"Need anything, Sean?" Emma asked.
"It"s all good."
"You know where to find me."
He nodded at them both as they rounded the corner.
"He kind of breaks my heart a little," Sherilyn said as they waited on the elevator.
"Who? Russell?"
"Yes."
"Keep your distance, Sher."
"That, too."
The elevator doors slid open, and Fee stood before them, two ice packs in her hands.
"Oh, I forgot those," Emma said.
"I saw that," Fee replied. "Thought I"d bring them up." Emma nodded toward the corner. "Just pa.s.s them on to Sean. He"s outside the door."
Emma and Sherilyn followed as far as the corner. "This is Fee," Emma called out. "She"s got Russell"s ice packs."
Sean nodded, popped up and headed for Fee, leaving his lunch basket on the chair behind him. Fee stood inexplicibly frozen in her tracks right in the middle of the corridor. "Fee?" Sherilyn said, but she didn"t move.
Suddenly, just before Sean reached her, Fee turned around toward them, her back to Sean and her face paler than her usual pale, and she gasped.
"What is it?" Emma asked, and Fee clutched her heart, closed her eyes tight for an instant, then she opened them wide and mouthed, "Whoa!!"
Sean came to a halt just behind her, and Sherilyn nodded emphatically for Fee to turn around. When she did, she looked up into Sean"s face, but she didn"t say a word. To Sherilyn"s surprise, Sean didn"t say anything for a moment either, and their gazes seemed locked together.
"Sean, this is Fee," Emma finally interjected. "She works with me. Fiona, say h.e.l.lo to Sean already."
They could barely hear it as Fee rasped, "H-hullo."
"h.e.l.lo."
Sean took the ice packs from her, and Fee just stood there, grinning at him.
"Okay," Emma said at last, and she looped her arm into Fee"s. "We"ll just be going now. You"ll make sure Russell uses those?"
Sean nodded.
"Great. See you later then."
Sherilyn grabbed Fee"s other arm, and the three of them headed back toward the corner. Fee strained her neck and sputtered over her shoulder, "Pleasure m-meeting you."
"The pleasure"s mine."
When they rounded the corner and reached the elevator, Emma jammed the call b.u.t.ton several times.
"Dude, did you see that guy? He"s . . . he"s magNIFicent!"
Emma and Sherilyn locked eyes over Fee"s bowed head.
"Is this the same girl who said she didn"t think she had any fireworks in her future?" Emma asked, and she and Sherilyn giggled as they nudged Fee into the elevator.
"The very same."
"Did you see that guy?" Fee asked Sherilyn. Looking to Emma, she said, "Why didn"t you mention . . . I mean, I"ve never seen anyone like him. I think he actually made my heart stop, Em. It literally stopped beating. He"s like a young, buff Montel, don"t you think? Montel meets . . . meets . . . LL Cool J! Oh, and that smile! Dude, has he ever smiled at you before? He"s just . . . just . . . I can"t breathe. You guys, I think my heart stopped."
"Give yourself a couple of days," Sherilyn promised, pressing the lobby b.u.t.ton on the panel. "It will start up again."
"Are you sure?"
"Almost positive."
"Oh, good. Andrew . . . Mona, bring in another cup so Andrew can have some tea with us."
Andy stood in the arched doorway to the dining room, and he scratched his head as he struggled to reconcile what he"d found there.
"Hi, Andy. Good to see you again."
"Maya." He glanced at his mother, then back to his ex. "What are you doing here?"
"She came to see me, darling," Vanessa said, as if that explained everything, but questions swirled around in his head, making such a racket that he could hardly think past the noise.
"You might try chamomile," Mona whispered as she slipped past him toward the table. "They say it"s very soothing."
I found the woman making out with the stereo installation guy! And my mother is casually socializing with her? Having a spot of TEA?
He wondered how long it had been going on. How many afternoons had they spent sipping tea and talking over only- G.o.d-knew-what?
Mona probably knew what too, he noted. She always seemed to be in the know.
"Take a seat, darling." Vanessa pushed the third teacup toward the empty chair next to Maya.
Andy picked up the cup and carried it with him around the table to the other side, and he sat down across from Maya, to Vanessa"s left. An instant later, a blur of white caught his eye, and he looked toward the window where Henry stood on the other side.
"Mother, you locked Henry outside again?"
"He refuses to stay off the sofa, Andrew. I will not have that beast crawling all over the furniture."
"All you have to do is tell him to get down."
"I did, and he growled at me. I won"t be growled at in my own home."
"Mother."
"And that goes for you too. Don"t growl at your mother." Maya interrupted. "You have a dog?"
"Catch me up to speed here," Andy suggested, pulling his eyes away from Henry"s, locked onto him from the other side of the gla.s.s. "Because seeing the two of you here like this kind of blows my mind."
Henry barked one time in apparent agreement, and Andy realized his heart was pounding hard as he awaited the answer.
