I groan, forcing myself to turn toward her. “You’re not going to like it.”
Her eyebrows lower. “On a scale of one to this-calls-for-an-intervention?”
“Probably closer to the range of ‘this-calls-for-a-lobotomy,’?” I warn.
Sofia closes her eyes and takes a deep centering breath. With an empanada in each hand at her knees, she looks like a meditation leader with excellent taste in snacks. When she opens her eyes again, she’s ready. “Okay, hit me.”
With no comforting pastry to clutch, I pull down the faded babyquilt Sofia’s abuela made from the back of the couch and just rip off the Band-Aid. “Calvin called me.”
“WHAT?” Sofia’s voice is so loud in the empty apartment that I almost throw the blanket over her head to muffle the noise.
“I haven’t even told you the bad part yet!”
“Oh my God, okay.” She stuffs the empanada into her mouth and takes an enormous bite, which I’m assuming is supposed to serve as a scream-preventative.
Before I lose my nerve or she has a chance to swallow, I say, “He’s getting married, having a baby, and he asked me to plan the wedding at Larkwood.”
In an instant, the scream-preventative bite turns into a life-threatening air blockage as Sofia starts choking. “Sofia, oh my God!” I say, scrambling to my knees on the couch. “I don’t know the Heimlicher!”
But then she starts coughing, her face bright pink. I sit back down and put my hands on her shoulders, needing to know she’s okay. To my surprise, she starts laughing.
“The Heimlicher?” she wheezes. “I think you mean the Heimlich.”
My own face floods with heat. “Stop laughing—you almost died, and youknowI misspeak when I’m nervous!”
Mortifying memories ofgrelpfulsurface, but I don’t linger on them. Not when Sofia’s mirth quickly fizzles and she says, “What the hell, Gracie? Why did you even pick up his call? He’s the king of vest-wearing, finance-bro douchebags!”
Cheeks still pink, her eyes look ready to shoot lasers at anyone who dares to wear a vest in her presence. “I know,” I say, too cowardly to admit that I’ve been crying to sad girl breakup ballads every night for the past two weeks. “I was really angry when he called, too, and at first, I told him absolutely not. But he begged me to reconsider, and then Agatha passed, Jude… happened, and I had this idea for how to save Larkwood.”
“Okay, let’s hear it,” she says grumpily.
“Well, as I’ve established, Jude is trying to ruin my life. ButbeforeI learned his plans for the estate, we kind of… bonded over Agatha,” I say, deciding not to mention the initial fluttery feelingsand attraction he promptly fly-swatted to death with his business card. “He loved her, but I just don’t think he understands how important Larkwood was to her. And yes, maybe he happens to be a jaded divorce lawyer,” I go on quickly, ignoring the way her eyes bug at this inconvenient detail, “but I alsoknowhe feels guilty about all the vendors he’s screwing over—you included,” I point out. “He was practically squirming in his loafers when I mentioned everyone who would be devastated by Larkwood closing.”
“Okay, but how exactly does this relate to planning your ex-dickwad’s wedding? Why not just beg him to keep one of the weddings he canceled to prove your point?” she asks.
“Because showing up to a wedding that’s already been planned is just going to a party,” I explain. “But if I can convince him to let me plan Calvin’s wedding, then I can bring him into the process and have him meet all the vendors who would be impacted. And who knows. Maybe he’ll even grow a heart along the way.”
For a moment, she just stares at me, while irrational hope practically beams out of my pores. “Gracie, he’s a divorce lawyer,” she finally says. “Your natural predator.”
“All of my brilliant scheming, andthat’swhat you decide to focus on?” I demand, taking my empanada back and biting into it.
“Well, yes, since this entire ridiculous plan depends on you convincing a man who literally ends marriages for a living to suddenly see the romantic side of life and keep an estate he doesn’t want becauseweddings are magical. And that’sifhe lets you plan it, period.”
Desperation wells inside me. “You’re forgetting the brilliant part where I guilt him into it!”
Sofia’s features soften. “Okay, Gracie. I know you’re going to try this no matter what I say, so I’ll be in your corner. I promise I won’t even photoshop eye bags and pimples into Calvin’s wedding photos if you pull this off.”
I smile, relief ballooning inside of me. “Well, maybe just one pimple.”
She smiles before her face clouds with concern again. “But if he agrees, how are you going to plan a wedding in less than two months? You usually work with clients for a year or more.”
This conundrum has occurred to me as well. “I’ll manage. It’ll be like finals week, but for like, two months.”
“And what about your mom’s birthday thing? Isn’t that happening around the same time, too?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought of that, but now that she’s mentioned it, yes: the sixtieth birthday extravaganza my family has roped me into planning is also happening at the end of July.
Sofia must see my realization playing out across my face because she says, “Oh no…”
