I’m sure this isn’t the last time this reporter will write about the likes of the wedding planner, Charlotte Hamner.
Everett grinned inwardly as he folded up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm.
Outside, Everett called for a Lyft car and darted into the back seat, still holding onto that huge coat. The Lyft driver was a California-guy through-and-through, and he scoffed at the coat. “Where were you? I hope you went skiing.”
Everett gave a half-answer about a job he had to do out east. He let his head roll back on the car seat as the vehicle rolled toward Silver Lake. For reasons he couldn’t fully name, the place looked much different than it had before he’d left—as though his brief stint out east had left his eyes permanently changed. When he closed them, he saw snow behind his eyelids.
What was that about?
Back in his apartment, he received a text from the girl he had been seeing on-and-off over the previous month or so. He thought back to their few nights together, how stunted the conversation had been and made the decision to end it.
Compared to what he had built with Charlotte, it had been next to nothing, anyway.
He sat at his kitchen table and scanned through his phone.
It was the first time in several days that he gave full attention to other people’s lives, which was also a difference to him.
People in California were normally looking in on one another, always trying to “win” the situation with a better life.
Back on Martha’s Vineyard, Everett hadn’t considered anyone else’s life once.
He had just actually liked where he’d been, who he had been around.
But what did that mean?
He couldn’t just decide to move there, out of the blue. That was crazy. It was the kind of thing Charlotte—or women like Charlotte—would turn their noses at.
Everett busied himself with the photographs he had taken the previous days at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. It took a number of hours to edit the “keepers” properly and send them off to his editor, who wrote back almost instantly.
These are incredible, Everett—but not as wild as that wedding sounds like it was. The Times broke it. Apparently, they had someone on the inside?
At this, Everett leafed again for the newspaper to read the byline.
He laughed to himself.
Lola Sheridan
What were the chances? And when had she found the chance to write it and send it off? Early that morning? Had she stayed up all night?
The Sheridan women were certainly something else.
Anyway, I think we’ll have a spread on this in the next issue. Do you think we should include more about the wedding planner? There’s been buzz about her, even after we featured her in that Q&A the other day. Let me know. You probably met her?
Everett dropped his head back and blinked at the ceiling. His sink started leaking, a horrible drip-drip-drip against the bottom, and he bolted up to turn the handle all the way back down again.
He hadn’t gotten her number.
But probably, she had a website, right?
He found the Wedding Today website and went immediately to the Q&A with Charlotte Hamner. Sure enough, her website was listed. He found it, then found that she didn’t have a direct email or phone number, just a contact box.
He had to fill out the contact box to get to her, just like every other bride in the world.
And he felt like a complete idiot doing it.
Hey Charlotte,
It’s Everett.
I realized I’m an idiot and didn’t get your number or email or anything.
My editor wants to include more info about you in the article about the event. Is that okay with you?
As I’m filling this out, I realize that my editor probably already has your details and has already emailed you directly with this exact question.
So I’m feeling more and more stupid as I write this.
To put it frankly, I liked meeting you. Now that I’m back on the west coast, sitting here with your Uncle Wes’s enormous winter coat, I realize I liked meeting you more than I liked meeting other people.
Don’t know what I want you to do with that information.
I guess I just want you to know that, just in case.
Everett stared at that cursor at the bottom of the little contact box for a long time. It was almost ten at night, which meant it was one in the morning over there. She would get it in the cold light of Monday morning.
Great.
But there was no way he could turn back now.
He clicked his mouse on the SEND button and then watched the box transform to a:
Thank you for contacting Charlotte Hamner! She will get back to you soon and can’t wait to help you transform your wedding dreams into a reality.
Everett changed into his boxers and tried to get some sleep in his bed, which he had bought used from another friend who’d wised up and returned to Seattle after a year of LA. He flopped around in the bed for a little while, until he whacked his hand to the side and gripped his phone. He heaved a sigh, then began to drum up another message.
Apparently, there was a lot on his mind.
Hey Mom. I wanted to apologize for missing Thanksgiving. I missed your apple pie (and your company) more than I can say. I hope we can mend our relationship soon. I love you.
The minute he sent it, the app showed his mother writing back.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one sleepless on this Sunday night.
Before she finished writing, she called him.
Everett answered on the first ring.
“Mom?”
“Everett.” Her voice sounded heavy with tears. “I’m so glad you wrote to me.”
“Mom, I really am sorry.”
“It’s okay. We missed you a lot. Your brother’s kids kept asking about you.”
“I’ll be back to see them soon. To see all of you. I promise.”
His mother held the silence for a while. They had just always been quiet people. “Maybe you could come this week?”
Everett considered it. He didn’t have another event to photograph
