Page 18

“Yes, as a guest. When Shannon worked in mystery shopping, Kari was her counterpart at a rival company. So she and Shannon were competitors professionally but they had always liked each other.”

My eyebrows lift, and Katie nods.

“Kari told me later she was shocked to get an invite but… who says no to billionaires, Farmington, and an open bar with lobster?”

That tracks.

“Anyway,” Katie went on, “Kari and I met that day. We sat together while everything unraveled. And I mean everything . We were just these two women, both totally shell-shocked, watching a cat in a kilt get pulled into a pool while Amanda Warrick shrieked and Andrew McCormick dove in like a tuxedoed superhero.”

I groan. “Don’t remind me. I still have flashbacks to the moment Mom tried to pull the helicopter back down from the sky using nothing but righteous indignation and a floral arrangement.”

And I bet Hamish my virginity on whether Declan would escape with Shannon , I think, but don't say.

Katie grins. “And when Amanda, who was her archrival, got soaked and flashed a third of the guest list, Kari didn’t gloat. She just… blinked. Then she picked up someone’s abandoned Champagne flute and said, ‘Want to get a drink?’”

“That sounds like a great way to meet a business partner.”

“And that’s how Wedding Protectors started,” Katie says simply. “Two women who had front-row seats to a meltdown so bad, it generated a business plan.”

Behind her, Fiona’s voice erupts through the Zoom screen again.

“It’s no’ just a weddin’—it’s a declaration o’ cultural dignity! And ye dinna do that at a golf club buffet!”

Katie mutes the screen like she’s swatting a fly, then turns back to me with that same calm intensity.

“But we didn’t start this company because of the chaos,” she says. “We started it for what wasn’t there.”

I shift in my seat, suddenly feeling something ache low in my chest.

“And what was that?” I ask.

Katie taps her iPad, then sets it down, eyes boring into mine.

“Someone asking what the bride and groom actually wanted .”

She lets that sit for a second.

Then: “So… what do you want, Amy?”

I try to answer. I do. But the words get caught behind the lump in my throat.

Because nobody’s asked me that.

Everyone’s asked about colors and venues and whether men wearing kilts authentically are ‘offensive to the elderly.’ (Minus Corrine and Agnes.)

But not one person—not Mom, not Fiona, not even me —has stopped to ask what I actually want.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I really don’t.”

Katie smiles, the kind that feels like a hug you didn’t know you needed.

"Take a moment and think about what you want. It's your wedding. You only get one."

My eyebrows shoot up at that.

"Hopefully," she adds, wincing. "Sorry. I'm a little... rattled." She massages her temples. "Your mom is - ”

“A lot,” I finish for her an idea pops into my head.

I FaceTime my fiancé mid-physical therapy.

Because that’s what emotionally healthy people do: interrupt their injured pro-athlete partners in the middle of screaming leg exercises to dump mother-induced wedding trauma on them like poison confetti.

Hamish answers immediately.

He’s beet red, dripping with sweat, hair in dark copper ringlets around his face, and standing in what looks like a modern torture chamber filled with foam rollers and yoga straps.

“AMY!” he yells, so loud, I drop my phone. “Hen! Watch this!”

In the background, his physical therapist, Brandi–the woman with arms like Thor and a smile like a dominatrix—is giving him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Behind her stands Sam Doolittle, the team physio from Hamish’s football club.

Sam is also a ginger, but while Hamish is long-limbed and muscular in a “GQ Cover” way, Sam is a cube.

A ginger cube of densely packed muscle and judgment, with arms permanently crossed over his chest.

“I’m watching!” I yell back, repositioning the phone. Katie’s taking a moment to try to fix her aromatherapy diffuser because it shorted out when Fiona screamed into the Zoom feed.

Hamish grips the edge of a padded table and, with the intense focus of a man trying to move a mountain with his mind, bends his knee.

Five.

Degrees.

Maybe.

He looks up, panting, grinning like he just solved climate change.

“DID YOU SEE IT?”

“I saw it, babe. You moved your knee.”

“I bent it!”

“Yes, you did! You bent it so good!” At the rate we're going, I'll need pet treats for reinforcement.

“Best bend this side o’ the Atlantic!”

“David Beckham would weep.”

“I’m sweatin’ like a hedgehog in a sauna and I dinna care!”

I'm not going to ask how he knows what hedgehogs look like when they sweat in saunas. He's a pro athlete. The man has likely seen things.

In the background, Sam mutters, “Aye, well, let’s see ye flex yer glutes before ye celebrate.”

Brandi slaps him with a resistance band.

That’s when Carly, the receptionist, bursts in.

Bursts, like the Kool-Aid Man in yoga pants.

