All Chapters of THE WEDDING WASN'T MINE : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who cry at weddings, and those who check the canapés for structural integrity. I am proudly the second kind. Cole, event planner, chronic non-crierThe bridesmaid was crying into her bouquet again. This was, by Zara Cole's count, the fourth bridesmaid to dissolve into happy tears this afternoon and the ceremony hadn't even started yet. They were still in the dressing room, for heaven's sake. The bride was still in her robe. Someone had knocked over the mascara. Someone else had knocked over the person who knocked over the mascara. And Zara, thirty-one years old, co-owner of Lagos's most in-demand wedding planning firm, wearer of sensible heels and carrier of a clipboard that had never once trembled was standing in the middle of all of it like the eye of a very emotional, very floral storm. "Temi." She touched the bridesmaid's elbow gently. "Sweetheart. The waterproof makeup cost forty thousand naira. Please save the feelings for

Vulnerability is just fear wearing a prettier name. I have tried the prettier name. It did not suit me. Cole, private notes, still never sentThe rule, when Zara had established it three years ago, was very simple: do not get personally involved in the weddings. She had a laminated version of this rule. Not literally. But spiritually, somewhere in the load-bearing walls of her personality, it existed in laminate, wipeable, permanent, absolutely not up for discussion. The rule did not account for being stranded overnight at a countryside estate with the groom. The florist had cancelled. Not the flowers, the florist herself, who had apparently decided that Tuesday was a fine day to go into early labour six weeks ahead of schedule. Her backup florist was in Abuja. Zara's backup-backup florist was not answering her phone, which Zara was choosing to interpret as a temporary situation and not a sign from the universe. The venue manager had offered them the use of the east wing guest ro

Here is what they do not tell you about love: it does not arrive when you are ready. It does not knock. It does not wait for you to finish being afraid. It simply appears one morning in the wreckage of someone else's wedding, while you are still holding a photograph and a cold cup of tea, and it asks you very quietly, without any ceremony at all, what you are going to do about it. Cole, notes she did not deleteThe morning of the wedding that would not happen, Zara drove to Damien's building with the photograph on the passenger seat and a speech she had rehearsed four times and abandoned twice. She had not slept. This was visible. She had decided not to care. This was less visible but equally true. The photograph had sat on her kitchen table all night while she circled it the way you circled something you were not sure was dangerous at a distance, with great respect and a contingency plan. She had searched for the name. Read the articles. Found three that said cleared and on

A first date, when it is real and not arranged by a seating chart, is one of the most terrifying things a human being can survive. There is no vendor to call if it goes wrong. There is no contingency plan. There is only you, at a table, hoping you are enough of a reason for someone to stay.Z Cole, notes she is starting to keep on purposeShe told Adaora about the cars over breakfast.Not immediately. First she made coffee the long way, the stovetop way, the way that required actual attention and gave her hands something to do while her mind arranged the facts into a shape she could present without alarming anyone. Then she set two cups on the counter and said, with the careful neutrality of someone defusing a situation she had not yet fully named:"There were two cars outside the building last night. Different cars. Same position. Someone changed the shift."Adaora, who had been mid-yawn with yesterday's mascara still on and her headwrap askew and the general appearance of someone

There is a particular kind of courage that does not look like courage at all. It looks like making coffee. It looks like pulling up a client list. It looks like choosing, for the fourth morning in a row, to get out of bed and go toward the thing that frightens you instead of away from it. Nobody writes songs about that kind of courage. It does not photograph well. But it is, in my considerable experience, the only kind that actually holds.Z Cole, notes kept on purpose and without apologyShe found out about the lobby at noon.Not from Kola, though he called at twelve-oh-three with the information delivered in the same even, weatherless tone he used for everything, as though reading a man photographing a residents' directory off a false name visitors' entry was simply another item on a routine report. Not from Damien, who she suspected had known since earlier and had been deciding how to tell her in a way that would not make her feel like a liability.She found out because her neighbo