Miracle March

A romantic comedy set in the snow.

Fiction.

Margot’s coworker Shelley was nervous about being left in charge of the annual Families Fighting Cancer Together charity fundraiser. It was one of the biggest, and certainly one of the fanciest, benefits that Margot’s event planning company put on every year, and this year was the first time Margot wasn’t going to be there to manage it.

“I’m only going to be in Tahoe, Shelley,” Margot said. “It’s not like I’m going somewhere that you can’t reach me. Plus, you’re ready for this! You can totally handle it. I would never have left my wedding planning trip on one of the biggest weekends of the year if I didn’t think you could do it.”

“You got it, Boss,” Shelley said. “I know your wedding planning trip is important, too. I can’t believe your wedding is coming up so soon, with so much left to figure out. You don’t have any time to waste! June will be here before you know it.”

It was uncharacteristic of Margot to have left parts of her wedding planning to the last minute. If she had been planning a June wedding for a client, she would have had nearly everything taken care of by March. But as Margot drove away from her office, she breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Shelley would do a fine job, and knowing that she had completed every task on her list for the charity event. It happened to be her favorite client, FFCT, a large charity supporting families enduring pediatric cancer treatment. Their annual benefit was to take place that weekend at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, in the famous Penthouse Suite, where she knew Prince Charles and Princess Diana had once stayed. They held it there every year, and Margot loved the chance to go and see the fabulous view of the San Francisco Bay — the same one Charles and Lady Di must’ve seen — but this weekend, she had to miss it for the sake of making sure that her own wedding in Lake Tahoe went according to plan.

Margot was likely the only person in Lake Tahoe who was not excited about the recent snowfall, as she did not care about skiing. Her fiancé, Brian, was not much of a skier, either, but he was not coming with her on this trip. Even though it was mid-March, snow was still blanketing Lake Tahoe, much to the delight of the local skiers. “Miracle March,” they called it, especially after a disappointing winter season. A few hundred miles west in San Francisco, spring was beginning to blossom, which made the Tahoe snow that much more enticing to skiers eager to get a few final runs in the season. Brian had put tire chains in the trunk of her car just in case the snowstorm got worse. 

Margot mentally reviewed her wedding to-do list. She had to visit the venue to talk with the catering staff, find the salon where she would do her trial hair and makeup, and, the thing she was most looking forward to, taste the cake. Brian wouldn’t have minded cake tasting but told Margot that other than that, he didn’t really care about the wedding planning. He had decided to stay in Sacramento for work, where he was an advisor to the governor’s office, instead of driving to Tahoe to make the wedding arrangements together. 

“Honestly, do whatever — I mean, whatever’s in the budget, and I won’t complain, I promise. I’ll be fine with it,” he had said, seemingly unaware of the dismissiveness in his last sentence. Margot convinced herself she was happy with this arrangement. At her bridal shower, she had told her friends that she loved having the freedom to do whatever she wanted for their wedding and that she didn’t have to compromise, which prompted her Matron of Honor Vanessa to say, “Well, enjoy it, that’s the last time that’ll happen!”

Undeterred, Margot knew exactly what she needed to do. She pulled up to the bed-and-breakfast she’d found online. It was high up in the tree-dotted mountainside of South Lake Tahoe. The hotel where they were going to have the wedding, The Edgewood, was both booked up and prohibitively expensive for her to stay during this trip, as it essentially amounted to running errands. The black SUV parked in the bed-and-breakfast’s driveway was already covered with snow. She opened the door and was greeted by the proprietor, a cheerful woman in her mid-60s, in a knitted sweater that looked sweetly worn from years of washing machine tumbles and sticky children’s hugs. 

“Hello!” she said. “Are you Margot? We’re so excited you’re here.” She began talking excitedly, the way anyone who goes into the hospitality industry seems naturally inclined to do. “There’s one other guest here this weekend. He’s here to ski, but not you…. you’re here about wedding planning!” She clasped her hands together. “My son got married at the Edgewood a few years back, and it was beautiful, just beautiful. He and his wife did such a wonderful job planning it, and they said everyone at Edgewood was great to work with. I’m sure you and your fiancé will be so happy.” Suddenly Margot felt self-conscious that Brian wasn’t with her and felt the awkward sensation of wanting to assure this woman whose name she couldn’t remember that her relationship was fine. 