“Amy!” She’s out of breath. “Your mom just had a box delivered from Hubbardston. It’s leaking oil."

"Oil?" we ask in unison.

"Smells like… sheep? Or possibly artisanal despair?”

Katie looks up sharply. “What did she order?”

Carly consults her phone. “Alpaca wool. Raw. To be dyed the exact shade of Amy’s hair.”

I stare.

Katie groans.

Fiona screams from the muted Zoom, which is apparently unmuted now.

“Wool? Has the woman LOST HER MIND? We’ve got tartan for that! It’s called a clan! ”

Before anyone can respond, another staffer, Nilly, peeks in, crunching on what looks to be a biscotti and holding a wireless headset.

“There’s a priest on line two,” she says serenely. “From Scotland. Wants to know if Amy’s Catholic and whether this wedding is recognized by Rome. And something about how an international playboy like Hamish is going to have to spend an entire month on confession and another on penance.”

Katie slowly removes the phone from her ear. Places it gently in a drawer and locks it. Then she crosses the room, shoos Carly and Nilly out, closes the door, locks that, too, and pulls down a blackout shade I didn’t even know existed.

At the rate things are going, I expect metal gates to appear next.

She stands by my shoulder, positioned so that Hamish and I can both see her, facing us with the intensity of a woman who has seen true horror. Who has survived bridal mobs, ring bearer brawls, and whatever the hell happened to Amanda’s dignity that day at the pool, at my sister's wedding.

And then she says:

“I’m refunding your entire wedding fee.”

“What? Did ye no’ like ma bend?” Hamish squawks from my phone.

Katie holds up a single, lavender-lotioned hand.

“My professional advice as co-founder of Wedding Protectors,” she says solemnly, “is this: Run .”

Hamish tilts his camera. “Like physically? Because I canna just yet. Blame Blavek.”

“Emotionally. Legally. Existentially. You must elope. Run far, run fast, flee these women before they weaponize livestock or sacraments again.”

I don't know what to say.

Hamish does, though.

"Excuse me, Katie, but I'm verra confused. It's yer job ta protect weddings, aye? Why would ye give up a client? Are ye firing us?"

"No. Yes. No! Not you two. Not the bride and groom. But the mothers..." Katie and Hamish share a knowing look.

"We're havin' a wedding, though. Nae matter what," he says firmly. "So we do it wi' or wi'out ye, and we really need ye, Katie," he says with the charming smile that melts panties. "Ye're the best. That's why we hired ye."

“And where would we even go to elope?” I ask, caught somewhere between laughter and a full-blown sob.

"You really don't know how tenacious Mom is. She pressed Andrew McCormick at Shannon and Declan’s wedding and got him to cough up their location in Vegas.

The man is a CEO, a crack negotiator. She broke him. "

Katie leans in.

"First of all: Never trust Andrew again. Second–there’s a town. In Maine. It’s called Luview.”

“Love you, too?” Hamish offers from the phone, like we're in church and it's a response.

“No. Love You, Maine . It’s a real place. Every day is Valentine’s Day. And the mayor’s a golden retriever.”

We stare.

"I made that last part up. There's no mayor, but there is a nice town manager named Tom.

We've had a few clients choose to hold weddings there. It's kitschy and campy. Kind of like Dollywood, but it’s the whole town, and everything’s about hearts and love.

A whopping 2,500 people live there year round.

It won't be too crowded, since it's nowhere near Valentine's Day or Christmas.

They have everything you need. A chapel, an inn, a hot springs–"

"Why didn't ye say so?" Hamish exclaims. "Ma knee could use a good soak."

"It's a magic hot springs," I say slowly, remembering.

"You've been there?" Katie asks politely.

"Sure. It's like going to North Conway and taking the cog railway. Or Storyland, Santa's Village–you know. If you live in New England, it's the kind of place your parents take you at least once."

"Ye like it, pet?" Hamish asks thoughtfully, pressing his back into a big blue therapy ball against a wall.

"It's cute. I was probably ten when we went. I remember everything was heart shaped. Candies, cupcakes, waffles–you name it. We swam in the hot springs and Mom joked that we were going to fall in love with the boys there."

Hamish frowns. "I nae longer like this plan. Who's the random lad oot there wi' a claim on ma Amy?" But he winks. "I like the heart stuff. Sounds like a happy place, ma kind of place!"

“You’ll be safe there.” Katie folds her hands like she’s delivering a terminal diagnosis wrapped in silk. The difference in demeanor between cheery Hamish and Katie is shocking.

I make a face. “We’re not under witness protection.”

“You could be. Our version, at least.”

“We have Fiona and my mom simultaneously planning a wedding,” I say, gesturing at the phone, the muted Zoom screen, the door through which a confused priest just called. “There’s no safe zone.”

