Wedding Survivor (7 page)

She suppressed a squeal and snatched the phone from Mom's hand. "Hello?"

"Hello… ah, Marnie. Good news. You can't climb a rope, and you can't run very far, but you check out. So… you wanna do this wedding?"

"Yes!" she cried, and whirled around to her mother, who was, unfortunately, bent over, her head deep in the fridge. "Thank you! I'm thrilled, and I promise I'll do a great job for you. I have a lot of ideas—I was thinking that maybe we could attend a trade—"

"Ah, Marnie," he said, quietly interrupting her. "I'd save it for Olivia if I were you. It's all lost on me. So listen, let's get together tomorrow and go over some ground rules. Then I'll take you to meet Olivia."

Oh sweet Jesus, she was going to meet Olivia Dag-wood! "Great!" she chirped. Eli told her when and where to meet him and the very generous amount they thought to pay her; she silently danced around the kitchen, twirling around her mom, twirling right into the wall.

"So remember," Eli said, wrapping it up, "this is all hush-hush. No talking to your girlfriends about it, okay? I'll meet you tomorrow at the Blue Bamboo. You know where that is?"

"Yes, it's very close to my house, so I'll see you tomor-row around one!" she said, and clicked off the phone before tossing it onto the counter and turning to her mother, her arms wide open. "I got the job!" she shrieked.

"I knew you would!" Mom sang confidently as she opened a can of tuna. "I knew the minute they saw you they'd want to hire you."

"Mom
! I
am going to coordinate the wedding of
Vincent Vittorio
and
Olivia Dagwood.
¹
"

"I know! And I'm so excited for you! I told Linda you'd get the job."

Mamie's smile faded. "You told Linda Farrino?"

Mom clucked her tongue. "Of course I told Linda! She's my best friend!"

"But Mom! No one is supposed to know! It's a huge secret!"

"Yes, Marnie, I
know
," Mom said with a hint of exasperation. "I'm not some doddering old woman who doesn't remember what you tell me. I told Linda, but don't worry—she won't tell a soul."

Marnie wasn't so sure of that, but it was too late to worry. Besides, she had a bigger problem. What would she
wear
?

Really, what exactly
did
one wear to meet a huge international superstar? Olivia Dagwood would be dressed in something really fabulous, and Marnie… Well, one thing was certain; she was
not
wearing the skirt she'd gotten on sale at Dillard's. Maybe Mom would lend her some money to buy something new. And where would she
meet
Olivia? In her
house
? She could just see her and Olivia going through fashion books to decide what sort of gown—no,
wait
! Even better, they'd
go
to
Vera Wang's studio
and
Vera would show them gowns she could make just for Olivia
!

If Vera Wang had a studio in L. A. Wow. She really had some research to do.

"Marnie?"

She jerked her head up.

Mom nodded at her hand.

Marnie looked down; water was leaking out of the top of the bottle she was holding at an odd angle. "Oh geez," she said, and moved to get a paper towel to mop up what she'd spilled.

AT least Eli now knew that Marnie came by the gift of gab honestly. When he'd asked if Marnie made it home with all the fruit, her mother had launched into a tale of oranges and fruit salad that had gone on and on and on.

And here came the daughter of the fruit queen now, walking down the sidewalk toward him with a very large portfolio in hand. More notably, Eli was pleasantly surprised to see that she was wearing something besides schoolmarm clothes. She wore a pair of white hip huggers that did their part by hugging her like a glove, and a dark-blue shirt that sort of wrapped around her middle and left no curve undefined, and even gave him a peek of her belly.

The woman had some great curves.
Outstanding
curves. Curves like he hadn't really noticed—okay, wanted to notice—in a long while.

She said hello with a very winsome smile, juggled her stuff, and finally managed to sit across the table from him. Her dark copper hair was loose today; it hung just below her shoulders and she had long bangs that sort of draped to one side.

Okay, all right. It wasn't news that she was damned attractive. Of course he'd noticed it during the auditions. Christ, he was still a man, even if he had been effectively neutered by Trish.

But he honestly hadn't appreciated how naturally pretty Marnie was the other day. Maybe because she'd been sweating so profusely. But now she had a look about her, like she'd walked off a Wisconsin cheese calendar. He could just imagine her with a pitchfork—or whatever implement they used to make cheese—a pair of cutoff overalls with nothing underneath, one side unhooked, the flap just covering the nipple of a perfect breast…

Damn. That wasn't where he wanted to go. He squinted and tried to concentrate on what she was saying—not surprisingly, she'd been chattering since the moment she'd shown up. Something about venues as she shoved a pink book at him. An organizer, she said, and hauled the portfolio up onto the very small cafe table and opened it to the first page.

