One Day Like This: A feel-good summer romance Page 9

  “Besides, he was dating a girl in my class back then,” said Jaidev. “Faye Wilcombe. He married her in Las Vegas a couple of years ago when he took that job designing security software for casinos.”

  Ama could have predicted her mother’s worried mutterings at this statement. Vikram had rejected his whole culture, in her eyes, from choosing a sixth-generation American girl who didn’t eat rice or yogurt to marrying in a neon wedding chapel—with no saris, bridal jewelry, vermillion powder, rituals and ceremonies, or families involved at all.

  “You could meet a nice boy this way,” coaxed Ranjit. “Maybe he would even work here instead of in his family’s business. You could bake for him, if you want to bake. That would be nice, yes?”

  “It’s not just about changes,” sighed Ama. “It’s about doing what I want. Meeting a person that I want to love. I want to make my own decisions, and I don’t want to meet someone just because you want me to be married.”

  Her father shook his head. “I’m putting the ad in the paper,” he said. “It’s time we began trying to find a good match.” A chorus of groans and murmurs of approval from the divided sides of Ama’s family followed.

  “Fine,” said Ama. “But I’m not going on a date with some boy just to make you happy.”

  “You’ll change your mind,” said her mother.

  “You’re wasting your time and your money,” said Ama. She reached for a mixing bowl and the bottle of milk from the fridge to begin making gulab jamun for the dessert menu. The little milk dough balls needed time to soak in their sugar syrup before they were served.

  “Told you,” said Jaidev to their father archly.

  Clearly, it was going to take some time to persuade them she was right, Ama reflected. But if her parents thought the answer lay in a matchmaking site, they had better think again.

  * * *

  “So. Bad news,” said Tessa. “Stefan has dropped out.”

  The shock on her two remaining partners’ faces was every bit as awful as she had expected. All weekend long, she had rehearsed what to say—and how to say it calmly—but the practice was all in vain.

  “What?” said Natalie with horror.

  “What happened?” demanded Ama.

  “Well… as it happens… he got a job in Paris. Some fantastic opportunity he couldn’t pass up, apparently,” said Tessa. “I tried to change his mind but… he’s kind of already gone.”

  Hurrying through this last part didn’t make it better, since both of her listeners were panicking. “Now what are we going to do?” Natalie asked.

  “It’s not the worst news in the world,” said Tessa. “We still have time to find a fourth partner before we open. Stefan can’t really be the only wedding planner in this city who’s unhappy with their job and is dying for a change.”

  “But what if we don’t find one?” Ama worried. In the background, a terrible crash resounded as the contractor ripped the walls from their future kitchen.

  “We will,” promised Tessa, trying to sound reassuring and not at all desperate. “I’ll call some contacts today, and maybe Natalie can try a few of hers.”

  “I don’t know anybody except some wannabe fashion designers,” said Natalie. “Not many event planners call on Kandace’s talents, for very obvious reasons.”

  “What about a florist?” asked Ama. “Or a caterer. What if—” Her next remark was drowned out by a sound resembling a jackhammer shattering concrete.

  “Hold on. I’ll ask him to stop for a while,” said Tessa. As if it made any difference at this point how long it was before they had a kitchen that met the city building codes—both Natalie and Ama were already having doubts about this plan ever succeeding, even before Stefan chose to abandon them. And now Tessa was starting to feel the same way; a lack of confidence that this would ever work out. A lump swelled in her throat, but there was no way she was going to cry about this now. Not in front of the handyman, anyway.

  She entered the main foyer, and that’s when she discovered they had company. An elderly woman in a sweater and long skirt was wandering around in their future reception room, an uncertain expression on her face. She paused to admire the old mantel, one hand touching it as the other clutched an oversized purse that reminded Tessa of her grandmother’s old knitting bag.

  The visitor looked small and thin, but not frail—and there was a certain determination in her gaze that made Tessa think this wasn’t an escaped invalid happening upon their unlocked front door, but a person who was well aware of their surroundings and their purpose in coming here.

