Chapter 4 - THE FLOWERS ABOVE OUR HEADS
After I drove away, the wedding did not collapse.
That is important.
I did not leave one hundred thirty-seven people starving in a field.
Cocktail hour had already happened.
Bread and salads had been placed.
Some tables had received entrées before the confrontation.
The venue had emergency food-service relationships because venues plan for disasters.
Marcus arranged simple supplemental service from the club kitchen.
It was not the dinner Brielle had planned.
Nobody died.
Nobody even missed dessert.
The wedding became less beautiful for approximately ninety minutes.
That distinction would later matter enormously to my mother, who kept saying I had “destroyed the reception.”
I had not.
I had stopped subsidizing it.
There is a difference.
I drove back to the commissary with the remaining food and cried at a red light.
Not elegant crying.
Jaw clenched.
Hands shaking on the steering wheel.
I was furious at Brielle.
Furious at Mom.
Then ashamed because people who run businesses are supposed to be able to separate emotion from operations.
My phone kept ringing.
Mom.
Brielle.
Three relatives.
Then Evan.
I answered his call.
“What?”
“Maya, where are you?”
“Driving.”
“Are you okay?”
That question almost made me angrier.
“No.”
“I saw the footage.”
I went quiet.
Marcus had taken Evan, Brielle and Mom into the venue office after I left.
Not the whole wedding.
No public screening.
Just the people involved.
The camera showed Brielle taking the plate.
Throwing it.
Mom putting the towel in my hands.
Me leaving.
Clean.
Silent.
Undeniable.
Evan said:
“I didn’t know she did that.”
“Now you do.”
“What happened with the payment?”
I tightened my grip on the wheel.
“You tell me.”
Silence.
“Maya, I thought you were paid.”
“I’m not.”
“No.”
“I am looking at the balance in my accounting app.”
“My dad transferred the catering money six weeks ago.”
I slowed the car.
“What?”
“He sent our contribution to the wedding account. Brielle told me your final invoice was paid.”
Something inside me sank.
Not because I suddenly thought there was a crime.
There wasn’t necessarily.
The money went into a joint wedding account Brielle and Evan both used.
But it had been designated in their budget for catering.
Evan believed it had gone to me.
It had not.
“Ask your wife.”
“I am.”
I hung up.
Forty minutes later, he called again.
I did not answer.
He texted:
She used it for the floral upgrade and part of the additional décor. Mom knew the payment hadn’t gone out. I’m sorry.
I sat in my parked van behind the commissary reading that message.
Then I thought about the reception.
The white flowers suspended from the glass marquee.
Thousands of them.
The installation every photographer had been framing since morning.
Those flowers had been paid for with money that should have paid the people carrying trays beneath them.
There was something so perfect about that I almost laughed.
Brielle had chosen the part of the wedding that would appear in photographs over the part involving labor nobody was supposed to notice.
And my mother knew.
That was what hurt more.
Not the missing money.
Mom knew there was no final payment.
She knew I had staff.
Supplier bills.
Payroll.
She knew I had already discounted thousands.
And still, when Brielle threw food at my feet, Mom handed me the towel.
She did not need to understand a contract.
She understood the family hierarchy.
The wedding image came first.
Brielle came second.
May you like
I would survive whatever was left.
Because Maya always did.
