One Day Like This: A feel-good summer romance Page 11

  Her accent was getting thicker now, but Tessa still couldn’t place it. Paolo patted his grandmother’s hand. “Gran mostly heard about you through word of mouth, from her friend who was so happy with her experience,” he said. “Actually, Molly and I hadn’t really looked at any event planners yet. We weren’t sure we could afford one, truthfully.”

  “I have the money,” insisted Bianca. “I’m paying.”

  “Gran—” he began.

  “This gentleman and these ladies say they will do it all for us, right?” said Bianca. “They look nice. They look like people who understand that things have to be special.”

  “Well, I’m one of the event planners,” said Tessa. “That’s the role of me and—and Blake.” She gave him an innocent smile. “We’re the ones who generally worry about putting the event together exactly the way you want it. Natalie here knows all about dresses and fashion, and Ama is our in-house cake designer.”

  “We want a big cake,” began Bianca.

  “Gran, we don’t have that many guests,” said Molly. “Paolo only has some friends from work, and I have some of my clients coming. We don’t need all this fuss.”

  “We don’t exactly have a lot of family—either of us,” Paolo explained to the planners.

  “And a nice dress for Molly,” continued Bianca, who clearly wasn’t listening. She laid her hand on Molly’s arm. “Something big and beautiful. It must be so perfect that everyone will be staring at you. Like the dress for my friend’s daughter-in-law. That is what I want.” She looked at Tessa and Blake. “You can do it, I am sure. They need someone to make everything special.”

  “I don’t think you can pay for perfect, Gran,” said Paolo gently.

  “You’d be surprised,” Natalie spoke up. “We’re a new firm, so we’ll be cutting costs wherever we can. I have a lot of contacts in the garment world, for instance—I got a friend of mine a great deal on a wedding dress only a month ago. Sometimes perfect is all about finding the right thing at the right time.”

  All of this was technically true—although the bargain she mentioned had been down to Natalie’s personal friendship with a bridal shop’s manager and not any contacts made through working in the fashion world for Kandace. But Natalie looked confident when she said it, unlike when she talked about her own talent.

  “We can find something to fit your budget on any front,” said Ama. “Me? I’m a very economic baker. It’s definitely possible to find special things that don’t cost a fortune.”

  “I told you not to worry about the money,” said Bianca dismissively. “I will pay it. I only want the best. Stella gave me the name of the best planner in the city, and my friend Lucca gave me the name of the best florist…” Here, she began digging through her bag again, no doubt looking for some item related to this other piece of wedding advice.

  “Will your friend Stella be coming to the wedding?” Tessa asked, foreseeing a new complication if Stefan’s former client should happen to encounter his rather unconvincing stand-in. Bianca, however, shook her head.

  “Not Stella. She has moved to a retirement community with her husband now. Such a pretty place by the sea—Venice, Florida, the postcard said that she sent me.”

  Phew. Tessa breathed a sigh of relief and imagined her business partners doing so as well, though Blake looked as uncomfortable as ever. Bianca had finished searching her bag by now, producing an overstuffed envelope of clippings.

  “Here are some things that might look good. Molly, you liked this one in the magazine? The one you bought from the newspaper stand?” She removed a poorly folded clipping from a catalog, featuring a ball gown-style wedding dress bedecked with lots of crystals on its bodice, a definite designer creation. And definitely similar to the “Cinderella” gown for Stefan’s client, although without such a pouffy skirt that the bride would have to pass sideways through a standard doorway.

  “And here is a fancy table at a hotel that would look so very nice.”

  “Gran, I think it’s really costly,” said Molly, sounding hesitant. “And that dress seems a little elaborate, too. I’m not sure it’s right for me, really.”

  “What do you think?” asked Bianca, looking anxiously at the planners. Blake glanced at Tessa, and she could see the discomfort in his gaze. Clearly, he wasn’t going to tell Bianca it was all great.

  Natalie and Tessa exchanged glances quickly. “Why don’t we talk to Paolo and Molly about what they want?” Tessa suggested. “They must have some ideas already, surely.” She turned her attention to the bride and the groom.

