Raffi didn’t have time to piece together the meaning of her features because Kami and Grace had waltzed back outdoors.
Grace started. “We love the venue, we love that your and Mimi’s families go way back, and everything is almost so perfect—”
“But,” Kami picked up, “we were wondering if we could ask you for a teensy favor, just a couple additions.”
“Uh, sure,” Raffi said, knowing Kami had never asked for anythingteensyin her life.
“I really do want this to be the wedding of my dreams, and I always imagined getting married under one of those, like, neoclassical domes. Brick or stone, big and romantic, lots of vines all over the place. Tons of flowers, too, we need more flowers. And also—”
Raffi was processing what this meant, exactly, when Kami hit him with more. “I’ve always, always wanted fountains and pools. There has to be water, the vibes are so pure, so immaculate, like holy water anointing the wedding, you know? So if you could build some kind of water feature to match with the dome and with the winery, of course, then we could have our wedding here.”
Raffi was calculating the costs of everything, and he was seeing hundreds of thousands of dollars flash before his eyes. His father had money, yes, lots of it, but Moushegh had put Raffi in charge, and if the first thing Raffi did was go beg Daddy for a huge chunk of cash, he wasn’t doing himself a favor. Dad hardly believed in him now, Stanford MBA or not. Raffi had strong-armed his way into keeping the winery alive, feeling like a little kid covered in glitter glue begging, “Trust me, Dad. I can do it!”
He chanced a glance at Ani, whose jaw had actually dropped. He caught the moment she realized it was open and shut it. Cute. So he wasn’t off base, thinking this was an insane ask.
“The, uh, the cost—” Raffi began, keeping up what he thought was a professional, impartial tone. One of avendor.
“Oh!” Kami said. “We’ll cover the cost, obviously.”
Raffi couldn’t stop his eyes from widening, then he reined them in. He decided to go for smoldering instead, realizingthis was the final sell. “Of course, this all sounds very doable,” he said, completely clueless as to whether or not any of it was, in fact, doable.
Ani cleared her throat. “Um, we’d want to make sure the design of these landscaping features aligns with your wedding vision.”
“For sure,” Grace said.
Kami smiled hugely at Ani. “That’s why we want you to oversee all the design and management of the project! We totally trust you. You’ve always had the best taste and sometimes know what I’m thinking before I even know it. And we’d pay you for it on top of the wedding planning. What did we say, Gracey?”
Grace replied, “My parents paid their landscape designer twenty K, so we felt that would be fair.”
Kami clasped her hands together. “Please say yes, please say yes.”
Raffi noticed that Ani gulped at Kami’s comment about reading her mind. He was also processing this new development in the already new plan. Ani seemed to know a lot about the nuts and bolts of wedding planning, but he wasn’t so sure about this design sense that Kami seemed to gush over.Raffihad good taste; everyone said so. Okay, maybe “everyone” was his mom and grandma, but they were women of discernment (with an alarming number of opinions about throw pillows). Besides, it was his winery—well, he was the steward of the winery, anyway. He couldn’t have someone telling him what to do with it.
“Yes,” Ani said, seemingly strained. “Of course.”
3
Ani
When Kami andGrace said their goodbyes, and Kami hugged her again, Ani barely felt it. Her body was stuck in some type of survival lockdown mode. Petals dotted the landscape, but she could hardly enjoy them. There was alotto process.
Kami was Mimi, the other bride for her new wedding.
Grace called her Mimi? She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Grace was so statuesque and svelte and tall and calm and perfect—all the things Ani was not.
