The Wedding Planner, page 11
“You came into my life at the right time,” she answered. “Maybe we wouldn’t have been ready before this.”
He smiled at her and put his arms around her. “You’re a wise woman, Marianne Pasquier,” he said, and she smiled at the sound of her new name.
“I like that.”
“So do I,” he said, and followed her to what was now their bedroom. “I want to make good on that vow we made yesterday,” he whispered, and she looked over her shoulder at him, and smiled. The years faded away as he said it, and they felt young again, with the future and all their hopes ahead of them.
Chapter 9
When Faith got to her office the Monday after her mother’s wedding, she felt as though she hit the ground running and never stopped. She had details to finalize on Morgan and Alex’s wedding. She called Morgan at his office, and he sounded distracted, which was unusual for him. He confided to her after a few minutes that their surrogate’s egg retrieval was complete, he and Alex had both done their part. Her eggs were being fertilized now, and they would wait to hear if the fertilized eggs had implanted and if she was pregnant. The process had begun. If it worked the first time, they would have a baby in their arms in March. And if she wasn’t pregnant this time, they would try again. She had done this twice before for others successfully. She was a married woman with two children, they couldn’t afford more, and she felt she was doing something important for people who wanted children desperately, and preferred surrogacy to adoption. Alex and Morgan had decided that they preferred this route. It was a costly process but they felt lucky that they could afford it. For now, they were more interested in their baby than their wedding.
“By the way, my brother was very impressed by you. It’s going to be a big change for him, moving here from Chicago, and he doesn’t have a lot of friends here, except through work. Maybe you could come to dinner with him sometime at our place.”
“He seemed very nice,” she said politely. And it never hurt to meet a new friend. She liked Alex and Morgan immensely.
“My nephew is a nice kid too. He stays with us for the weekend sometimes, but he spends most of his time in the library, studying. Law school is tough. My brother was like that when he was young too. He was a terrific student, a lot better than I was. I barely made it through Parsons.”
“I was the student at our house,” Faith said, smiling. “I used to write all Hope’s papers for her. No one ever knew. She hated school. She only did two years of college at NYU, and dropped out to model. She never went back.”
“Is everything falling into place for the wedding?” Morgan asked her.
“Beautifully,” she reassured him.
“I’ve had my head so full of this baby process, I haven’t been able to think of anything else. Alex too. I think we’ll both feel better once we know she’s pregnant. But nine months is going to seem like forever.” She didn’t tell him that her twin sister was pregnant again. She was still adjusting to the idea herself. Four seemed like so many kids, even though the three she had were adorable and beautiful children. It was so much responsibility, and once they were older it was fertile ground for so many problems. She was surprised Hope wanted more. She had thought she would stop at three. And Hope thought Faith worked too hard, so they each had their own worries about the other.
“I’ll give you a call about dinner when Edward gets here,” he said about his brother. “He’s going to be flying back and forth a lot for the next month or two. He takes over the New York office right before our wedding in August.” And that seemed just around the corner too.
* * *
—
Annabelle Albert dropped in to see Faith on Tuesday afternoon. She was in the city to see her doctor, she looked very big to Faith, but she said the doctor had told her it wasn’t twins. They had just found out it was a boy, and Jeremy was even more excited now than he had been.
She lowered her voice then. “I think my father might be leaving his girlfriend. My mom really wants him back. But only if he leaves the girl. If he does, I think she’ll go ahead with the wedding. She’s calming down a little about the baby. She’s been so upset about Dad, she’s not as mad at me, and she’s starting to like Jeremy. He’s been so great ever since Mom and Dad split up. And he’s thrilled about the baby.
“I haven’t seen my dad since he moved out,” she said, “but he texts me a lot. I think he feels bad about everything that happened. My mom hasn’t seen him either. She refuses to, until he’s dealt with the problem. She won’t even talk to him. Anything she has to say to him goes through their lawyers. It seems pathetic. It was so stupid of him.”