  “Hello?” said Tessa. “Are you looking for someone?” With their luck, she would be one of the building’s former owners, come to announce they were in possession of its true deed.

  The woman turned around. “I am looking for—for—” She hesitated. “I don’t remember his name. I don’t know him. His name is on this piece of paper, but I have left my eyeglasses at home by mistake.”

  She fumbled through her purse for either the glasses or the slip of paper—eventually producing the latter—then smiled at Tessa apologetically. “A friend told me that I should talk to him because he is the best at weddings, and I am insisting upon the best.” Her accent was foreign, but her English was clear.

  The piece of paper in her hand was printed from Stefan’s online profile—his real name in a smaller font beneath ‘THE WEDDING GURU,’ spelled out in giant gilded lettering. It also listed this building’s address and its disconnected landline under his contact information. Stefan had apparently forgotten to erase those changes when he interviewed for the Paris job.

  So he had considered having clients call him by that nickname after all.

  “I see,” said Tessa, her heart sinking. “But—the thing is—”

  “My friend said he is the very best,” repeated the woman emphatically. “Do you know where I can find him? He arranged her son’s wedding. She said he was a man, very smart, very… what is the word… artistic? He’s expensive, I’m sure, but I can pay—” Here, she dug into her purse and produced a decorative antique cookie tin, painted blue with two birds on the lid. From beneath the lid’s edge, part of a folded green dollar bill was protruding.

  Those traces of a foreign accent in her voice—maybe they were Italian, Tessa thought at first; or maybe Eastern European, on second thought. The tin rattled, as if it contained both coins and bills.

  “I have saved for sixty years,” said the woman proudly. “Now I have my chance. My daughter said ‘no’ when she was young… but I will have my chance now that her son has found the right girl. Paolo’s wedding will be the very best.” Her smile was bright, brimming with eagerness to begin discussing her plans. “I promised his mother. I promised myself.”

  Stefan was on the other side of the ocean; there was no way he was coming back to plan the wedding of this woman’s grandson. She seemed so desperate, so keen, that Tessa didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth.

  “Well…” she said. “You’ve certainly come to the right place.” If it were a few days ago, that is, when Stefan still worked here, she wanted to add, but didn’t. “The planner you’re looking for was supposed to be here today—”

  “Should I come back?” asked the woman eagerly. “I thought I could talk to him today. I thought—if he had time—I would show him some of the ideas I have saved for the wedding.” From the pocket of her sweater came an envelope filled with clippings from magazines, snatches of bright flowers and decorative table settings. “I wanted to surprise Paolo and Molly with some special things.”

  Tessa’s mind was racing for excuses. “I’ll tell him, of course,” she said. “And I’m sure… if you come back in a day or two, he’ll be here. He’d be thrilled to see your ideas.”

  “Will he?” said the woman. “I am so glad. I want everything to be perfect. I will pay whatever he wants, for it will be only the best for them.”

  That tin probably only contained a few hundred dollars; maybe a couple of thousand were saved in it
at most. Not a single wedding firm in town would take up this woman’s offer… although probably her grandson and his fiancée were paying for part of it, too, Tessa reflected. The grandmother just wanted to contribute some money toward a few special things, like she said.

  And if they didn’t have a planner yet…

  “I’ll give you our number so you can call and make an appointment,” said Tessa, handing her a business card, and making a mental note to plug in the business phone right away. “We can talk about what you want for your family’s wedding.”

  “Thank you,” said the woman, tucking it happily in her purse. She clasped Tessa’s hand in both of her own. “I’m so grateful. I will come back. I cannot wait to begin. I knew you would help me. You look so kind.” She patted Tessa’s hand with one of her own, then released her. “I will call soon.” She glanced around the foyer as she opened the door. “You are… not moving away, are you?” she asked, puzzled.

  “No. New location,” said Tessa hastily. “Just moved in. We haven’t finished unpacking yet.” She smiled and waved as the door closed behind their would-be client.

