Chapter Eight
Megan
“What a bitch!”
“Megan!”
“Well, she is,” I told my mom as we set up early for the Saturday morning farmers’ market. I’d worked with Kristin for a week, and I was tempted to ask Scott for a raise. Not that I would, but the woman was an unmitigated, obnoxious, smartassed, condescending, bitch! I couldn’t believe that the Scott I knew would even consider marrying a creature like that. Sure, she was gorgeous, but underneath that layer of skin, she wasn’t at all pretty.
It took less than twenty-four hours of working with Kristin to realize how difficult she could be. It wasn’t just her attitude. It was her indecisiveness. I was trying to tackle the items on her ever-lengthening list of things to do, but it seemed as if every time I managed to make a little progress, she changed her mind.
“One minute she wants Calla lilies, and when I arrange for those, she changes her mind and wants roses. Roses, can you believe it? And not just any roses. Do you know how difficult it is to find twenty-dozen Grandiflora roses, even in Southern California?” I shook my head, carefully arranging this week’s pastries in the display cabinet.
“Why Glandiflora roses?” Mom asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Because that’s the exact shade of flowers that she wants to match the bridesmaid’s dresses. But then, after I finally tracked a dozen down and brought them back to the mansion to show her, she decided that they were too pink. Can you believe it?”
Mom smiled, setting up our cash station and idly waving to fellow vendors. I hadn’t spoken much about the job because I knew she disapproved, and disapproved heartily, of my working for any member of the Holbrook family, but I countered every comment with the money. It was always about money, wasn’t it? Money made the world go around, and we needed it. Desperately.
Nevertheless, I had underestimated the difficulty of dealing with Kristin. I thought I was doing a good job, and I was now familiar with Scott’s mansion, but I swore, I thought I had lost at least five pounds since going to work for the wicked woman. She had me running from one side of the house to the other, indecisive about just about everything; where to have the bridle shower, which rooms to allot for overnight guests who would be coming to Southern California for the wedding. Naturally, most of those were from her side of the family.
In the short space of a week, or five business days to be exact, Kristin had already fired two wedding planners. It wasn’t just her brittle attitude, either. It was the same thing that tormented me and made my job fifty times more difficult than it needed to be. Kristin Bruno was absolutely, positively, horribly unable to make a decision. Everything required a phone call to mommy or daddy. Or worse, Scott.
I could tell Scott’s patience was wearing thin. In fact, just yesterday, I had overheard his voice on the phone call with Kristin.
“Kristin, I don’t have time for this. That’s why I hired you a personal assistant.”
Kristin glanced at me, and then turned her back as she retorted, thinking, I supposed, that the fact of turning her back would nullify my ability to hear either side of the conversation.
“She’s just so slow!”
I had been forced to bite my lip, and quite hard, to prevent my snarky response to that. What I felt like saying was ‘maybe if you could make a decision and stick to it, we’d be a lot further along in this process.’ But I needed the job, and so far, was willing to let Kristin take her jabs. Still, everyone had a breaking point.
And so, this afternoon, even though I had been guaranteed weekends off, I would be going back to the estate to meet with the third wedding planner this week. I shook my head. “Do you know that the first wedding planner she hired lasted only one day?”
Mom lifted an eyebrow, glanced at me, but said nothing.
“And the second one lasted two-and-a-half. Can you believe it?”
Again, she said nothing, but she didn’t really need to. I was just venting, but I put the brakes on that too when I saw my mom lift her chin and turn coolly away. I knew that expression. She didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to hear about it, and certainly didn’t want to listen to me complaining about it. So, I let it go.
Over the next few hours, we focused on selling our pastries. Even though I was going to be paid, and paid well, by Scott for this personal assistant job, I saw no point in putting all of our eggs in one basket. Besides, we were in the habit of coming to the farmers’ market every week, and to stop doing so would disappoint so many of our regular clients. Besides, I needed to keep my contacts with our clients open. One of these days, when I finally had the opportunity to open my own bistro, you never knew. I had been in situations before where the client dropped a name or a connection to someone else who could be influential when it came to launching my own business. No sense in closing doors or burning bridges.
By noon, the customers had thinned, it was warming up, and Mom and I decided to pack it up. We’d sold most of our stuff, but I still had nearly a dozen of my unique cranberry, orange zest, and cinnamon muffins left in the cabinet. I decided I would wrap them up, put them in a nice little basket, and take them over to Scott’s house. Maybe someone there would enjoy them, even if it was “just” the house staff.
By mid-afternoon, I arrived at Scott’s mansion. I didn’t see his car in the driveway and felt a surge of disappointment. I continued to take a taxi to the house and back home, the expenses and extra allotment to pay for it over and above what he had proposed for my salary. I appreciated that, as it was certainly better than taking the bus and walking the half-mile from the last bus stop up to the mansion, especially because of the hill. I couldn’t take the car because my mom needed it for work.
