Summer at Sunset: (The Summer Series Book 2) Read online

  And the way she keeps putting emphasis on mother of the bride is making me cringe. Or maybe that’s just my guilty conscience.

  “My mother lives very far away,” I explain. “It was just easier if Babette handled things, since she lives here in Sunset Havens.” I glance nervously at Mom who forces an understanding smile and nod in my direction. Still, I can sense that she’s hurt. We may have cleared the air in the golf cart yesterday, but I still have to live with the consequences of my decision.

  “Say no more,” says Nadine looking back and forth between the two of us. “I try to stay out of personal family matters, if I can help it. You two sort this out on your own!” She lets out another shriek of laughter, and starts dragging Graham toward a table in the corner of the room.

  “But there are no personal family matters,” I say, air-quoting the words as I jog along, trying to keep up. “It was just a matter of logistics. Seriously.”

  Nadine waves her hand in the air. “Logistics, family feuds, strained mother-daughter relationships, call it what you want! All I know is that none of it is any of my business.” She puts her fingers in her ears and says la-la-la-la a bunch of times.

  God, I hate this woman.

  “The place looks great,” says Graham, attempting to change the subject. “It looks like they do really nice weddings here.”

  “Oh, they do,” says Nadine. “At least that’s what it says in the brochure.”

  “What brochure?” asks Mom.

  “From The Lakeview.”

  “You mean you haven’t actually planned a wedding here before?” asks Mom, turning to me and putting a hand on her chest. She staggers backward a few steps.

  “Well, not exactly,” says Nadine. “I was a wedding planner in New York City for many years before I moved to Sunset Havens. The Lakeview hired me special to assist the lucky contest winner!”

  I knew it! I knew Nadine wasn’t a full-time wedding consultant for this place. She probably hasn’t planned a wedding in forty years. A sick feeling starts bubbling up in my stomach as I take a seat at the table. I could have been having an awesome wedding back home in Boston, with all of our friends and family and a youthful wedding planner who doesn’t ask if you’d prefer the band play the Hokie Pokie before or after the Chicken Dance.

  What have I done? Would planning a wedding with my mother really have been that bad?

  I mean, yes, of course it would have been that bad. But would it have been worse than Nadine? Why did I put so much blind trust in Babette? Babette’s no spring chicken herself. Maybe she doesn’t even realize how outdated and weird Nadine is. I’m going to have to go over every single detail, like, right now. I need to—

  “Oh my God,” I say, picking up a piece of hideous, shiny pink satin from the table. “What is this?”

  “That’s a sample of your table linens,” says Nadine.

  I raise my eyebrows. “But my wedding colors are white and peach.”

  Nadine looks at me as if I’ve completely lost it. She turns to Graham for confirmation that he actually wants to marry such an airhead, before reaching for her binder.

  “That’s not what you said when you called me last week.” She opens the binder and flips to a page. “Right here. You called and changed your colors to, let me see...oh yes, bubblegum.”

  “Bubblegum?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “I don’t care what it says, Nadine. I most certainly didn’t change my wedding color to bubblegum! Babette, did you change my wedding color to bubblegum?”

  “Of course not!” says Babette. “That thing is repulsive!”

  I give Nadine a triumphant look, and silently apologize to Babette for having doubted her good taste.

  “I see,” says Nadine, with a sigh. She gives me a placating smile and scribbles a few notes into her binder. Then she picks up the pink fabric sample and drops it dramatically onto the floor beside her chair.

  “So, it’s fixed then?” I ask. “I’m not going to walk in here on my wedding day and be blasted in the face by a sea of Pepto-pink napkins, am I?” I sound a bit rude, I know. But for heaven’s sake, those napkins have Bonita’s Bridal Bonanza written all over them. Like, they might literally have the words Bonita’s Bridal Bonanza embroidered somewhere on the back.

  “No, no. We’re back to peach,” she sighs. “Now, Summer. Just remember that the wedding is very close. You can’t keep changing your mind like this.”