She was in town for a fitting of the second dress she was having made, after she saw the doctor. It was almost finished, and she said it was beautiful, but huge. So was she.
“It’s about the same size as the tent Mom is having made,” she said, and laughed. “The doctor says I’ve gained too much weight. Mom says she did too. And so did my sister.” She was four months pregnant, and looked more like six or seven. Faith couldn’t imagine what she’d look like by November, when she was due. In contrast, Hope didn’t even show.
She realized with some amusement that her wedding business was turning into a baby factory, between Annabelle, and Alex and Morgan waiting to find out if their surrogate was pregnant. She’d had pregnant brides before, but not as obviously so. They either got married quickly, as soon as they found out they were pregnant, or they waited until after the baby was born, because they didn’t want to walk down the aisle visibly pregnant. Annabelle said she didn’t mind. She was upset about it at first, but after her parents’ separation, it didn’t seem like such a big deal now. People would talk about it, but they always found something to talk about, and she and Jeremy were happy about the baby, which was all that mattered. And the new wedding dress she was having made was incredibly elegant, even more so than the first one, which was sexier. The second one was magnificent and suited her now. It was regal.
* * *
—
In the last week before Doug and Phoebe’s wedding, he drove Faith absolutely crazy. He called her daily to check on every single detail. He called her twice a day about the guest list and the RSVPs, which went to Faith. There were some people who still hadn’t answered, but that was standard at every wedding. She had Violet calling them to try to press answers from them. They needed to know for the seating. There were a hundred and twenty-six people coming so far, and they were still missing another forty answers. Doug was pushing her to get definite responses, but some people were just slow to respond, and there was nothing Faith could do about it. She couldn’t threaten them into answering.
Doug insisted on speaking to the florist himself, the wedding cake baker, and the band. He called the club almost daily too. He complained to Faith that no one at the club called him back, but she was sure that by now they were utterly fed up with him.
He told Faith that he had gone back to Bergdorf with Phoebe to make the dress even tighter than it had been. He thought that the neck fit her too loosely, and the waist needed to be cinched in more. Faith felt sorry for her. The dress had already been strangling her when he bought it for her. But she was sure now that Phoebe had done what he wanted. He had his own vision of how the dress should look, and the bride in general. Phoebe had to conform to his vision of her, not her own. She was going to look like a Victorian schoolteacher in her wedding dress, with a corset under it so tight she could hardly breathe, a waist which cut into her, and the neck was so high and so tight that it almost choked her. Since he was tall himself, he wanted her in towering high heels, which would be hard to walk in, and to dance in afterward. Her feet would be killing her, something Faith always urged brides to avoid.
He called the hairdresser himself to make sure that her hair was done the way he wanted. He didn’t leave anything to chance, and he pounded so hard on her suppliers that Faith was afraid they wouldn’t work with her again. He got in an argument with the hairdresser and fired her. His club had finally flatly told him to stop calling. He was furious about it, and said that after the wedding, he was going to drop his membership. He was always at war with someone about something.
He had turned out to be so different from what he had presented at first. Faith hated dealing with him herself, she couldn’t wait for it to be over. She had never felt that way about a wedding before. But beneath the obvious tension he created around him, Faith still felt there was something very dangerous lurking, some kind of character disorder. Since Phoebe showed no sign of wanting to leave him, or even stop his obsessive control over her, there was nothing that Faith could do about it. And once married, Phoebe would be at his mercy and on her own.
Two days before the wedding, Faith did a walk-through with the club’s catering manager. She went over all their dinner choices and preferences. She checked the table linens that the club was intending to use. Some were not as clean as they should be, with spots in plain view. She was planning to check the actual table settings as soon as they set them up the morning of the wedding. She reassured Doug about every detail, but he continued to call her to check “just one more thing,” until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and had Violet take his calls and say she was busy.
The day before the wedding, Faith met Phoebe at her apartment for a last look at the dress, so there wasn’t some unfortunate surprise the day of the wedding, like a missing button.
