“Steel Magnolias,” Jorja said as she set flameless candles in crystal wineglasses in each of the windows lining the sides of the sanctuary. “Nana Irene gave me that movie for my graduation present. I wish I was as strong as every one of the characters. I wonder if the bride got the idea for all this pink from that. I’m surprised that they didn’t want us to drape the walls with pink satin.”
“Shhh.” Clinton waved his hand at her. “We’ve still got a couple of hours before the ceremony, and the bride could decide to bring in bolts of satin for the walls, and maybe even the ceilings, at the last minute.” He picked up the baby carrier with Zoe sitting in it and carried it to the front.
“Not my zoo. Not my monkeys,” Jorja said. “If they bring in satin, the bride can crawl up on a ladder in her wedding gown and cover the walls herself. We’re here to set up the equipment and attach the pew bows.”
“Amen,” Taryn agreed. “But I can’t believe you have gotten so sassy, Jorja Butler!”
Jorja shrugged. “I turned another page in my new-life book.” Saying that felt good, but the relief in her heart was even better—bordering on great—than just uttering the words.
“And, Jorja,Steel Magnoliascame out more than thirty years ago,” Anna Rose said. “Unless the bride’s mama or grandma saw the show, the idea for all this pink probably didn’t come from there.”
“Maybe Victoria’s Secret,” Jorja said, feeling her face heat up. “That company’s signature color is pink, isn’t it?”
“Youaremoving on,” Taryn said. “I didn’t think you would even look sideways at one of those stores as you passed by it in the mall.”
“I only buy my nail polish from there,” Jorja said, trying to nip this conversation in the bud.What would Clinton think—and in church?“Mama would have a cardiac arrest if she thought I was buying other things in that place.”
“You are supposed to be finding yourself,” Anna Rose reminded her. “We’ll drive down to Amarillo and go to Westgate Mall. There’s a Victoria’s Secret there, and we’ll do some shopping for the new and improved Jorja Butler.”
“In your dreams,” Jorja snapped. “IfI find myself, it won’t be in one of those places.”
“Where will it be?” Clinton asked and set the carrier down on the altar facing the pulpit.
“I’m not sure because I just started on this journey,” Jorja answered. “But I’m not going to change my values. Besides, this business of finding me should begin inside, not with a new, fancy look on the outside.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Clinton agreed as he sat the arch upright and then placed a candelabra on each side of it. “These folkshave rented just about everything we have in the storage room. This could be the biggest wedding we will do all summer. Taryn, if you’ll watch Zoe, I’ll bring in the kneeling bench.”
“Will do,” Taryn agreed with a nod and took the baby out of the carrier. Zoe laid her head on Taryn’s shoulder and cuddled against her chest. “I know you are tired of that thing. Helping set up a wedding isn’t fun for you, is it? We’ll go sit on the third or fourth pew and tell these folks what looks best.”
“That’s my job!” Kaitlin Chambers waved from the back of the church and then slowly came down the center aisle, checking each bow along the way. “The bride is my cousin, and I’m her wedding planner, so I’ll be deciding where to place everything. To start with, some of the candles in the windows look off-center to me, and I believe that we ordered half-inch ribbons on the stems of the wineglasses. Those look a little narrow to me, but”—she whipped out a metal tape measure from her pink tote bag—“I’ll measure them to be sure, and if they aren’t right, you can get busy redoing them. And a couple of these bows look a tad bit smaller than the others, so I hope you brought a few more for emergencies.”
“Holy ...,” Taryn whispered under her breath.
“Crap on a cracker,” Anna Rose added, finishing the sentence for her cousin and flopping down next to her on the third pew. “This is going to be a long day.”
“This is a nightmare,” Jorja whispered. The room seemed to fade away for a split second; then she slumped down on a pew and got control of herself.
Taryn quickly made her way over to her cousin and sat down beside her. “We’re here. Don’t let that woman get under your skin.”
Anna Rose joined them and draped an arm around Jorja’s shoulders. “The dream might be horrible, but youwilleventually wake up.”
“We’ll be done in a couple of hours, and we won’t have to come back to tear it all down until tomorrow, after we close up the shop,” Taryn assured her. “The preacher is going to be out of town until sixo’clock after the wedding, but he said that he would open the church for us when he gets back so we can gather up our equipment.”
Clinton brought in the white kneeling bench from the back door and raised a dark eyebrow. “Where do I put this? Is everything all right?”
“I guess things are done according—” Jorja started.
“The boss lady says that we aren’t doing things right.” Taryn nodded toward Kaitlin, who was busy wielding her tape measure.
“Looks like these ribbons are okay,” Kaitlin said with a weighty sigh. “If I’d realized how they would look, I would have ordered wider ones, but they’ll”—she gave another sigh—“haveto do. Some of them aren’t dead center, so you’ll have to work on that. It’s your job to make everything perfect.”
Jorja could not believe her attitude.
“How many other weddings around these parts are you helping with this summer?” Clinton asked.
“Five,” Kaitlin answered. “But this is the only one booked through the Lucky Shamrock. Jorja, I’ll loan you my tape measure. Please see to it that these candles are centered properly. And, Anna Rose, I want you to work on the pew bows. Some of them seem to be leaning just a bit.”
Taryn glared at the woman with such heat that Jorja felt a rush of it blow over her like what she got when she opened a hot oven’s door.
