Bridesmaid For Hire (Matchmaking Mamas Book 23) Read online

  “Will you show me what to do once I get tall enough?” Addie asked seriously.

  Gina inclined her head as if she was bowing to the little girl. “I’d be honored.”

  “Just what is it that you’re going to show my daughter how to do once she gets tall enough?” Tiffany Loren asked as she came into the guest bedroom.

  Addie swung around on the bed and looked up at her mother. “Aunt Gina’s going to show me how to become a professional bridesmaid,” she declared gleefully.

  Tiffany looked more than a little dismayed. “Just what kind of ideas are you putting into my little girl’s head?” she asked.

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Gina said, disavowing her culpability in the matter. “This was all Addie’s idea.”

  “An idea she got from watching you come over here, parading around in all those bridesmaid dresses,” Tiffany said pointedly.

  “She could do worse,” Gina answered defensively. “I get paid for making people happy and they get to enjoy their big day. Plus I get to eat cake on top of that. Not a bad gig if you ask me.”

  Tiffany looked at her daughter. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted the little girl to hear. “Addie, why don’t you go find your cousins? I want to talk to your aunt Gina for a minute.”

  Addie leaned in and told her aunt in a stage whisper, “Don’t let her get you stressed, Aunt Gina.”

  Tiffany looked after her departing daughter, dumbfounded. “Where did that come from?” she asked her younger sister.

  “I’d say she was just extrapolating on what I told her I did as a professional bridesmaid.” Tiffany looked at her quizzically. “I told her that I made sure the bride didn’t get stressed. I also might have told her that you were stressed on your wedding day—you were, you know,” Gina reminded her sister before Tiffany could deny the fact or get annoyed with her.

  Gina grinned as she thought about her niece. “I can’t wait to hear how this is going to play itself out by the time Addie gets to tell her father about it.” She flashed Tiffany a sympathetic smile.

  “Terrific.” Tiffany looked momentarily worried. “You know how Eddie jumps to conclusions.”

  “But you know how to get him to jump back and that’s all that counts,” Gina reminded her older sister. Her brother-in-law had a short fuse, but his outbursts never lasted too long.

  Tiffany smiled to herself. “That I do. Can’t wait until you get married so that I can pass along that wisdom and knowledge to you, little sister.”

  “About that, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Gina advised. She saw the doubtful expression on Tiffany’s face. “I’m perfectly happy with my life just the way it is.”

  Tiffany looked at her skeptically. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

  “That, dear Tiffany, is your prerogative. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare to hold a bride’s hand and get her through what she’ll remember as ‘the happiest day of her life,’ otherwise known as tomorrow.”

  “Do you have any more weddings lined up after that?” Tiffany asked her innocently.

  “Not yet,” Gina replied honestly. “But I will,” she added with the confidence that she had managed to build up with this new career of hers.

  Tiffany began to ease herself out of the bedroom. “By the way,” she added, nodding at the dress on the bed, “you performed a miracle with that bridesmaid dress.” She had seen the dress before its transformation. It had been absolutely ugly in her opinion.

  “I know.” There was no conceit in Gina’s answer. There was just sheer pleasure in the knowledge that she was good at her chosen vocation.

  Tiffany left the room, walking quickly. She waited until there was a room between her sister and her before she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. Making sure that she was alone, she pressed auto-dial 8.

  The line on the other end was picked up almost immediately.

  “Mom?” Tiffany asked just to be sure she’d gotten the right person. When her mother answered in the affirmative, Tiffany declared, “All systems are ‘go.’ Gina’s got nothing scheduled after she’s done with this wedding.”

  “Perfect.” The line went instantly dead.

  Anna Bongino wasn’t about to lose any time in calling her friend with the news.

  “Gina has nothing immediately scheduled,” Anna breathlessly told Maizie the moment the other woman answered her phone. “Whatever you’re going to do, now would be the right time.”

  “I’ll get back to you on this as soon as I can,” Maizie promised.

  Maizie had already gathered her best friends and comrades-in-arms together to tell them about Anna’s daughter and her dissatisfaction that Gina was a perpetual professional bridesmaid. Intrigued, Celia Parnell and Theresa Manetti had gotten to work on the so-called “problem.”

  Maizie wasn’t surprised that they already had a plan ready to go when she called Theresa with the news. A widow like Maizie and Celia, Theresa had built up a thriving catering service and she had found the perfect solution using that service.

  “As luck would have it, the young bride whose reception I’m catering in three weeks is about to have a nervous breakdown,” Theresa announced, sounding far happier than the news should have warranted.

  “Why?” Maizie asked.

  “It seems that her photographer somehow accidentally double-booked two ceremonies at the same time, one of them being my bride’s. In addition, her cousin dropped out of the wedding at the last minute because her cousin’s boyfriend of five years just broke up with her,” Theresa explained.

  “And we have just the young woman who can handle that for her and smooth out all the bumps,” Maizie replied happily.

  “Yes, we do,” Theresa agreed.

