Honeymoon Alone: A Novel Read online

  nicole macaulay

  Providence

  Honeymoon Alone is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Nicole Diebold

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN 978-1-7332769-1-7 (E-Book)

  ISBN 978-1-7332769-0-0 (Paperback Edition)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910969

  Artwork by Marilyn Sowinski

  Book and Cover Design by Kerry Ellis

  Printed and Bound in USA

  First Printing December 2019

  Published in the United States by 4B Pub

  P. O. Box 6430

  Providence, RI 02940

  www.4bpub.com

  To John

  For believing in me. Always.

  “If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”

  – Jane Austen

  he psychic is missing.”

  I don’t have time for this. I so don’t have time for this. I am supposed to be walking down the aisle in minutes. No, seconds! The music has started. The bridesmaids are going one at a time, all decked out in their purple polka-dotted dresses. But…the psychic is missing.

  I gaze out at the congregation. All heads are turned in our direction. There are still a few bridesmaids standing before me, waiting for their turn.

  “Walk slowly, girls,” I say. I turn to Wendi and take a deep breath. “Is this something you can handle? I mean, you are the wedding planner.”

  “Well, that’s just it!” she says, her brown eyes wide and panicked. “I have to oversee the wedding. Then I have to attend the photo shoot and ensure everything goes according to plan, that we get every single picture on our shot list. Then I have to –“

  I touch her arm gently. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She breathes a huge sigh of relief and rolls her eyes, smiling. “Thank you, Lucy! Marian was right – you are so reliable. I can see why she named you the maid of honor.”

  That’s me! Reliable Lucy. It was actually the description of me in my high school yearbook: Most Reliable.

  “Okay.” I fix Wendi with my firmest gaze because she seems to be falling apart. Is this her first wedding? “Just write down the psychic’s number. I will handle it.”

  “Thank you!”

  “Lucy! What on earth are you doing chatting up my wedding planner when you should be walking down the aisle?”

  Marian peeks her head in from just outside the cathedral doors, where she’s waiting with my father for her big moment, and looks at me a little murderously.

  I peer down the aisle. My sister Julie is nearly at the front and I was supposed to be right behind her. In a hurry, I walk down the aisle, my face bright red, wondering for the thousandth time where Marian found this wedding planner.

  “You looked great in there,” Ian, my date, says, as we step outside the cathedral into the cool, crisp December air. The bells on the steeple clang in celebration as snow begins to gently fall. Everything is beautiful. Magical. But I’m freezing. And now that the ceremony is over, I’m back on duty. A MOH’s job is never done.

  “Thank you,” I say, scrolling through my phone furiously, barely looking up at him. Wendi texted me the number of the psychic but the woman really is MIA. She’s not answering my texts and ignored my call the two times I tried her.

  Google: Psychics Haley, MA

  Instantly, results fill my phone screen.

  Mall psychics, tarot card readers, online psychics, Magic 8 Ball interpreters…

  “Earth to Lucy.”

  I finally look up at Ian. “Sorry,” I say. “We lost our psychic.”

  Ian looks properly confused. I mean, weddings don’t usually have psychics. But Marian’s bizarre 80s themed wedding does. And she’s been more excited about this psychic the past few weeks than making her wedding vows.

  “Well, I’d fill in, but I’m already sort of playing a role today.”

  I flush, remembering how I cornered Ian in the teacher’s lounge two weeks ago and basically begged him to come to the wedding as my boyfriend.

  “You see, I have a large family and lately, like, everyone is married! Or having babies. I spend most of my time at weddings and christenings. And all anyone ever asks me is if I have a boyfriend. Plus, my sister is kind of a bridezilla, and it’s been stressful. No, that’s being kind. It’s been hell. The woman booked two wedding venues because she’s indecisive. And two churches. And two honeymoons. And she put me in charge of everything. She has a wedding planner, but somehow I ended up doing seating charts, creating programs, making cassette tape mixes of all 80s music for wedding favors, and buying neon scrunchies and banana clips for every bridesmaid to put our hair up in when we dance the night away!”

  “I’ll go.”

  “You…You’ll come as my date? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “Crazy, no. Stressed, very. I’m not doing anything that night. And…I love a good party.”

  So here he is. Ian. He cleans up very well, and it really was very sweet of him to come today. I’m an 80s themed mess. My hair is crimped. Crimped. I look like a bottle of grape soda in my purple, polka-dotted dress complete with shoulder pads. And having him here has been working just the way I’d hoped! People for once are not asking me about my love life (or lack thereof). They’re asking me about my date! And that’s what I need because I’ve been so frazzled by this whole wedding experience, I worried if one person lamented in front of me that I’m still single, I’d go all Carrie on the whole party. That’s a little bit of almost 80s madness that no one wants to see.

  I smile at Ian. “It’s an easy role. Just fawn over me, pretend I’m the most fascinating woman you’ve ever met and obviously the most beautiful as well.”

  “Done,” he says. “I’ve always loved a girl wearing purple and polka dots.”

  “Don’t forget the shoulder pads.”

  “They’re burned in my brain. No, really,” he adds when I laugh.

