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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  1. The Horse Bride

  2. The Restless Bride

  3. The Museum Bride

  4. The Pink-Haired Bride

  5. The Naked Bride

  6. The Vegan Bride

  7. The Evil Bride

  8. The Rogue Bride

  9. The Greedy Bride

  10. The Beach Bride

  11. The Celebrity Bride

  12. The Child Bride

  13. The Golden Bride

  14. The Happy Bride

  Copyright

  For my beloved husband, Jonathan,

  keeper of the secret language

  1

  The Horse Bride

  My experience with horses comes down to this: When I was fourteen, my best girlfriend, Savannah, invited me to spend the week with her at Camp Sugar Dale near Atlanta. Savannah was sleeping away at the horse camp all summer and she could bring one friend for a week, just to try it out. It was probably a brilliant marketing campaign designed to breed another hundred girls begging their parents for a summer of riding overstuffed ponies and swimming in the mossy lake. I knew my parents could never afford to send me to Camp Sugar Dale for a day, let alone a whole summer, but I went anyway.

  Wearing my beat-up tennis shoes and jeans instead of fancy jodhpurs, I rode with the best and brightest of Atlanta girlhood. We were on those ponies all day. After breakfast, after lunch. We even had a trail ride and campout one night with the horses tethered nearby. I could hear them rustling and stomping all night while I tried to get comfortable with the marriage of my sleeping bag and a twisted tree root.

  I am reminded of Camp Sugar Dale because in the intervening twelve years, I have not been around horses to smell their horsey smell and breathe in their wholesome type of friendliness. That, and the way a horse’s eyes can look you up and down and sort of pass an equine judgment. Those Camp Sugar Dale ponies had us little girls figured out, and from the look in their sleepy eyes, half-closed in the suburban sunlight, they weren’t too impressed.

  Francie is giving me the horse look now. She spies my white linen dress with the pretty eyelet shoulders. She searches over the borrowed white pearls and the slightly scuffed open-toed sandals. She marks my bare legs and takes note of the Band-Aid covering one knee. With a roving brown eye, Francie tells me she does not like what she sees. Heaving out her chest, shaking out her mane of blond hair, she steps back and snorts. Then she whirls around and heads back toward the barn at a trot.

  Francie is the bride.

  It’s two hours before her wedding at the Cumberland Valley Botanical Gardens. The hydrangeas are wilting, the groom is late, and Francie’s bridesmaids look like they need maids of their own to attend them. They lounge nearby in a converted historic barn with green awnings. No one is dressed, ready, or even slightly concerned that a major event is taking place in 120 minutes.

  So far, I have been on the job three hours. My first task was to arrive at the barn and check the rooms where the wedding party would dress and wait. Are the embroidered linen handkerchiefs set out for the men? Is the silver monogrammed brush waiting on the bureau for the bride? Breath mints? Mint julep pitchers? My boss, Maurice, says never to trust anyone ever, and I’ve found more often than not, he’s right. Take today, for instance: When I got to the bride’s room, a fancy-schmancy hotel-type room with huge gilded mirrors and a large hook hanging from the ceiling for heavy wedding dresses, I almost fell over. The trendy Black Magic roses Francie wanted were there all right, but from the looks of the wilted petals and gummy stems, they needed some black magic about two days ago. I placed a frantic call to the florist, a local floral celebrity who is a bit on the touchy side. Once, when Maurice complained about a botched centerpiece, the florist pitched a box of two-hundred-dollar bridesmaid bouquets onto the floor.

  Flowers can get pretty ugly.

  Talking into my combination phone-wristwatch-calendar—a gift from my boyfriend, Avery, who recently went to Japan—I told the florist’s assistant that the Magics were past their prime. The bride would be here any minute and if she saw her bride’s room decorated with dead roses, it would not sit well. Right then, I pictured Francie in my head and got a shaky, sweaty feeling. Francie always looked past me when she met with Maurice, like my singleness and need to work for a living were catching.