  “Are you nuts?” Natalie was in the doorway behind her, arms crossed. The steel edge in her voice was unmistakable. She had heard everything—the look on her face was one of scathing disbelief and disapproval.

  Tessa sighed. “You saw her, Nat,” she said. “No one else is going to take her seriously. She just wants to give her grandson a little something nice. Besides, we could use a client—if the odds are in favor of her grandson and granddaughter-in-law actually picking us.”

  “But Stefan’s gone,” said Natalie. “She only wants to talk to him. ‘The best,’ as her friend informed her, who’s now working for some Parisian firm, probably. What are you going to tell her when she makes an appointment and wants to see him instead of us?”

  “I don’t know,” Tessa admitted. “Maybe Stefan could recommend someone else—”

  “While he’s busy setting up a new life in Paris? Get real, Tessa. That weasel dumped this opportunity for that other job in a heartbeat. There’s no way you can depend on him to help us now.”

  “Right,” Tessa muttered reluctantly, even though she knew it was probably true. Her eye wandered toward the hallway in search of a distraction from her worries. She caught a glimpse of the handyman through the kitchen doorway as he unrolled a thick coil of electrical wire.

  “Wait a minute,” Tessa said to Natalie softly. “Maybe… maybe there’s another way to make it work. So she does meet our wedding planner extraordinaire—or someone she thinks is him, at least.”

  “What do you mean?” Natalie asked. But she followed Tessa’s gaze and saw the handyman too.

  “No—” she began.

  “Why not?” Tessa’s voice was hushed, for fear of being overheard. “He’ll be here. He’s here every day. All he has to do is smile and say a few words and this woman will be happy that she spoke to ‘the best.’”

  “Him?” said Natalie.

  “I don’t know. I think it could work,” said Tessa, tilting her gaze as she studied the contractor anew. He would probably look good in a suit, she reflected. Broad shoulders, nice height. A little help taming that hair, but still…

  Knock it off, she told herself. This was business, after all. Her business—and if she was going to keep it from shutting down before it even got off the ground, she would need some extreme measures. A Stefan substitute to keep them afloat for one precious job might be the only way.

  “If he’s not in a tool belt, she won’t know the difference,” said Tessa. “Besides, she’ll be heartbroken if she goes to another planner in town with those clippings and that cookie tin of dollar bills and they turn her away. You know they will, too.”

  “So we convince her that ‘the best’ planner in town works for chicken feed?” said Natalie.

  “It’s not as if Stefan was really the best, was he?” argued Tessa. Stefan had been the junior planner at Wedding Wonders for only a year at most, despite his burgeoning reputation in Bellegrove’s wedding community. “We’re talking about one afternoon’s performance to make someone happy.”

  “What’s going on?” Ama was still in the sitting room, perusing job listings via the wireless internet connection, which she hastily closed when they reappeared. Tessa saw it before the lid of the laptop closed: “wanted” ads for help at local bakeries, as the cupcake pictures made apparent. That was not a vote of confidence in their future.

  Tessa and Natalie exchanged glances. “Do you want to tell her about your idea?” said Natalie.

  Ama listened with surprise, skepticism, then a look of incredulity, until Tessa’s suggestion was fully formed. “You want our handyman to pretend to be an experienced wedding planner?” she said. “For an old lady whose life savings fit in a cookie box?”

  “It’s one afternoon,” said Tessa. “Probably her family will balk at the idea of hiring us and we’ll never see her again. But if for some reason they’re interested, why couldn’t we handle the details? They’re not hiring a planner, they’re hiring a firm. An affordable firm, obviously. Us, the all-in-one package.”

  “She said that?”

  “She will, after ‘the best’ of wedding planners tells her to do it, right?” said Natalie, not completely without sarcasm.

  “Does anyone here have a better plan?” challenged Tessa. “A better way for us to get a client, now that our only experienced partner is gone? A better way to break it to that sweet little old lady that the event planner recommended to her just moved to France? I couldn’t do it, but maybe one of you won’t mind disappointing her.”