"This is a wedding I assisted. A beach wedding," she said, proudly smoothing the page. "I wanted to show you because it was outdoors, and this one will be outdoors. By the way, do you guys have an office? Because I will probably need the address. But anyway, you can see how we set it all up with the white chairs and the altar and the red carpet, so the bride wouldn't ruin her gown, although," she said with a mischievous little smile, "there was an incident with the gown, but it was at the very tail of her train, and to this day, I don't know if she knows." She laughed at that. "And the reception was just next door," she continued, turning the page, "with the same view, but we put down a dance floor and hired a little six-piece combo, and in the end, everyone kicked off their shoes and they were dancing on the beach to great music. We had these really cute lights, too."

She glanced up at Eli, obviously waiting for him to say something. Only he didn't say anything, because he had no idea what he was supposed to say about cute lights.
Where can I get some
?

A tiny little frown creased her brow, but she looked down at her portfolio again. "Here's another outdoor venue. This one was in Lake Tahoe. Have you ever been to Lake Tahoe?
Gorgeous
. So anyway, this one was on a private estate, and we did this great theme of skiing, even though it was in the summer. You know, trucked in some handmade snow, set up these little hills—"

"Question," Eli said, leaning back and stretching his legs long beneath the table.

"Shoot!"

"Do you always… talk so much?"

"Yes," she said, without missing a beat. "Do you
ever
talk?"

Eli grinned. "When I can get a word in edgewise, sometimes I'll open up."

A smile curved the corner of her lips. "I have another one," she said, turning the page.

Eli stopped her again by putting a hand on her open portfolio. "Why don't you save it for Olivia? She'll be thrilled to have pictures to look at."

Her bright eyes narrowed a teeny bit. "Okay!" she chirped and shut the portfolio firmly on his hand. "When do I get to meet her?"

He smiled and gingerly withdrew his hand from the portfolio. Marnie pushed her hair out of her eyes, leaned back, crossed her legs, folded her arms like him, and watched him, too. But with a glint in her eyes. If he wasn't mistaken, it was a smarty-pants glint.

He made a mental note of that as he withdrew a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. "After we go over some ground rules."

"Great," she said, and began to swing one foot. But she made no move to get a paper or pen.

"You might want to write some stuff down."

She sighed, leaned over, and fished around her bag for a neon-orange pen and lime-green spiral notebook, straightened up, flipped it open, pressed her neon-orange pen tip to the paper, and gave him a derisive little smile.

"Rule number one—and this one is the most important rule you'll hear," he said with a slow smile. "It's so important that if you don't follow it, I will can you so fast that you will never even feel my boot in your butt. And here it is:
No one knows
. No one. Not your best friends, not your mother, not your priest.
No one
. T.A. is successful because we guarantee privacy for our clients and that means never mentioning their names, or where you are going, or even that you are working on a wedding. You cannot even begin to imagine how resourceful and sly the press and paparazzi are in this town. You have to keep this under wraps until it's all said and done. Any questions?"

"Nope," she said, and instantly dropped her gaze, wrote something down.

He leaned over, saw the word
bossy
. Oh, great—he instantly suspected that her mouth had already opened and gums had flapped. He tapped her on the hand with his pen. She just inched her hand away from his pen. Eli frowned. "What's the matter, Marnie? Do we have a problem? Have you
told
someone?"

She looked off to one side and muttered, "Mom."

"Oh God—"

"But she won't tell a soul!" she insisted with big maple doe eyes. "I swore her to secrecy, and I swear, my mom won't tell a
soul
."

"Who else?" he demanded.

"No one, I swear it!"

"No one? You're sure about that? You haven't been sitting around with your pals doing each other's nails and gabbing about your great new job? About meeting a couple of major Hollywood movie stars?"

Her expression instantly went from pleading to miffed. "Sitting around doing my
nails
?" she echoed. "Are you serious? Is that what you think I do? You think just because I am a wedding planner that I don't have anything better to do with my free time than my
nails
?"

"Have you been talking, Marnie? Because in case you haven't noticed, you seem excited about this gig and you have a tendency to
talk
."

"At least I
do
talk," she shot back. "At least I don't sit there glaring at the world around me like I'm mad all the time like
some
people. And you're right, I am very excited about this job. But I am a professional! And for your information, Mr. Personality, I have a very full and busy life! I do not sit around and do my
nails
and gossip with my
pals
."