"After I saw you the other night," Maya said, brushing a strand of hair away from her suntanned face, "I kept thinking about you, wishing I"d said more. So I called your mom and-"
"Like what?" he interrupted, and he forced a quiver of a smile to cut back the intensity. "What more do you have to say that hasn"t already been said?"
"Andrew."
"No, Mother, really. I"d like to know what Maya thinks there is left to say."
Maya pursed her ruby red lips for a moment as she inspected the inside of her teacup. She inhaled sharply, inched to the edge of her chair, and looked up at him. Andy"s pulse tapped out a rat-a-tat-tat when she did. "I think what I really wanted to say was that . . . I"m sorry. And I hope there aren"t any hard feelings between us, and I wish that we could . . . be friends."
Andy simply looked at her, and the moment seemed frozen.
"Andy," Maya said on an uneasy chuckle. "Say something." He continued to stare at her, trying to bridge the gap between her lips being attached to some other guy and the words they uttered now. He shook his head, and a clumsy smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.
"Andrew," Vanessa reprimanded. "You"re being rude."
A roll of laughter bubbled up in him, and he couldn"t suppress it. "Am I?" he asked. "Am I really?"
Andy stood up and rounded the table, pausing to rest his hand on his mother"s shoulder for a moment before he stepped behind Maya. Leaning down close to her ear, he softly told her, "I choose my friends a little more carefully these days, thanks to you. And although I appreciate the apology, next time . . . send a note."
And with that, Andy stalked out of the room. As he crossed the foyer, he turned to find Mona standing there.
"Let Henry inside when she"s not looking, will you?"
"I"ve already devised a plan."
And with that, Andy continued the march and headed directly out the front door.
"Here"s what I was thinking after we talked," Sherilyn said as she unfolded the laptop screen and pushed the computer across the desktop between them. "Once I received the photos you sent, I put together a wedding board for you."
Inspiration wedding boards were one of Sherilyn"s favorite parts of the planning process. From a collection of stock photos and scanned ones from brides, florists, and speciality shops, she designed a sort of online creative collage, combining the bride"s ideas and hopes with her own creative revelations into one cohesive vision for the wedding event.
She"d started Cecily"s board with lace, since she"d described the lace on her dress as the most important component of the ceremony. The scanned photograph of Cecily in her antique white dress was dropped over it at a slant in the top left corner, forming the first stepping stone of a curving cobblestone path across the collage. Along the way, there were color swatches, centerpiece possibilities, floral photographs, a menu card, and several sketches of the venue, culminating at the bottom right edge with a colored pencil drawing of the cake that Emma had provided.
Cecily placed her hand on her heart and stood up to survey the journey from her chosen dress to the wedding reception of her dreams.
"It"s like you took everything that was in my head, and you put it together in a way I hadn"t even dreamed about," she sighed. "It"s perfect."
Sherilyn had just begun to smile when- "Oh, wait. Except for the shrimp dish. Leonard is allergic to sh.e.l.lfish. I must have forgotten to tell you."
"Okay. We can adjust that," she said, scribbling on her note pad.
"And is it too late to change the cake to chocolate? . . . And I was thinking of lovebirds on the top instead of the flowers. Can they do that?"
Sherilyn leaned back in her chair and smiled. "I"ll talk to the baker today. Lovebirds it is!"
Forty minutes later, everything on the collage had been changed except the background and, of course, the dress. She walked Cecily to the doorway of the consultation room, and she"d just returned to the desk to gather her notes and fold up the laptop when Fee burst into the room.
"I"m going to do it."
"What?" she asked nonchalantly.
"I"m going to ask him out."
Sherilyn frowned. "I"m sorry. Who?"
"Sean!" she exclaimed.
"Sean from upstairs? Russell Walker"s-"
"Bodyguard. Yes!"
"He"s his bodyguard?"
"They"re transporting Russell to rehab late today. After that, I thought maybe . . . What do you think? Am I crazy?"
Before she could ponder the correct answer to that question, Cecily poked her head through the opening in the door.
"I"m glad I caught you," she said as she entered. "I"m thinking about the lovebirds, and they might be a little cheesy. What do you think? Can we go back to the flowers?"
"I can do that," Sherilyn said, forcing a smile.
"Excellent! I still want the chocolate, but no lovebirds."
"No lovebirds!"
"Great. Thanks, Sherilyn. I"ll call you tomorrow."
Once Cecily disappeared again, Sherilyn glanced at Fee. "She"ll call in twenty minutes from the car to ask for the lovebirds again."
"I"m not crazy, right? He"s really something, isn"t he?"
Sherilyn wondered if Fee had even noticed the interruption.
"He seems very nice."
"I came in early so I could deliver their breakfast this morning."
That explained the slight curl to her usually bone-straight ebony hair, and the shiny diamond stud in her nose replacing her everyday thin silver hoop. And was Fee wearing . . .
Lip gloss!!