A Helping Hand

In the last week of November, Celia made the first call on her lunch break, eating a sandwich at her desk at Ellery with a legal pad beside her keyboard. She and Colin had agreed on a list of vendors back in October, but she had put off calling them for weeks while the work on his merger ramped up. It felt good to finally start crossing things off.

The florist answered after a couple of rings, and her voice was so cheerful that it was impossible not to like her. Celia gave her name and the date and explained that she was hoping to set up a meeting about flowers for the hall.

"Oh, of course. Ms. Harrow came in last week, so we already have a proposal drafted. Burgundy and gold for the arch, with the centerpieces to match. I can email it over so you can see everything."

Celia stopped with the sandwich halfway to her mouth. "Ms. Harrow. Paige Harrow?"

"That's right. She said she was handling the details for you and Mr. Merrill."

Celia thanked her, asked her to send the proposal, and hung up. She sat looking at her legal pad for a minute, then called the caterer, because there had to be a reasonable explanation and she did not know yet what it was.

The caterer was just as friendly. A tasting for her and Colin was already on the calendar for the second week of December, he told her, and Ms. Harrow had narrowed the menu down to three choices. One of them was roasted chicken with lemon and herbs, which Celia would have picked herself, and somehow that made it worse. She wrote the date down because she did not know what else to do with it.

The florist's email arrived before she finished lunch. Celia had pictured ivory and soft greenery, and instead there was burgundy everywhere, trimmed in gold. It was beautiful in its way, and very much a fall wedding, but it was not what she wanted for hers. She closed the email without looking at the rest.

---

That Sunday, she and Colin went to look at houses for the first time. They had decided they wanted somewhere new after the wedding, a place that would belong to both of them, and a real estate agent had lined up four, all on the quieter edges of the older neighborhoods. Celia walked through each one with an architect's eye, noticing where the light came in, how the rooms connected, and what had been changed over the years. One had beautiful front windows and a kitchen that faced a fence. The next had been renovated so many times that none of the rooms agreed with each other anymore. Colin followed her through both, asking the agent sensible questions about the roof and the heating, and silencing his phone every time it buzzed in his pocket.

In the car on the way to the third house, Celia finally brought up the vendors.

"I called the florist this week. And the caterer."

"Good. How did it go?"

"They'd already heard from Paige. The florist has a whole proposal, and the caterer has a tasting on the calendar." She watched his face. "Colin, why does every vendor I call think Paige is in charge of our wedding?"

He was quiet long enough that she knew before he said it. "She offered to help. The night we were at the hall, after you left. I said yes, and I meant to tell you, and I didn't." He looked over at her. "I'm sorry. That's on me."

"You said yes for me."

"I said yes to her making calls and setting up appointments. That's all it was supposed to be. You've got your projects, I've got the merger, and she does this kind of thing for a living." He reached across the console for her hand. "She's trying to help."

"I know she is." Celia believed that, and it was part of why the next thing was hard to say. "But she isn't just making calls. She's choosing things. I want anything that's an actual decision to come to me first, even the small ones."

"That's fair." His fingers tightened around hers. "I'll talk to her tonight."

The third house had a crack running up the foundation that the listing photos had carefully avoided, and the fourth was too far from both of their offices. None of them were right. Colin said they had plenty of time. She agreed, and they drove back across town with the music playing quietly.

Paige texted that night as Celia was getting ready for bed.

Colin mentioned you were upset. I'm sorry if it felt like I was stepping on your toes! I honestly thought you'd be relieved to have one less thing to deal with. But of course, from now on everything goes through you. Just trying to help!

Celia read it twice. There was nothing in it she could point to, and that was exactly why she didn't know how to answer it. In the end she wrote back a short thank-you and put the phone face down on her nightstand.