It Had to Be You, Georgia Clark [phonics reader TXT] 📗

Gorman’s gaze had wandered to the hot, young Brit zipping up his fly.

Liv clicked her fingers in his face. “Gor! Let’s try to fix the arbor. Zach, button up your shirt, this isn’t Mardi Gras.”

Zia Ruiz breezed in, carrying wineglasses. “Oh, Liv,” she called, heading for the bar at the back, “looks like there’s a couple of pigeons loose in the kitchen.”

Liv pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to remember if she’d secured the cage door. Apparently not. “How good are you at catching birds?”

Zia laughed. “Not very.” Even in her white blouse and black pants, she retained a whiff of carefree boho backpacker. Maybe it was the ylang-ylang she wore instead of deodorant. If Liv didn’t trust her so implicitly, she’d assume Zia would be the kind who’d free a few caged birds.

Weddings were about tradition, but more so, how traditions were changing. Liv’s tradition was that the business she ran with her husband was respected, professional, and nimble in a crisis. She’d troubleshot hundreds of events, always able to steer the runaway horses away from the cliff at the last moment. But right now the steeds were bolting and she couldn’t find the reins. Liv picked up the two pieces of the arbor, glancing around for something that could be fashioned into a hammer.

Darlene Mitchell, the wedding singer, strode in with a wireless microphone. Her tone was as prim as her appearance: a cream silk dress that showed off her dark skin. “Zach. We need to sound check.”

Zach ran a hand through his flop of hair. “Coming, love.”

The bridesmaid’s lipstick-smeared mouth fell open. “Love?! Is she your girlfriend?”

He laughed. “Not exactly.”

Darlene shuddered. “Not at all.”

Satisfied, the bridesmaid continued to ooze over Zach, pressing herself against his side.

And while Liv should have been hurrying the two musicians along, and fixing the arbor, and finding a solution for the escaped pigeons and newly awakened bees, the thought that formed as clear as lake water in her mind was this: it had been months since Eliot had touched her like that. Maybe even years.

“What. The. Hell.”

Everyone froze.

Liv swung around.

The bride stood in the doorway.

Liv’s stomach dropped through the floorboards and into the frigid lake below.

Not the bride. Anyone but the bride. Today, the bride was president and prime minister, the CEO, God herself. Things could be a freewheeling disaster behind the scenes. The mother-in-law could slap the priest, or the best man could lose the rings in a bet involving hot dogs (true stories). But the bride must only experience a highlight reel of physical and emotional transcendence. It was her day, and it was perfect. Except now, it wasn’t.

“Oh my God, you look gorgeous,” Liv said.

Ignoring her, the bride addressed the bridesmaid. “You’re supposed to be helping me get ready, not screwing the busboy!”

“DJ,” Zach corrected, tucking in his shirt and giving her a wink. “And MC, and I’m also a musician. Man of many hats, really.”

“Sorry, babe. Got distracted.” The bridesmaid hooked an arm around Zach’s neck. “It’s a wedding.”

The bride’s gaze found the pieces of wood in Liv’s hands. “What happened to my arbor?”

Gorman, Henry, Zach, Darlene, and Zia all looked at Liv, who said, “Everything is completely under control.”

A couple of pigeons fluttered past the bride’s head. She jabbed a finger in the air. “Someone said those are my doves?” She advanced on Liv, a football field of white tulle dragging behind her. “I’m getting married. This is supposed to be my special day.”

Eliot would calm this woman with his own special brand of magic that quieted, charmed, and switched focus to a champagne toast with bridesmaids.

“It is!” Liv said. “And it’s going to be wonderful. Can everyone please get back to what they are supposed to be doing, and—”

The bride screamed. A protracted just-found-a-dead-body-in-the-bath scream.

Zia dropped a wineglass. Darlene’s microphone squealed. Henry, Gorman, and Liv all said “What?” as Zach said, “Bloody hell. Oh, that looks bad.”

The bride’s bottom lip had swollen to the size of an overripe raspberry. “Thomething bit my thip.”

“Bees,” whispered Gorman.

“Beeth?” The bride’s false eyelashes widened. “Beeth? I’m allergic to beeth!”

Liv’s phone buzzed. Eliot Goldenhorn (Huz) calling. Finally: a life raft.

“Eliot! I’m dying here! Where the hell are you?”

But it wasn’t Eliot on the other end of the line. It was a girl. Her voice had a light Southern lilt. She was completely hysterical. “I’m sorry, they just found him like this—I got your number from his phone, I know we haven’t met—I didn’t know who else to call!”

Everything—the boathouse, the bride, the beeth—disappeared. A new kind of horror broke in Liv’s chest.

“Who is this?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”

The girl took a shuddering breath. “It’s Eliot,” she wailed. “He’s dead.”

Eliot was dead.

Impossible. And yet, not.

Myocardial infarction: heart attack. Eliot was forty-nine. The same age as Liv. Eliot was in perfect health. Eliot was in a closed casket. Liv touched the side of it. The wood was smooth and very cold.

It was an icy day at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn. The sky was the color of dryer lint.

Ben had Velcroed himself to her hip. She could only see the top of her son’s small head. He should be wearing a scarf. Liv couldn’t remember if he’d worn one. She couldn’t remember getting ready.

Liv understood she should mingle with the mourners gathered on the stumpy grass. She told her feet to move toward them. Her feet didn’t. She couldn’t leave the casket. And so the people started moving toward her. They were speaking to her. She recognized some of them; she was replying to them. But Liv couldn’t hear a thing. She was suspended behind a barrier, as transparent and tough as bulletproof glass. From behind the glass, she had a sense of what these people thought they saw. Liv Goldenhorn: someone resilient and impressive, the sort of person you wanted to sit next to at a dinner party. She’d stripped her own floors, gotten her son into the good public school, and once fought off a mugger by bashing