  She waited for either of them to volunteer. Ama looked uneasy. “Are you sure she’s not just a little mixed up?” she ventured. “Maybe she wandered in by mistake?”

  “She seemed sane to me,” said Tessa. “A little clueless about how the modern wedding scene works since she’s so fixated on having Stefan… but that’s just her taste, maybe.”

  “Ugh. A man who actually created ‘cupcake tinsel’ for a wedding.” Natalie stuck out her tongue as she made a face of repulsion.

  “I guess that’s why she asked someone to point her in the right direction,” concluded Tessa, as if her friend hadn’t spoken. “It was just bad luck for her that her friend’s raved-about event was planned by Wedding Wonders.”

  They were all three quiet now. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let her think we have a fourth partner who’s planned a wedding or two,” said Ama reluctantly.

  “Like you said, her family probably won’t hire us anyway,” said Natalie grimly. “As if they can afford to hire anybody with chump change from a cookie tin.”

  “But we would definitely be cheaper than any other firm in town,” said Ama. “Although we are a little short on capital right now.” To punctuate her statement came the sound of a sledgehammer punching through plaster and drywall in the kitchen. “Not that it matters, since we won’t actually be working for her.”

  The sound of debris crumbing to the floor on the other side of the wall followed.

  “What’s his name?” asked Ama. “The contractor.” They were all looking in the direction of the future kitchen, thinking the same thing right now.

  “Blake Ellingham,” said Tessa.

  “That’s a nice name,” said Ama.

  “Very professional,” said Natalie. “Like Downton Abbey or something.”

  “I think the client would like it,” said Tessa. “It sounds better than Stefan Groeder, when you think about it.”

  Another pause. “So who wants to tell him?” asked Natalie.

  Blake was whistling as he wove several separate wire strands into the ones sticking out of a wall socket, pausing when he noticed the three of them in the kitchen doorway. He offered them a polite smile.

  “Something I can do for you?” he asked. As if sensing something was already amiss, the handyman’s smile became both uncertain and slightly suspicious.

  “Actually,” began Tessa. “
There is.”

  Nine

  By the time Tessa had found a phone and plugged it into the business’s landline, the surprise client was ready to phone their number, wasting no time. An appointment for one Bianca Fazolli and family for the next afternoon.

  “I can’t believe someone is this eager to meet us,” said Tessa, as she rushed to make the foyer look more presentable—that is, by removing all boxes from sight and hanging up a few paintings borrowed from her apartment. “Whatever that family friend said about Stefan, it must have painted him to be a genius.” She kicked a fake Asian rug over one of the floor’s worst spots.

  “Is he?” asked Ama, as she pushed a small love seat against the sitting room’s wall and tried to disguise its worn cushions beneath a rich, velvety sofa shawl that usually adorned one of Tessa’s apartment chairs. “You know him best of anybody here. And you seem to like him, at least a little bit.”

  “Not really,” admitted Tessa. “On either score.” Although he would seem brilliant next to his stand-in when it came to flowers and fondant, probably. “Natalie’s right in the fact that Stefan is a little… well… showy.” His crowning achievement was his Cinderella wedding, which was probably what earned him the Paris opportunity. Pictures of the bride in her glass carriage and her dream fairytale cake had flooded the planner’s Pinterest board for weeks afterward. “It wows people, sure. But it also seems a little impersonal. Glittery. Created to impress for the sake of someone’s big ego, not their special dreams.”

  She stopped here, because it sounded ridiculous to talk about Stefan’s work this way. It wasn’t as if she had done anything better herself, was it? At least Stefan’s clients had been happy with the results, even if their big day resembled an over-frosted cupcake.

  Natalie bustled through the front door, carrying a garment bag. “Sorry I’m late,” she began. “A big garment shipment arrived today, and I was trying to help Cal sort them into the storage room.”