“I’m sorry, I’m horrible with names. I can’t remember yours,” Margot said.

“Oh, it’s Susan!” she said. “Margot, right? I’m the one you’ve been emailing with. Now, let me take you to your room.” She bent down and grabbed Margot’s suitcase, and they began heading down the pink rose wallpaper-covered hallway. “Do you need a wake-up call in the morning?”

Although she indulged for a moment in the idea of a motherly woman like Susan sweetly calling her at 6:30 to wish her a good morning — what would surely be a gentle stirring and not at all the harsh beeping intrusion of her usual alarm, she passed in favor of her iPhone to be less of an imposition on Susan so early in the morning. “Ok, well,” Susan said. “Don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything!” She turned to walk back towards the main entrance, and as she did, a door across the hallway opened and a 30-something man in a faded flannel shirt stepped out. “Oh, well hello there, Jake!” Susan said. “How’s your stay so far?” 

As if drawing curtains on a window with a great view, his cheeks pulled back to reveal a toothpaste commercial-worthy smile. “It’s great!” he said. “I’m heading out to the slopes now. Have a good one,” he said. He paused for a moment, looked at them both and added, “I’ll see you later.” Margot couldn’t shake the sense that for a moment, he was talking to her, making a promise to see her again, and then had an unexpected twinge of excitement. But of course, he wasn’t talking to her — why would a total stranger promise, “See you later,” as if they had ever exchanged even a single word before? — but the idea rooted itself in her head, the way intrusive thoughts do, like when she was holding her cousin’s baby last Christmas and couldn’t stop herself from thinking, what if I just dropped this baby right now? even though she had a perfectly solid grip on it. She tried to push the disruptive thought aside. She deliberately pictured Brian’s face. Imaginary Brian looked up from his imaginary laptop and smiled at her. 

Jake walked far enough down the hallway where he was out of earshot, and Susan turned to Margot with a conspiratorial wink. “He’s a cutie. I can’t understand why he’s here all alone. Maybe he’s recovering from a breakup,” she said. “Well, what about you, dear? What happened to your fiancé?” 

“We’re not broken up,” Margot said defensively and then realized that’s not exactly what Susan meant. Susan was asking slightly more intrusive questions than Margot was used to hearing. Still, Susan managed to do so with the finesse of a hairdresser who gathers up other people’s gossip all day then promptly forgets what she’s heard at the end of her shift, so that her questions, while more prodding than most people’s, came across as genuine interest rather than meddling. Margot laughed to cover her embarrassment. Imaginary Brian looked up from his laptop long enough to frown. “He just stayed back in the city to finish up some work. We kind of talked and realized wedding planning was a little bit more my thing than his. I have more opinions on it than he does, I guess. It’s totally fine. It’s not like he needs a hair and makeup trial.” She laughed. “He’s bald,” she added, and Susan laughed politely. Imaginary Brian frowned again.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer,” she said. “It sounds like you have your hands full. Let me know if you need anything. I’m just down the hall. Stay warm!” She smiled and went back to the main room.

Margot sat down on her bed in the tiny room. “Charming” is the word the website had used, and Margot knew what that meant, and she was right — there was barely enough space for her to unzip a suitcase on the floor. But the close quarters did add to the coziness of the place, and she wasn’t planning on spending very much time in it, anyway. She had a whole weekend of errands planned.

***

Margot settled into the hairdresser’s chair as the hairdresser, Audrey, slipped the shiny black cape around her neck. Margot was still holding her iPhone and opened it to the wedding hair Pinterest board. 

“I really love this style,” she said, scrolling through twenty-six different celebrities and models all wearing the same romantic half-up, half-down hairstyle. Audrey leaned in for a closer look. 