  “Lucy, you ready?” my brother Jake asks me, leaning out of the trolley.

  I take a deep breath and smile at Ian. “I have to go take photos now. And find a psychic.” The knot that has been tightening in my stomach for weeks now gets a little tighter. “I’ll see you at the reception.”

  “I’ll be saying wonderful things about you to anyone that I meet while I wait,” he says with an easy smile, sticking his hands in his pockets.

  I smile appreciatively and turn, joining my family in the trolley.

  Entering the reception hall an hour later, I immediately pan the room for Madame M. I called three potential psychics before resorting to calling Madame M from the Haley County Mall. She seemed strangely excited to offer her services and said she would meet me here. Of course with two hundred guests milling about and no idea what she looks like, the task is a fairly complicated one. I don’t see her. I do, however, spot my Aunt Velma scurrying up to me almost urgently.

  “Lucy!” Aunt Velma says as she approaches, completely winded from her one-hundred foot speed walk. “I saw the boy you were at the church with. Very handsome, like John Stamos,” she says in a conspiratorial kind of way. “Is he your boyfriend? I didn’t think you had a boyfriend. At least, no one told me you did. But your mother never tells me anything. I mean, back when she was popping out the five of
you, I had to be very aware of her weight gain to even know she was having more children. Can’t she pick up a phone? And when Marian got engaged to this Tom fellow – do you think I got a call?”

  She waits for a moment, looking at me impatiently. “Do you?”

  “I don’t think you did,” I say, as if I sympathize with her. But if she ever logged on to the family blog, she wouldn’t need to wait for her phone to ring with family newscasts. But I can’t say that to Aunt Velma, of course, as she’ll only launch into her rant about how communication is a dying art since That Devil, the Internet, took over.

  “I didn’t,” she concedes. “So?”

  I blink at her for a few moments. “So…”

  “Is he your boyfriend?” she asks, like I’m the village idiot.

  “Yes,” Uncle Walter says, sauntering up to us and smack into the middle of the conversation he’s been eavesdropping on the whole time. “I was wondering that too. Is he your boyfriend, Lucy?”

  “Oh. Ian?” I ask innocently. “He’s my…it’s kind of like…you know…he tells me that I’m his…we’re just…dating.” That’s so not how that went in my mirror at home. I’ve never been a very good liar.

  “You really should hold onto him, Lucy,” Aunt Velma says, tilting her head and furrowing her eyebrows. She touches my arm sympathetically for emphasis. “You’re, what, 35 now—”

  “26,” I say brightly, hoping the fire alarm in the building will go off at any moment, giving me a legitimate excuse to turn and run away from this conversation which is exactly what I’d love to do right now.

  “—and child bearing years don’t last forever,” Uncle Walter chimes in.

  “As usual, you two make great points,” I say, preparing to close this conversation up – because childbearing is usually where I draw the line. “In fact, I should go find him and then grab on like you said. And hold on tight!”

  “Before you find him, Lucy, you really should find a mirror. Your hair is a mess!” Aunt Velma says, shaking her head sadly as if my hair is the reason I am unmarried.

  I reach up and touch my hair and groan. It does feel all out of place now. After all our time this morning on hair and makeup, it seems to have all come undone during the photo shoot. An outside photo shoot (80s photo booth themed, of course!) on a frosty December afternoon may not have been Marian’s most inspired idea. But she always dreamed of having her photos at Boston Public Garden.

  The moment I turn to walk away, I see a glass of bubbly champagne dangling in front of me from the outstretched hand of my best friend, Mary.

  “Every family has one,” Mary says as I grab the glass and begin drinking its contents. Quickly. “Or two,” she adds, nodding towards Aunt Velma and Uncle Walter.

  “You’re a lifesaver.” I smile and relax a bit.

  “I still don’t get your family. It’s like they’re passengers on Noah’s Ark, everyone’s pairing up, and they’re throwing life vests at you.”

  “They never watched Mary Tyler Moore totally make it on her own.” I take a couple of pieces of shrimp cocktail from a passing tray. My phone vibrates and I look down to see a text message from my sister, Julie:

  Almost speech time. Where r u? BTW, liking the new guy. He told auntie Doris that it’s very serious…and of course she’s been telling EVERYONE.

  Oh God. I hope he’s not overdoing it. Where is Ian?

  “I have to say, I really like the ‘80s theme!” Mary says. “I’ve never been to a psychic at a wedding before.”

  “Oh good! She’s here.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be here? The invitation very clearly said there would be a psychic.”

  “And what did she tell you?”

  Mary shrugs and smiles like a giddy teenager. “Madame M told me that I already met the man of my dreams.”

  “You’ve already met him? Then why aren’t you guys together?”

  “I have no idea,” she says, shaking her head. “But later, when I go home, I may have to make a list of all the men that I know.”

  “Seems like the only logical thing to do,” I joke. But she nods and I know for a fact that she will absolutely make that list later. It’s one of the reasons we get along so well, actually. She has the same irrepressibly romantic spirit that I do. I kind of hope she finds someone on that list who can become her dream man. I’ve never known any couples who met because of psychic guidance.

