“What did he do?”
Mae pulled back and look into Georgeanne’s face. “He asked me to marry him.”
Georgeanne sat back on her heels, speechless.
“I told him it was too soon, but he wouldn’t listen. He said that he loved me, and he knows that I love him.” She grabbed the end of Georgeanne’s linen tablecloth and wiped beneath her eyes. “I told him that I didn’t think we should get married right now, but he just wouldn’t listen.”
“Of course you can’t marry him now.” Georgeanne held on to the table and pulled herself to her feet. “Last week you didn’t even like him. How can he possibly expect you to make such an important decision in such a short period of time? Six days isn’t long enough for you to know if you want to spend the rest of your life with him.”
“I knew after the third night.”
Georgeanne found her chair. She felt dizzy and had to sit down again. “Are you confusing me on purpose? Do you want to marry him?”
“Oh yeah.”
“But you told him no?”
“I told him yes! I tried to tell him no, but I couldn’t,” she said, and burst into renewed tears. “It may sound foolish and impulsive, but I really do love him, and I don’t want to throw away this chance to be happy.”
“You don’t sound very happy.”
“I am! I’ve never felt this way. Hugh makes me feel good, even though I never knew I could feel any better. He makes me laugh, and he thinks I’m funny. He makes me happy, but…” She paused and wiped her eyes again. “I want you to be happy, too.”
“Me?”
“The past few months you’ve been miserable, especially after what happened in Oregon. I feel horrible because you’re unhappy and I’ve never been happier.”
“I’m happy,” she assured Mae, and wondered if it was true. With everything happening in her life, she hadn’t stopped to think about how she felt. If she thought about it now, the only word that came to mind was shock. But now wasn’t the time to pull out her feelings and look at them. “Hey,” she said with a smile, stretched out her arms in front of her, and patted the table. “Let’s concentrate on your happiness right now. It sounds like we have a wedding to plan.”
Mae put her hands in Georgeanne’s. “I know this whole thing sounds impetuous, but I really do love Hugh,” she said, her face lighting up when she spoke his name.
Georgeanne gazed into her friend’s eyes and let the romance and excitement of it all override her doubts- for the moment. “Have you picked a date?”
“October tenth.”
“That’s in three weeks!”
“I know, but the hockey season starts on the fifth in Detroit, and Hugh can’t miss the first game of the season. Then he’s in New York and St. Louis before he’s back here on the ninth playing against Colorado, and he never misses a chance to best Patrick Roy. I checked our schedule and we’re real slow the first three weeks in October. So Hugh and I are getting married on the tenth, honeymooning on Maui for a week, then I’ll come back here to help cater the Bennet party, and Hugh is off to Toronto for a game against the Maple Leafs.”
“Three weeks,” Georgeanne whimpered. “How can I plan a wonderful wedding in three weeks?”
“You’re not going to. I want you to be in the wedding, not in the kitchen. I’ve decided to hire Anne Maclean to cater the whole thing. She operates out of a large banquet hall in Redmond, and she’s still hungry enough to take the job on such sort notice. I only want two things from you. I would appreciate it if you’d help me pick out a wedding dress. You know I’m clueless about that sort of thing. I’d probably pick out something hideous and never know it.”
Georgeanne smiled. “I’d love to help you.”
“And I want you to do something else, too.” Her grip on Georgeanne’s hands tightened. “I want you to be my maid of honor. Hugh is going to ask John to be his best man, so you’d have to stand next to him at some point.”
Tears clogged Georgeanne’s throat. “Don’t worry about the problems between John and me. I’d love to stand up with you.”
“There’s one more problem, and it’s a biggie.”
“What could be worse than planning a wedding in three weeks and standing next to John?”
“Virgil Duffy.”
Everything inside of Georgeanne stilled.
“I told Hugh that we couldn’t invite him, but Hugh doesn’t see how to avoid it. He thinks if we invite his team members, and the trainers and coaches and management, we can’t overlook the owner. I suggested that we just invite close friends, but his teammates are his close friends. So how can we invite some and not others?” Mae covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Of course you invite Virgil,” Georgeanne managed, feeling her past coming back to haunt her. First John, and now Virgil.
Mae shook her head and dropped her hands. “How can I do that to you?”
“I’m a big girl. Virgil Duffy doesn’t scare me,” she said, and wondered if it was true. Sitting in her kitchen, she wasn’t scared, but she wasn’t so sure how she would feel when she saw him at the wedding. “You invite him, and whomever you want. Don’t worry about me.”
“I told Hugh that maybe we should fly to Vegas and get married by one of those Elvis impersonators. That would solve the problem.”
There was no way Georgeanne would allow her friend to run off to Vegas because of her past mistakes. “Don’t you even think about it,” she warned with her nose in the air. “You know how I feel about tacky people, and getting married by Elvis is white-trash tacky. I’d have to buy you an equally tacky wedding present. Something from Ronco, like that glass cutter so you could make your own stemware from Pepsi bottles. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think I could love you any longer.”
Mae laughed. “Okay, no Elvis.”
“Good. You’re going to have a beautiful wedding,” she predicted, then went in search of her day planner.
Together she and Mae got down to business. They called the caterer Mae wanted to use, then jumped in Georgeanne’s car and drove up to Redmond.
Over the next week, they talked to a florist and looked at a dozen wedding dresses. Between Heron’s, her work on the television program, Lexie, and the rapidly approaching wedding, Georgeanne had no time for herself. The only hours she had to sit and relax were the Monday and Wednesday nights when John picked up Lexie and Pongo and took them to puppy-training classes. But even then she couldn’t relax. Not when John walked into her house, tall and handsome and smelling like a late summer breeze. She would see him and her stupid heart would flutter, and when he turned to leave, her chest would ache. She’d fallen in love with him again. Only this time it felt more wretched than the last. She’d thought she was finished loving people who couldn’t love her back, but apparently not. Even though he broke her heart, she would probably always love John. He’d taken her love and her child, leaving her empty. Mae was getting married and moving ahead with her life. Georgeanne felt left behind. Her life was filled with things she enjoyed, yet the people she loved were moving in directions she couldn’t follow.
In a few short days, Lexie would spend her first weekend with John and meet Ernie Maxwell and John’s mother, Glenda. Her daughter belonged to a family that Georgeanne couldn’t give her. A family she wasn’t a part of, nor would ever belong to. John could give Lexie everything she would ever want and need, and Georgeanne was left out and pushed aside.
Ten days before the wedding, Georgeanne sat in her office at Heron’s alone, thinking about Lexie and John and Mae, and feeling lonely. When Charles called and suggested she meet him for lunch at McCormick and Schmick’s, she jumped at the chance to get away for a few hours. It was Friday afternoon, she had a big job to cater that evening, and she needed a friendly face and pleasant conversation.