  Paolo shrugged. “I just want to marry Molly,” he said. “And not spend all of Gran’s money,” he added, giving his grandmother’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’d rather pay for it myself and save her money.”

  “And what would I have saved all this money for?” demanded Bianca. Tessa remembered the cookie tin from their last meeting. “It’s to give you and Molly a nice wedding and reception.”

  “I don’t really know what I want when it comes to a dress or anything,” said Molly. “I didn’t really plan on having anything. Paolo and I don’t make a lot of money, so I hadn’t really been thinking about fancy gowns and reception favors, or anything. It was Bianca’s idea for us to have a real wedding.”

  “Is your retaining fee reasonable?” Paolo asked. “If it’s not too much, we’ll hire you. If only to make Gran happy.” He smiled at them, a grin of surrender as his grandmother pinched him in rebuke.

  Tessa hesitated, then wrote a figure on a sheet of paper and showed it to Ama and Natalie—remembering at the last minute to show it to Blake beside her as well. He looked surprised at the figure written on it. A thousand dollars wasn’t much, after all. No doubt he was thinking it wouldn’t pay for the kitchen he was supposed to be creating out of the building’s shambles of a back room.

  “This is the fee for hiring us to arrange all the details. Hiring a venue, entertainment, arranging the invitations,” said Tessa. “It doesn’t include things like the venue, the dress or the food, or additional expenses during the process, but we can help you keep those well under budget. It’s basically the cost for us negotiating deals on your behalf—and if you hire us to do the dress or cake for you, we’ll give you the best deal possible.”

  “Look at that! I told you they were nice people,” said Bianca, sounding excited. “There will be plenty left for planning the wedding. It will be perfect.”

  “I guess you guys are hired,” said Paolo.

  “Come to my home for tea,” said Bianca insistently, as she put the clippings back in her purse, where the tin of money clanked noisily. “We’ll talk about the big plans there.”

  “Sounds just great,” said Tessa.

  Of course, really it sounded more like a possible disaster. But she would never admit that in a million years.

  Ten

  “What are you doing with those sketches?” asked Natalie’s brother Roberto. “Is Kandace finally letting you design something for her boutique?”

  He closed the fridge after removing a bottle of milk. Natalie closed her sketchbook. “It’s something for one of my classes,” she said. Roberto wouldn’t remember that she only had one class in textiles this season and none in design. “I’m supposed to be writing a business proposal for my class on Friday.”

  “That’s gonna be disappointing for Ma. She thinks you have a big date on Friday.”

  “What? With Jake?” she said dismissively. “He’s just a guy who asked me out for coffee. Afterward, maybe a movie. It’s no big thing, trust me.” She flipped open her textbook and made a pretense of studying. “Besides, I promised I’d come by the bakery after hours and help Aunt Louise with the bones of the dead.”

  The traditional Italian cookies were delicious, and a favorite in the bakery even when it wasn’t All Souls’ Day. This month’s window display theme at the bakery was Italian holidays and weddings.

  “‘No big thing’ is a big problem for her,” he said. “She doesn’t understa
nd the whole casual dating routine you’re into. Do you really want another family dinner where everybody’s asking if you’ve found ‘Mr. Right’ yet?” He poured milk over his bowl of cereal. “It’ll keep happening unless you get serious about one of these guys, Nat.”

  “I don’t think there’s a Mr. Right,” answered Natalie. “I’m not a big believer in true love. You know that.” She hid a smile as she turned the pages of her textbook. Her brother had a habit of turning the heat on her since he hadn’t found ‘Ms. Right,’ as their mother constantly pointed out. “Why don’t you marry Kimmie and make Ma happy? That would take her mind off me and my love life.”

  “Kimmie’s not interested in marriage,” he said. “Besides, Ma knows she can count on me to do the right thing in the end. It’s you she doesn’t trust.” He pointed at her as he spoke these words. “She’s starting to think your only baby will be your college degree.”

  “There are worse things in the world,” she pointed out.

