Chapter 8

Frankie

I was becoming the backspace queen. Every time I typed a sentence, my ring finger inevitably stretched over to the rectangular key and jabbed away at it with a vengeance. I would start typing again. I would backspace again.

Writing a blog post shouldn’t be this hard, especially when it was an entry responding to a reader question. I loved these types of posts because it was much easier for me to respond to a question than it was to plan a topic and outline an entire entry from scratch. So why was I having such a hard time?

Who was I kidding? I knew why. It was the nature of the question. The bride had a troublesome bridesmaid on her hands and wanted to know how I would approach the issue without making things worse and ruining her big day. The reluctant bridesmaid was a member of the groom’s family and was angry that they’d scheduled the wedding during the first week of her first year of college. The brat was acting out to the point where the bride wondered if she was trying to get kicked out of the wedding.

It was a similar problem to the one I was facing with Levi, but at least this bride knew why the girl was cranky.

My responding blog post would address the concerns of this bride while inserting some general tips on how to manage moody members of any wedding party. I was often surprised by how selfish and unreasonable the closest people to the bride and groom could be, and had defused a handful of unruly relatives in my day. It had the potential to be a great post. Too bad I couldn’t get past the first sentence.

I closed my laptop with a sigh and leaned back, letting my eyelids drift down. I didn’t want to admit that Levi’s comment yesterday had gotten to me, but here I was.

Blocked. Hurt. Frustrated because I was blocked and hurt.

Who cared if the human equivalent to a honey badger thought I wasn’t worth his time? The only person whose opinion mattered in this scenario was Val’s. She adored me, and I adored her, and together we were building my most beautiful wedding yet. Levi thought he knew me, but he had no idea who I was or what I wanted in life. He based his presumptions on nothing more than his bitter view of the world.

Problem was, Levi’s rejection hit on an old wound.

That’s the funny thing about rejection, isn’t it? It sucks no matter who’s doing it, and when it happens you can’t help but think about all the other times you weren’t good enough, wondering what about your personality, your looks, your actions, drove those people away.

I could tell myself that Levi’s comments were his problem and not mine until the cows came home, but it wouldn’t stop me from wondering if maybe he saw the same unacceptable thing in me that my husband had.

Aaron.

My hands gripped the sides of my chair, and my eyes flicked open.

It was funny how well I glazed over the details of my heartbreak in my own mind. Even when telling Valerie about what happened, I never conjured up his name, his face. He was a phantom of my past and for the most part stayed formless and dormant, haunting the corners of my mind but never slinking forward into the light. He stood there now, front and center, smiling at me the way he smiled at everything.

Aaron had been a smiler. He smiled all through our relationship, never breathing a word of the unhappiness he claimed to have harbored inside for months until I caught them out. Only after I caught them did Aaron admit that I’d been living in a daydream of a happy marriage. Out of nowhere, he could suddenly rattle off lists of faults I didn’t know I had, ones I might’ve been able to work on if he’d brought them up before. I hadn’t realized that it showed how miserable I was at my job, or how that affected him. He didn’t tell me he hated how confrontational I was, or that the structure I placed in our home made him feel boxed in. Suddenly I was on my own with nothing to keep me company at night but a fat, steaming pile of rejection.

I cursed Levi for making me think about Aaron and his stupid, dimpled smile. I was a different person than I was in those days. I was stronger now. I shouldn’t be letting myself get pulled down to the same dark place I’d been when I walked into my home and found my husband and best friend doing the naked tango.

I got up and walked to the coffee machine. I needed to shake myself out of this, otherwise I was going to spend the rest of the day spiraling and I’d never get any work done. I had a business now, one that made me happy and hopefully wouldn’t cause me to push anyone I loved away. I didn’t blame myself for Aaron cheating on me—that was on him and him alone—but it would have been nice to know there were things I could have done to be a better me.

I sat back down at my desk and refocused on the task in front of me. Soon I was right back to where I started though since the thought of troublemaking wedding parties brought Levi back to the forefront of my mind. I wondered if I could get a dartboard with his face on it. Would that help? Maybe a punching bag...

Footsteps approached me from behind, and someone tapped twice on the top of my head. “Knock knock.”

I looked up and grinned. “Valerie! What are you doing here?”

She came around the side of the desk and presented me with a box of four cupcakes from one of my favorite bakeries in town.

“I thought I might drop in, see if you wanted to come out for a coffee?” She grinned and gestured to the empty Word document on my screen. “That is if you’re not too busy.”

