“Oh, and you can call me Elsa.”
“Ava,” Hope’s mom said, smiling slightly, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Fine, thanks,” Eleanor said, her gaze on her device. “First, let’s start with the problems.”
“Problems?” the rest of the women said together.
“Um…” Hope held up her hand. “Do you mind if I take some pictures?”
Eleanor screwed up her face. “Of the problems, you mean?”
“No. The meeting?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Shoot away,” she answered, charging ahead with the details. “First we have the weather issue.”
Hope peered out the window at the clear blue sky.
“Things are looking dicey toward the end of the week,” Eleanor continued. “So, we should probably develop a backup plan for the ceremony.”
“Weather, right.” Hope tapped some notes into her phone and then snapped a pic of the group surrounding the table. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to catch Eleanor without wearing a scowl. Why was the woman so bitter? Wasn’t wedding planning supposed to be fun?
“What about the back porch?” Margaret suggested. “It’s nice and broad. Could probably accommodate thirty people. Especially if we moved furniture around and used the folding chairs.”
“Good idea,” Elsa agreed.
“It’s a beautiful porch,” Ava added. “Acoustics will carry very well from there.”
Elsa appeared to appreciate this thought. “For the violinist, yes.”
“I was actually thinking about—for me.” Ava beamed around the table and then settled her gaze on Hope. “I’m afraid I let the cat out of the bag. Oopsies.”
“Mo-om. I told you we’d think about it.” Hope attempted to sound gratefully chipper but technically failed. “I haven’t even mentioned the idea to Brent.”
“It’s just a little wedding tune,” Ava told the others. “I’ve been practicing for weeks! Ever since I first heard about the wedding.”
Hope decided to address this with her mom in private. This was tantamount to blackmail, and Ava knew it. Though Jackie honestly might not mind, it really needed to be her—and Brent’s—decision.
“The porch could work.” Eleanor nodded without looking up. “Assuming it’s not windy.”
Margaret frowned. “Oh dear. I didn’t consider that.”
“I thought the rain wasn’t coming until Sunday?” Elsa leaned forward with the question, and Hope was glad somebody in the family had been watching the weather report. She would have typically checked it on her phone, and there was no television in the carriage house.
“These fronts can shift suddenly,” Eleanor said, finally gracing them all with a look. “Especially this time of year. The forecast is looking dubious toward the end of the week. Anything could happen.”
That’s when Hope noticed something strikingly familiar about her. She’d seen those hazel eyes before, but they’d been shielded by heavy-framed glasses, and the teenager who wore them had light brown hair, not blond. Then, the realization clicked. “Lainie?” Hope asked uncertainly. “Lainie Fitch?”
Eleanor raised one pencil-thin eyebrow. “You can’t say you didn’t know until now.”
“I, um…er. Sorry, no. I mean, yes, of course. It’s just that you’re very different.” The Lainie Hope had known in high school had been extremely awkward and shy. She and Hope hadn’t exactly been friends, but they’d been in a few classes together.
“You’re not,” she said pertly, and Hope felt the dig. That’s when she remembered. Lainie’d had the most embarrassing “secret” crush on the president of the math club, but he’d had the unbearable hots for Jackie. While Hope had known Lainie a little and always been kind to her, very popular Jackie had likely never noticed her. They didn’t share any classes and weren’t exactly in the same social orbit. It was funny how they seemed to be now, with both of them becoming wedding planners. Although Hope imagined the schedule for coordinating nuptials in Blue Hill wasn’t quite as demanding as setting them up in Boston, one never knew.
“Isn’t this a small world?” Hope smiled around the table. “Lainie and I knew each other in high school.”
“I knew who you were, anyway.”
Lainie’s tense smile caused Grandmother Margaret to bristle. “Weren’t you the lucky one?”
Hope couldn’t believe Margaret had rushed to her defense. At the same time, she couldn’t make an enemy of the wedding planner. “We were both lucky,” Hope rushed in, “to have gone to such a great school.” She viewed Eleanor in what she hoped came off as an admiring fashion. “And look at you now, doing so well with your own business and everything.”
“It’s small but profitable.” Eleanor nodded, and then she got back to business. “So, plan B is on the porch if it rains.” She studied her tablet. “Worst-case scenario, we’ll have to move everything indoors.”
Elsa appeared worried. “That might be cramped, but it could work.”
“Maybe we should have gotten that tent, dear,” Margaret whispered into Hope’s ear. “Do you think it’s too late?”
“Is it?” she asked Eleanor, sure that Eleanor had overheard.
“There’ll be an extra charge because this change is so last minute.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Ava said.
“Ava’s right,” Elsa agreed.
“All right,” Eleanor said, speaking crisply. “I’ll see to it.” She studied her list. “The cake issue is next.”
“What about it?” Hope asked.
“You wanted white chocolate whip, but the caterer says she can’t make it.”
Hope knew one thing. If Jackie had ordered a certain type of cake, she’d had hard evidence that sort could be made. Her whole life was wedding planning. “And why’s that?”
“Because of the tiers,” Eleanor explained. “The batter’s too light to stand up to the weight. Only the top tier can be white chocolate. The others will have to be vanilla cake.”
Hope didn’t want to alter Jackie’s wishes for her cake. White chocolate had always been her sister’s favorite. She’d even asked for white chocolate Easter bunnies as a kid. “Well, maybe we should check out a different bakery?”
Eleanor blanched, aghast. “At this late date?”