“Oh yeah, I love that. We can definitely do that,” she said, picking up a spray bottle with one hand and pinning up Margot’s hair in the other. Her confident tone and smooth handling of multiple tools put Margot at ease. “So,” Audrey said. “Tell me about your wedding!”

Margot began the same, now-rehearsed speech about the location (the Edgewood), the flowers (peonies and anemones), the bridesmaids’ dresses (varying shades of pink, but all dusty pinks, not fuchsia) that she had perfected at cocktail parties, showers, and at work. 

“That sounds beautiful. But now I want to hear about your fiancé. What made Brian ‘the one?’” Audrey asked. It wasn’t until she asked about Brian, with that intimacy that only a hairdresser she would probably only see again one time could, that Margot was shoved out of conversational auto-pilot. She felt like a Chatty Cathy doll who had all the right things to say previously recorded, but now found herself without an appropriate response queued up for this question.

Margot paused. “Well, he is a great guy,” she started. Leaving out all of their relationship’s intimate aspects, she scrounged for things to relay to Audrey. “He loves animals, politics, and wine,” she said, as if these were particularly unique traits that set him as a clear front-runner for husband material. Audrey nodded politely, with an array of bobby pins in her mouth. Margot studied Audrey’s face for a moment, noticing her furrowed brow and wondering if that was attributable to her mouthful of bobby pins or her judgement of Margot’s answer.

Margot would later look back on this moment and be grateful for it, but she felt resentment while she was living through it. It wasn’t the first time she felt the stress of having to justify her relationship (or for that matter, her life choices) to a stranger, but it was the first time that she realized she couldn’t convincingly do it. Audrey had been able to ask the question in such a way that others hadn’t; girlfriends at happy hour and coworkers had never asked the question so pointedly and without a graceful exit. Margot hadn’t known Audrey longer than a few minutes and two prior emails to set up the appointment, but she was able to cut to the core of Margot’s mental inner workings. 

Audrey continued to do Margot’s hair as requested, happily chatting about other wedding details and her personal life for filler, admittedly bragging about her older daughter’s snowboarding prowess, her baby daughter’s first words, and her family’s home renovation project. Margot nodded along and once they were finished with her hair, sat quietly with her eyes closed while Audrey created a smokey eye and neutral lip for her makeup. At the end of the appointment, the two women hugged and Margot thanked Audrey warmly, handing her a pre-planned and sealed envelope with a cash tip, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Audrey’s questioning had dislodged something deeply unsettling.

Driving down the snow-plowed mountain road from the hair salon to the bed-and-breakfast, Margot caught a glimpse of her wedding-ready hair and photo-ready makeup in the rearview window. Her normally loose-flowing brunette ringlets were pinned up around her face, and she was wearing much more blush, eyeshadow, and eyeliner than she was used to seeing on her face. Among the skiers and hikers inhabiting Lake Tahoe, she knew she looked out of place, as if her head had somehow escaped from an off-Broadway play and attached itself to a plainclothes body. 

It was just as she was pulling into the driveway that she got an emergency notification on her phone. It came in the form of a loud buzzing sound and a bright yellow pop-up alert — a government-issued safety order. She put the car in park, raised the emergency brake, and read it. “!HEAVY SNOWFALL ALERT! CalTrans requires residents and visitors of Lake Tahoe to remain off the roads beginning at midnight, tonight.” Margot got out of the car, completely forgetting about her fancy hair and makeup, and ran into the bed-and-breakfast.

“Susan! Did you see this? We’re snowed in,” she said.

“Yes, I did. Please feel free to make yourself as comfortable as possible,” she said. After an awkward beat she added, “you might be here a while. Of course, don’t worry about that cost; we’ll figure that out. And, honey, let me know if you need anything. Anything at all. You might want to settle in with some wine. Help yourself, the opener’s right there.” She pointed to a wine rack perched on a cabinet. “This might be a while.” Margot felt an amicable agreement on the first “might be here a while,” but upon Susan’s second use of the phrase, Margot started to feel its gravity in a decidedly non-amicable way. A resentful way. I get it, she thought, with an unreasonable projection of irritation on Susan.