  “I didn’t change my mind!” I shriek. “Are there any other changes that I supposedly made? We still have a band, don’t we?”

  Nadine looks up at me, one eyebrow raised, an expression of concern surfacing from beneath all the layers of makeup. She starts flipping through the binder again.

  Oh, no. Oh, God. Not the binder.

  “Nadine?”

  “Right here.” She points to a page. “When you called me last week to change the colors, you also asked that I cancel the band. You said something about replacing them with a bassoon trio.”

  “Ba-bassoon trio?” I stammer. “I...I never called you about any bassoon trio, Nadine. There must be some mistake. You didn’t actually cancel the band, did you?”

  Nadine looks around at all of us, her face frozen into a maniacal smile. “Well, of course I did. You’re the bride, not me. I simply do as I’m told!” She waves her hand in the air with a flourish. “I must say, I’ve never heard of such a thing as a bassoon trio at a wedding. But I have been out of the scene for quite some time. If you say bassoon trios are in right now, who am I to argue! I’m just not sure you’re going to find one on such short notice. You won’t give a rats behind what color the table linens are when everybody’s standing around the dance floor in total silence!” She lets out a loud cackle of laughter.

  “I did no such thing!” I say, my voice reaching boiling-tea-kettle range. “I don’t know who you talked to, but it wasn’t me!”

  “A bassoon trio? Honestly, Nadine.” Babette throws her hands into the air.

  “So, we have no band?” I ask, looking frantically around the room, as if I’m going to find an unemployed, ten-piece orchestra just hanging out in the corner. “Graham! We have no band!”

  And then, at the sound of his name, it hits me. Nadine, who can’t keep her paws off of my fiancé, has all the power over the details of my wedding. She can do whatever she wants and then pretend that it was all my idea—the flaky bride, always changing her mind. The brick through-the-window, that wasn’t her, that was Francine. But destroying my wedding from the inside out—the psychological games—that’s all Nadine. This is a team effort.

  Oh, they’re good.

  15

  Am I allowed to fire her? I mean, it’s my wedding, I should be able to do what I want. Then again, she did come with the venue as part of the deal. And she has all the details in that damn binder. Firing her five days before the wedding might be more disastrous than having to undo all of her nasty little changes. I just need to stay one step ahead. I need to subtly let her know that I’m on to her games, and that I’ll be watching.

  “So,” I say, giving her my best bad-cop stare across the table, “we’re playing dirty now, is that it?”

  “Excuse me?” asks Nadine.

  “What are you talking about?” asks Mom. “Who’s dirty?”

  “Mom, please,” I say. “Let me handle this.”

  “Handle what?” asks Nadine, peering at me over the top of her glasses.

  “Oh, you know,” I say, loading up the words with as much meaning as possible. “This and that.”

  Nadine raises her eyebrows and looks from me to Babette, then back to me. Now Babette and Mom are staring at me too. I just keep nodding slowly because I’m at a total loss as to what to say next. I would make a horrible cop.

  “Oy, please,” says Mom, waving her hand at me. “What we need to know is, did Summer make any other changes that we should know about?”

  I whip around in my chair. “I didn’t make any changes!”
<
br />   Ignoring me, Nadine flips through the binder. “Let me see. I think there was one more tiny thing. Oh, yes. Here.” She jabs a long fingernail into the page. “You asked that the cake be changed to carrot.”

  Oh, for Pete’s sake.

  “No. No carrot cake,” I say. “Change that back to red velvet. Now get the band on the phone and tell them that their gig is back on. Now.” That’s more like it. No more subtle hints. What I need to do is take charge and let her see that I’m not going to take any more of her crap.

  Nadine takes out her cell phone, flips through the binder, and dials the number. While she’s speaking, I turn to my mother.

  “This is a complete nightmare,” I whisper. “I didn’t make any of these changes!”

