Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper (8 page)

As they returned to his car, she spotted a sign around the corner for watch repair. "Let's try there."

He shrugged. “Might as well.”

The sliver of a shop was dim after coming in from outside.

"May I help you?"

K.D. turned toward the voice and saw a woman with a smile nearly as big as she was.

"We’re looking for wedding rings."

"Oh!" The woman turned toward the back of the store where a white-haired man bent over a strong light. "Jacob. Wedding rings. These lovely young people."

The man looked up, opening his eyes wide to drop the jeweler's loop into his hand with a practiced air.

"We don't have many rings, but let me show you ..." The man began to rise, slowed by stiffness.

K.D. didn’t know if it was the man’s willingness despite the stiffness or the woman’s smile, but she couldn’t mislead them. “It's not for us. I mean, it is for us, but not for real. It's a . . . a play. A kind of a play."

"Oh." Along with the disappointment in that syllable, the woman’s smile disappeared.

She looked from K.D. to Eric. Once, twice, then at her husband.

The elderly couple exchanged about an hour's worth of conversation in that one look.

"Yes?" he asked.

“Yes,” she said, then turned her beam back on them. “I will show you a couple things here, while Mr. Schmidt gets a few special ones from the back.”

His wizened face shifted into a smile as he shuffled away.

“But what—?” K.D.’s question was interrupted by Eric’s hand on her arm and the woman — presumably Mrs. Schmidt — taking a tray from the display and setting it on the counter in front of her.

The rings were nice, the prices were reasonable, and none were inscribed. They would do, especially since it didn’t matter what the rings looked like as long as they fit.

“These will work,” she said, pointing to the least expensive set that fit them, as Mr. Schmidt headed toward them from the back.

“Not so fast, missy,” he said with a smile. He swept back velvet cloth from a small tray. “Look at these before you make any decisions.”

"
Oh
."

She would have taken that small sound back if she could. Especially when Eric darted a glance at her face. At least she didn't make the mistake of meeting his gaze and running the risk of his seeing as well as hearing her response to the rings.

There were two bride's rings, both with gold bands, The wedding band simple and elegant, with a sweeping curve cut into its width. The engagement ring's band had a complementary curve. Together, they created one whole band. The wide section of the engagement ring held an oval diamond with groupings of emeralds along its side, the stones nestled against the wedding band.

The groom's ring was solid gold, but with a line etched along the surface that echoed the curve where the bride's two rings joined.

"We'll take them."

"Eric!"

"Okay, okay. What's the price?"

She glared at him. Whatever bargaining power they'd had was out the door, but she would try.

"You see, as I said, they aren't really for us."

The man and woman looked at each other, then they both smiled. "No?" the woman asked.

"No," K.D. said firmly, then realized she needed to backtrack. "Well, they are for us, but not for real. We’ll be pretending we're married for a . . . . As I said, a sort of uh, performance. A play."

The elderly couple looked back at her, questioning. She glanced toward Eric. He could help out here, make it clear they wouldn't be keeping the rings so there was no sense in paying for such fine workmanship.

"Pretending?" Mr. Schmidt said.

Was that disbelief in his voice? More likely disapproval. This couple had probably been together for twice as long as she'd been alive. Of course they would disapprove of people play-acting what had been the foundation of their lives.

Okay, so they wouldn't get the rings. And a pawnshop wasn't the right place for Eric. Maybe a discount store, or a place with fakes — as long as they didn't turn fingers green, they would do for this. Come to think of it, good fakes were fitting for this use, so —

"We can give you a good price."

At Mrs. Schmidt's words, her husband gave her an
Are you sure
? look. She patted his arm without looking at him. "You see," she said, her gaze never leaving K.D.'s face, "my husband made these rings for a young couple. They made quite a down payment, but they never picked up the rings. Not long before the wedding, they each decided to marry somebody else."

"That was twenty years ago," said Mr. Schmidt.

"Thirty-five," his wife corrected with a smile. "They each have grandchildren now."

