Page 10 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

Theo cries first. Grooms always cry first.

Nobody warns them, and I've stopped trying, because the surprise is half of what makes it land.

The ring surfaces during the vows. Georgie, second row, goes suddenly rigid, excavates his own sneaker, and holds the band aloft with a shriek of IT WAS IN MY SHOE that will anchor this family's toasts for sixty years.

The ceremony collapses into laughter, reassembles itself, and finishes salted all through with joy.

She kisses him as the sun touches the water, ninety seconds off my mark, a statistic exactly one person on this beach will ever know or care about, and that person is currently standing at the back pretending the wind is why her eyes went glassy.

The reception does what receptions do.

Juniper's replacement cake comes out crowned in Pippa's rescued dahlias and draws an actual gasp, at which Juniper, hiding behind the van, punches the air.

Guests spend the evening telling me the whole day felt effortless. Four separate people use that word, effortless, and I thank them and redirect the credit to the couple, because themachinery under a beautiful thing is supposed to stay invisible, and mine is the best-hidden machinery in the business.

I'd know.

I built it out of the spare parts of a wedding that never happened.

Hours later, the beach empties by degrees.

Guests, band, caterers, rentals, the newlyweds sparklered off into the dark, until the only footprints refreshing themselves belong to me, ferrying crates of candle jars across the sand in a coral dress with both heels blistered and my hair surrendering pins at a rate of one per trip.

Breakfast happened at six this morning. Nothing has happened since. My arms stopped reporting the weight of the boxes an hour ago, which a small supervisory department in the back of my head flags as concerning and files, per protocol, under later.

"Sit," says Marlowe.

She materializes with a crate, sets it behind my knees, applies two fingers to my shoulder. Gravity handles the rest. A water bottle lands in my hand with the cap already loosened, because Marlowe pre-solves everything, up to and including thirst.

"There are six more boxes?—"

"Rhys took four. Niall has the rest. Drink."

Juniper drops onto the sand at my other side in a flurry of flour-dusted denim, bearing a paper plate with a mangled wedge of the original leaning cake. "Salvage from the crime scene. Structurally disgraced, morally delicious." She forks a bite into my mouth before I can vote and watches me chew with the satisfaction of a farm wife fattening a goose. "There she is. Blood sugar of a living woman."

"I ate today."

"Name the food."

"...There was a mint."

"A mint." She lies back on the sand to appeal directly to the stars. "Eleven hours hauling arches, powered by one mint. Marlowe. She had a mint."

"Tessa manages my meals," I say, which is true and does me no favors. My assistant puts protein bars in my bag and stands there until one gets eaten, and even saying her name pulls a small worried thread loose in my chest, because Tessa never takes sick days and she's just taken four. "She'll be back Thursday. It's some bug she can't shake. She just needs rest."

Marlowe turns her head. In the dark her eyes have the flat calm of deep water. "How many active weddings right now?"

"That's not?—"

"How many."

"...Eleven."

"Eleven full productions," Juniper reports to the sky, counting on her fingers, "one assistant down, and no free weekend until, when was it you told me?"

"October," I mutter, and immediately understand I've been led into evidence.

"October! Amber. Honey. Light of Bellflower Lane. That's not a schedule, that's a hostage situation."