  Mom reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Everything’s going to work out just fine.” Everything’s going to work out just fine? My mother has never uttered those words in her life.

  Nadine hangs up the phone and clears her throat. “Well, that was a bust.”

  “What do you mean? What’s a bust?”

  “The band. They’ve already been re-booked.”

  “Oh, no!” groans Babette.

  I clamp a hand over my mouth. I’ll bet you anything that Nadine booked the band herself. She probably put down a deposit and everything. The colors and the cake, those were just extra touches. Stealing my band, however, that was the big guns. That might be enough to make me call off the wedding. I wonder if she even really called the band just now. She probably called Francine and used a bunch of code words. I’d like to re-book the band for Saturday probably meant We’ve successfully given Summer Hartwell a bleeding ulcer, martinis at five?

  I look desperately at Graham. “Don’t you know any bands? Didn’t you once go to an album launch party for Maroon 5?”

  “Yeah, five years ago,” he says. “And even if I did know them personally, which I don’t, I doubt they’re available this coming weekend.”

  I slump back in my seat. Does he always have to be so difficult?

  “Okay, fine,” I say. “Babette, what about the bands that play on the common? Who was that guy from the other night? Squirrelly Dan?”

  “Squirrelly Dan and The Nuts!” says Babette, perking up.

  “You want Squirrelly Dan and The Nuts to play our wedding?” asks Graham, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well it doesn’t look like we’re getting Maroon 5!”

  “Summer,” says Mom. “Relax.”

  “Relax?”

  “Yes. Relax. I’m not about to let my only daughter’s wedding turn into a disaster.”

  What planet am I on? Why is she suddenly so calm? Normally, Mom would have been the first one to call off the wedding.

  “So, what then? You’re going to find me a band?”

  Mom runs a hand smugly through her curls, fluffing them up a bit.

  “I might know a guy,” she says.

  “You know a guy with a band?” I ask. “Not a marching band or an oompah band, but a real band?”

  Mom nods slowly. And then it hits me. This bizarre calmness about her is actually confidence. My wedding—the one that I went ahead and planned without her—is in shambles. Yesterday my dress was eaten by an alligator, and she was there to help me find an even better one. Today my band got canceled, and she thinks she’s going to swoop in and find me a better one of those, too.

  Well, we’ll see about that.

  ***

  As soon as we return to the Blenderman house, Mom locks herself in the guest bedroom with her cell phone. I can hear her yelling something at directory assistance, but can’t quite make out the name. A couple of times I think I hear ‘Springsteen,’ and then later, ‘Jovi,’ but that may just be wishful thinking. Although, it’s not totally out of the question for Mom to have dated Jon or Bruce way back when. We don’t know everything about our parents.

  She comes out of the room ten minutes later with a smile on her face, but still refuses to offer any word of explanation. This sort of strangeness continues for the next half hour, with Mom’s cell phone randomly blaring “Glory Days” (I told you!), and her scurrying back into the bedroom for another hushed conversation. The rest of us are sitting in the living room eating Cheez-Its and watching the news—three car accidents, two convenience store robberies, one homicide, and a disturbing amount of close calls with alligators. Dad’s dozing in the recliner.

  “We should go somewhere,” I say, after watching the weatherman’s face light up at the possibility of a hurricane. “Before I become seriously depressed.”

  “You could change the channel,” suggests Graham.

  “It’s Monday,” I point out. “All that’s on during the week are paternity tests and women screaming about cellulite cream. Or that show with the doctors. Did I tell you about this new obesity device you can have inserted into your stomach? It’s like a little trapdoor above the hip that drains the food directly into the toilet.” I tilt my head back and shake the last of the Cheez-Its directly into my mouth. Then I toss the empty box into his lap. Graham looks at me, his face contorted with horror.

  “What?” I ask, crunching loudly.

  He doesn’t answer. He just keeps making his funny, horrified face at me until I laugh. Then he smiles and looks over the back of the couch. “So, Mom. What else did you want to do today?”

