Shit.
It really was over.
She looked around the room. A crack snaked across the ceiling near the window, a leak waiting for the next rain. The carpet was stained and thinning. In the corner, a pile of Daisy’s toys looked like a colorful mountain. Daisy was getting too big for this small apartment. She needed more room.
Rose opened her email and found the thread with the realtor Lizanne had recommended during one of her earlier meetings.
I am writing to cancel our viewing for this afternoon,she typed, her fingers feeling like lead.My professional circumstances have changed unexpectedly and I am no longer in a position to sign a new lease.
She hit send. It felt like hearing a door slam shut in the dark. She called the bakery to let them know she was waiting for a status update. To hold everything. They’d already heard the news.
Before she had a chance to call anyone else, the calls came to her. The florist. The Vineyard. The table and chair rental company… All asking if the wedding was off. And the only thing she could say was that she didn’t know but she thought so.
Pat hadn’t replied. So she was stuck in limbo with an 80% chance that everything was off. Who was she kidding? 80%... 95%. And that was generous.
When the calls were finished, she sat in the deepening shadows of the apartment. She thought about Lizanne trapped in that house while the world laughed at her.
A sharp, hot flash of guilt hit her. She remembered the drive home from the vineyard—the way she’d let herself imagine the weight of Lizanne’s hand or the sound of her voice when the cameras weren’t running. And then she’d gone to bed and let the fantasy continue. She had been fantasizing about a woman whose life was a beautiful lie.
She picked up her phone and opened the thread with Lizanne. It was a long string of Pinterest boards and arrival times.
I am so sorry for what you are going through,she typed. She deleted it. Too fan-girly.Let me know if there is anything I can do to help with the press.She deleted that, too. Pat had a whole team for that.
She settled on six words. She didn’t let herself overthink them.
I’m here if you need me.
She set the phone down, not expecting a reply. She wasn’t even sure if Lizanne still had the phone with her.
At 2:45 PM, the reality of motherhood overrode the tragedy of her career. She grabbed her keys and walked out, leaving the laptop open on her desk—the screen still showing the credit card balance she could pay off, and the life she could no longer afford.
As she drove toward the daycare, a digital billboard over the 405 caught her eye. It was a photo of Lizanne and Trina from a red carpet, radiant and smiling. The headline in neon yellow read:WEDDING OF THE YEAR: CANCELED?
Rose looked away, keeping her eyes fixed on the road. She had twenty percent of the money, but none of the future she’dstarted to build in her head. As she pulled into the pick-up line, she watched the other parents scrolling through their phones, knowing exactly what they were reading.
The silence in her car felt heavier than the Los Angeles traffic. She had done her job. She had planned Lizanne’s dream wedding. She had put it on hold. There was nothing else to do. She was just another person watching the wreckage from a distance.
Chapter 11
Lizanne
October 6th
For five days, Lizanne hadn’t moved. The silk sheets, once a symbol of the luxury she and Trina had built together, were now a tangled nest of grief and the stale, sour scent of neglected mornings. She stayed anchored there because the moment she stood up, the floor would remind her that it no longer echoed with the sound of Trina’s humming—that low vibration that used to drift from the bathroom while she applied her morning serums.
The silence was the worst part. It was in some way deafening. She’d never understood what that meant, but now? Now she did.
She closed her eyes, trying to summon a memory that didn’t feel like a serrated blade. She thought of three years ago—a rainy Tuesday at their Malibu weekend house. They had stayed in bed all day, ordering expensive Thai food and arguing over the ending of a classic noir film. Trina had looked at her, her eyes soft and full of a future that had seemed written in stone.
“It’s always going to be us, honey bee,”she’d whispered, her thumb tracing the line of Lizanne’s jaw.“The world can watch, or the world can burn, as long as I’m waking up next to you.”
A sob caught in Lizanne’s throat, jagged and raw. How had they gone from that to... this?
The last year had been a slow, agonizing erosion. She’d felt it but pushed the feeling away.
She knew. She’d thought the wedding would fix this. The reality show would too, by reminding them of the fun they used to have.
She had been a fool. The people Trina sent to collect her things yesterday or the day before had been efficient. They hadn’t left a single stray earring or a scent of her perfume behind. They had taken the books Trina liked, the custom-made luggage, even the tiny porcelain bird they’d bought on their first trip to Paris. The house wasn’t just empty; it was hollowed out, like a ribcage picked clean.
