Wedding Survivor (23 page)

"And I guess you know so much about it based on your own movie career, Alicia?" Mrs. Campbell shot back.

"Am I wrong, Marnie?" Mrs. Donaldson insisted. "These Hollywood types go through sex partners like water unless they land some huge superstar. Am I right?"

"I, ah… Honestly, Mrs. Donaldson, I don't know," Marnie insisted as her stomach slid down to her toes. "And I really don't know anything about Jude Law." But she did know about Eli. She knew right that very moment that it had just happened to her. Of course that was what happened to her. Eli had probably slept with more starlets and makeup girls than he could probably count any longer, and here she was, stupid little wedding planner, thinking it could actually turn into something more.

In the moment of her epiphany, she dropped her purse. "Marnie, what is the matter with you?" Mom asked when her lipstick came rolling across the floor. "Nothing, Mom," she said and bent to pick it up.

THEY flew out on the company plane, Jack at the helm and Michael as copilot. That left Eli in the back, presumably with a script to read, and in the hopes of actually accomplishing something, it was on his lap. But he wasn't reading the script. How could he? Marnie's smiling face kept dancing before his eyes.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes, then tried to focus on the script again.

No use. He couldn't stop thinking about how disappointed she'd been when he'd left. Damn it, this was exactly what happened when you let your guard down and slept with good-looking women. There were suddenly too many expectations, too many rules popping up like prairie dogs all around you.

Okay, right, there were too many expectations, but if he was honest, he'd admit he hadn't felt quite like this since Trish. But even still, this wasn't the same as it had been with Trish, not by a long shot. With Trish, there'd been a physical thing going on—he'd felt like he'd been hit with a two-by-four right the first time he'd clapped eyes on her. It had started off as an instant, gotta-get-in-her-pants thing. Clicking with her afterward had been the icing on the cake.

Or so he thought. Apparently, -he had been doing more clicking than Trish.

With Marnie, it was something that had started inside him and had worked its way up to the physical. And that was not to say that he hadn't thoroughly enjoyed their little romp. Nope, it had been pretty spectacular when he thought about it. Which he did quite often. But in the beginning, he'd thought she was a fine-looking woman—but it hadn't been the two-by-four-between-the-eyes good-looking. His physical attraction to her had grown over time. And then
wham
. Right in the sack.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What was he going to do with her now? Women, for the most part, could not do a one-time shot, he knew from experience. And while he'd enjoyed their romp, he was not ready for a relationship. There were still days he couldn't get out of bed without feeling like a putz. That putz feeling had been joined by an equally bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that this was not the right thing to do, that it would end badly.

There were only two ways this could go—if it was great with Marnie, then eventually she'd want something more permanent. She was a wedding planner, for chrissakes. But he could not go there. He'd gotten the universal cosmic sign that long-term relationships and marriage were not his thing.

That left this thing with Marnie going south, and it could go south in a heartbeat. They might even have a few fun times before it went south, but then one of them would piss the other off, and really, he was not in a position to risk potentially the biggest gig of T.A.'s existence because he'd left his dirty socks on her floor or something like that. No, ethically, he really couldn't go there.

There was nothing to be done for it. He felt himself shrinking up, turning into a tight little ball, and he knew that he had to go back to L.A. and tell that very attractive, vibrant, and funny woman that they'd had a fling, but that was all there was to it.

He was not looking forward to it in the least, and he made a mental note that crap like this was a very good reason why he should keep his pants zipped.

OLIVIA was seriously starting to drive Marnie nuts. She called several times a day, almost always in a crisis, and almost always in her
WonderGirl
suit. "Can you come to the set?" she'd beg.

Today she had called between scenes to say, "I just don't think the starlight thing is going to work."

Yeah, well, the starlight thing
had
to work. They'd ordered linens and crystal and Olivia had insisted on buying all those Baccarat crystal bowls in which they intended to float the star candles. Marnie had spent
hours
working with a floral designer and stage manager to learn how to suspend hundreds of white rosebuds from the top of the black reception pavilion ceiling to simulate stars. How could it not work?

So Marnie had driven to the set and argued with the security guy for thirty minutes—again—until he finally consented to call Olivia (and the fact that Olivia or Lucy, for chrissakes, couldn't leave Marnie's name at the goddamn gate was really beginning to annoy her).

Predictably, Olivia was in the trailer with Lucy, the assistant who did very little assisting as far as Marnie could see.

