Page 5 of More Trouble
2
Willa
“These pinwheel sandwiches are to die for!”
Before anyone saw the horrified expression on my face, I turned away.
I was catering a bridal luncheon.
The theme was spring in the garden.
The whole event was supposed to be light and airy, including the food. I remembered the first meeting with the bride. She didn’t want anything hot; she didn’t want anything heavy; she had a dress to fit into. It had to be light on the carbs, easy on the sugar and there was to be no table of confections. Despite the picky nature of the bride-to-be, who gave a whole new meaning to the word Bridezilla, I couldn’t walk away. I was in a stranglehold with this contract and only the money kept me interested.
This family was rich.
There were four daughters.
If all went well, I’d be up to my eyeballs in business.
One bride, six bridesmaids - three sisters, three best friends - plus thirteen other so-called besties all meant for one big fat invoice. Even if everyone else was suffering because the bride had no self-control.
I remembered designing the menu. Allana, the bride, had insisted that everything should be in miniature. So, there was cured meats and cheeses, slices of fruit and dip, the pinwheel sandwiches. Everything had to be similarly sized and had been a total nightmare to create. My assistant, Tori, and I had been up since five carefully slicing and dicing the food to an inch of perfection.
Thankfully, I hadn’t been asked to source the venue. Allana’s choice had been the most popular brasserie in our town. There was nothing this fancy back home in Cali Cross, the equivalent would have been somewhere in Cali Heights. The private room had been transformed with a vintage style, which was at odds with its usual contemporary, clean cut lines. There was bunting and flowers adorning the walls, and the table had been set with china crockery with cutesy flower patterns. Everything was pastel and pretty. It felt like the decorating equivalent of sugared almonds.
Across the room, I caught Tori’s eye. She tried to stifle a giggle as one of the bridesmaids took one of everything and still didn’t seem to have anything on her plate.
My gaze swept over the assembled women. Most of the guests were so thin they would slip down the cracks in the sidewalk. Seriously, they could all do with a trip to Mickey D’s.
Despite the Bridezilla’s like Allana, it was bridal luncheons like this which kept my business afloat. All through college, I’d worked with an event planning firm and once I graduated, I decided I could do it for myself. I leveraged a couple of key contacts who had always been impressed with my efforts, quickly built up my brand and found Tori to help. WH Events had been going for a little over six months, and I had high hopes for the future.
“Willa, thank you so much, this is absolutely gorgeous! It’s everything I wanted.” Allana touched my arm. “I really wish Andre and I had been able to book you for the reception itself, but my parents are hugely traditional, and they wanted the people who catered their wedding to do it.”
Andre.
Every time I heard that name my heart skipped.
It wasn’tthatAndre; my boyfriend during high school.
No, this Andre was a personal trainer with forearms bigger than my thighs. How the hell he was going to cope with pinwheel sandwiches and cubed meat at his wedding breakfast, I would never know.
It had been years since Andre Cash and I had been together. I’d hardly even seen him since graduation. Remembering what he’d done—with twins for God’s sake—hardened me again.
I forced a smile. “Thanks, Allana. I hope you don’t mind if I take some pictures for my social media? It would be great publicity.”
“Of course! It all looks so fantastic; I would love for other people to see it.” She reached over and touched my arm. “Can you tag me and Andre, so those people I wasn’t able to invite can see it too.”
“Sure. No problem.” I suspected Allana’s underlying motive was to show people what they were missing, that they weren’t part of the exclusive club invited into the inner circle. I tried not to roll my eyes.
She drifted away, running up to one of her friends and squealing as if they hadn’t seen each other only five minutes ago.
Tori appeared beside me. “You okay?”
She knew all about Andre. I’d had to tell her when I’d almost had a heart attack at the first meeting with Allana, when I’d thought it was him to whom Alana was getting married. Her reaction when I’d told her what he’d done was the same as mine; a mixture of disgust at his actions and a deep loathing that he’d thought so little of me. I’d always thought he’d bethe one. Even way back then, I’d had a vision board of what our wedding might look like. I burned it the night he told me what had happened with the twins.
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged.
“Are you still going out with that Tom later?” she asked.
