“Why not?” Seth asked, leaning forward.
She sat back in her chair and smirked. “It’s in five weeks.”
Lexi gulped. “Five weeks?” She hoped it would sound more reasonable if she said it out loud, like maybe her mind would somehow convince her it was doable. But nope, it still sounded batshit crazy when she heard it out loud, too.
It would be nearly impossible to pull off a wedding in five weeks, she told herself. She still needed to send out invitations, choose bridesmaid dresses, rent tuxes, find a photographer, order flowers—well, who was she kidding?—she still needed to do everything that most brides had months or even years to do. Lexi turned her head to Seth, who shook his head at her.
“You know… I think we could do it in five weeks,” Nancy said in an optimistic tone. “I’ve planned a lot of galas in my time, and I have faith that we could do it—especially with your budget… or lack thereof?” She chuckled.
Lexi looked up and paused. Nancy did have a point. With her lottery money, she could hire all the best vendors to help them whip up something spectacular within the time constraint. And she could pay rush fees or whatever else she needed to get everything she wanted. But most importantly, at the end of it all, she’d get to be married to Seth even sooner.
Lexi tossed her hair behind her shoulders and plunked her credit card down on the desk. “Book it,” she said with confidence.
“Woohoo!” Nancy cheered her on. And for the first time in forever, Lexi finally felt like a winner.
CHAPTER 9 Hanna
Her stomach was so achy with nerves that Hanna couldn’t even drink her morning coffee. It felt a bit like she was the one starting a new school, with every fear she had as a kid on her first day of class coming back to her now. What if she got lost and showed up in the wrong classroom? What if she had no one to sit with at lunch? What if she hated her teachers?
Driving down the tree-lined street to Evangeline Oaks Academy, Hanna kept glancing at the clock on the dashboard. With every minute that passed, her anxiety increased. “Shit…” she said under her breath as the black SUV in front of her hit the brakes for what felt like the hundredth time. She had new student orientation in five minutes, and it was looking like she was going to be late.
It wasn’t like she didn’t try to get there on time. She and the kids had even woken up early, but right before they were about to leave, she noticed a pool of water forming around the dishwasher. She spent ten minutes trying to find the leak and mopping up the floor.
Her kids didn’t seem to care about being late, though. They looked like they had other things on their minds. Drake sat quietly in the passenger seat fiddling with the radio buttons as Lucy stared out the back window. Both looked prim and proper in their crisp new uniforms of baby blue polos and khaki pants, and both had small frowns on their face.
“Y’all excited?” she asked, trying to pep them up. Neither answered. “It’s a new year! A fresh start! You know, I always loved the first day of school,” she said. “The possibilities are endless. There’s something about new beginnings.…”
“Mom…” Drake said with a groan. “Can you stop?”
She paused and cleared her throat. “Okay. Sure.” She shrugged her son’s shortness off to nerves. Hell, she couldn’t blame him. The three of them sat in silence for the remainder of the drive as she secretly worried that uprooting them was a bad idea.
But as she pulled her car through the iron gates of the school at exactly seven thirty, the time of the scheduled orientation, her doubts quickly turned to a feeling of pride. Every time she had passed these gates before, she wanted so badly to be able to be one of the families that got to go through them. And now, they were—albeit a bit tardy.
Only new families had to attend the orientation. The school day didn’t technically start for another twenty-five minutes, but there were already cars snaking around the horseshoe-shaped driveway. A line of sparkling clean BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, and Lexuses waited in the designated drop-off lane, and she was thankful to be able to bypass that mess and go straight to the small parking lot labeled GUEST PARKING.
Hanna couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t dropping her kids off any sooner than five minutes before the bell rang. Who were these parents?
She scooted into the last available spot only three minutes late for their meeting.
Drake and Lucy stayed eerily quiet as they got out of the car. It made Hanna’s heart hurt to think they might be more nervous than she was.
“Okay, c’mon, guys,” she said, grabbing Lucy’s new pink and white backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. “It’s gonna be great! Aren’t you excited to make new friends?”
Neither responded.
This is for the best, she told herself. Do not doubt yourself.
Immediately, the sweltering August heat started beating down on them. Hanna used the back of her hand to wipe the bead of sweat trickling down her face. She could feel the early morning humidity, and knew it was probably curling her shoulder-length hair, which she had painstakingly straightened that morning. Despite the fact that she most likely had the same hairstyle as a poodle right now, Hanna hoped she would impress in her new chambray belted dress and beige sandals. It was the first time in years she had bought new clothes for herself. And since she no longer needed to be wearing boring work clothes every day, the need was justified. She grabbed her purse and her kids’ hands and began the march toward the front entrance.
“ ’Sssscuse me,” a nasally voice called from behind them.
Hanna swiveled her head and saw a tall woman wearing a bright orange reflective vest with the words PARENT PATROL stitched across the front.
“Hi!” Hanna greeted the woman with a friendly wave.
The lady tossed her warm caramel-hued hair. “You can’t park here,” she said in a slow drawl.
“Oh, sorry.” Hanna felt flustered. “We’re new here. We’re going to the orientation right now.”
“I know who you are,” the woman said, pursing her lips. “But you still can’t park here.”
Hanna paused.
What was that supposed to mean? Were the Parent Patrol members omniscient, aware of every new family arriving on campus that day? Or was this woman implying that she knew Hanna from somewhere else?
A thought suddenly occurred to her. Did the woman see the press conference? Did she know Hanna and her family had won the lottery?
Her cheeks flushed at the thought.
Just then two other women wearing orange vests emerged from behind a row of cars. They stood at attention behind the glamorous woman, as if they were her backup.
Hanna felt a strange cocktail of irritation and shame rise up in her. “Where am I supposed to park, then?” They were already late for their meeting, and these women were giving off some seriously bitchy vibes.
All three women pointed to a lot on the other end of the school. To get there, it looked like she had to drive through the chaos of the horseshoe driveway. Hanna looked around. There was another big parking lot only a few yards away. “What’s that?” she asked. “Can I park there?”
“Sorry,” the lady in the back with the curly black hair said with an exaggerated frown. “That’s student parking.”