“You don’t need a zone. You need an exfil.”

Hamish, still shiny with sweat and pride, pants into the camera. “Listen. I ken we paid ye, and I ken ye said ye’d refund it, but I’ve got a better idea.”

Katie tilts her head.

“Ye stay on the case,” he says. “But we go to Love You. You send security with us, so paparazzi can’t follow us and mums can’t track us. We disappear.”

I gape. “Like… wedding witness protection.”

“Exactly.”

“I know a guy,” says Sam Doolittle in the background, rolling out his quads while sipping an electrolyte smoothie the color of nuclear coolant. “Did decoy work for Ed Sheeran once. No one suspected a thing.”

"I'm a wee bit taller than Sheeran." Hamish laughs, a hearty sound I love.

"I actually know a guy who could be your doppelg?nger," Katie says slowly. A flash of Shannon's bachelorette party hits me.

"Me, too!" I exclaim. "Here in Boston."

"Hmmm," Katie says. "I wonder if it's the same guy. Henry?"

"From the O Spa," I whisper. She grins and nods.

"Ye ken a man like me?" Hamish jokes. "A ginger who's tall and has a bum knee?"

"All that minus the knee," I mumble.

"He's no' an athlete, aye?"

"No," Katie says bluntly. "He's a stripper."

Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no.

" Stripper? " I've never heard Hamish inhale so sharply. His eyes narrow."What's ma Amy doin' knowing a stripper who looks like me? " Whoa. I’ve never heard an R roll so hard out of his mouth, like a lawn mower.

Then I make a huge mistake. A big one. The biggest.

I say those clichéd words.

"It's not what you think, Hamish!"

Katie’s breath whistles. Hamish turns the same red as the maple leaf on the Canadian flag.

"I mean, I mean–it was at Shannon's bachelorette party! The night you booty called me!"

His mouth is open, mid-yell, and his chin snaps up, teeth clicking.

Booty call? Katie mouths. I ignore her. I have bigger fish to fry here.

"That was a wild night. When did ye meet a stripper, though?" he asks.

"At the O Spa. Piano bar part. Do you want me asking pointed questions about what you did during Declan's bachelor party?" I ask in my tone that says, You've been a bad boy and you're in trouble .

He presses his lips together and averts his eyes. "Ah, no."

"Then let's move on," I say primly. I get a thumbs-up from Katie, below the camera range where Hamish can't see.

"I dinna like this plan now," Hamish declares. "Not if it involves strippers who look like me that Amy's drooled over."

"Hamish!"

“We want tae be married, ” Hamish says. “No’ held hostage by twenty-yard tulle installations and intergenerational wool feuds.” He gives me a dark look. "Or findin’ out ma true beloved's been seeking out duplicates o' me."

Dad once told me that one of the secrets to a long-standing marriage is keeping your mouth shut. I love my dad. I listen to my dad.

“I can have decoys prepped within 48 hours,” Katie says briskly. “We'll rotate them through spots in Boston and stage coinciding errands for both mothers. I’ve got a set of twins on retainer who’ll work as stand-ins.”

I stare at her.

Katie shrugs. “They used to fill in when flower girls refused to walk down the aisle. Then they were valets. Now they're grad students. They owe me.”

It should be funny.

It is funny.

But also?—

"No," Hamish and I say simultaneously.

“It’s just,” I say quietly, “I don’t want to break their hearts. My mom… this is her last kid’s wedding. And Fiona… this is her first.”

Hamish’s smile falters. Katie’s expression softens.

“They’ve waited for this a long time,” I say. “Mom’s been dreaming about Farmington. And Fiona’s literally threatening arson if she doesn’t get a first-rate bagpiper.”

From the screen, Fiona roars something indecipherable and wet-sounding that ends with “burn the church ta ash and rebuild it maself wi' me own teeth! ”

Hamish frowns. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. She’s chewin’ drywall now?”

“She said teeth,” I confirm.

Katie leans forward, voice calm and clear.

“Then let us handle them. Let us give them the party, the pageantry, the hand-woven sheep-hair program covers. But give yourself the wedding. The vows. The moment. Just think about it. No pressure. I don't want to add to your stress. But I want you to know there are options.”

Before I can respond, the door to Katie’s office flies open with all the drama of a vintage musical number. How she picked the lock will remain a mystery she takes to her grave.

Mom stands there, triumphant, cradling what looks like the shredded remains of a Victorian knitting convention.

“Amy,” she breathes. “I want to create a new Jacoby family tartan! ”

She holds up the raw, undyed alpaca wool, like Simba.

“For you.”

Katie looks me straight in the eye.

Whatever it takes , she mouths.