potential benefits of a deal, and I work the figures to make sure it’s affordable and evaluate realistic profit margins.” They were a good team.
But Beth was interested in different details. “Where are his people from?”
Oh, boy. “His parents live in Lawrenceville.”
“So he grew up in Gwinnett?”
“Went to high school there, when they relocated from Vermont. Decades ago.” Not that any number of years could help them now, she knew.
“They’re Yankees?”
That drew signs of life from Gerald Mason. “During the War Between the States, the Vermont 4th Infantry—”
“Oh, for the love of…” Beth had never, in Neely’s memory, actually finished her oft-repeated phrase; the siblings used to make a game of speculating. For the love of God? Probably not, as that would fall under Beth’s definition of blasphemy. The love of Mike? Pete? Elvis? Six-armed alien sexbots? The latter being Vi’s contribution.
“Gerald, our daughter has informed us that she’s taking a husband. Surely you’d like to contribute something to the conversation other than regiment trivia?”
He offered Neely a soft, somehow unfocused smile. If he’d been sitting closer to her, he probably would have patted her on the arm. “Congratulations, sweet pea. Do you need us to pay for the wedding? We certainly have more saved up now than we did when Savannah settled down.”
“No, Dad, that’s all right.” She and Robert might not be rich, but they made decent salaries at Becker Southern Media, and she’d invested wisely. “We’ve both got savings accounts and can manage a simple affair. We thought June would be—”
“June? That’s just three months away,” Beth pointed out in a you’re-out-of-your-everlovin’-mind tone. People often talked about genteel Southern Belles, but forgot to mention another traditional figure, the Southern Matriarch, the iron-willed, sharp-eyed woman who usually raised those belles and ran the household. “And what is this folderol about a simple affair? Surely you aren’t planning to shame your family.”
Neely wondered idly if there were wedding planners who specialized in that—holiday weddings, theme weddings, nuptial events that will make your mama put a paper bag over her head. “I’m planning on getting married, Mother. Shame wasn’t part of the equation.”
“There’s that sass again. You have relatives, Cornelia, people who love you and would be slighted if they didn’t get a chance to participate in your big day. We should call Savannah back in here and start making lists immediately. Maybe we should even call Carol and Jo to help! Seems like a month of Sundays since we all got together.”
At the mention of her two aunts, a sense of foreboding rolled through Neely like dark storm clouds through a summer sky. “Mom, Robert and I haven’t discussed what kind of wedding—”
“Don’t you’d think you’d better hurry if you’re going to be married in June? Besides, men don’t want to be bothered with things like seating charts and floral arrangements! They’re grateful for a woman who can handle all of the organizing and just show them where to stand on the big day. Isn’t that right, Gerald?”
“Yes, dear.”
Neely, however, didn’t feel as agreeable. She was familiar enough with Beth’s take-charge personality to worry. She didn’t want to lose control of her wedding. After all, she’d waited forty-five years to have one, so shouldn’t it be the day of her dreams?
Our dreams, she reminded herself guiltily. Robert’s and mine. She was so used to living her life alone and making plans accordingly.
But all that was about to change.
CHAPTER 2
“You okay, kid?”
Vi sent a glare of female empowerment toward her brother, but the full effect was probably lost behind her tinted sunglasses. “I hate when you call me that.”
Douglas gave her a deliberately irritating smirk from the driver’s seat. “Why do you think I still do it?”
She laughed despite herself. He had that effect on her—on all women, really. Whether it was making a sister laugh or getting a female client to confide in him, dark-haired, dimpled Douglas was good at charming the ladies. He’d told her it was a shallow talent but not without its uses, especially when it came to jury selection. Or when it had come to sweet-talking their older sisters into covering for him, but that was before her time.
Flipping on his left blinker, he waltzed the luxury sedan across two lanes on 85, toward the exit that led to the run-down duplex Vi shared with a Hispanic single mother and her children. Vi, who used the MARTA bus and subway system as her primary means of getting around, didn’t have a car of her own. But that lack was not going to excuse her from monthly Sunday dinners, particularly now that Douglas lived so close.
Geography-wise, anyway.
The condo he’d taken a few blocks from his firm’s downtown building seemed worlds away from Vi’s weathered brick house with its rusty porch rail and torn window screens; her low-budget rental agreement had stipulated “as is” conditions, making most repairs her responsibility but giving her leniency in terms of redecorating. She kept meaning to spruce up the place, but with classes and three part-time jobs, she had even less time than money. Plus, she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to invest when she and another waitress were talking about maybe looking for an apartment together to help lower bills.
“Thanks for the ride home, old man.” A fitting response to the kid remark. “If I’d had to wait for Savannah, who knows when I would have escaped? They looked like they were settling in for the long haul.” June was still a few months off, but their mother had acted as if all the wedding details had to be nailed down today.
“You’re not upset they didn’t ask you to stay, are you?”
Vi blinked. “For planning all that girlie stuff? Please. I know even less about weddings than you do.”
She knew enough about Neely, however, to recognize the trapped expression in her blue eyes as Savannah and Beth tag-teamed her. Savannah could teach Martha Stewart a thing or two about putting together a beautiful event, and Beth, who’d helped raise two younger sisters and then four children of her own, could have organized the entire Confederate Army if she’d been born a century sooner. And if they’d given women meaningful leadership roles. So Vi had no doubts that Neely’s wedding would be a lovely, well-run occasion. She just wondered if, between her sister and her mother, any of Neely’s personality would show through.
Assuming Neely had one.
Her efficient, detached older sister had a brain like a calculator. Of course, most of Vi’s family would say she had enough personality for all of them, and they wouldn’t mean it as a compliment. The thought bothered her more than it normally would.
With a start, she realized that Neely’s announcement today had broken the only real bond she’d shared with her sister. Savannah was perfect and Douglas, if flawed by his divorce, was successful and charming enough to secure his parents’ adoration. But Neely’s “spinsterhood” had always earned their mother’s and aunts’ disapproval, much like Vi’s…everything.
“Well,