"I just think it's been done to death," Olivia said as she lay with a cloth over her eyes between takes. "My second cousin Irene just did starlight."

"But she didn't do starlight like you're? going to do starlight. Think of the canopy of hundreds of tiny little stars that are actually rosebuds. How cool is that?" Marnie tried.

"Yeah, you're right… but Irene will think I am copying her."

"Is she invited?"

"No."

"Then she won't know."

"How can she not know? The press will be all over it!"

"No, no, Olivia, no they won't. Remember—that's why you hired Thrillseekers Anonymous. Your privacy is pretty much guaranteed."

Olivia considered that for a moment. "I guess you're right. Okay. We can do starlight. But I'll tell you the truth, Marnie—I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this whole thing."

"Pre-wedding jitters," Marnie said confidently. "Everyone gets them. You'll be fine. You're going to spend a week with Vince in the rugged beauty of the Colorado mountains, and then you are going to marry him under an arch and the stars. It will be gorgeous."

"It will be gorgeous, won't it?" Olivia asked hopefully. "What do you think, Lucy?"

Lucy turned a stunned look to Marnie, then to Olivia. "I guess it sounds okay."

Marnie frowned at Lucy. Lucy shrugged and went back to studying her PDA. She was always studying her PDA. Marnie was beginning to suspect it was secretly a mirror.

"Well," Olivia said, lightening up a little. "If Lucy likes it, I guess I'm all right with it."

If
Lucy
likes it? The same woman Olivia refused to give even the time of day?

"That's great," Marnie said and stood. "So I need to ran. I've got to work on getting the roses into the U.S. Is there anything else?"

"Just one more thing," Olivia said. "I changed my mind about the music. Pop seems so… unweddingish. I think jazz would be good. Do you think jazz would be good?"

Marnie gripped her purse so tightly that her fingernails sunk into the leather. But she forced a smile to her face. "Did Irene have a jazz band?"

Olivia wrinkled her brow. "No. I think it was a rock band."

"Then I think jazz would be terrific. One jazz band, coming up!" she said jauntily as she inched toward the door. "I'll speak with you later, okay?"

"Oh, Marnie!" Olivia said* "I want to go see my spiritual advisor later after I'm done here for the day. Will you ride along? I was hoping we could chat about the bar. I've been thinking, and I'm not really comfortable with the wine selection."

She was never going to make it as a wedding planner to the stars.
Never
. If all of them changed their mind this much, she'd have to get a rope, string it from the crane they had outside to fly
WonderGirl
around, and jump.

"Marnie?"

"Sure! Just give me a ring when you're ready," she said, and grabbed the trailer door and pushed it open before she exploded. "Bye!" she called, but she was already out the door.

She marched to her car, threw her purse in, revved the engine, and tore off the studio lot. What had ever possessed her to be a wedding planner? If she ever got to have her own wedding, it was going to be so simple—a potential husband, a potential pastor, and some really great shoes. Period.

Her cell phone rang; with a grimace, she picked it up, flipped it open, and said, "Did you forget something?"

"I don't think so."

Eli
! Marnie's heart jumped up a notch, and she yanked the wheel into the commissary parking lot to talk. "Hey! How was the kite surfing?"

"Fabulous. It's the only way to go. Hurricane-force winds can really give you some loft."

She tried to picture him surfing wind, but could only see him in chaps.

"So what's going on at wedding central?"

"Well," she said cheerfully, "Olivia has changed her mind about a number of things, like the theme, and the music, and the food. But she hasn't changed her mind about the flowers, God no—she still wants thirty thousand white roses from Holland flown in. But hey, I have found a supplier in Amsterdam who will make it happen."

"Wow, that's really great. Personally, I'm happy for all the people of Hollands—it will probably boost their GNP by a thousand percent."

Marnie laughed.

"So… listen, we were going to have a couple of drinks, weren't we?"

"Yes, we were," she said, grinning broadly.

"I know it's short notice, but how about tonight?"

'Tonight would be
great
," she said, and she meant it.

"I'll pick you up around eight, then," he said.

"Great. I can't—" Whoa. She almost said,
can't wait to see you
, but caught herself just in the nick of time..

"Pardon?"

"Can't get away before then, but eight will be fine."

"Cool. See you then," he said, and hung up.

Marnie closed her phone. "Dude. What the hell was
that
about?" she asked herself, and drove on, picturing Eli with his spurs on, kite surfing. Except that he looked sort of stupid doing that, so she switched gears to how in the hell she was going to find a famous jazz band on such short notice.