One and Only(2)

“Jay has a brother?” Jane asked. Though she was guilty of maybe not paying one hundred percent attention to every single wedding-related detail—for example, she’d recused herself from the debate over the merits of sage green versus grass green for the ribbons that would adorn the welcome bags left in the guests’ hotel rooms—she was pretty sure she had a handle on all the major players.

“His name is Cameron MacKinnon.”

That didn’t clear things up. “Jay Smith has a brother named Cameron MacKinnon?” she asked. Was that even possible?

“Half brother,” Elise said. “You know how Jay’s mom is single?” It was true. There had been no “father of the groom” in Elise’s carefully drafted program. “Well, she split from Jay’s dad when Jay was nine. Then a couple years later, she had a brief relationship with another man. Cameron is the product of that—that’s why his last name is MacKinnon and Jay’s is Smith.”

“But he wasn’t always going to come to the wedding?” Gia asked. “Were they estranged?”

“They’re not particularly close. There are eleven years between them—Cameron was in first grade when Jay left for school—but they’re not estranged,” Elise said. “He wasn’t going to be able to make it to the wedding because he was supposed to be in Iraq. He was in the army. But now he’s…not.”

“That sounds ominous,” Wendy said.

“Look, here’s the thing,” Elise said, sitting up straight, her voice suddenly and uncharacteristically commanding. “Cameron is a problem. He’s wild. He drives too fast, drinks too much, sleeps around. You name it—if it’s sketchy, he’s into it.”

“And this is Jay’s brother,” Jane said. Because no offense, she liked Jay fine, but Jay was…a tad underwhelming. He was an accountant. No matter what they were doing—football game, barbecue, hiking—he dressed in dark jeans and a polo shirt, like it was casual Friday at the office. To be honest, Jane had never really been sure what Elise saw in him. The girls were always telling her to loosen up, but compared to Jay, she was the life of the party.

“Yes,” Elise said. “Cameron is Jay’s brother, and he must be stopped.”

“Dun, dun, dun!” Wendy mock-sang.

“Hey, I can totally switch gears and weave this thing into a noose,” Gia said, holding up a lopsided raffia braid.

“I’m not kidding.”

Elise’s tone made everyone stop laughing and look up. The upspeak was gone, and the bride had become a warrior, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “He’s a high school dropout. He burned down a barn outside Thunder Bay when he was seventeen. He was charged with arson, the whole deal. Jay says his mother still hasn’t lived it down. And there’s talk he got a girl pregnant in high school.”

“What happened?” asked a rapt Gia.

Elise shrugged. “Her family moved out of town, so no one really knows.”

“Wow,” Wendy said, echoing Jane’s thoughts. Jane had initially assumed Elise was being melodramatic about this black-sheep brother—as she was about nearly everything wedding related—but this guy did sound like bad news.

“Anyway.” Elise brandished an iPad in front of her like it was a weapon. “Cameron MacKinnon is not ruining my wedding. And if he’s left to his own devices, he will. From what Jay says, he won’t be able to help it.” She poked at the iPad. “This changes everything. We need to redo the schedule—and the job list.”

The words job list practically gave Jane hives. Elise had turned into a total bridezilla, but by unspoken agreement, the bridesmaids had been going along with whatever she wanted. It was the path of least resistance. But also, they truly wanted Elise to have the wedding of her dreams. Even if it was painful for everyone else.

But, oh, the job list. The job list was like the Hydra, a serpentine monster you could never get on top of. You crossed off a job, and two more sprouted to take its place. Jane had already hand-stenciled three hundred invitations, planned and executed two showers, joined Pinterest as instructed for the express purpose of searching out “homemade bunting,” tried on no fewer than twenty-three dresses—all purple—and this Cameron thing aside, it looked like today was going to be spent weaving table runners. And they still had the bachelorette party and the rehearsal dinner to get through, never mind the main event.

