Page 7 of Fake it ’Til Fall

“I can.” My voice firms, and for one dangerous second, I believe myself.

Soren says nothing.

“Nothing could go wrong,” I add.

Which is the sort of thing a woman says right before the universe pulls up a chair, cracks its knuckles, and opens a shared document titled Daisy’s Consequences.

So I decide, with forty-seven dollars in my bank account, a haunted boot on my foot, and my past sending save-the-dates, that I can survive anything if there’s a spreadsheet involved.

Which is not the same as being fine.

It is, however, how I’ve been doing the impression.

Chapter One

Daisy

By the beginning of October, I have learned that planning your cheating ex-fiancé’s wedding is easier if you treat it like a hostage negotiation.

Do not make eye contact with the emotional damage.

Do not personalize the floral palette.

Do not scream into the shared vendor folder, no matter how violently the bride’s mother abuses the comment feature.

Most importantly, do not picture the man who once promised to love you forever standing beneath a tasteful vineyard arch while marrying the woman he slept with before your engagement ended. That way leads to mascara loss, unpaid express shipping, and the purchase of a cardigan called Coastal Mourning as if everything else in my.life wasn't poetic enough as it is.

I am doing great.

Thriving, even.

If thriving means developing a stress twitch every time someone says “tablescape.”

This is what I tell myself while standing in the supply closet at the Boston literacy nonprofit where I work as office manager, holding a half-empty toner box against my hip and staring at an email from my mother titled:

Urgent: Carla’s ceremony aisle concerns.

Urgent, for context, used to mean medical emergencies, fire alarms, or someone trapped in an elevator. At the Thorn family vineyard, urgent means Carla Alden has decided the aisle runner might photograph too pale against the natural stone path, and my mother needs me to “weigh in with my trained eye.”

I do not have a trained eye.

I have anxiety in sensible shoes.

I have an emotionally overdeveloped sense of self-preservation and seven months of remote wedding coordination experience I never wanted. Obviously, Mom has been delegating more than just this wedding. I’ve helped organize other events for the vineyard too, which is fine. Great, even. Nothing says thriving adult woman like answering emails about linen counts after your second job, so you can afford rent, utilities, and the deluxe ramen with the tiny dehydrated vegetable confetti.

That extra income has been keeping me afloat.

Barely.

More like keeping one nostril above water while the rest of me negotiates with late fees.

Now, though, it’s all hands, all spreadsheets, and all emotional hazmat gear for the wedding of the century in Winterberry Cove.

I also once arranged a seating chart for two divorced uncles, one former priest, and a woman who brought her emotional support ferret to Thanksgiving, so apparently that makes me modern Martha Stewart with a trauma response.

Love this for me.

So, everything is fine.