By five o'clock today I need twenty-four thousand nine hundred dollars in First Harbor, or the bank closes every account Kinsella Weddings has. Ravi's salary lives in those accounts. Conrad Whitlock stopped his own check, and I do not know why a man would pay a planner ninety thousand dollars of trouble before he has paid her a cent.
At nine I am at Harbor Auto on Marsh Road, watching a man in a quilted vest walk around my car.
"Eleven thousand two hundred," he says.
"It's worth more."
"It's worth that on a Friday morning to somebody who needs it by lunch." He opens the trunk and sniffs. "What is that, a funeral?"
Eucalyptus. Four years of hauling other people's centerpieces. There is a dent in the rear door from a florist's van, and a ribbon scrap caught in the seat rail, and I have driven every bride I ever had to her own front door in this car, with the heater on for her dress. I take the check and I do not look back at it, which is a skill.
Eleven thousand two hundred. I still need thirteen thousand seven hundred.
I take the bus to the hotel with my red Plan B binder on my knees.
Whitlock House kitchen, eleven o'clock. Six small plates on steel, and the cold of the counter coming up through my wrists.
Sloane sits at the head of it in cream. Rhys is beside her, drinking sparkling water as though it is his job. Dec stands at the end with his arms folded and a legal pad he is not writing on.
"Chef will bring the lamb," Sloane says. "I'll decide the cake first. I always want the end before the middle."
At noon the tablet on the counter chimes, and a face fills it, silver at the temples, lit by a lamp. Singapore is midnight. He doesn't look tired.
"Maeve." Conrad Whitlock smiles like a man welcoming me into a house he owns. "May I call you Maeve?"
"Of course, Mr. Whitlock."
"Conrad. We'll all be friends by May." He settles. "Forgive the hour. My daughter tells me you're excellent. I like to hear it from the person."
"I'm told the check had a problem."
"A clerical caution. I like to meet people before I pay them." He says it pleasantly. He does not say when. "Tell me something, Maeve. Have you ever lost a wedding?"
The kitchen goes quiet in the particular way a kitchen does, the hood fan loud in it.
Fifty-two minutes. A hundred and forty guests. A cellist's bow, shaking.
"Never," I say.
Rhys chokes. Water, I think. He coughs into his fist for a long time and Sloane pats his back, twice, without looking at him.
"Never," Conrad repeats, delighted. "Marvelous. Then I shan't worry." The check does not come up again, and he is gone.
The cake arrives on a white board. Lemon and elderflower, three thin layers, a sugar flower on top, and Sloane takes one forkful with her eyes on me.
"Maeve. You'll grade it."
I cut a corner. The smell reaches me first, lemon peel and something floral and green, like the Glasshouse door standing open on a warm morning.
I chose this cake three years ago. I stood in a bakery and tasted it twice, because the first time I cried. On June tenth it sat uncut under a cloth for a hundred and forty people, and I carried the top tier to the car by myself.
I put it in my mouth. The crumb is tight and the syrup is exactly right.
"Eight," I say. "The elderflower is shy. Ask them to double it."
"Lovely," Sloane says. "Then it's this one."
Dec comes around the counter to collect the plates. He is nowhere near my ear and he says it to the plate. "She keeps watching Rhys. Not you."
Of course she does. He is hers, and I am the woman who shouldn't be standing in his kitchen. I say so, with my eyebrows, and Dec takes the plates away without a word.
At three I catch her alone in the corridor outside the ballroom, where the carpet muffles everything.
"The deposit was stopped."
"I know." No surprise in it. "My father is theatrical."
"I need it by five. The bank closes my accounts."
"Then I'll wire it myself. Thirty thousand, from mine, today." She says it as if she were passing me the salt. "On one condition."
She takes a cream card from her bag and a green pen, and writes one line, and turns it around so I can read it.
*The Planner will follow the Client's instructions without question until May 16.*
I read it twice. "Without question."
"You'd be surprised how many people ask me questions." She holds out the pen. "Or I wire nothing, Maeve, and you may explain First Harbor to Ravi."
I think about eleven thousand two hundred dollars and a trunk that smells of eucalyptus. I think about the clause I was told to strike, and the man who told me.
I sign. The pen is warm from her hand. Under my name she writes the date in that same green.
At 4:20 her phone buzzes on the sill. *Sent.* At 4:41 First Harbor sends me a text, and I read it in the stairwell with my forehead against the cold concrete. *Loan paid in full.*
It's over. I owe her.
At 9:14 that night I am on my sofa with the binder open on my lap, and Ravi's name lights my phone.
"So," he says. "Bad news. Worse news."
"Ravi."
"Somebody posted a video. It's you." He breathes. "At the front of the Glasshouse. 2023. Alone. The caption says *Jilted planner hired for her ex's wedding.*"
The screen on my knees brightens as he sends me the link. I press play. There I am in forty-one buttons, thinner than I remember, holding lily of the valley, looking at a closed door.
The counter in the corner says twenty thousand views.