Margot sat down in the parlor to absorb the news. She turned her iPhone towards herself and in doing so, saw her overly made-up face once again reflected at her, this time appearing comically absurd in its readiness to go out, during a time when that was about to be expressly prohibited. The California Transportation Authority just announced that the roads were closed and everyone was stuck where they were, and here she was, dressed ready for her wedding from the neck up. Suddenly, her reflection was obscured by a calendar notification that her cake tasting appointment was starting in thirty minutes. Since the closed road order didn’t technically begin until midnight, she really wanted to squeeze in this errand. And cake felt like a much-needed and deserved indulgence.

The front door swung open, and Jake appeared. “Wow, did you just hear?” he said, looking at Margot. The snowstorm was clearly the topic he was referring to — it felt immediately apparent that this was the topic on everyone’s mind. She nodded and stood for a moment to grab her purse. 

“This is weird,” she said. “But I actually have to go somewhere. That’s gotta still be allowed, right?” 

“I guess so,” he said. He looked at Margot again. “It probably depends on what you have to do. But you look like you’re pretty ready to go. Do you mind if I ask where you’re going?”

“Cake tasting!” she said.

“Wait, that’s a thing?” he laughed. “How do I add that to my to-do list?”

Margot stopped herself from volunteering the information that she was doing this particular errand for her upcoming wedding. She wasn’t hiding it, exactly, but she definitely wasn’t going to lead with it. She settled on: “I have an appointment at a bakery in like, thirty minutes.”

“You’re dressed like that to go cake tasting?” His particular inflection on the word “that” left no doubt in Margot’s mind that he was flirting.

“It’s not really how I’m dressed, exactly.” She heard the tone of her own voice confirm that she was flirting, too. “Technically, it’s just my hair and makeup. But yes.” Although she hadn’t meant to, she realized now that withholding the reason for looking the way she did was now coming across to Jake as being coy. Coy, and flirtatious, but not unfaithful, she reasoned. Not by a long shot.

“Well, that sounds like some fun.” Then, as though after an inner debate, he added, “want some company? There’s nothing for me to do here. They’re shutting everything down on the mountain.” 

She agreed, and was grateful to have both the company and someone with experience driving in bad weather. Jake drove while she navigated, and Margot knew that the people in the other cars reasonably assumed that they were together, if they noticed them at all, which of course, in all likelihood, they did not. Jake reached for the dashboard, and Margot assumed it was to turn up the radio, but instead, he turned the music off, and turned to look at her a little longer than she would have liked a person driving to take his eyes off the road. “So Margot. What is your favorite meal?” he said.

This question caught her off guard. She thought for a moment. “Maybe seared salmon, asparagus, and quinoa,” she said finally.

“Wow, that’s impressive. Very healthy. I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes guy, but I wish I were like you,” he said. “My trainer wishes I were, too. Can I guess that you’re a pinot noir drinker?”

She smiled. “I do love my pinot noir. In whites, I’m a sauv blanc person.”

“Very popular choice!” he said. “That goes well with goat cheese and asparagus. I tend to find.” After a beat, he added, “I pair wines with food for a living.”

“At a restaurant?” she asked.

“At a winery.” He pulled off the highway and into the driveway in front a log-cabin styled row of buildings nestled among pine trees. “Looks like we’re here! ‘Cake Tahoe,’ that’s funny,” he said, pointing at the sign.

When they walked into the bakery, Jake held the door for Margot like they were old friends with this particular choreography as a habit. Margot introduced herself to the bakery’s owner, a petite woman named Joanna who was around Margot’s age, wearing a pink polka dot apron and her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. 

“I’m so glad you could make it here today, with everything going on,” Joanna said. “But don’t worry. I’m assuming that things will calm down soon and everything will be fine. Our suppliers aren’t in the affected areas, and we’re stocking up on supplies, anyway. So! When’s your wedding again?” she said. Margot blushed as she looked quickly at Jake. Now he knew why they were there.

“June,” said Margot. “June sixth. And actually, it’s uh, just my wedding. Well, my and my fiancé’s, of course. Brian. Brian’s not here; he’s back home. This is Jake though!” she blurted out in a too-loud, awkward burst. 