Faith buttoned up the dress for her, and poor Phoebe looked like a mummy. Doug had had it altered to be so tight when he went to the fitting with her that she could hardly walk in it, and she was being suffocated by the chin-high lace collar with bones in it to keep it stiff. There were sharp stays in the collar and corset. It looked like it was painful to wear. Faith suggested to Doug that they have it loosened slightly, which he insisted wasn’t necessary and Phoebe went along with it. She was too cowed into submission not to.
She had decided to walk down the aisle alone. There were no important male figures in her life who she could have asked to walk her down the aisle. Her sister was stuck in San Diego with their mother, as Phoebe had suspected would be the case, and their mother was too ill to come. Phoebe would have loved to have the wedding in San Diego so her mother could see her get married, but Doug had insisted on New York, where all his friends were. Phoebe had none, other than the nurses she worked with, whom Doug wouldn’t let her invite. He said it was too awkward for him, because they were his employees. But even Phoebe understood that he thought they weren’t fancy enough and would hurt his image. He hadn’t allowed her to invite her roommates either. The only friends at the wedding would be his.
Phoebe stayed at her old apartment with her roommates the night before the wedding, so Doug wouldn’t see her, and Faith met her there to help her dress. She had already been to the club early that morning to see everything get set up. Faith was wearing a long, simple navy blue silk dress that she often wore to weddings. It was totally innocuous and let her blend in with the crowd, and didn’t make her look as though she was competing with the guests.
She found Phoebe looking panicked and her roommates were out. Since they weren’t invited to the wedding, they hadn’t stayed to help her dress. Faith had wanted to book a hairdresser and makeup artist for her, as she did for all her brides. But after firing Phoebe’s hairdresser, Doug wouldn’t let her. He said he preferred her looking natural to being overcoiffed by a hairdresser who would make her look like a hooker. She had pinned her hair up in a simple French twist, and she looked beautiful, even without professional assistance. She was so pretty that nothing dimmed her looks.
“The club is looking terrific,” she told her to reassure her, and Phoebe nodded, and looked into Faith’s eyes. Faith saw sorrow and fear there, and disappointment.
“I thought today would be different,” she said sadly. “I wanted my sister and my mom to see me get married, and the girls I work with, and my roommates. They’re all mad at me for not inviting them, but I couldn’t. Doug wouldn’t let me. The dress is so tight, I’m not sure I can get down the aisle without someone to hold on to. What if I trip or look stupid?”
“You won’t, just walk slowly,” Faith said gently. “Would you like me to walk you down the aisle?” she offered. Phoebe hesitated and then she nodded.
“Would you?”
“Of course. I’ve done it before.”
“Doug wants me to walk alone, but I don’t think I can in that dress. It had a slit in the back, but he had it sewn up. He said it looked vulgar.” He had done everything he could to make her feel uncomfortable and insignificant. He couldn’t even wait until after the wedding to control and torture her. He had turned their wedding into an event that only he would enjoy, and his associates and friends. The bride was of no importance, except as an accessory to him.
In spite of everything he’d done, she still looked beautiful in the austere dress. She looked regal as she stood there, nearly choked by the tight Victorian neck. She could take only the smallest of steps. Faith used her own makeup to accent Phoebe’s eyes, and put some blush on her cheeks. She was as white as the bridal gown she was wearing. Getting into the car Faith had waiting downstairs with a driver was nearly an Olympic event, which took both of them to get her in. She had to fall backward and swivel onto the seat, with no breathing room at all, and the slit sewn up nearly to her ankles. Getting her out at a side entrance to the club they used for brides was easier. Faith just pulled her straight out to a standing position, and then she hobbled in on Faith’s arm, in the painful high heels.
She had said from the beginning that she wanted to get married in a church, which Doug had vetoed early on, since he was an atheist.
Violet was waiting at the club to help them, and she said that Doug had called her on her cell every three minutes to question her about the final details. It was an entirely different event from Violet’s warm, elegant little wedding only a month before, in the gown Faith had given her.
