FOURTEEN
“I can’t believe I did that!” Ella said as she and Hannah combed through baby items at the upscale boutique. “I mean, I've never, ever done anything like that before!”
“Are you sure you and Trent didn’t make out?” Hannah joked, referring to her husband.
Ella glared at her best friend over the rack of over-priced bibs. “That’s not funny,” she said.
“Lighten up,” Hannah said as she joined Ella’s side. “You know I’m just kidding.”
Ella poked her elbow into Hannah’s side. “Hey! You’re gonna wake the baby!” Hannah said, laughing.
The two women moved about the store, looking for different items to add to Hannah’s baby shower registry. They held up little gowns, little onesies and soft blankets trimmed in satin. Ella watched Hannah as she moved about, rubbing her swollen tummy gently. Her mind instantly went back to Nadia.
When Ella had thought Nadia was pregnant, she had felt a pang of jealousy. But now that she knew that wasn’t the case, she wondered. She began to think about what Karim would be like as a father. She imagined his strong arms cradling a baby, his dark features soft with the overwhelming love a father can only have for his child. Ella began to see herself in that picture, sitting in bed with Karim as the played with their newborn baby, bouncing him on their knees as he giggled with delight.
“You know that, right?” Hannah asked. “Ella? Earth to Ella?”
Ella blinked as she came crashing back to reality. Her vision of the perfect little family disappeared over the racks of layettes and rows of baby booties.
“What?”
“I said,” Hannah rolled her eyes and kept talking. “You know what you have to do, right?”
Ella nodded as she ran her fingers along the satin edge of the blanket she held in her hands.
Hannah came up and wrapped her arm around her best friend. “I know, it sucks.”
Ella just nodded and rested her head on Hannah’s shoulder.
They finished the registry and said their goodbyes on the sidewalk as they hopped into separate cabs. Back at her apartment, Ella threw her belongings on the sofa and walked into the kitchen. She pet Princess and threw a bag of popcorn into the microwave. While it was popping, she selected one of her favorite bottles of wine and removed the cork. She found a glass and brought the bottle and the popcorn into the living room.
Within minutes, Ella was sitting back on her sofa with her laptop. She opened up her email and began to draft a message to Karim. She wrote the words quickly and took a long sip of wine before hitting send. When that was done, she closed the laptop and turned her attention to Jimmy Stewart, letting the tears flow as she sank back into the sofa with her wine, her popcorn, and her Princess.
FIFTEEN
The next few weeks were a flurry of activity. Ever since Ella had emailed Karim to tell him she could no longer be his wedding planner, she had busied herself with everything she could to take her mind off the impending nuptials. First, she found a replacement wedding planner for Karim and Nadia. Then she rebilled them only for the vendors and supplies they had purchased. With everything that had happened, Ella didn’t feel right taking a fee for the work.
When that was settled, she had decided to cancel all her other clients, except for the football player and Hannah, of course. She was so burnt out on planning loveless weddings and she just couldn’t stand watching the fraud anymore, especially after Karim and Nadia.
Instead, she chose to switch gears and learn the baby shower industry. She would start with Hannah’s shower, which was only a month away, and then go back to all of her previous clients to get additional referrals. She didn’t doubt it would take off, but she would take it slowly. In the meantime, she only had to finish one wedding, the football player’s. She had decided to keep that couple on as clients because she knew from meeting them that they were genuinely in love. What's more, their wedding was only a few months away and most of the details were already arranged.
Ella worked tirelessly to pull together the final details, spending long lunches with the bride-to-be, Corinne. They confirmed the dresses, the tuxedos, the flower arrangements for the tables, the bouquets for the girls and even the boutonnieres. Then it was time to settle on the cake.
“The red velvet with the mocha,” said Corinne as they sat at a tasting table in Ella’s favorite bakery. Her heart did a flip-flop when she remembered the last time she had ordered the same cake. It was for Karim and Nadia’s wedding.
“Oh,” said Ella as a veil of sadness came over her face.
“What is it?” asked Corinne. “Did I pick the wrong one?”
Corinne was so eager to please. Not in a needy way, but in a way that showed she genuinely cared about others. She knew her football player fiancé, Brock, had already sampled the cake and she had told Ella that she hoped her pick would be the same as his. It was.
“No,” Ella said, waving off Corinne’s concern. “No, you didn’t. You picked the exact same one Brock did.”
“Oooh!” Corinne squealed, her long, tanned fingers clapping together in front of her perfectly white smile. “I’m so glad. I just want to make him happy, you know?”
Yeah, Ella thought. She knew. It was rare, but she knew exactly what Corinne was talking about. She just wanted to show the man of her dreams exactly how much he meant to her. She just wanted to be in sync with the person she would spend the rest of her life with, safe in the knowledge that her thoughts and dreams were in line with his. Even the simplest of dreams and desires, like which flavor wedding cake to get.
Ella smiled and excused herself from the table. She walked over to the counter and waited until the owner of the shop, a short man in his fifties, appeared.
“Well, will it be the red velvet again?” the baker asked.
“That's right,” Ella said, laughing a little. No matter how many cakes she had shown her customers, they almost always chose the red velvet. “What on earth do you put in that cake?” she asked, peaking over the counter.
“A little flour, sugar, coco…” the baker looked at Ella and winked, handing her a fresh slice. “And magic.”
Ella looked at the baker suspiciously and then reached over and pulled the slice toward her. What the heck, she thought. She pressed the fork down into the moist cake and lifted it to her mouth. She chewed slowly, letting the flavor flood her tongue as she realized she had never tasted anything like it.
“Oh my gosh,” she said with her mouth still full. “This is the most amazing cake I think I’ve ever tasted!”
The baker smiled. “Uh-huh. Now you know why all your clients want it!”
Ella thanked the baker and signed off on the order for the red velvet mocha cake before returning to the table to wrap up the final arrangements with Corinne.
“So,” Ella said as the two women stood to walk out. “I guess I won’t be seeing you until right before the wedding.”
Corinne smiled softly, her perfect skin shimmering in the late afternoon light. “I guess not! I’ll miss you, Ella. But it looks like you need the break anyhow. You look…”