“So, my wife says we can give you a good price,” Mr. Schmidt said, looking at Eric.

It was the strangest negotiation K.D. had ever witnessed.

Mr. Schmidt offered Eric a price based on his cost 35 years ago minus the down payment by Mrs. Schmidt's niece and her ex-fiancé. Eric mumbled calculations about the cost of gold and inflation, and offered a higher price that made K.D. stifle a gasp.

Mr. Schmidt refused.

Eric kept offering more and Mr. Schmidt kept saying to pay less.

They finally compromised in the middle.

"Oh, my dears! You haven't tried the rings on!" Mrs. Schmidt said.

Eric's fit well. But the bride’s ring was much too large on her.

Mrs. Schmidt clicked her tongue. “My niece, she’s a good woman, but even then the fat fingers.”

It made K.D. chuckle. She was grateful, because that prevented any sound of disappointment escaping her.

“They’re lovely, and it’s a shame but —”

“Jacob will fix,” Mrs. Schmidt said, and he nodded.

“But we need them now.”

“Oh, dear,” the elderly couple chorused with as much disappointment as she felt. “We have a birthday dinner for our granddaughter. We should have left already.”

“We don’t need them now,” Eric said. “But we do need them tomorrow. Figuring an hour to get back in time for the wedding — say by three in the afternoon.”

“By three in the afternoon? By nine in the morning,” declared Mr. Schmidt, already taking her hand in his to measure her finger. “Not a minute later they will be ready. You will pay then, so we can get on to our party.”

“Absolutely,” Eric said, hooking a hand around her arm. “Thank you so much. We need to go now, so we don’t hold up the Schmidts. Happy birthday to your granddaughter.”

Mrs. Schmidt followed, waving them out the door, then locking it behind them and turning over the sign to read “Closed.”

“I’m not sure —” She started once they were on the sidewalk.

“I am. So, you took them into your confidence, but not Mrs. Cavendish.”

It took her a second to realize what he meant — she'd told the Schmidts they were putting on a performance, pretending to be married.

"They live so far from Marriage-Save, I doubt they’d come in contact with anyone there. But if you think I've compromised the investigation—"

"Didn't say that.” He took her arm, and steered her toward where his car was parked. “I'm just trying to understand how you think. Trying to figure out what makes my wife-to-be tick."

H
er wedding day
.

From the moment K.D. awakened, the words drummed in her head and tumbled her stomach.

Now they were trimmed down to
Her wedding
.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening. She’d been so sure it would never happen, she hadn’t even considered that she might need to be braced against it happening, and now, here it was. Oh, God.

It’s fake. Pretend. A necessary part of their cover story
.

A make-believe wedding, that’s what Anne had called it . . . and there was Anne sitting on her side of the aisle, smiling so broadly at her. All of them turned to look at her, smiling and smiling and smiling at her.

She clung to Ken’s arm and tried to focus on the strange outfits of these supposed wedding guests. Anything to get her mind off the short walk she was about to take.

Ella’s idea to make it seem that there were more guests than this small group had been embraced by everyone here. Patrick Knight, RJ’s brother, who was involved with Phoebe, had even found a reversible sports jacket to add another look.

Ella would call out when she was shooting them from the waist down or the waist up — doubling the “guests” who appear in the video without increasing the number of attendees. Ken wore one suit jacket now to walk her down the aisle, with another waiting for when he played best man. Myrna, now sitting in the audience, would slip on an oversized maid of honor dress over her clothes, both to add another attendee and to give her a different silhouette. With a quick clothes change, Tyce would portray minister and multiple guests.

It was going to take careful editing by Ella to make sure there were no slip-ups. Only she and Eric wore a complete outfit from head to toe.

Eric
.

She hadn’t seen him since last night.

Not because of superstition. That would have been ridiculous.

It simply worked out this way. She’d had the final fitting this morning, while he’d driven back to the Schmidts’ tiny shop to pick up the rings.

She knew he’d succeeded, because Myrna, as her pretend maid of honor, had shown her the groom’s ring and given K.D. the engagement ring to put on. Presumably Ken had the bride’s wedding band.