  The kitchen smelled of fresh-baked bread and pasta flour; her uncle had been making fettuccine and the noodles were drying all around her. Her brother, who had volunteered to help make cinnamon rolls this morning, was now wearing his firefighter’s t-shirt as he prepared to leave for his overnight shift, eating the last of the leftover manicotti in addition to his bowlful of cereal. Natalie rolled her eyes at the sight.

  “I hope this Jake isn’t like the usual losers you date,” said Roberto.

  “You won’t have to meet him, so don’t worry.”

  The door to the kitchen opened and a deliveryman in a green company uniform struggled inside, wheeling a hand truck from which he deposited two heavy burlap bags of flour in the corner. “Ciao,” he greeted them—focusing on Natalie in particular—in Italian, although the deliveryman’s heritage lay elsewhere. She pretended to be busy studying too hard to notice. “How’s it going, Roberto?” he asked.

  “Hey, Brayden,” said Roberto. “Is that the pastry flour Ma’s been dying for?”

  “If you sent for it, I brought it,” he said. “You’re my last stop of the day, so I’ll even stock it in the pantry for you, if you want.”

  “That would be great,” Roberto said. “I’ll open up the doors.” He pushed the storeroom doors wide for the deliveryman, who brought in two more loads of flour, the organic stone-ground kind her mother preferred for certain special recipes. With a grunt, he lifted them on top of the heap, close to the big automated grinder the Grenaldis sometimes used to make their own flour from imported whole grain.

  “So… Natalie. How’s classes?” On his way back from the pantry, the deliveryman had paused to linger by the table where Natalie was studying. He looked over her shoulder at the open page of her textbook, which outlined the history of post-war French silk.

  “Okay,” she answered. Go away, she added silently.

  “I’ll bet you’re at the top of the class, aren’t you?” he said. “I know you. You wouldn’t be happy otherwise. In school, whenever somebody got ahead, you’d work hard to catch up to them, even if you couldn’t—even in geometry, and you pretty much hated it.”

  “Yup.” She turned the page in her book.

  He waited, and when she didn’t say anything else, he added, “Silk fabric, huh?” He studied the page. “That’s… what’s it… Coco Chanel, right?”

  “Mmph,” she answered. “Good guess.”

  Brayden dawdled. “Design any new dresses lately?”

  “Not really.”

  “I remember that one you made for prom. I think of it when I see the ones in the windows on the Avenue all the time when I’m delivering stuff downtown—I went in that big designer’s showroom last week to deliver a couple of boxes. Did Robbie tell you? Goodman’s. You know it, right?”

  “Sure.” It was the most exclusive design house in the city, but Natalie’s attitude remained one of polite disinterest at this fact.

  “They had some of their new clothes on mannequins in the back—” Here, Natalie almost sneaked a look at him, but kept her eyes firmly rooted on the page instead. “It wasn’t anything that amazing. Their stuff can’t touch yours, and you’re still studying how to do it.”

  “Thanks.” Short answers should work, but they were failing once again. Didn’t he have to hurry home and shower? Eat dinner? Anything else but bother her while she was so clearly busy?

  Brayden shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He cleared his throat. “Did I tell you that I was thinking about taking some night classes?” he asked. A pause, which received only silence in reply. “I know I wasn’t that good at it in school, but I thought maybe I would give it a try just for fun…”

  “Speech class?” suggested Natalie sarcastically.

  Brayden laughed a little. Doesn’t he at least have the decency to be wounded? she thought.

  “I was talking about mechanical engineering,” he said. “I used to fool around in shop class, but I always wished I could be good at it. The company pays mechanics pretty good, see—you get promoted faster in mechanics than in delivery. Not that I’m thinking about changing, necessarily. Who knows?”

  “Good for you.”

  “Maybe you could give me some pointers on how I’d get started. Maybe who to talk to at the college?”

  “I think you should talk to the registrar’s office, not me,” pointed out Natalie.

  “Forget it, Brayden,” said Roberto, who was shrugging on his jacket. “She’s not interested. She doesn’t have time for average nice guys. I’m thinking maybe she was adopted and she’s not really Italian.”