“Yes, her wedding,” he said, and Margot was relieved to hear him play along, instead of feeling betrayed by her lie of omission.

“Hello Jake,” Joanna said. She happily chatted as she brought out cake slices for them to try. “I’ve prepped the flavors we discussed on the phone. Here’s carrot cake, red velvet, a classic vanilla, vanilla chocolate swirl, and lemon.” Five tiny matching sets of cake slices lined up in front of them like little sets of dollhouse-sized bookends. “And then, of course, we have our frostings: vanilla buttercream, chocolate buttercream, chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream, and, my personal favorite, champagne buttercream. You can mix and match to see what flavor combinations you like for your wedding cake. Ok, take your time, and enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions!” Joanna set out the frosting in tiny paper cups and left Jake and Margot for a few moments, attending to the beeping coming from the kitchen behind her. 

Margot reached out first for the red velvet cake, politely assuming its niche factor would make it Jake’s least likely inclination. He reached for the vanilla. “So,” he said, mid-bite. “Sorry.” He laughed at his mistake of talking with food in his mouth and chewed quickly. “My grandmother would kill me if she saw me talking with food in my mouth. Anyway, so tell me, what are you guys planning for this wedding? A fancy affair? Or something more low key and intimate?”

“Really? You want to hear about this?”

“Yeah! I’m all ears. I love weddings, actually. We do some of them at the winery, it’s always a ton of fun. I love seeing people happy together, whether it’s just the couple, or them with their friends and family. That’s kind of what it’s all about, for me. I know that’s corny, although I guess a bride is a good audience for that.” He paused. “Why didn’t you tell me this was for your wedding?” 

Even though she could have expected it, Margot didn’t know how to answer this question. “I guess I thought it didn’t affect the cake tasting. It could still be fun. It seemed kind of...weird to mention it.”

“So tell me about it,” said Jake. He dipped the chocolate cake into the champagne buttercream and his face lit up. “Oh my dod,” he said, mouth stuffed too full to enunciate. “You mogga dry dis.”

“About the wedding? It’s in June, so the weather up here should be quite nice by then. It’s at the Edgewood Hotel, do you know that place? The ceremony will be outdoors, in between the lake and the golf course —”

“Yah, I know it. It’s absolutely gorgeous right there on the seventh green. Is your fiancé really into golf?”

“No, actually...he doesn't really have hobbies. He just works mostly. I think he gets most of his enjoyment from working, which is good when you have to log such crazy hours.”

“He doesn’t have hobbies? What do you guys have in common?”

Margot now felt that she had to dig deeper for a good answer than she had tried before her jarring conversation with Audrey. “We both like wine, I guess. And art. We met at a wine bar, as cliche as that is, and he works for the governor’s office. I usually like to come to Tahoe in the summer, and sometimes we rent a place on the lake, so we wanted to get married here. But since he’s so busy with work right now, he figured I’d know what I wanted. The one thing he wanted to do was taste the cake, but….” she shrugged as she dipped the chocolate cake into the champagne buttercream as Jake had suggested. “Wow,” she said. “You’re right. This is quite good.”

Margot’s phone rang and she recognized the caller ID as Shelley, the woman she’d left to cover her at the FFCT event back in San Francisco. “I’m so sorry, I have to take this,” she said to Jake.

“Margot! Thank God you answered! I’m so sorry to bother you on vacation.”

“It’s fine, Shelley, I’m not on vacation. What’s up?”

“I’m freaking out right now. None of the wine we ordered has arrived and the party starts in twenty minutes. We don’t have enough time to chill it even if it magically dropped out of the sky right now. We cannot have this event if there’s no wine.”

“Did you ask the Fairmont catering staff if they had any wine we could buy?” she asked.

“Yes, and they said there is another event tonight and they don’t have any to sell us. This is an absolute nightmare. I can’t possibly go to Traders Joe’s or Safeway right now, I’m in a ball gown, my hair’s not done, how would I even get it all here...”

