The Bride (The Boss) (43 page)

My chest hurt. His declaration was at once touching and terrifying. He’d known me for only a few hours then. He’d been able to choose staying with me in that hotel room over his magazine—and
Auto Watch
was as much his baby as Emma was—but he hadn’t been able to stay with me when he thought it meant my future was at stake.

“Are you…” I frowned. How would I put this? “Neil, this thing with the wedding. Are you running out of the hotel room again?”

He looked away. “I think so. Perhaps I’m always going to be caught between wanting you, and trusting myself to want you within reason.”

“So stop second-guessing yourself.” I put my hand on his knee. “And stop worrying about what you think is best for me. I’m the girl who was going to run away to Tokyo without any money and without speaking a word of Japanese. Do you think I don’t know my own mind? Okay, I don’t always make the best decisions, but this isn’t one of those times. I love you. You have cold feet. Fine. If you don’t want to set a date yet, that’s fine. I just want to be with you. If it means never getting married—”

“I want to marry you,” he interrupted. “I want the white-picket-fence life—sans the two point five, of course—but it terrifies me. I’ve never done this right. I was so sure of things when I proposed to you. I’m sure of buying a house and settling down with you. It isn’t like when I married Elizabeth.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“Why did you marry Elizabeth?” I thought I already knew the answer, but I wasn’t sure he did.

He blew out a long breath. “I suppose I married her because…I thought she was as good a chance as any at happiness. I was never going to see you again, I didn’t even know how to contact you. I couldn’t very well track you down like some demented stalker, could I? So, I settled for a woman I did love. Just not as much as I loved you.”

“And you want to marry me because you want to marry me. And that’s all.” It seemed so simple, now that we’d talked about it. I wished we had before. “It sounds like there’s a pretty big difference. There are no ulterior motives behind it, no settling. You proposed to me because you love me. You finally have the woman you want, and you’re afraid of her? That doesn’t sound right.”

He glanced at the window again then back at me. “There are times when I am deeply shamed that although you’re half my age, you have twice the emotional maturity that I do.”

“Ooh, be careful, Elwood. That’s something I can use against you in future arguments.” The knot of uncertainty in my chest eased even more. It hadn’t untied completely, but at least it was a loose loop that could be shaken out. I took his hand and lifted it to my lips to kiss his knuckles.

He chuckled. “I suspect that was something you already knew.”

“It was.” I tried to hide my smile, but I was so relieved to get all of this out in the open. “I think Emma’s cold feet are catching.”

“I think you might be right. I’m sure it’s no secret that I’m not enthusiastic at the prospect of losing my daughter to Michael—”

“Hey, you said ‘Michael,’ not ‘Horrible Michael! You’re making progress,” I congratulated him.

“Yes, thank you, Sophie, truly I am making great strides.” His tone was dry as unbuttered toast. “As I was saying, I can’t help but wonder if my sudden reluctance doesn’t have to do with the fact that everything is changing. Moving from the city, retiring, turning fifty. It’s a bit of an upheaval.”

“Well, it’s all different for me, too. Remember at Christmas, how we said no big changes?” I shrugged. “We’re not very good at following rules. Either of us.”

He chuckled, but it was a wary sort of sound.

“I want to go to my future stepdaughter‘s wedding tomorrow, with my future husband,” I continued. “I want to stand there and think, ‘what lovely flower arrangements, let’s do that for ours.’ I want to be Neil Elwood’s fiancée. I wouldn’t have said ‘yes’ if I didn’t want that.”

He squeezed our interlaced fingers and said, with a shaky breath, “I want that, too.”

I reached for him, he reached for me, and we held each other as though we’d crossed a physical distance, instead of an emotional one.

The Natural History museum was one of those iconic buildings I’d passed many times, but never actually been inside of until the night of Emma’s rehearsal. I’d been impressed then, but seeing how they handled a wedding was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The ceremony took place in the Powerhouse, a quasi-industrial space with a separate entrance from the museum. Beneath the black ceiling and exposed fixtures, contradictory greenery and camellia branches flourished. Even the chairs were dressed with decorative vines, ingeniously wrapped so as not to stain the guests’ clothing. It was like a New York fairytale forest, fit for a thoroughly American—despite her birthplace—princess.

