Page 180 of You've Got Hate Mail
How will we pull off this wedding?
Wehaveto pull off this wedding. It’s much-needed income while we keep looking for the perfect investor.
“I know I’m a poor substitute for Mike, but I’m not that bad, pipsqueak,” Mike says.
Except that’s clearlynotMike.
That can’t be Mike.
Ginny pokes him in the side. “Call me that again and you’ll wake up with peanut butter in your sheets.”
Samantha and Olivia rush in from the hallway entrance, and for once, they’re the clumsy ones, jostling each other.
Caro and Ginny and not-Mike all turn to look at us, andoooooohhhhh.
I know him.
Notknow-know, but know who he is.
While I didn’t watch the reality TV show about Ginny’s childhood, I saw advertising for it, and I recognize Ginny’s whole family.
And this explains Mabel’s eye twitch.
“Oh, you’re here,” Ginny says. She glances my way too. “Cricket, meet my sister, Caro. She’s one of my very favorite people. And this guy’s unfortunately my brother, Ten.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Ten says to me with a grin and a wink and a dramatic bow.
“Oh, lordy,” Olivia mutters. “Here we go again.”
“It’s so good to see you again, Caro,” Samantha says, taking the lead in reaching the bride-to-be first and squeezing her in a hug.
Caro hugs her back, her eyes the same warm blue as Ginny’s. “Sorry to be so early, but Ginny mentioned coffee cake last night, and you know I love your coffee cake. I thought I could help make it.”
“I’ll help eat it,” Ten says.
Ginny’s smiling as she rolls her eyes. “And then do the dishes.”
He acts like she’s stabbed him in the heart as he punches himself in the chest and staggers dramatically, then falls onto the couch. “Noooo, not the dishes,” he moans.
If Mabel’s eye twitches any harder, her whole face might break. “Heaven forbid, the dishes.”
“Mike had a friend call in a favor last night, so Ten’s here in his place,” Ginny says to Olivia and me as I join the rest of my friends in the room.
“Who got a bend in their face?” Pip asks as she too comes in from the hallway.
She’s wearing a leopard print miniskirt that’s so mini it might actually be a wide headband, with matching pink daisies pasted over both her good nipple and her burned-off nipple. Her headpiece of the day is a black flapper headband with a red feather sticking up out of the fake diamond centerpiece, and she’s finished her ensemble with a pearl necklace and matching earrings.
“Tennessee came in Mike’s place,” Mabel says loudly.
“Hey, Pip,” Ten says. “Love the fit. Mabel full-name you yet today too?”
“Did Mabel skull game me?” Pip says. “Is that one of those things you Hollywood people are doing these days?”
“Mabel, I need help in the kitchen,” Olivia says.
I don’t need to be told that there’s something up between Mabel and Ten, but Pip says it anyway.
“Mabel hates Ten because she can’t do his handshakes,” she tells me.
