My body is wracked with an involuntary shudder.Christ,the Kasparov wedding. The memory of that day alone almost makes me reconsider my family’s horrific track record with weddings.
Almost.
I slap my cheeks and center myself. Then I repeat the mantra I’ve spent years perfecting in my mind.
I have no family.
I come from nowhere.
Iamno one.
Works like a charm.
The second I’m back down on Earth, I ring Caterina, our emergency go-to Italian grandmother. She works out of her basement, has a list of OSHA violations longer than the years she’s been alive, and she always,alwaysdelivers.
“Hi, Mrs. Mancini? Yes, it’s me. Listen, I know it’sreallyshort notice…”
After ten minutes of haggling, I manage to extort vegan lasagna for two hundred cranky PETA members in two hours. Yes, the pasta will be premade; yes, the pesto will be straight from the can; no, I could not care less. When faced with a three-digit count of hangry guests, quality takes a backseat.
In fact, quality gets bound, gagged, and tossed in the trunk, with no one around to hear it scream.
I organize the pick-up for the lasagna, then put down the phone and exhale. The crazy thing is, I’m not even mad. This—the chaos, the crisis management, the high-stakes mishaps—is what I’mgoodat. It runs in my blood.
Literally. No matter how hard I’ve tried to exorcize those demons out of me.
You can’t outrun your genes, after all.
I slump against the cool marble wall of the venue. It occurs to me, for neither the first nor the millionth time, that I shouldn’t be working weddings. It’s the height of irony, really, that this is what I do for a living.
And yet, here I am. Sima Danilo, once heir to a vast, bloody dynasty, has now been rebranded and reborn as Sammi Banks, wedding planner extraordinaire with zero connections to the criminal underworld.
Some days, I almost can’t believe it. That I ever agreed to step foot in a reception hall again, after what happened to…
Don’t think about it.I take a deep breath and force the tears back down.Don’t think about Lara. She’s gone now. You can’t save her. You tried.
I give myself a good shake and swallow the lump that has formed at the back of my throat. Quitting the wedding industry won’t give me my sister back. What itwilldo is get me kicked out of my ratty apartment, and I cannot have that. Not when I’ve come this close to fully emancipating myself from my past.
And I won’t let that happen. You can’t outrun your genes, no—but you can sure as hell outrun the people you share them with.
I grab my phone and pull up my savings account. It reads $29,671, exactly $5,329 short of what I need to start a new life. Luckily, the wedding of the year comes with a hefty bonus check.
And then I’ll be free.
After this nightmarish day is over, I can finally quit the agency. I can flip my boss Bob the middle finger, take Jemmawith me, and never have to bow my head to anyone ever, ever again.
I’ll be free.
After today, I’ll befree.
It feels like a dream. All those Cup Noodle dinners, every winter spent cocooned beneath three comforters because I couldn’t afford to splurge on pesky luxury goods like heating—it’ll all finally be worth it.
My gaze flits back to Tux Kid. He’s stopped screaming now that his mother finally deigned to put down her bubbles to kiss his boo-boo better. I’m not a fan of other people’s kids—event planning will do that to you—but I’ve always nursed the hope that, one day, I’d have some of my own.
I can’t afford it now, but once my company is up and running… once we’ve earned back the start-up capital and our accounts become flush with cash, in a few years’ time… then who knows?
You’d need a husband for that,the obnoxious voice at the back of my head reminds me. Somehow, it sounds exactly like my dad’s.You could have had one if you’d stayed. If you’d done your duty, like your sister did.
Lara understood. Lara knew what burdens she had to bear.