I laughed. Valerie’s smiling face was just what the doctor ordered, and the cupcakes weren’t too far off the mark either.

“I would love to go for a coffee. Thank you so much for the cupcakes, though I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve them.”

“I just felt like treating my maid of honor, is that so strange? I was going to bring you beer, but I know how much you prefer the competition’s.” She poked me in the arm.

Her excuse was as transparent as a sheet of glass. Val felt bad for the whole Levi debacle from yesterday. Everyone seemed to, except Levi. Garrick and Gerhart both apologized profusely after Levi stormed out, but I’d begged them not to worry about it. I was a master of putting on a brave front and they seemed satisfied that no harm had been done. I had a feeling Val was not so easily convinced.

I grabbed my sweater, and we headed out onto the rainy streets, huddling together under Val’s umbrella. Spring meant the weather was so unpredictable it was almost predictable. It was sunny and warm yesterday? That indicated today would be rainier than the set of Singing in the Rain. Obviously.

I pulled Val into a coffee shop a block down the road. The aroma of roasting beans and cinnamon curled around us and a smile broke out on my face. There were worse places one could be caught in a downpour.

We each ordered an Americano and grabbed a seat by the window, where we could watch hipsters and tourists hurry down the street, while more seasoned west coasters strutted with raincoats zipped to their chins and their heads held high.

Valerie’s blonde bob had curled a bit in the damp and she combed her fingers through it to break it into waves.

“Have you had a chance to look at the websites of those stylists I sent you?” I asked.

Val nodded. “I have, but we’re not talking about wedding stuff today.”

“We’re not?”

The last time we’d hung out without talking about the wedding was our first meeting, so this caught me by surprise. I’d never had a client show up at my office to take me out for coffee before unless they had something wedding-specific on their minds.

Val cradled her mug in her hands and her brow creased. “I wanted to see how you were feeling after what Levi said yesterday.”

Another first. A client wanted to meet up specially to talk to me about my feelings. I always got along well with my clients, but it was unusual for us to develop any deeper a relationship than one would have with a favorite hairdresser. Then again, if anyone were going to break that boundary, it would be Valerie. Our relationship was starting to feel less like a business one and more like a genuine friendship, and though I knew I should be careful with how attached I grew, I couldn’t help but smile at her concern.

“That’s sweet of you to ask, but I’m okay,” I said.

She gave me a flat look. “I saw your face yesterday. Broke my damn heart. I wanted to talk to you afterward, but you seemed pretty determined to get home, and I didn’t want to press it.” She shrugged. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but I wanted you to know that what he said was uncalled for and not even slightly accurate.”

“I know. Levi’s a bitter person. Bitter people have bitter thoughts.”

“If only they’d keep those thoughts to themselves.” She brought her mug to her lips and drank. I followed her lead.

“It’s not you,” she said after a short silence. “There’s no excuse for Levi’s actions, but I’m going to tell you something that might help it not sting so bad.”

I leaned forward, eyebrows raised. “I’m listening.”

“Okay, so a few years ago, right before Garrick and I started dating, Levi had a fiancé.”

“A fiancé?” I asked incredulously. “On purpose?”

I couldn’t imagine Levi ever stooping so low as to love someone, nor could I imagine what kind of horrible woman might be inclined to love him back.

“Big time on purpose. Apparently he adored her, and for all he knew she adored him too. Then one day he went back to their place, and all her stuff was gone and her ring was sitting on the kitchen counter. He had to hear from a friend that she’d picked up and moved down to California, but to this day he still doesn’t know why.”

My mouth dropped open. That sucked. I could imagine a few reasons why Levi’s fiancé might have wanted to hightail it out of there, but nobody deserved that. I could empathize with him. If it were anything like what happened between Aaron and me, Levi must’ve been crushed.

“Has he talked to her since then?” I asked.

Val shook her head. “Nor about her. I don’t even know her name. Nobody in their family talks about it. Levi wasn’t a ray of sunshine before it happened, but since then he’s had difficulties trusting strangers.”

“Huh.” I sat back in my chair. “Doesn’t excuse him for how much of an ass he is though.”

She shook her head. “Certainly not. But like I said, it’s not you. I get upset when people don’t like me, and I was pretty cut up about Levi’s coldness until Garrick told me what happened. After yesterday I figured you had a right to know.”

“Thanks, Val.”

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. Hers were warm from resting on her coffee cup, and I felt that warmth permeate down to my bones.

“Do you feel any better?” she asked.

“Tons,” I replied. “And I think you’ve just helped me crack my writer’s block.”