Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
34
Ama
SIX MONTHS LATER
In the mornings, I wake up in either Elliot’s bed or mine, but his arms are around me just the same. I turn in his embrace and run my fingers over his eyebrows until he wakes up. When his lashes flutter open, I say, “Will you marry me?”
He shakes his head. Or mumbles a no. Or turns over and tells me to fuck off.
And I say, “When then?”
“Maybe tomorrow,” he always says.
I like to gather up Lady Cat-ryn in my arms on Elliot’s grumpy days and drop her from a height over my head onto his stomach.
I used to be able to wander to my laptop somewhere between eight and ten in the morning and start my day whenever. That’s not possible anymore. The TLC special aired three months ago. I’m now booked out two years in advance, and a year from now, when Jake has had enough training, I’m starting double-wedding Saturdays. So now, Elliot and I head into Blooming at eight a.m. every morning and get to work.
And it’s not just that Hazel and Jackie’s wedding was highlighted perfectly on Fabulous Dream Weddings, putting me in the spot-light. It’s that no matter how hard her lawyers fought, Whitney couldn’t get Bea to drop her from the episode. Her outburst was televised to the nation, including calling me a slut and bitch. And if that didn’t ruin her reputation, the horse meme did.
Whitney almost getting run over by that horse is now a national treasure. The way she jumped back, screamed, and recovered all in one take has gone viral. I’ve seen several different captions for it.
When you get your tab at the bar
Me going into 2024 like
When she says she wants to see your porn folder
Horse girls encountering real horses
I got meme’d too. It didn’t stick like Whitney’s, but Whitney, come on. Be a professional made the rounds on Twitter as a clapback for a while. And the day the episode aired, Hazel Renee tweeted “Because I’m coming” and nothing else. It was what I said to Whitney when I told her she should fear me.
Two weeks later, Elliot replaced the Blooming rose wall in the showroom with Because I’m coming spelled out in white roses against a pink rose background. He didn’t say anything about it, just continued on with his day. They’re silk flowers, so now, all future couples who meet me for the first time at my office in Blooming get to see my catchphrase.
I cleared a space for myself in the showroom. It’s a simple desk with my laptop and my Rolodex, next to a portion of Jackie and Hazel’s dance floor hanging on the wall like a window—we dried the flowers so that it would be a permanent reminder of that day. My little office is like a Starbucks in the middle of a department store.
“June fourteenth is a great date,” I say to the couple sitting in the chairs in front of me. “I’ll be able to add you to the calendar now.”
“Wonderful!” the woman says—Beth. She sits back in her chair, as if all her problems are now over. And they might be. “I’m so glad we could nail you down.”
“And remember,” I say, “if June of next year is too far, you can always go with a different planner who has availability this year—”
“No, no,” the groom says. He waves his hand. “She’s really adamant about you.”
Beth nods vigorously. I smile. “Okay! Sounds good.”
“Do you think …” Beth leans in. “Do you think we could do a found space like Hazel Renee’s?”
“Absolutely. We can talk budget and wish list at our next meeting, but send me that Pinterest board that I know you’ve been building, and we’ll get started!”
Elliot comes into the showroom then, cleaning his hands with a rag. “I have an installation at the high school dance to get to, but I’ll be back in an hour.”
I nod and stand from my chair. “Will you pick up on the way back?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes. “Please? You know Jake is in class right now.”
“Chocolate old-fashioned and a maple bar?”
I beam at him and press up on my toes to kiss him goodbye. When I turn back to Beth and Robbie, I say, “You are under no obligation to contract Blooming for flowers, by the way. I’ll go over all your vendor options at the next meeting.”
“That’s cool, though,” Robbie says offhandedly. “That you guys are like a team. I think I like that.”
Beth leans into me. “I saw from Hazel Renee’s Twitter that she and her wife set you two up! That is the most amazing story!”
I smile. “It is. Hazel and Jackie were excellent matchmakers.” I send Elliot a wink, and he grumbles.
He loads up the truck with the rose wall St. Joseph’s ordered for their photo background, and Robbie won’t take no for an answer when he offers to help Elliot lift it into the truck bed.
Beth turns to me. “It must be so hard to plan other couples’ happily-ever-afters with your own boyfriend. When are you two getting married?”
I smile at her, folding my hands under my chin. “I keep asking him the same thing.”
“Ah, noncommittal type?” she pries with a grin.
“Something like that,” I say. “So. Tell me about your proposal story. They’re my favorite.”
As Beth tells me everything I need to know to make her wedding the perfect day, I realize it’s a pretty good one. They’ll probably last.
I love a good proposal story, but my favorite one I’ve heard? Well, I’ll let you know when he says yes.