  I managed to solve the crisis by dumping the sagging blooms and stalling until the florist’s assistant arrived with fresh Black Magic roses. I placed the vase on an antique sideboard, dodging the gaggle of bridesmaids lounging here and there. The afternoon marched on.

  Sometimes, in my quiet moments, I reflect that my existence has come down to groveling at the feet of overpaid florists so that a mean-spirited bride can enjoy some expensive flowers for about twenty minutes. It really seems like there’s something else I could have done with my life. If I could ever drag Avery to the altar, I would do it in the dead of winter, without flowers. There would be no doves, no clinging jasmine, and no powder-blue skies.

  * * *

  A wrinkled-looking boy of about ten or so walks by listlessly. Kicking at a stone on the path, the boy looks up. Two bumblebees drone near my right ear.

  “Hey,” I say to him.

  “Hey, can I go down to the swan pond? My mom’s saying I can go.”

  I recognize the boy from the rehearsal dinner the night before. His name is Granger. I remember him because he stayed close to the dessert table all evening. “It’s Granger, right?”

  The boy’s eyes widen. “You know me?”

  “You were there last night. The party at the Magnolia Room?” I like this kid. He has round green eyes and hands that look like they would rather be climbing a tree. He grabs at his little-boy tie.

  “Yeah. I had to go to it because my sister is getting married. My mom said I had to.”

  “Is this the same mom who won’t let you go down to the swan pond?”

  Granger drops his tie and looks up at me with a smile. “How did you know she wouldn’t let me?”

  “Let’s say I had one guess and I knew it had to count,” I say and smile back at him. Granger slides away, back toward the barn. I keep my eye on him until he walks behind a tall hedge of azaleas.

  “Wedding party, party of wedding people,” hisses the loudest and softest of voices. “I need you to crack to it, step with it!” It’s Maurice. As a really big-deal wedding planner, he can do what I cannot. I’ll find out later he has just been to the barn and whipped those lazy attendants into shape. Dresses are flying and lipstick is being applied. This wedding might happen after all.

  You don’t get in Maurice’s way. Not with the money these people are paying him. The higher his fee goes, the more they seem to do what he wants. But Francie’s wedding party is clearly pushing him to the limit.

  “Macie,” Maurice says, pushing down his creased sleeves from his elbows. “I need you.” It’s a hot day, and Maurice will change for the third time right before the wedding. His first outfit of the day, jeans and a T-shirt, was hours ago. His microfiber pants and crisp cotton shirt are for now, and his ultraslick, costs-more-than-I-earn-in-three-months suit is in my car. I’ve stopped looking at the labels when I pick up his dry cleaning. Maurice is in his own fashion league. I once asked his wife who had the bigger closet, she or Maurice. She just smiled at me like a woman who has given
up the fight. I found out later that when they remodeled their house last year, half of the bedroom space went to Maurice’s clothes. His wife uses a closet down the hall.

  “What do you need?” I ask. Maurice praises me for organization, so he’ll probably want me to check over the distribution of wedding favors. The bride selected little sacks of chocolate for the 416 guests who will be here in 110 minutes. The chocolates—imported from Paris—are cooling in a refrigerated truck attended by a bored college student. Sometimes I wonder whether my life would be easier if I had nothing to do but order chocolates from overseas. Francie spent a good month hounding me about what she should give as a favor. I finally found the chocolates when Avery returned from a trip to France. Francie popped one in her mouth at Maurice’s office and that was it. I pointed out to her that the chocolates were a good idea because of her name. She stared back, licking her lower lip with a swift stab of the tongue.

  “What? Huh?”

  I sighed patiently. “Your name? Francie? France.”

  “My real name is Lydia Jane. I don’t understand what you mean.”

  I gave up. Francie is just one of those brides we toss who will go out of my mind in a few weeks. “Tossing the bride” is Maurice’s lingo for getting a bride married and out of his hair. When she’s good and married off, it’s not our concern anymore. Of course, I secretly want to conduct an informal poll someday to see how many of our brides are still married one or two years out.