  “I was thinking maybe we could do the boat tour,” says Babette. She’s been sitting at the kitchen table flipping through a copy of the Sunset Havens Recreation Guide, which is roughly the size of a telephone book. “Remember that, John?”

  Yesterday was John’s last day to play golf. Babette made him promise to take the rest of the week off to spend more time with the family, and also because his golf cart is now at the bottom of a lake. John looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

  “Boat tour?” he asks. “What boat tour?”

  “The one on Lake Fillmore. We did it the first time we came down here. I believed everything the captain said. Even the part about the lighthouse being used to protect against pirate attacks during the Civil War.” Babette laughs. “I only found out a few years ago that Lake Fillmore was man-made in the year two thousand!”

  I clear my throat and shoot Graham a look. I knew these people would fall for all that fake history. And my own mother-in-law, of all people. I sigh.

  John sighs too. “If we must.”

  “Are you up for a boat ride, Dad?” I ask. I’m not exactly enthralled by the idea. It seems like my parents and I end up on an awful lot of boats together. But it’s something to kill a couple of hours.

  “I should check with your mother,” he says, getting out of the recliner and looking nervously down the hallway. “I should see what she wants to do.”

  Dad really is a sweetheart, always full of concern for Mom. I think back to our conversation in the golf cart. Poor Dad. I can’t believe she finds him so irritating lately. Boring, even. Sure, he’s not as exciting as Springsteen or Bon Jovi, but you know what? I bet even Bruce bores his wife once in a while with what he found on eBay.

  “I’ll go check on her,” I say. I’ve been dying for a reason to go down the hall and eavesdrop, but there’s only so many times a girl can pretend to go to the bathroom. I walk down the hall and knock on her door. I can’t hear a thing. I don’t even think she’s on the phone. After a few seconds, she flings the door open.

  “I was just speaking with Nadine,” she says in a loud, weird robot voice. “We’re meeting at The Lakeview tomorrow morning. Everything has been settled.”

  And with that, she pushes past me and marches into the living room. I stand there for a few seconds, staring at the wall, wondering what on Earth she’s up to. She was most definitely not just speaking with Nadine. That’s when I notice her cell phone on the bed. I pick it up, intending to bring it out to her—only, a text message has just come in. Since when does Mom know how to text? I don’t try to read the message, I swear. It’s just there, already open on the main screen because Mom does
n’t know how to change the settings on her smartphone. Also, it says Roger, so how can I possibly not read it?

  LOL. Me 2. CU 2-nite. 5632 Orange Court. Bring hubs and an open mind ;)

  CU 2-nite? Hubs? Open mind?

  Wink?

  Oh, dear lord. It’s really happening. Mom and Dad are going to an orgy.

  16

  “It’s probably just a dinner party,” says Graham.

  “What would they need open minds for at a dinner party?” I ask. “Huh?”

  Graham shrugs. “Maybe Roger’s a terrible cook.”

  We’re all standing around the pier at Lake Fillmore, waiting for the tour boat to arrive. Graham and I have wandered off a little ways in order to have a hushed discussion about why my skin is crawling with willies. The reasons are as follows:

  1) Mom

  2) Dad

  3) Roger

  4) An open mind

  5) Wink

  “It’s a swingers party,” I say, with a shudder. “I know it is.”

  “But Roger isn’t even married,” says Graham. “Who’s he going to swap?”

  “Do you have to be married to be a swinger?”

  “I think so.”

  We contemplate this in silence for a few seconds, while we watch a bird nipping at a French fry. Then I pull out my phone and Google What is a swinger? My Google search history since arriving at Sunset Havens is disturbing to say the least.

  “Look, right here,” I say, shoving my phone into Graham’s face. “Couples or singles who choose to have an open relationship. Roger can just bring Barbara. Oh my God. Dad’s going to have sex with Barbara.”

  “Will you stop,” Graham laughs. “Nobody is having sex with anybody.”