  “Speaking of dream men, where’s Ian?” I scan the crowd again.

  “I have no idea,” Mary says. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for him the past half hour, but last I saw he was chatting up everyone he saw about how great you are. I think he used the words ‘the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met, seen, or heard of.’”

  Okay, maybe I should have told Ian to tone it down a bit. I don’t want people to think—

  “Lucy, speech time.” Jake comes up to us and lightly grabs my arm to begin pulling me away. “Hi, Mary.”

  But Mary is too busy looking through her phone – obviously looking for any men that she knows already who could be her dream man to add to her list.

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  After the question is out of my mouth, I peer nervously over the piece of paper clutched in my hand and into the many faces of the crowd. I attempt to make the impassioned expression that I practiced in my mirror at home – the one that dipped this question in romance and intrigue. Faces both familiar and unfamiliar stare at me, seemingly unsure if my question was rhetorical. Some people shake their heads while others nod. Some people shrug. Some people just continue the conversation they were having before my speech started.

  “Well,” I say coyly. “I do.” I turn and look at Marian and Tom. “Tom was supposed to go to Atlanta for work,” I say. I push a strand of crimped hair off my forehead, tucking it behind my ear. Despite my best efforts in the ladies’ room, my hair is still looking a bit unkempt. “But he got the flu.”

  “Because I babysat a certain little sick nephew the week before,” Tom chimes in, eyeing his brother’s five-year-old son playfully.

  “He didn’t end up going to Atlanta. He stayed home, got sicker and sicker and eventually went to the hospital to make sure it was indeed the flu.” I gaze at my sister and smile. She looks so excited hearing her own story relayed to this room full of their friends and family.

  “At the hospital, he met a young, enthusiastic, and beautiful nurse. She took great care of him. Possibly, once seeing he didn’t have a ring on his finger, she spent some extra time taking care of him,” I say and a small giggle spreads across the room. “Tom told me recently that he fell for her on the spot. He’d been feverish when he met her, but he assures me that his light-headedness had nothing to do with the flu. She obviously felt the same way in return.” I shrug and smile. I do love their story. “And, well…they’ve been taking amazing care of each other since that day.”

  The room bursts out in applause as Tom and Marian share a short, sweet kiss.

  “I’ve never met two people more perfectly suited to each other. Anyone who knows Marian knows that she has a few obsessive compulsive tendencies,” I say, which earns me a laugh with most of the crowd and a cautionary look from Marian herself. “I mean, for this wedding, she booked two churches, two reception halls and even planned two honeymoons! She needed her options for all things wedding-related.” I shrug and laugh and wave my hand like we’re all great friends – the room and I. “She’s a perfectionist.”

  Marian smiles and narrows her eyes at me, clearly wanting to get back to the lovey-dovey tone from the beginning of my speech.

  “Tom is one of the most laid-back people I’ve ever met. He didn’t care if they got married on the back of a pick-up truck. Anyone who knows Tom knows that he might’ve done just that and happily so, if it had been up to him.” The room laughs again and I gaze at Tom and Marian. “But he went along each step of the way with Marian’s plans. Together they picked one church, one reception hall – this beautiful place,” I add, gazin
g around thoughtfully. “And one honeymoon. To the relief of everyone, especially Tom.” More laughter erupts – and this time Marian joins in. “These two people are so unique and different and they balance each other perfectly.”

  Tom smiles and pulls Marian close.

  “I love this,” I say quietly, almost conspiratorially, nodding toward the newlyweds. “Boy meets girl. A little love at first sight. Because she’s a perfectionist, today is perfect. Because he’s so laid-back and gentle, today is very simple. Tom was meant to meet Marian. Fate intervened that day and made him cross her path. And that path led us all to this room to celebrate the best day in their lives.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother wipe a tear and squeeze Julie’s hand, smiling adoringly at Tom and Marian.

  I look at Tom and Marian and hold up my glass. “I wish you both all the happiness –“

  “OH MY GOD!”

  I stop, my champagne in midair, to look at what the big ruckus is all about. Every head turns towards my aunt Velma in the back of the dining area. It seems she just pulled the curtain on the 80s photo booth and…and I don’t know! What on earth would warrant an ‘oh my God’ in the middle of the Maid of Honor speech?

  Then I see it.

  Ian and Courtney. Courtney, my drop dead gorgeous 23-year-old cousin. She’s getting up from sitting on his lap. And there’s hot pink lipstick all over his face.

  My arm goes all tingly with nerves and I drop it to my side, spilling champagne all over the floor.

  “Isn’t that Lucy’s fiancée?” I hear someone yell out.

  “He was supposed to pop the question later on tonight,” I hear someone at a table right next to me say loudly to my great-aunt with a hearing aid.

  Then I notice something that kind of hurts. My sister. She looks so disappointed. She told me months ago at her bachelorette party how fun it was that I’d be giving a speech about her. She’s been a Maid of Honor quite a few times herself and was so excited that it was finally her turn to just sit and listen. This clearly was not how she expected it to go.