Page 112 of On the Line
With the wedding taking place at the Jean family cabin in New York, Berkley had been forced to delegate a lot of the planning to her future mother-in-law, a task that rankled her nerves to no end.
At that moment, they were sitting in the bridal shop, Lexie, Amelia, Berkley’s sister Jessica, and Brent’s sister Mackenzie all seated on a plush white couch, each with a flute of bubbly balanced in one hand while they picked at trays of hors d’oeuvres with the other. Berkley was in the changing room, her voice carrying over to them as she yelled at someone on the other end of the phone about table linens.
“Someone should go save her,” Jessica said.
“As her sister, that’syourjob,” Lexie told her.
“Actually, as her maid of honor, I think it’s yours.”
The kid had a point, and a moment later, Lexie made a beeline for Berkley. Without preamble, she pushed open the fitting room door to find Berkley clad in only her underwear and a nude bra, face beet red as she argued with whoever was on the other end of the line.
Lexie snatched the phone from Berkley’s hand, said to the woman on the other end, “Berkley is going to have to call you back,” and promptly hung up.
“What the fuck?” Berkley said, her fury almost comical given how tiny she was.
“We’re here for dress fittings,” Lexie said calmly. “Now get your cute little ass in that dress and come out here with the rest of us. We don’t have all day.”
Truthfully, they had nothing but time. It was nearing the end of June, and Berkley was on summer vacation from classes. Since she was now working part-time, her schedule at the law firm was light enough that she’d managed to take all of July and August off in preparation for the wedding and honeymoon.
The blogging had taken off in a major way, and Amelia had finally opened her gym the week before. MissFitness was already wildly successful, having signed up forty clients in the first three days alone. Mitch had found Amelia the perfect spot, which, much to Lexie’s dismay, ended up being the ground floor of his loft building.
Apparently, Mitch had been planning to convert the entire building into usable space for years. His hectic work schedule was the only reason why it had remained abandoned, out-dated apartments and storage space for so long. After consulting with the city commissioner and zoning board, he was approved for a commercial leasing license.
When he first approached Amelia about it—naturally cutting her a ridiculously cheap deal on the rent—she flat out refused. But once she and Lexie sat down and talked about it, and Berkley explained the contract she’d drawn up, they both agreed they couldn’t have asked for a better space. It took some time to turn the former building lobby into a gym, but Lexie couldn’t deny…it was perfect. Exactly what Amelia had envisioned, and they had Mitch to thank for it.
With the Jean-Daniels wedding happening in New York, Lexie was using that as an opportunity to head out east before the wedding and bum around NYC, and then spend some time exploring upstate afterward. She and Amelia had planned a fun series for their socials and the blog about the five boroughs in NYC, and Lexie couldn’t wait to get started.
Working for herself had a lot of perks; the biggest of which was that she could make her own schedule.
As for Mackenzie and Jessica…
Well, Jess was on summer vacation as well, about to enter her final year of college before earning her teaching degree, and staying with Mackenzie in the city for the summer while she worked with one of the youth groups in the area.
And Mackenzie was still keeping FLEX from going off the rails while her big brother did his job winning the city championships. There had been talk of her enrolling in some college courses to expand her knowledge on business, financing, and marketing.
Her brother was a fount of information on those subjects, but Mackenzie didn’t want to always rely on him for help.
“It’sourcompany,” she had told Lexie and Berkley over drinks one night. “I need to start acting like it.”
All that was to say there was nothing in the world any of themneededto be doing that was more important than this.
“That dumb bitch wanted to send ivory table linens to the cabin for the wedding,” Berkley said with an eye roll. “I specifically asked forcream.”
Lexie huffed out a sigh through her nose. “I thought Sandra was handling all that bullshit?”
“She is, but somehow that company misplaced her number and called me instead. As if I don’t have enough to worry about.”
Lexie settled her hands on Berkley’s bare shoulders, forcing her friend to tip her head back and meet her gaze. “It’s going to be fine, Berk. I’m giving you two minutes to call Sandra and explain to her what’s going on so she can fix it. Then you’re putting that dress on and coming out of this cubicle. Deal?”
Berkley heaved a deep breath. “Deal.”
Lexie rejoined the group outside a moment later. “Everything okay?” Mackenzie asked.
“Yeah. It was just something dumb about table linens. She’s calling your mom to sort it and then she’ll be out.”
And when Berkley finally emerged from the changing room…
Lexie wasn’t a crier, but tears sprung to her eyes as Berkley walked out and stepped up onto the dais set in front of a curving half-wall of lighted mirrors.