And when Emma walked down the aisle…

She wore a French vintage dress from the 1930’s, layers upon layers of soft beige chiffon, with sheer sleeves and ruffled cuffs. The neckline was a wide V, and soft, limp ruffles hung from it, down her shoulders to a cowl back. There wasn’t a train so much as a puddle of fabric on the floor that slithered like liquid with every step. Instead of a veil, she wore faux seed pearls on strands of her tousled blonde bob, and her makeup was minimal and natural.

She was the most beautiful bride I’d ever seen. Maybe I was biased, because she was Emma, and I loved her.

Neil and I were beside Valerie in the front row. As the mother of the bride, Valerie had been seated mercifully last, so we hadn’t had to speak to her. Still, I couldn’t begrudge her the looks of pride she and Neil shared as their daughter stepped up before the officiant and beamed at Michael.

Neil took my hand and held it between us, lacing our fingers together. He squeezed, almost too hard, and I realized he was trying to remain stoic and proud, rather than break down sobbing. I wondered if the handkerchief in the lapel pocket of his tailcoat was just for show. When Michael recited the vows he’d written himself—promising Emma that he would stand by her side through sunshine and through storm, declaring that the love they shared would help them overcome any challenge—I got the answer to my question. Neil surreptitiously dabbed at his eyes, and when Valerie reached over and patted his arm, I did not lunge at her and rip her throat out like a feral dog. I got it. They had created a beautiful person together, and she had found the one human being on Earth who would love her as much as they did. I couldn’t help but be touched to see them so happy for their daughter.

Neil and Valerie really did have a bond that would never go away. That didn’t threaten my life with him. It didn’t excuse her terrible behavior, either. It was what it was, and if the choice was between having to deal with Valerie’s presence in Neil’s life, or Emma just not existing, I was going to pick Emma every time.

As anyone who knew her would have expected, Emma’s vows were much more practical. There was a framework of “in sickness and health” behind them, but with touches that were pure Emma.

“I can’t swear to you that I’ll never roll my eyes when you wear socks to bed, or that I’ll tolerate your morning cheerfulness in good humor every day of our life together,” she promised through tears. “But I will always love you, and I will always put our happiness as a family first.”

She broke down then, and my heart ached for her, because I knew, as Neil did, and as Michael did, that Emma feared they would never have the family they wanted. To anyone else, they were happy tears from an overjoyed bride, and there was no reason anyone should have thought otherwise.

Michael reached up to brush a tear from her cheek with his thumb, and the gesture was so natural and loving that my heart skipped a beat. If ever there were a truly great romance, Emma and Michael had to be it.

Instead of exchanging rings, they had chosen to light a unity candle together, to symbolize the joining of their lives into one. I’d never been to a wedding where the bride and groom lit the candle on their own, and it was a meaningful twist.

When the officiant declared, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” I looked up at Neil. A tear track gleamed on his cheek, and more glittered unshed in his eyes. There was pride there, and sorrow. Because it was final. It was as though in those words, he finally saw Emma as a grown woman who didn’t need him in the same way she had when she’d been a little girl. I thought of the pictures in our house, of Emma as a baby in her father’s arms, moments after she was born, and as a five-year-old with impossibly white blonde pigtails on the first day of school. And as I watched him watching his daughter kiss her new husband at the start of their life together, I saw him reluctantly laying those versions of Emma to rest. So, it was a touch patriarchal of him to recognize her as a grown-up only when she’d become a wife, but the twenty-five years between us was a long time, and I had to be somewhat forgiving of our views not lining exactly up.

As Emma and Michael half-ran their giddy way up the aisle to the strains of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” a rain of pale paper butterflies drifted from the ceiling.

I nudged Neil with my arm. “You okay?”

His smile was a little too quick in response to be entirely genuine. “Oh, yes. It was a lovely ceremony.”

That was the staunch Englishman side of him, one that I didn’t see very often anymore. “It’s okay to show emotion, you know,” I teased. “Your daughter just got married.”