“Hey,” Jake said, motioning to get her attention. “I think I have an idea.” He had been texting on his phone and in the course of doing so, his initial look of concern became a plotting grin.

“Shelley, let me call you back,” Margot said, hanging up the phone. Then turning to Jake, she asked, “What’s your idea?”

“One of my business partners owns a wine shop on Fillmore Street. They can send a shipment of our wine to the Fairmont right now, if that helps. It’s ten cases, and it’s only reds and whites. There’s no champagne, but that’s gotta help a little bit at least, right?”

“Oh my God, I -” she stopped short of saying I love you, in the exaggerated way she would have to any female friend who might have saved her party (and reputation) like that. “I cannot thank you enough,” she said finally.

“It’s my pleasure,” he said.

 After Margot called Shelley back and arranged the details for the wine delivery, she looked at Jake and the cake slices in front of her. “You are an absolute life saver. I actually forgot for a second what we were doing here. We are choosing my cake!” She took a bite of the carrot cake that had been untouched and shuddered. “Oh no, it has to be the chocolate one, you were right.”

“Well then,” he said. “I think you found your cake.” His toothpaste-perfect smile appeared again, endearing him to Margot with a tiny chocolate crumb stuck to Jake’s lip.

“Does Brian like chocolate?” 

“Who? Oh God, Brian! Yes. Yeah, I think so. I mean, who doesn’t, right?”

“And he missed out on this for work?”

“It’s just cake,” she said, knowing that she sounded defensive and that she felt betrayed by her own argument in Brian’s favor. 

“No,” said Jake. “I mean….this.” He gestured to the air between them.

Margot stared at him, feeling her attraction to Jake and realizing, for the first time, that it was reciprocated and also not a figment of her imagination. She sat in the tension for a moment, totally forgetting the reason they were tasting cakes. When Imaginary Brian’s face appeared in her mind’s eye, she snapped back to reality.

“Well! I guess we better find Joanna and tell her what we picked!” she said, quickly getting up and walking away from Jake.

***

Jake drove down the hill with the cautious confidence of a seasoned bad-weather driver. He reached for the radio station buttons and stopped at a song by a twangy, popular hipster band that Margot recognized, which was comprised of one woman with wavy, bright red hair and a troupe of banjo-playing men who, in their suspenders and beards, resembled Civil War reenactors. “I love these guys,” Jake said, singing the chorus under his breath for a few lyrics. “We actually got them to play at the winery right before they blew up. It was on my birthday, which was pretty cool.”

“Wait!” said Margot. “I almost booked them for one of the biggest events of my career. Where was that….hold on a sec. Do you work at Golden Moon Winery?”

“Yeah, you were there, too?” Jake laughed. “Good old Gold Moon Wine Room. We call it that as a joke. That’s so funny. I’ve worked there for like, seven years now I think.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“August fourth.”

“I cannot believe this.”

“It’s a small world,” Jake said. “That’s such a cliche but it’s true, especially in the wine industry.”

“No, I wasn’t there....I mean...I can’t believe this. I tried to book The Neon Wanderers for this huge charity event, and it would have been amazing for my career. I thought I had everything confirmed and set to go, but then they pulled out at the last second for some gig at a winery! And it definitely was that day. I remember that because it was summertime. I cannot believe that was you!” 

The snow was falling harder and Jake began driving slightly faster as if he could outrun it. After a few moments of silence and staring out at the snow, Margot said, “I hope you had a happy birthday.”

“Aw, don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” said Jake. “It wasn’t for my birthday exactly, it was just on my birthday. I can assure you that they did not tell us that they skipped out on a charity event. But, it seems like you did okay without the Neon Wanderers. You seem to be….” Margot felt a fervent curiosity to know what adjective Jake was going to use when he finished with the word “fine.”

“It was very difficult to explain that one to my boss,” she said. “And just so you know, I am okay without them. But,” she sighed dramatically, looking wistfully out the car window, “Who knows whatever happened to the sick orphans at Holy Mary Mother of God Orphanage…”

“There is no way that was a fundraiser for sick orphans. Definitely not from an orphanage called that,” he said.