It boggled the mind. Elise was an interior designer, so of course she cared how things looked, but even so, Jane was continuously surprised at how much the wedding was preoccupying her friend. She could only hope they would get their funny, creative, sweet friend back after it was all over.

“Cameron is coming to town tomorrow,” Elise said. “I don’t know why he couldn’t just arrive a day ahead of the wedding like the rest of the out-of-town guests, but it is what it is.” She let the iPad clatter onto the coffee table. “I don’t even know how to add this to the job list, but somehow, we have to babysit Cameron for the next week and a half.”

“We?” Wendy echoed.

“Yes. He needs to be supervised at all times until the wedding—until after the post-wedding breakfast, actually. Then he can wreak whatever havoc he wants.”

“Hang on,” Jane said. “I agree that he sounds like bad news. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, he did something horrible and got arrested tomorrow. I don’t really see how that would have an impact on your wedding at all, because—”

Elise looked up, either ignoring or legitimately not hearing Jane. “You can’t do it, Gia. You’re my maid of honor, and I need you at my side at all times.”

“Sure thing,” Gia said.

Easy for her to say. Gia had purposely not taken any modeling jobs the two weeks before the wedding. She had plenty of time to lounge around braiding dried foliage and looking effortlessly beautiful in sweatpants. Also, there was the part where she was a millionaire.

Elise started scrolling through some kind of calendar app on her iPad. “Now, tomorrow we’re supposed to be spray-painting the tea sets gold.”

Jane looked around. Spray-painting the tea sets gold? Why was no one else confused by that sentence?

“But we’ll have to do that in the afternoon,” Elise went on, “because—”

“I have to work tomorrow,” Wendy said. And when Elise looked up blankly, she added, “Tomorrow is Wednesday.”

Jane was about to protest that she had to work tomorrow, too. Book seven of the Clouded Cave series wasn’t going to write itself. Just because she didn’t have to be in court like Wendy didn’t mean her job wasn’t important. She had an inbox full of fan mail from readers clamoring for the next book, not to mention a contractual deadline that got closer every day.

Elise continued, seemingly oblivious to her friends’ weekday employment obligations. “Tomorrow we also need to do a practice run of boutonniere, corsage, and bouquet making. I finagled a vendor pass to the commercial fruit and flower market, but we need to get there early. So we should do the flowers in the morning and paint the tea sets in the afternoon. We’ll meet in Mississauga at five thirty, but someone needs to pick up Cameron and make sure he behaves all day.”

“I’ll do it,” said Jane, mentally calculating that to be at the suburban flower market by five thirty, she’d have to get up at four a.m. Also, there was the part about spending the afternoon spray-painting tea sets. It didn’t take a genius to figure out which was the lesser of the two proverbial evils. She could babysit this Cameron dude. She’d treat him like a character in one of her books—figure him out, then make him do her bidding. “Give me the wild man’s flight info, and I’ll pick him up.”

“I thought it would be best if you did it,” Elise said, still scrolling and tapping like a maniac. “I mean, your job is so—”

Wait for it.

“Flexible.”

But at least she hadn’t said anything about—

“And you’re so responsible. I feel like this is your kind of task.”

Jane stifled a sigh. Everyone always called her responsible, but they made it sound so…boring. She preferred to think of herself as conscientious.

“I really, really appreciate this, Jane,” Elise said, finally looking up from her iPad and gracing Jane with a smile so wide and sincere that it almost made her breath catch.

Yes. Right. That was why she was voluntarily submitting to this bridesmaid torture-gig. Her friend Elise was still somewhere inside the bridezilla that was currently manning the controls, and she was so, so happy to be marrying the love of her life. That was the important thing. It made even Jane’s heart, which was usually immune to these kinds of sentiments, twist a little. A wedding wasn’t in her future, and she was fine with that, but all of this planning made her think of her parents’ wedding pictures, the pair of them all decked out in their shaggy 1970s glory. Had they been in love like Elise and Jay, before the accident? Maybe at the start, but probably not for long, given her father’s addiction. He was never violent, but he wasn’t very…lovable.