“If I start showing emotion, it will all come flooding out and you’ll have to carry me to the reception.”

I’d assumed that during the photos, I’d be hanging out in the Roosevelt Rotunda with the other guests. I wouldn’t be needed, after all. Everyone who would be involved lingered behind the other guests, and when everyone else had gone, Emma and Michael emerged from their secret hiding room. Being waylaid by well-wishers would have eaten up precious time for photos and left reception guests waiting, she’d explained at the rehearsal, and I’d made a mental note for my own wedding.

As soon as they saw Emma, Neil and Valerie rushed over to her for hugs and a chorus of parental pride. I gave them space, only approaching Emma for a hug when she noticed me. Careful not to step on her dress, I gave her a gentle squeeze, so as not to crinkle her chiffon. “You look amazing!”

“Thank you.” She smoothed her hair, cautious of the pearls, and self-consciously straightened her neckline. “That means a lot, coming from someone who knows so much about fashion.”

Awww.
Emma rarely praised people, which meant that when she did, it was genuine. Also, that she was able to lower her guard around them.

“Okay, can I get the bride and her parents?” the photographer called, and the three of them moved so quickly it was comical.

Emma called, “Oh, my bouquet, Amanda, my bouquet!” to her maid of honor, as though she were a surgeon calling for a crucial instrument in a tense operation. Amanda, in the floaty white a-line shift dress uniform of the bridal attendants—the glittery Swarovski crystal and gold thread embroidered collars were to die for—scooted across the floor on the balls of her feet in her stiletto heels, like a person carrying a bomb. Both Neil and Valerie reached for the bundle of baby pink roses at the same time, and the whole thing was frantic and amusing.

I turned, shaking my head and trying to cover my giggles as I headed toward the door. Neil and Valerie were good parents, but wow, did they spoil their daughter.

“Sophie?” Emma called.

I pointed to the door. “Cocktail hour! Open bar. Munchies.”

She did a little half-frown, half-smile of confusion. “Yes, and…pictures. You can’t take off.”

Valerie’s eyebrows went up, and she forced a painful looking expression. For his part, Neil looked pleasantly stunned.

“I didn’t think… I mean…” I didn’t know what to say. She wanted me in her pictures? Her wedding pictures? Just a year ago, she’d hated me.

She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re going to marry my dad. You’re my family. Let me get this one with them, and then one with all of you.”

The photographer snapped a few shots of them, a gorgeous, happy family, and then, as Emma gestured from her elbow to speed me along, I stepped up onto the dais and stood beside Neil.

With my family.

* * * *

The dinner and dancing took place in the Hall of Ocean Life, under the museum’s iconic blue whale. Guests mingled at tables and two open bars on the upper level, and on the lower level, long dinner tables ringed a dance floor. A six-piece band, headed by a male singer with a smooth, silky voice, entertained while the elaborate vegan dinner was served.

The cake—also vegan, naturally—was a tower of white frosting and flakes of coconut decorating the layers of lime- and mango-flavored spongy deliciousness. I wondered if the bride’s family got to have more than one piece. I didn’t
really
think of Emma as my stepdaughter, but I was willing to pull that card if it meant I got to try both kinds of cake.

Emma and Michael danced their first dance as husband and wife to the band performing Billy Joel’s “Everybody Has a Dream.” I knew Emma had dragged Michael to dance lessons, but it seemed natural and not choreographed, and I watched them with the same rapt romantic fascination with which I’d watched Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip twirl around their Disney ballroom when I was a child.

Neil danced with Emma, as proud as any father could possibly be of his daughter, and I was struck with such a deep, sharp sadness at the realization that there would be no father-daughter dance at my wedding. It hadn’t been important to me, or even a thought, until that moment. I had to blink back a few tears.

Rose drove up in her electric wheelchair and set her brake beside me. “If you’re going to be my daughter,” she began, apropos of nothing, “then I need to know a little more about you without my son interfering.”

“Oh, um.” I crinkled my brow. I wasn’t sure I didn’t need some kind of test prep for this. “I’m an open book, so go ahead.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, but didn’t address that. “Where are you from?”