  “I don’t know how to say this, Macie,” Maurice mumbles, looking past me to the wedding area. White wooden chairs with soft satin bows are arranged in an arc all the way to an altar that is arrayed with heaps of white freesia, lilies, and scented stephanotis. Combined with the sunlight, the effect is almost blinding. I hope the guests bring sunglasses.

  “You don’t know how to say what?”

  Maurice pauses. He’s a good boss, as far as bosses go. I know I’m fortunate to have this job. It pays way more than my gift-wrapping stint at Luck’s department store. That’s where I was working when I met Avery two years ago this month. I gift wrapped crystal bowls and china platters, making sure to tuck in the silver Luck’s gift card. I was good at it, but mental gymnastics it was not.

  Avery introduced me to Maurice and convinced him he should give me a try. I’ve been with Maurice for more than a year, and I’ve seen my share of weddings. It’s time I had my own, I say to myself. In my head. Not out loud.

  “Francie wants you to change,” Maurice says quietly.

  “What? Lydia Jane wants what?” I have to struggle to keep my voice down. Nearby, a groomsman loafs about, trailing his fingers through a camellia bush. At least he’s dressed in his suit.

  “Francie thinks your dress is too, uhm, formal for what you have to do in the ceremony.” Maurice’s eyes are still trained on the wedding area. He seems embarrassed, poor thing. But I want to run up the aisle, knocking over chairs as I go. I love this dress. It’s gorgeous. Avery bought it for me from a little store near Lenox Mall I never even knew existed. And he was only one size off, so when I exchanged it, I saw how much it cost. It is not only “formal,” as that doltish bride suggested, it is—

  “So, you hear me?” Maurice asks.

  “What am I supposed to do, then? Would my bra and panties be a little more, oh, I don’t know, informal?”

  Glancing around, Maurice grimaces at me. “Okay, so I think it’s stupid. I mean, your dress is very nice. Avery must have picked it up because I’ve seen your taste and—”

  “Thanks, Maurice. Appreciate that. But I’m still walking down the aisle with nothing on unless you fix it.” I cannot believe the nerve of this bride. It is too late in the wedding parade to find something else to wear. I’m the horse wrangler. This is the dress I’ve picked.

  A little background here: When Francie approached us about her dream of riding down the aisle on the back of her favorite horse, Rhubarb, we tried to talk her out of it. “Think of the horsehair flying everywhere,” we said. “Think of the chance of a horsey accident on the crisp green botanical garden grass.” It didn’t matter. This is what Francie wanted. And Francie was going to get what Francie wanted. She even rented a special white leather sidesaddle from some rodeo in Tennessee. Her dress will cover its chunky rhinestones, thank goodness.

  Maurice invented my role in the ceremony because somewhere in his memory he had stashed a story I told him about Camp Sugar Dale. I don’t even remember what it was, but that’s Maurice. His mind traps things for when he needs them again. I’ve seen him pull out the scientific name of a rare orchid that a bride was trying to recall. I’ve been there when he remembered the perfect Brazilian vegetable dumpling sauce for a puzzled caterer. It’s amazing, really.

  Francie was delighted to know that Maurice had a “horse person” on staff. I got the job of wrangling the horse—bringing Rhubarb down the aisle with Francie Lydia Jane on board. When we get to her fiancé at the end of the aisle, he’s supposed to help Francie down from the saddle, and I’m supposed to lead Rhubarb off to the waiting trailer. He doesn’t get to hang around for the reception. Poor Rhubarb.

  I’d picked out the dress Avery gave me because Francie wanted me to wear white, just like herself and the horse. I kept my end of the bargain.

  Maurice has snapped on his earpiece and is rattling some directions into his phone. “Size eight? Hold on—” Maurice eyes me up and down. “No, make that a six. A little scrawny. Not much in the bust. Okay.” He clicks off abruptly. “Your dress will be here in thirty minutes.”

  “Who in the world?” I say, once again impressed with Maurice’s ability to get the right thing in the right place. The botanical gardens are plopped in a little rural town miles from Atlanta shopping.

  “That was Melanie from Melanie’s Boutique over on Main Street. I ordered the most exquisite little pin there last year for a bride. Remember Alinda?”