  “I admit that this does give us a reason to call Gina so she feels that her particular ‘talents’ are being utilized, but as far as I know, we still don’t have any suitable candidates to play the potential groom to her potential bride-to-be—or do we?” Maizie asked when Theresa didn’t immediately respond to her question.

  “Hold on to your hat, Maizie. This is about to get even better,” Theresa promised.

  “All right, consider my hat held. How does this get even better?” Maizie asked.

  She could almost hear Theresa smiling from ear to ear as she asked, “You know that young man Anna felt was so perfect for her daughter?”

  “I remember. Shane Callaghan,” Maizie recalled. “What about him?”

  Theresa paused dramatically, then said, “Well, I found him.”

  “What do you mean you ‘found’ him?” Maizie asked suspiciously.

  “Well, actually Celia did,” Theresa amended. “He’s a client of hers,” she explained. “The fact is, ‘Shane’ has been using another name for his line of work.”

  This was all very mysterious to Maizie. “The point, Theresa. Get to the point,” she told her friend impatiently.

  That was when Theresa dropped her little bombshell. “It turns out that Shane Callaghan has a vocation that ties right into our little scenario. The man designs cakes—including wedding cakes—for a living—and he’s very much in demand.”

  “Wouldn’t Gina know this, seeing that she’s in the business of placating jittery brides-to-be?” Maizie asked.

  “That’s where the pseudonym comes in. Shane is an ‘artiste’ known as Cassidy. His bakery is called Cakes Created by Cassidy.”

  She’d heard of it, Maizie realized. One of her clients had remarked that their son had ordered a cake from this “Cassidy.” At the time she’d thought nothing of it.

  “Really?” Maizie asked.

  “Guess who I’m going to suggest to our bride to ‘create’ her wedding cake for her reception?” Theresa posed the rhetorical question almost gleefully.

  This was playing it close, Maizie thought. “You said the w
edding was in three weeks. Are you sure you can get him?”

  “Absolutely,” Theresa answered confidently. “It turns out that my son’s law firm did some legal work for Cassidy a few months ago. It pays to have lunch with your offspring occasionally,” she added, although she knew that none of them needed an excuse to get together with their children. Family had always been what this was all about for them, Theresa thought. “That’s how I found out who Cassidy really is. It actually is a small world, Maizie,” she declared happily. “Now all we need is to get Gina on the scene.”

  “Well, like I said,” Maizie reminded her friend, “her mother just called me and said that Gina has nothing scheduled after this weekend’s wedding.”

  “She does now,” Theresa said happily. “I’d better get on the phone and talk to Sylvie—that’s the bride-to-be—while she’s still coherent. Her maid of honor said she was afraid that Sylvie was going to wind up calling the whole thing off.”

  “Something that she’ll wind up regretting,” Maizie predicted. “By all means, Theresa, call her. Tell her about Gina, that she can step in at the last minute and put out any fires that might arise. And then,” she concluded, “you’re going to have to call Gina.”

  “All right,” Theresa agreed a bit uncertainly. “But why can’t you call her?” she asked. After all Maizie was the one with a connection to the girl via Gina’s mother.

  “I’m a real estate agent, Theresa,” Maizie reminded her friend. “There’s no reason for me to know about a professional bridesmaid, whereas you, as a caterer with a multitude of wedding receptions to your credit, you could know about her through regular channels. Word of mouth, that kind of thing. If I called her up out of the blue with this offer, I’d have to admit to knowing her mother because how else would I know what she does for a living? She’d smell a rat and politely refuse. Or maybe not so politely,” Maizie added.

  “Goodness, this matchmaking hobby of ours has certainly gotten more complicated than it was back in the old days, hasn’t it?” Theresa marveled.

  “I know, but that’s also part of the fun,” Maizie reminded her friend. “Now stop talking to me and get on the phone to Gina and then to—what did you say was the bride-to-be’s name?”

  “Sylvie.”

  “Tell Sylvie you know just the person to step in and wind up saving her day,” Maizie told her.

  “Wait,” Theresa cried, sensing that Maizie was about to hang up.

  “What?”

  “I need Gina’s phone number,” she told Maizie. “I can’t tell Sylvie about this professional bridesmaid and then not have a phone number to pass on to her if she asks for it,” Theresa pointed out. “Plus I’ll need it myself if I’m going to set Gina up.”

  “Sorry,” Maizie apologized as she retrieved the phone number from the file on her computer. “I guess I just got excited for a minute,” she explained. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

  “So now we’re the A-Team?” Theresa asked with an amused laugh. She was referring to an old television program she used to watch while waiting up for her workaholic lawyer husband to come home.

  “The what?” Maizie asked, clearly not familiar with the program.

  “Never mind about that right now. Just remind me that I have an old DVD to play for you when we all get a few minutes to ourselves.”

  “Will do,” Maizie promised. “But right now, I’m going to remind you that you have two phone calls to make. Possibly three,” she amended.

  “Three? How do you figure that?” Theresa asked her friend. “Do you want me to call you back once I get Gina and Sylvie?”

  “Well, of course I want you to call me back to tell me how it all went. And then,” Maizie continued, thinking out loud, “we have to come up with a way to have Gina and Shane get together before the big day. Maybe you can have Gina helping you with the arrangements, kind of like an assistant, and being a go-between for you and this ‘in-demand baker.’ And then, we can hope that there are sparks.”