“You got me,” she laughed. “It was for like, Women in Fintech if I remember correctly.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I would not have been cool with the Neon Wanderers bailing on the Women in Fintech, had I known,” Jake said. “Seriously, though. I have a thing about sticking to your word. If you say you’re going to do something, you’d better do it. My grandma was kind of a stickler about that, she drilled that into my head when I was growing up. It sucks they did that to you.” He turned off the highway and onto the road toward the bed-and-breakfast. Then under his breath, but loudly enough for Margot to be able to hear, he added slyly, “It was a pretty sick birthday party, though.”

“You said it wasn’t for your birthday!” Margot said.

“It wasn’t! It was a marketing event for the winery, I promise. But I still made it a good time. I always make it a good time.”

And under her breath, but loudly enough for him to be able to hear, she said, “Yes, yes you do.”

***

Susan greeted them in the parlor of the bed-and-breakfast, where a small fire was growing in the fireplace. “Margot!” she said, turning around. “You have a message from your very special someone!”

Margot’s mind rummaged through reasons why anyone would have sent her a message there instead of texting her directly. “My what?” she asked.

“From Brian!” Susan said, handing Margot a vase of daffodils. “I’m sorry, I read the card. I found these on the porch earlier and didn’t want them to freeze, but had to find out who they belonged to.”

“It’s okay,” she said, opening up the card to read.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Jake said, turning to walk back to his room.

Suddenly Margot was embarrassed to be holding the flowers, embarrassed to be holding Brian’s words in her hands, while just a few moments ago, having held a possibility that something could happen between her and Jake. 

Brian’s note, which Margot imagined him typing into the website where he’d ordered the flowers, read: 

Hope your having fun. 

Thx 4 all you do!!! Brian

Upon reading this, Margo felt conflicted: she privately wished that he had said something sweeter, more substantial, more reassuring that he was indeed the right choice for her to marry; at the same time, she also felt some slight relief at Brian’s note not having been overly emotional — was she really going to marry a man who wouldn’t write the word “love” on the card? 

Later that night, Margo went to her bathroom and took a long look at herself in the mirror. She took some selfies and contorted her arm at an unnatural angle to get a good look at the back of her head. For a moment, she briefly considered knocking on Jake’s door and asking him to help. But then she realized that would introduce the possibility of him coming into her room — that was a firm no, she was not going to do that — and that it might, in a very awkward but real sense, be insensitive to ask him for help with her wedding tasks. If Brian had been with her, he probably would have quickly snapped a few shots without putting much thought into it and without checking with Margot to see that he’d done it the way she wanted, then gone back to his work. She texted the best two shots to her bridesmaids’ group chat and washed her face. When she finished, she checked her phone to see that the group chat loved it, so she texted Audrey right away to confirm that Audrey was hired for the wedding day. Secure in having her cake, hair, and makeup all confirmed for her wedding (as well as the big things like the venue, dress, and date), Margot laid down in bed and fell asleep quickly.

She was awoken the next morning by a phone call from Brian. “Hey babe, did you get my flowers?”

Still groggy with sleep and not having had any coffee yet, she was slow to answer. “Yeah, I got them last night, thank you. I meant to call you but I was exhausted. It was a long day yesterday, but I got a lot done. How are you?”

“Good!” he said. “Really good, actually. I have some great news. My boss wants me to lead the team for one of the June special election ballot initiatives! You know how I’ve been wanting to do this kind of thing for years, and yesterday he took me out to lunch and formally asked me to do it!”

“That’s so exciting, honey. But the June election? Isn’t that just three days after our wedding? We’re supposed to be in Tahiti by then.”

“Yah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to grease the wheels with the flowers and tell you...we have to move the wedding.”