  I shudder and nod. Best to let that memory slip away to sweet oblivion. It’s been my experience that brides whose names start with A are more trouble. It’s a pet theory of mine. I also have this other theory that there are a limited number of faces in the world, which is why people say, “You look just like so-and-so.” There are only so many faces to go around and they get recycled. I haven’t met my face yet, but I’m waiting.

  “Macie, are you listening?”

  I nod. Maurice tells me to keep a lookout for Melanie’s minivan. For the next thirty minutes, I extinguish a number of small wedding fires. A bridesmaid has forgotten her strapless bra. I show her a thing or two about masking tape. One of the groomsmen is hitting the mint juleps a little too enthusiastically. I send out for strong coffee, “light on the soy milk.” He actually tells me this with slurred speech, and then tries to kiss the bride. It is not a brotherly kiss. I walk away because there are some things for which I just don’t get paid.

  A few minutes later, I get a chance to chat with my best friend, Iris Glen, when she stops by the gardens to make one last check on the wedding cake. Iris is also in the wedding business. She is a pastry chef and the owner of Cake Cake, the place to snag an Atlanta wedding cake.

  “Swamped?” Iris asks. Her assistant dropped off the towering white cake a few hours ago, and Iris wants to make sure every icing rosette is still in place.

  “Yeah, but what else is new? You would not believe this bride and her crazy demands.” I make a face.

  “I’ve worked with Francie for eight months, too,” Iris laughs. “She originally wanted her name spelled out on the cake in big, shimmering letters. I suggested that might not be the best plan.”

  We share a brief laugh in the middle of wedding chaos. I adore Iris for lots of reasons. She is loyal, kind, and a blast to be around. We work together frequently because our brides naturally want to order the best, and Iris is absolutely the best.

  My dress replacement arrives, so I bid farewell to Iris. When I finally wriggle into the white size-six Melanie dress, I feel like giving off a Francie snort. The cotton dres
s drops to my knees and is balanced on top with a big boat collar. A huge bow, stuck square in the middle of my chest, teeters back and forth with each step. I look like an overgrown eight-year-old girl from 1936. I creep out of the women’s bathroom in the barn and look for a place to stash my real dress, my beautiful dress. I try to avoid the bride’s room, but Francie catches sight of me and drags her enormous wedding dress—the train is ten feet long—out into the hall.

  “Ah, that’s better. You look like a nice southern girl.” Francie licks her pink lips. A bit of color sticks to her perfect front teeth. I don’t bother to tell her. “Maurice and I thought that other dress was a little”—she pauses for effect and glances back down the hall toward the men’s changing room—“trashy. If you know what I mean.”

  I nod and lower my head. The bow on my chest swings dangerously. “I know what you mean. Exactly.”

  Francie gathers the sides of the dress in her manicured claws and swings back around, glaring at me while she turns. She thinks I have insulted her, but she can’t be sure. The train of her dress knocks over a ceramic umbrella stand, and I scramble before it dashes to pieces. Maurice arrives dressed in his suit, gives the new dress and me the once-over, and motions me outside. It’s time for Rhubarb.

  Back in the garden, well-heeled guests are escorted to their seats by the languid groomsmen and ushers. The heat is heat; it’s something you get used to in Atlanta. My dress is a bit starchy, and I rub at the boat neck where it touches my skin.

  “Don’t do that,” Maurice hisses at me. We’re stalking Rhubarb. He’s supposed to be behind the two-hundred-year-old boxwood hedges. We turn and turn again, traveling deeper into the maze of green and brown. A sparrow skitters along the path, a twig resting in its beak. We finally find the white horse dozing and tethered to a sullen stable hand.

  “Rhubarb don’t want to do this today,” the horse handler informs us.

  Maurice stops short in his leather loafers. I sense his persuasive charm gathering like a thundercloud for this final challenge. He wants that stable hand to lead me to the back of the garden. He wants Francie hefted up on top of the horse’s broad back, and then, he wants to toss her like a sack of rice.