  “A go-between?” Theresa questioned.

  “We’ll work on it,” Maizie promised. “Now go, call while Gina’s still free,” she instructed her friend just before she hung up.

  Chapter Two

  Gina carefully hung up the light blue bridesmaid dress in her guest bedroom closet. The dress joined the vast and growing collection of other bridesmaid dresses, both long and short, that she had worn as part of the various bridal parties she’d been in. Because she had come in and in effect—at least in the bride’s eyes—saved the wedding, she’d ultimately grown incredibly close to a number of the brides, not an easy feat in the space of two or three weeks.

  Some of the brides had actually stayed in touch with her, at least for a little while. The others, though, had faded into the calendar of her life.

  Even so, Gina had the satisfaction of knowing that because of her, more than a few women had experienced “the happiest day of their life” without having to endure the proverbial “glitch” that had a nasty habit of cropping up.

  And despite what her mother thought of her rather unusual vocation, it did provide her with a nice living. In exchange for her services, she received more than ample compensation as well as another dress to hang in her closet, thanks to the bride, and, after the ceremony had ended and the photographs were taken, there was always a wonderful array of catered food to sample.

  Not that she really ate all that much of it. Despite working almost nonstop in the weeks preceding the weddings, on the big day she never seemed to have that much of an appetite. It was almost as if she was channeling the bride’s prewedding jitters even though she always appeared utterly calm and in complete control of the situation.

  She supposed that was where her very brief flirtation with acting—or at least acting in her college plays—came in handy.

  Gina sighed. With the latest wedding now behind her, she was, once again, unemployed.

  She knew that she had word of mouth as well as a growing number of satisfied clients going for her, but even so she really needed to give some thought to building up her network, Gina decided. A network comprised of people who could call and alert her to brides in need of her very unique services.

  Gina sank down on the bed, willing herself to wind down.

  Each time she watched as the happy bride and groom finally drove off to begin their life together—starting with their honeymoon—amid the feeling of a job well done she also experienced just the faintest hint of feeling let down.

  This time was no different. She knew her feelings were silly and she tried not to pay any attention to them, but they were there nonetheless. That tiniest spark of wondering what it might have been like if she hadn’t gotten cold feet and had instead agreed to run off with Shane that one wild, crazy night when he had suddenly turned to her and said, out of the blue, “Let’s get married.”

  She supposed that her response—“Are you crazy?”—might have been a bit more diplomatic. But Shane had caught her off guard. They’d dated casually for two years but had only gotten serious in the last six months. When he’d asked her to marry him, the thought of doing something so permanent had scared her to death. She hadn’t been ready for that sort of a commitment.

  And he hadn’t been ready for that kind of a total, harsh rejection. She’d regretted it almost instantly, but by then it had been too late. And she might have even said yes, she thought now. Or at least talked to him and suggested that they take things a little more slowly. But she hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  They had both just graduated from college that month and life was beginning to unfold for them. There were careers to launch and so many things to do before their lives even began to take shape.

  In hindsight, all that uncertainty had frightened her, too. Loving Shane had been a comfortable thing, something for her to lean on. Loving Shane wasn’t supposed to contribute to her feelings of
being pressured.

  Gina sighed. There was no point in going over all that now. By the time she’d worked up her nerve to apologize to Shane, to explain why she’d said what she had, it was too late. He’d taken off, vacating his apartment and leaving for parts unknown, just like that.

  Nobody knew where he was.

  Stop thinking about what you can’t undo, she silently ordered herself. It won’t change anything.

  Dressed in her favorite outfit—cut-off jeans and a T-shirt—Gina went into her kitchen. She took out her favorite ice cream—rum raisin—and carried it into the living room. She settled down on the sectional sofa in front of her giant screen TV to binge-watch her favorite comedy series. She really needed a good laugh tonight.

  Just as she turned on the set and pressed the necessary combination of buttons that got her to the first episode of the extensively long-running series—an episode she’d seen countless times before, whenever she was feeling down—her phone rang.

  Gina looked at the cell accusingly. It was either someone trying to sell her some insurance—it was that time of year again she’d noticed—or it was her mother to pointedly ask her how “someone else’s wedding” went and when did she think she would get around to planning one of her own.

  Telling her mother that it would happen when she found someone to stand at the altar, waiting for her, never did any good because that only had her mother remembering how much she and the rest of the family had liked Shane. Shane had managed to endear himself to them in a very short amount of time. That was ten years ago and her mother still nostalgically referred to him as “the one who got away.”

  No, she definitely wasn’t up to talking to her mother tonight.

  Gina glanced at the caller ID. It wasn’t her mother, or, from the looks of it, an insurance broker. The ID below the phone number proclaimed “Manetti’s Catering.”

  The name seemed vaguely familiar. And then she remembered hearing the name on the radio along with the slogan “Food like Mama used to make.”

  Curious, Gina set aside the half-pint of ice cream on top of a section of the newspaper on her coffee table and answered her phone.