“You look beautiful,” Faith whispered to Phoebe, just before they left the waiting room, and she smiled.
“Thank you for doing everything for me,” she said softly. “This is harder than I thought it would be without my mom. I don’t think I’ll know anyone here. I haven’t met many of Doug’s friends. He usually goes out without me.” Faith wondered again why he was marrying her, and she wondered even more how Phoebe had allowed herself to get into this position with a man who controlled her every move and breath. The only consolation was that she couldn’t imagine her putting up with it for long. At some point, it would all be too painful to tolerate for another minute, and she would explode. Faith hoped that moment would come soon. But in the meantime, they had a wedding to get through.
Violet gave them their cue when the music changed, and Faith took small measured steps, with Phoebe’s hand tucked into her arm for stability. She made it look as though it was supposed to be that way. They walked through the door down a narrow hallway to where she would start down the aisle, and Faith could see people staring at her. Despite everything Doug had done, she was a beautiful bride. Her unadorned simplicity only added to her beauty, in the agonizingly tight, plain dress.
“We’re halfway there,” Faith whispered to encourage her, but Phoebe’s eyes were locked into Doug’s by then. The way he looked at her told Faith that he could control her just by the look in his eyes. She moved toward the man she was about to marry like a robot. She was no longer holding on as tightly to Faith, she almost seemed to glide above the ground, despite the tight dress and high heels.
Faith delivered her to him safely, without mishap, and he looked at Phoebe with no mention of how beautiful she looked, which most grooms acknowledged when they saw their bride. Everything about Doug felt like some form of sociopathic behavior that Faith had completely missed in the beginning but was obvious to her now.
She adjusted Phoebe’s veil, and then stood back, and disappeared down a side aisle, just close enough to help if she was needed, but out of the guests’ immediate field of vision. Part of her job was to be invisible, but always within easy reach if needed.
The guests had been standing while Phoebe made her way slowly down the aisle, and were invited to sit down by the minister. Doug had compromised to allow her to have him at the wedding. The ceremony was brief, as Doug had wanted it to be, with as little mention of religion as possible. They used the old version of the vows with the word “obey” in them. Faith almost flinched as she heard it. And what seemed like moments later, they had been declared man and wife, and Phoebe’s fate was sealed. Doug walked her back down the aisle, moving a little too quickly, so she had to take tiny flying steps to keep up with him and she almost tripped. Then they stood in a reception line, with Faith directly behind them to keep an eye on things while their guests filed by to congratulate them. Immediately after, Doug disappeared into the crowd to greet special friends and associates, and Phoebe was left standing alone, holding her bouquet of white orchids, and looking lost. Faith immediately came to join her and handed her a glass of champagne. She took a long swallow, and seemed a little less frozen a few minutes later.
Faith kept her company until Doug returned right before they sat down to dinner. The guests in black tie looked very elegant and so did Doug with a new tuxedo he had bought for the occasion. Phoebe looked uncomfortable in the stiff, tight dress.
“Having fun?” he asked her, which sounded almost like a joke to Faith. How could she be having fun when she knew not a soul at her own wedding, and the groom had deserted her for the last hour? They walked into the club’s ballroom, and the flowers looked beautiful. They were a little less lavish than Faith would have liked, but Doug had kept a tight hand on the price. He wanted quality, but not a lot of it. But the club provided a handsome setting, and Faith was sure that no one noticed, or was as particular about the flowers as she was. Phoebe didn’t seem to notice the décor at all. She was overwhelmed. So many strangers, Doug rushing around the room to chat with people he knew well, and others he wanted to touch base with and welcome, and it never dawned on him to take Phoebe with him. The wedding seemed to be his show, rather than their special day, to launch their future together. To Faith she seemed more like an appendage than part of the central focus of the event. It was Doug’s wedding, and she was an accessory. Phoebe was more relaxed when he finally came to sit next to her.
