaid and then not have a phone number to pass on to her if she asks for it,” Theresa pointed out. “Plus I’ll need it myself if I’m going to set Gina up.”

“Sorry,” Maizie apologized as she retrieved the phone number from the file on her computer. “I guess I just got excited for a minute,” she explained. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

“So now we’re the A-Team?” Theresa asked with an amused laugh. She was referring to an old television program she used to watch while waiting up for her workaholic lawyer husband to come home.

“The what?” Maizie asked, clearly not familiar with the program.

“Never mind about that right now. Just remind me that I have an old DVD to play for you when we all get a few minutes to ourselves.”

“Will do,” Maizie promised. “But right now, I’m going to remind you that you have two phone calls to make. Possibly three,” she amended.

“Three? How do you figure that?” Theresa asked her friend. “Do you want me to call you back once I get Gina and Sylvie?”

“Well, of course I want you to call me back to tell me how it all went. And then,” Maizie continued, thinking out loud, “we have to come up with a way to have Gina and Shane get together before the big day. Maybe you can have Gina helping you with the arrangements, kind of like an assistant, and being a go-between for you and this ‘in-demand baker.’ And then, we can hope that there are sparks.”

“A go-between?” Theresa questioned.

“We’ll work on it,” Maizie promised. “Now go, call while Gina’s still free,” she instructed her friend just before she hung up.