“Your wedding,” says Elinor. “To my son.”
“At the Plaza Hotel,” says Robyn with a beam. “I don’t need to tell you how lucky you are, getting the date you wanted! Luckily it was a client of mine who made the cancellation, so I was able to snap it right up for you then and there…”
“I’m not getting married at the Plaza Hotel!”
Robyn looks sharply at Elinor, concern creasing her brow. “I thought you’d spoken to John Ferguson?”
“I have,” replies Elinor crisply. “I spoke with him yesterday.”
“Good! Because as you know, we’re on a very tight schedule. A Plaza wedding in less than five months? There are some wedding planners who would simply say, impossible! I am not that wedding planner. I did a wedding once in three days. Three days! Of course, that was on a beach, so it was a little different—”
“What do you mean, the Plaza’s booked?” I turn in my chair. “Elinor, we’re getting married in Oxshott. You know we are.”
“Oxshott?” Robyn wrinkles her brow. “I don’t know it. Is it upstate?”
“Some provisional arrangements have been made,” says Elinor dismissively. “They can easily be cancelled.”
“They’re not provisional!” I stare at Elinor in fury. “And they can’t be cancelled!”
“You know, I sense some tension here,” says Robyn brightly. “So I’ll just go make a few calls…” She picks up her mobile and moves off to the side of the restaurant, and Elinor and I are left glaring at each other.
I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “Elinor, I’m not getting married in New York. I’m getting married at home. Mum’s already started organizing it. You know she has!”
“You are not getting married in some unknown backyard in England,” says Elinor crisply. “Do you know who Luke is? Do you know who I am?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“For someone with a modicum of intelligence, you’re very naive.” Elinor takes a sip of champagne. “This is the most important social event in all our lives. It must be done properly. Lavishly. The Plaza is unsurpassed for weddings. You must be aware of that.”
“But Mum’s already started planning!”
“Then she can stop planning. Rebecca, your mother will be grateful to have the wedding taken off her hands. It goes without saying, I will fund the entire event. She can attend as a guest.”
“She won’t want to attend as some guest! It’s her daughter’s wedding! She wants to be the hostess! She wants to organize it!”
“So!” A cheerful voice interrupts us. “Are we resolved?” Robyn appears back at the table, putting her mobile away.
“I’ve booked an appointment for us to see the Terrace Room after lunch,” says Elinor frostily. “I would be glad if you would at least be courteous enough to come and view it with us.”
I stare at her mutinously, tempted to throw down my napkin and say no way. I can’t believe Luke knows anything about this. In fact, I feel like ringing him up right now and telling him exactly what I think.
But then I remember he’s at a board lunch… and I also remember him asking me to give his mother a chance. Well, fine. I’ll give her a chance. I’ll go along and see the room, and walk around and nod politely and say nothing. And then tonight I’ll tell her equally politely that I’m still getting married in Oxshott.
“All right,” I say at last.
“Good.” Elinor’s mouth moves a few millimeters. “Shall we order?”
Throughout lunch, Elinor and Robyn talk about all the New York weddings they’ve ever been to, and I eat my food silently, resisting their attempts to draw me into the conversation. Outwardly I’m calm, but inside I can’t stop seething. How dare Elinor try and take over? How dare she just hire a wedding planner without even consulting me? How dare she call Mum’s garden an “unknown backyard”?
She’s just an interfering cow, and if she thinks I’m going to get married in some huge anonymous New York hotel instead of at home with all my friends and family, she can just think again.
We finish lunch and decline coffee, and head outside. It’s a brisk, breezy day with clouds scudding along the blue sky.
As we walk toward the Plaza, Robyn smiles at me. “I can understand if you’re a little tense. It can be very stressful, planning a New York wedding. Some of my clients get very… wound up, shall we say.”
I’m not planning a New York wedding! I want to yell. I’m planning an Oxshott wedding! But instead I just smile and say, “I suppose.”
“I have one client in particular who’s really quite demanding…” Robyn exhales sharply. “But as I say, it is a stressful business… Ah. Here we are! Isn’t it an impressive sight?”
As I look up at the opulent facade of the Plaza I grudgingly have to admit it looks pretty good. It stretches up above Plaza Square like a wedding cake, with flags flying above a grand porticoed entrance.
“Have you been to a wedding here before?” asks Robyn.
“No. I’ve never been inside at all.”
“Ah! Well… In we go…” says Robyn, ushering Elinor and me up the steps, past uniformed porters, through a revolving door, and into an enormous reception hall with a high, ornate ceiling, a marble floor, and huge gilded pillars. Directly in front of us is a light, bright area filled with palms and trellises where people are drinking coffee and a harp is playing and waiters in gray uniforms are hurrying around with silver coffeepots.