***

An hour later, Margot sat in the kitchen nook, despondently staring into her coffee mug. She reached for a pen and piece of paper on the table nearby and started totaling up the deposits she had placed for various vendors confirming her June sixth wedding date. On the phone with Brian, she’d roughly estimated a loss of twenty-two thousand dollars if they canceled the wedding now. But probably because he’d wanted this opportunity so badly and for so long, Brian said that was “not ideal, but certainly doable.” After all the work she’d put into planning this wedding, she was nauseated at the idea of canceling or even moving the wedding date. If she were doing this for someone else as an event planner, she would have charged thousands of dollars for her time, and now she considered that wasted money, too. She was too nervous to text her bridesmaids or her mother, lest any of them set off a panic, but she needed to discuss this with someone who was not Brian. 

As if conjured up by sheer will, Jake walked into the kitchen and started making himself a cup of coffee. He saw Margot sitting at the table, and not standing too closely, said “Mind if I sit down?”

“No, not at all. Mind if I get your opinion on something?”

“Sure,” he said. “Go for it.”

She took a deep breath and told Jake everything, from her lost-deposit math, to the conversation with the hairdresser, to her wasted time and undoubtedly disappointed friends. Jake listened patiently and when she finally came to a stop he asked, “I’m a little unclear. Are you talking about canceling entirely? Or are you talking about moving it out a few months?”

“Honestly, I do not think moving it out a few months is an option. Any good venues are already booked, and all the vendors and the weather would be so much different…”

“It’s interesting,” Jake said. “That through this whole conversation, I have only heard you talk about logistics and other people’s expectations.”

“I’m an event planner. That’s how I think,” she said.

“You’re also a bride,” he said. “And I haven’t heard you say anything about how you feel in all of this.”

Margot was stunned by this realization. Since her phone call with Brian, she hadn’t even once checked in with herself about how she was feeling — the thought of doing so made her stomach ache and her heart race. 

“I wish you could see the look on your face right now,” Jake said. “You look like the actor in a movie trailer who just saw the big bad monster, and the audience is waiting to find out what you’re seeing. And if you don’t know what you’re thinking, or how you feel at the idea of not getting married, well, I think that at least answers part of the question.”

“I look awful,” Margot said, looking down at her crumpled robe. She looked back at her notes. “Oh God. Does this mean I have to call off the wedding?”

“I can’t tell you what to do. But no, you don’t. You don’t look awful,” he said, grabbing his coffee mug and heading towards the door. “You look beautiful.”

***

After spending the rest of the day in bed tossing and turning, that evening, with both hands shaking, Margot dialed Brian’s number. Only once in her career had she ever helped a bride cancel a wedding. Margot had been nervous for that bride and couldn’t ever imagine herself in the same position. She prayed that Brian wouldn’t answer and she could somehow avoid this conversation for another day. He did answer the phone, and Margot tearfully agreed to cancel the wedding. “It’s for the best,” she said, trying not to sound like she had rehearsed this message in her head all day.

 “Where do we go from here?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know you’re going to nail it at the ballot box in June. I’ll be rooting for you.”

“Thanks, Margorita,” he said. “Okay, well. I guess this is goodbye.”

She hung up the phone and immediately got up and knocked on Jake’s door.

“It’s over,” she said. 

“I’m proud of you for doing what you needed to do,” he said. “At least the hard part’s over.”

“I do still have some really difficult conversations to have. I have to call my parents, and my bridesmaids, and all my vendors. Oh man,” she sighed. “I don’t even want to think about that right now.”

“Well, don’t cancel them all,” Jake said.

“What? What do you mean?” she said.

“Can I ask you a favor? Don’t cancel one,” said. “Just leave the order for the cake.”

“What? What on earth am I going to do with a wedding cake? A wedding cake for 125 people and no wedding?”

“Okay, we can scale it back a bit. But I just think about Joanna and how nice she was, and you know I hate to break a commitment. What would my grandmother say?”

Margot, for the first time all day, laughed. “She’d say that’s too much cake for…”

“For us,” Jake said. He reached out to hug Margot. “But before we get to that, you know what we need to do?”

“What do we need to do?”

“We need….to go out on a date. I know a great little winery I’d love to take you to, maybe we can see if the Neon Wanderers are playing there. I hear they put on a great show.”

“I wouldn’t know!” she laughed. “But I can’t wait to find out.”