Scott had asked briefly about my transportation situation and then opted for the taxi. I wouldn’t be in Kristin’s employ long enough to rationalize a leased car, not that I would have taken him up on the offer anyway. Kristin was a different story. She barely restrained rolling eyes with a put-upon sigh when I told her I didn’t have my own car the first time she had sent me on an errand.
She disappeared from the room for several moments and then returned with a set of keys. “Here. These are the keys to the cook’s car. It’s parked in the shade on the side of the house.”
Before I took the keys, I couldn’t help but ask, “And the cook says it’s all right if I borrow her car?”
She merely shrugged. I hesitantly took the keys, not feeling comfortable about that at all, but I couldn’t keep calling a taxi to take me everywhere, and it was apparent that Kristin was certainly not going to offer her car. Later, after the first time I borrowed the cook’s car, I approached her and apologized. The slightly overweight middle-aged Hispanic woman merely smiled and shrugged.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It sits most of the day. However, if you could put gas in it once in awhile, I would certainly appreciate that.”
I nodded. “I’d be happy to.”
After the second day of working with Kristin, I had been sitting in the dining room, involved in creating an ever-growing list of floral suppliers in the area, again frustrated with Kristin’s inability to decide on one or the other, when Scott appeared.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
I watched as his gaze took in the plethora of papers scattered across the dining room table. I started to organize them, or at least gather them into a single pile, but he told me not to bother.
“It’s all right,” I said. “At the moment, I’m trying to track down some specific flowers. She wants to see them before she orders them, so that she can make sure they’re exactly what she wants.”
He merely nodded, not particularly interested. It took everything I had not to ask him what in the world he was thinking, asking a woman like that to marry him. Then again, and for the umpteenth time, I had to remind myself that it was none of my business. Scott was a grown man. He could marry anyone he wanted.
This afternoon, I was to meet the third wedding planner with Kristin. I had just arrived and sat on the couch with my notepad as Kristin started to go over yet another list—this one on party favors for the bridal shower—when the doorbell rang. She waited for the housekeeper to answer the door and escort a thirty-something-year-old woman into the room. The woman wore a beige pantsuit, red silk blouse with oversized collar, and flats. Her brunette hair was pulled back into a ponytail. No makeup, no jewelry.
Kristin gave her the once over, much like she had me, and then stood and gestured for the woman to sit down on the couch opposite. “Thank you for coming, Miss Fontana,” Kristin began. “I’ve had difficulty finding a wedding planner who could fulfill my needs.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Bruno,” she said.
She glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “Hi,” I said, rising slightly, leaning over the coffee table to offer my hand. “My name is Megan Bryan. I’m Miss Bruno’s personal assistant.”
“Nice to meet you, Megan,” she said, then retracted her hand. “Call me Helen.” She turned to Kristin. “I have only an hour, so why don’t we get started?”
And so began yet another rendering of Kristin’s ideas and some demands in regard to the wedding arrangements. There were a lot of them. I watched Ellen’s expression as Kristin went on and on. She never displayed any emotion, but once in a while, raised an eyebrow. She sat with her hands folded gently in her lap, nodding occasionally.
“Don’t you need to write any of this down?” Kristin asked, rather irritably. “I rather dislike having to repeat myself.”
“You don’t have to worry, Miss Bruno,” Ellen replied. “I have an excellent memory, and I’m paying very close attention.”
Well. It was clear to me at that point that Ellen Fontana had dealt with more than her share of Kristin-type clients. I was sure she dealt with bridezillas all the time, and I was anxious to learn from her. And as the two talked, with me occasionally taking a few notes, I studied Kristin. She seemed to be quite the opposite of Scott in so many ways. She sat ramrod straight, always dressed to the nines, her hair, makeup, and nails always perfect.
Scott, at least a Scott I remembered, was laid-back, not too concerned with what others thought of him. I began to wonder. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something felt off about this engagement. I just couldn’t imagine Scott asking someone like Kristin to marry him, regardless of how good the sex was. Regardless of how nice she was to look at. Nothing was worth putting up with the hellion like that for the rest of your life.
During the past week, and on the rare occasion that Scott was around when Kristin wasn’t, he seemed to relax somewhat, ready with a smile, an encouraging word, overall friendly. But the minute Kristin’s voice was heard or she appeared, I noticed the change in his expression. He’d stiffen and the smile disappeared. Once, I happened to catch his eye, and he looked at me for several silent seconds. Almost as if he wanted to tell me something, but then it was gone.
After the fourth day, I determined that their relationship was none of my business, and the smart thing to do would be to keep my curious nose out of the entire situation. I needed this job, and making this job in any way personal would be a sure-fire way to get me canned.