  “Maybe I just want to be sure I end up with a guy who’s nothing like you, brother dearest,” said Natalie archly, sticking out her tongue at Roberto.

  Brayden laughed at this, too. “Seriously?” Natalie said to him, finally looking in his direction. “That was a terrible joke. You don’t have to laugh at it just because I said it, Brayden. Really.”

  “Guess I just have a bad sense of humor,” said Brayden, shrugging his shoulders. He gave her a smile—honest, hopeful, and every bit as terrible and homely as his sense of humor.

  His hopefulness was typical, as were the rumples in his uniform, the smell of exhaust from his truck’s muffler, and the ink stains from his delivery sheet’s pen. Brayden had splattered his fingers and his shirt with his leaky pen again, she noticed. He had the worst luck and the dumbest accidents, marking him as one of karma’s biggest losers, but Brayden was a persistent optimist—even after he had given her a handful of dandelions in the second-grade playground and she had left them to wilt on the swing seat as a not-so-subtle expression of rejection.

  “I have to go,” she said, closing her book and gathering up her things. “I have to pick up my stuff at Kandace’s before I go to class. She’ll want me out of the studio loft as soon as she knows I’m quitting.”

  “You’re leaving Kandace?” asked Roberto.

  “I am,” she said. “The business I’m starting got a paying gig, so I’ve decided to take it as a sign.”

  “But to quit your job after getting one lousy event,” said Roberto, with a half-smile of brotherly concern and sheer amazement. “What if nobody else hires you?”

  “They will,” said Natalie, grinning slightly. “ I could probably get a part-time job at the bridal rental boutique, using her place as storage, if nothing else. So long as they don’t know about the suit I borrowed, at least.” She could work at a dozen different places in town, from her family’s bakery to her cousin’s restaurant—none of them were in the fashion world, true, but they would pay the bills.

  “You started a business? Robbie, you didn’t tell me about this. Hey, congratulations, Nat!” said Brayden. “I always knew you’d do something great. I wish you had said something before. I would have gotten you something for luck, or maybe a congratulatory gift—”

  “Not necessary,” said Natalie shortly. “I gotta go. Take care.” She made her escape with her books and her bag. If Roberto dared to snicker, she would pinch h
im black and blue later.

  * * *

  Kandace’s gaze was neither teasing nor admiring as Natalie packed up her workspace at the studio. The designer was fuming silently, a death glare focused on her now ex-employee, who was reflecting with relief on her lucky escape from having to help Cal put together the latest weird asymmetrical tunics made of shiny Lycra. The one pinned on the mannequin looked like a tight version of Scrooge’s nightshirt.

  “Two years I’ve let you work here, and what do you do?” Kandace asked. “You walk out without so much as giving notice. Turn your back on me in my crisis of need so you can go clean tuxedos for a living.”

  With a snort of outrage, she slammed some random supplies into the box. Natalie’s ladybug stapler, and the wobbly fabric cutter that Natalie knew was the studio’s, since hers was newer and nicer—and probably now appropriated by her ex-employer, like a million other sewing tools of Natalie’s ownership.

  “I need a new start, Kandace.” Natalie tossed her scissors and her wrist pincushion into the box. “You’ve never been happy with my work—I thought you’d be thrilled to see me go.”

  “Lose my seamstress at my busiest time? Nat, listen to me: what you lack in design talent you make up for in technical skill. You’re amazing at executing a design. You were born to be an assistant. This is because of Eduardo, isn’t it? He’s been threatening to steal you away since the Street Spirit show, just because his creepy little assistant wanted to be a novelist—”

  “I’m not going to work for another designer,” Natalie answered. “I need a change. I know what you’re saying, but I’m not sure that I’m cut out to be an assistant. I want to try something else for a while. I’m starting my own business.”

  “Doing what?” Kandace laughed forcefully. “I hope you don’t believe you’ve got what it takes to design, Natalie. I thought we’d finally made some progress on the difference between art and imitations. Really, honey. I didn’t think you were that stupid.” She rolled her eyes as she ripped one of Natalie’s sketches off the wall, leaving a piece of it stuck beneath the thumbtack.