The music started.

Nothing like Your Cheating Heart or Love Stinks. She almost smiled at the thought. This was familiar, so fam— Oh, good heavens. The Wedding March. The honest to goodness, never thought for a moment that she’d be the bride it announced, Wedding March.

Ken started forward. She followed. Her knees shook. She was going to fall over on her face. This video was going to have an entire laugh reel of outtakes.

“One step at a time,” Ken murmured beside her, placing his free hand over hers as it rested on his arm.

One step. And focus straight ahead.

To where Eric stood. Looking back at her.

With such a strange expression. Solemn, with something else mixed in. She looked at him as another step brought them closer.

Several something elses mixed in. And she didn’t recognize any of them.

Yet somehow taken together, the look added stability to her knees.

One more step. And focus straight ahead. Another. And another.

They were there.

Ken removed his hand from hers. As if that hand had weighed hers down, it rose, met Eric’s and clasped. Hands together, they turned to face Tyce.

“Dearly beloved —”

“Hold it!” Ella called out. “Nobody move. I have to take some stills now.”

T
his wedding was even stranger than Eric had expected.

He’d figured it would raise uncomfortable memories of marrying Hilary. Oddly, it hadn’t.

Maybe that was because this was not a “fashionable” church packed with people the bride insisted
had
to be there. In fairness, he hadn’t protested much. As long as his family and friends were there, he’d figured it didn’t matter who else was there. Only in retrospect did he realize how little of his time that day had been spent with family and friends.

No worries about that today, even if those friends were playing multiple roles. He fought a grin at that thought.

It was like getting married trapped inside an old movie where the film kept breaking. They’d get through one section of the pared-down ceremony, and Ella would stop everybody, shift to her still camera, skittering around them while they made only the minutest adjustments.

Then Ella would shift back to her video camera, and off they’d go again. But only for a short spell.

When he’d first spotted K.D. about to start down the aisle on Ken’s arm, he’d thought she was going to pass out. That’s how pale she was. Then he thought he might pass out. That’s how beautiful she was.

Tall and regal in a flow of silky white that had to be complicated to look that simple and that good. Her hair in soft, feathery wisps under a breath of a veil.

It was as if she had come out of a dream, yet there was no mistaking her reality.

Or the reality of his reaction to her.

She’d looked at him, and he couldn’t have looked away from her for anything on this earth.

When she’d put her hand in his, they’d looked into each other’s eyes, then turned to face the minister, and it had been as if—

No. No. Not, the minister. Tyce. And none of this was real.

He’d kept reminding himself of that.

While his self-reminders had grown thin, he’d seen K.D. gain confidence as the process ground on. They’d repeated vows in fragments, exchanged rings for multiple angles, and Tyce had intoned already familiar words multiple times. They were almost done.

But not quite.

By the ease of the woman beside him, he recognized one fact for sure.

He knew what was coming next. And K.D. didn’t.

“K
iss is next. Gotta have a shot of you-may-now-kiss-your-bride. Not yet. If I can get Tyce’s shoulder without any of his face . . . .” Ella picked up the video camera, adjusted two settings, then commanded, “Okay, go ahead.”

K.D. didn’t move. Neither did Eric.

K.D. didn’t breathe, either, however, and she was pretty sure Eric kept breathing.

“Go ahead,” Ella repeated. She looked up from the viewfinder and said impatiently, “Face each other. Get closer. Pucker your lips. Kiss.”

As if in delayed motion, Eric followed each step, with K.D. half a step behind him. So he was already leaning forward when K.D. formed her mouth into the requisite pucker. He waited. She closed the gap and touched her lips to his.

Quickly, then retreated.

There was silence from their “guests,” though their minister might have snorted.

Ella looked up again from the viewfinder. “That sucked.”

“Ella,” Rose scolded.

“Sorry, Rose. I’ve always wanted to say that. I mean a lot of the kisses do suck.” She considered that. “And then some of the couples get so into it that they —”