Chapter 2 - Notifications on a Shaking Screen
I didn't get in the car right away. I told myself I would, that my hand was already on the cold handle of that dark sedan, but I couldn't make myself disappear that fast.
From where I stood on the gravel, I could see straight back through the flower-covered gate to where Olivia still stood. The string lights had come on fully now, yellow against the gray dusk, and they caught the wet ground so everything looked doubled. Her veil moved a little in the wind coming off the vineyard hills.
She hadn't moved. That was what kept my feet planted. She held the phone in both hands like it weighed more than it should.
The young man with the clipboard had stepped half a step back. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking down at his board, then up at her, then down again. I could read the tension in his shoulders even from twenty yards away. He'd done his job. He'd said, Ma'am, your name isn't on the guest list. And now the job didn't fit what was happening.
Olivia's thumbs didn't move at first. I watched her stare at the lit screen. Her manicure was light pink, almost nude in that light, and I noticed because I'd sat with her at the salon in March when she'd picked it. Bridal, she'd said, but not trying too hard. Now those fingers were shaking.
The musicians under the white tent faltered. It wasn't a full stop, just a missed beat. One violin held a note too long while the cello dropped out. A couple of guests in the white chairs turned around. White chairs in perfect rows, all facing forward toward the arch, and now heads turning backward toward the gate. That sound, that little tear in the music, made Olivia finally swipe.
I knew what she was seeing because I'd pressed send in the parking lot before I walked up. Not in anger. My hands had been steady then. I'd forwarded what the bank had sent me that morning.
The first notification was the wire confirmation. Vineyard venue rental, paid in full. Helen M. Carter, account ending in 4821. The second was the florist, the arches and the bouquets and the petals down the aisle. The third was the catering hold and the string quartet deposit. Each one with my name on it. Not a card with her name and my money behind it. Mine. Direct.
She scrolled, and I saw her mouth change. She'd been cold when she said it, Mom, you weren't invited. You're not family anymore. Please leave. Her face had been set, the way she set it when she was twelve and decided she wouldn't cry at the dentist. Now the set broke. Her lower lip pulled in. She breathed through her nose, quick and shallow.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
She didn't look up at me when she said it. She said it to the phone, like the phone had betrayed her. The young man heard it and shifted his weight. He tapped the edge of his clipboard with his pen, twice, and didn't write anything.
A guest stood up two rows back, a woman in a dark green dress I didn't recognize. She leaned to the man next to her. I couldn't hear the words, but I saw the phone come out in her hand too. Then another. The musicians tried to pick the song back up, but the tempo was off. The second violinist kept glancing toward the gate instead of at her music stand.
Olivia swiped again and the screen went brighter on her face. That was the hold notice. I'd called the bank from the sedan before I got out. I'd put a temporary review on the final catering release, the one that hadn't cleared yet. The words PENDING REVIEW in gray letters. It wasn't to ruin anything. It was to make someone look. I paid for all of this, and for two months every invoice had come to me while every planning email had stopped coming to me.
She lifted her head then. Not all the way. Just enough that her eyes found me across the gravel by the open rear door of the car. The veil lifted off her shoulder with the wind. For a second neither of us moved, and the string lights buzzed faintly above the murmur of the guests.
The young man cleared his throat. "Ma'am?" he said to her, quiet, polite. He held the clipboard out a fraction, like an offering. "Should I... do you want me to hold the processional?"
She didn't answer him. She looked back down at the phone, then back at me, her hands tightening around it until her knuckles went white under that pale polish. The distress was plain now, no cover left. Her chest rose and fell fast under the lace of that strapless gown.
Behind her, the coordinator's assistant, a girl with a headset I remembered from the tasting, hurried down the side aisle between the chairs, her heels sinking a little in the wet grass. She stopped short when she saw Olivia's face.
May you like
I didn't walk back. I didn't call out. My phone felt heavy in my own handbag, the sent folder full. The car door stood open beside me, rain smell coming up off the gravel.
Olivia took one step toward me, then stopped herself at the edge of the arch. She stared at the screen again like if she stared long enough the names would change.
