CHAPTER ONE
NIKKI
†
WHEN I RECEIVED MY fifth wedding invitation of the year, I could have been forgiven for rolling my eyes and immediately responding with a polite ‘thanks, but no thanks’. It seems that when you get into your early twenties, weddings are basically an expensive pastime.
When I turned twenty-one, I seemed to be invited to a wedding every couple of weeks and, more often than not, I managed to avoid them.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I disliked the couples inviting me. It’s just that I didn’t like them enough. Especially considering that very few of them wed back in our home state of Nebraska. I can’t blame Andrea for not wanting to get married in a field of sorghum, nor could I look down on Heather for not wanting to convert an old freight train into a reception venue. But, when it came to the most important day of their lives, I’d have appreciated them getting married a little closer to home if they wanted me there so badly.
So, an invitation to a union on a beautiful white-sand lakeside beach at sunset at the Disney’s Beach Club Resort in California was thoughtful, of course, but little more than an inconvenience. When Christa and Chris (yep, their real names) asked me to join them in celebrating their special day at Disneyworld down in Florida, I had to turn them down. I saw their pictures on Facebook a few days after the wedding, and I knew I’d made the right choice on that one. Christa was dressed as Cinderella. Chris was Aladdin. I didn’t have the energy to dwell too long on how a union between a house slave and a thief was never going to work in the movies, but I held out a greater hope for the two of them in real life. Chris clearly stole Christa’s heart and he did treat her like a princess. They lived their own fairytale; that was certain.
But the hardest invitations to turn down are those that come from family members. So, in early March, I took a flight to New York to see my aunt Katy marry my uncle Pete for the second time, and it was a great wedding even though it was modest. It had to be; neither of them had much money left after their divorce from each other only two years before. I didn’t mind flying in for that one. It was good to see my cousins again, and a visit to New York is never something I turn down if I have the chance.
While everyone enjoyed their wedding breakfast, I was bundled up in a thick winter jacket, walking the streets of the city. It never failed to inspire me and, although I’ve visited New York many times, each time I’d spot something new. It seemed that every five minutes a new building was thrown up, and something as simple as the shape of a window or the steps leading up to the entrance, could give me a spark of inspiration.
The greatest thing about visiting one of the most famously diverse and vibrant cities in the world had always been the architecture. So, while the art deco style of the Manhattan skyline was possibly the most iconic, I was more interested in the newer buildings, the ones that were helping give back more than they took.
And, I had to thank aunt Katy and uncle Pete for putting their differences aside and remarrying, because my visit to New York meant that I received the spark of inspiration I needed for my latest project.
Taking the ideas back with me to Omaha once all the rose petals were thrown, food eaten and champagne drunk, I managed to draft the proposal of my life, the one that made all those who doubted me sit up and take note. After all, Nicole Thomson hadn’t exactly been taken seriously before then. I graduated high school early, completed my degree early, and got my masters early… you get the idea. It took time to get people to recognize my name as one they wanted to remember.
My design for a one-hundred meter inhabitable plyscraper in the USA meant a million dollar grant to the city of Lincoln. I like to think we put Nebraska on the map and, although I would have liked to have received the funding for Omaha, it certainly made more sense to take it to the capital city of the state, even if we did have twice the population. But, Lincoln was, of course, home to the University of Nebraska, the largest in the state, and the generation of tomorrow was the one that had to carry the mantle of conservation.
It’s tough to convince people that being more ‘green’ is a good thing. Laziness and the consumer mentality means that we throw away too much when we should recycle. Since being a teenager and watching documentaries about plastic in the ocean and pollutants in the water, it has been my goal to not just reduce my carbon footprint, but pave the way for a greener future. Focusing all my energies on the future of sustainable living is what it’s all about.
So, when the fifth wedding invitation of the year arrived in June, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit frustrated at the thought of leaving my important work. But, there’s no way of getting out of family weddings. Especially not when it’s your big brother’s big day. And, like everyone else, they’d chosen to have their wedding outside of Nebraska. They weren’t even staying on mainland USA. Nope. Just at a time when the million dollars I’d worked my ass off to get was being put to good use in my design, I had to get on a plane and fly out for eight hours.
My mom convinced me that I needed a vacation, and maybe she was right, but at the same time, the timing couldn’t have been worse. When I opened the ivory envelope that morning in June as my coffee brewed, I tried not to feel too bitter. Brandon knew how much my job means to me, that much was clear. After all, he’d sent the invitation to my office rather than my house. That alone was a sign of how much time I spent at my desk.
Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Devaney wish the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their daughter, Clea, to Brandon Thomson…
I’d never even met Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Devaney and yet, here they were, requesting the pleasure of my company. Paying a healthy sum for it, too, as my mom told me when I called her about the invitation.
“They’re paying for the food, the hotel, everything,” Mom said. “All you need to pay for is your flight.”
“What date do I need to be there?” I asked. “It says the wedding’s on September first. So, I guess I’ll fly in the day before?”
“Oh, honey. Why don’t you take a break and we’ll all fly in a week earlier?” Mom asked. “You know you could do with the rest, and we’ll all be together for the first time since aunt Katy’s wedding. Come on, Nicole. I just know it’s exactly what Daddy would’ve wanted. We never got around checking that box off on our bucket list, you know… going to Hawaii… together… as a family.”
Hearing her say it was like a knife in my chest. I had enough trouble thinking about my dad. Any reference to his passing only made me feel sick. But, she had a point. Time’s precious, but whom you spend it with, even more so. I hadn’t seen Brandon and Clea since aunt Katy’s wedding and, even then, we hadn’t spent much time together. I didn’t want Mom reminding me of my dad, but it was as he lay in the hospital that he made us promise to stick together as a family.
“Okay, Mom,” I conceded. “I’ll fly out the week before the wedding, and don’t worry about the tickets. It’s on me.”
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Mom protested. “I can put it on the credit card and take extra shifts to pay it off. It’s my son’s wedding, after all.”
“Nonsense. I won’t have it,” I insisted. “I got a pretty good bonus after we won the grant and, besides, you need to make sure you get a beautiful dress. The mother of the groom has to look a knockout.”
She didn’t like to talk about how difficult it was to make ends meet, but Daddy’s sudden illness had left her with little. She’d gone back to working full-time as a midwife after he died but, with all the bills his treatment had amounted to, Mom was taking on longer shifts than she had before Brandon and I were born. She should’ve been winding down in her fifties, not speeding up. The least I could do was buy her a ticket.
I was about to hang up when she asked the question I knew she’d been dying to probe me on for months. “Sooo… are you bringing anyone special to the wedding? You know Brandon said we could each bring a guest.”
I sighed inwardly and closed my eyes before answering. “No, Mom. I’m just as much an old maid as I was the last time we spoke.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Nicole! You’re only twenty-four,” Mom reminded me. “Hardly an old maid. I just hope you’re not spending every waking moment at the office. I hope you’re getting out there. You know, going on dates and things. Having a man take care of your needs, if you know what I mean.”
If only I wasn’t on the most reliable cell phone network in the whole of the United States. If only the signal could drop so that I wouldn’t have to think about how even my mom was concerned I wasn’t getting any. Not that I’d ever gotten any in the first place, but she didn’t need to know that.
I reminded her that it was pretty strange for a mom to worry so much about her daughter’s needs. “Most moms would rather think of their little girls as completely innocent and virtuous,” I sighed. “You’re not supposed to want to know about these things, Mom.”
“Well, it’s not easy being single,” Mom said. “I should know. Your father was taken from me before I was fifty. Neither of us are dead below the waist just yet, honey.”
Oh, God! Seriously?
“Thanks, Mom,” I said hurriedly, wanting to smash my head against my desk. “Just the thought of your un-dead loins has really made my day.”
She laughed. “Well, you never know,” she said. “We might both meet a handsome stranger at the wedding. Hawaii’s the perfect place for long, romantic walks on the beach.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to call Brandon and ask him to keep an eye out for two handsome strangers just for us,” I smiled. “What would you like? Tall, dark and handsome?”
“Make him rich, too,” Mom laughed. “And eyes like Paul Newman’s.”
“Got it.”
After we said our goodbyes, I called Brandon but I didn’t put in a request for dates for his mom and sister. Guys never like to think of their sisters having sex, and as for their moms, well, that’s enough to ruin any guy’s entire year. Instead, we talked about the wedding. He apologized again for making us fly so far out, but I could tell he was excited about it all. And, he was thrilled to hear we were making a holiday of it.
I resigned myself to enjoying my holiday in September. I sent my RSVP back in the mail that day, but I certainly didn’t hold out any hope for long, romantic walks on the beach.