LITMIR.BIZ

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months in advance. When she was done with this appointment, she had a bridal event to plan for and she usually came out of those events with a couple more bookings.

      Plus, a happy bride was the best possible advertising. An unhappy bride was the worst. If the woman was going to be unhappy with her wedding at Buono Come Il Pane, it was worth the money to pay her to go away.

      “We might be willing to accept this restaurant’s style,” Tanner said, interested in the conversation now that money was on the line. “Right, honey? It could be worth our time.”

      Jennifer smiled indulgently at him. “We want to honeymoon in Belize, and we have our eye on those private suites on stilts out in the water. Right now, it’s a wee bit out of our price range. Though, a down payment for a house would still be a better investment.”

      “Well,” Beck said with a clap of her hands and quick glance at her watch. “You both have a lot of thinking to do before you decide on anything. Personal opinion, spend a lot of time—separately—thinking about what you each want. Then come together and make sure you overlap on the big stuff. That you’re not giving up anything that’s important to you. That’s really life advice—” the kind Beck wished she had taken “—and a wedding is a good place to start. It is the beginning of your life together.”

      “Huh,” the groom said as he turned to stare back at the walls and art, clearly no longer interested in the conversation.

      But his bride evaluated Beck more closely before asking, “Are you married?”

      For most of her career, she’d loved to answer “Yes” and tell the bride that she’d had the most beautiful wedding under the sun. To say that they were blissfully happy. That she wasn’t always a bridal and events planner, but a bride. That she had been the magical bride, happy enough to walk on water, and had known what it was to come home to a loved one, share a glass of wine and chat about your day.

      But those days were over. “I’m not,” she said, not willing to go into any details with a customer and a stranger.

      “Divorced?”

      “Well, yes. So I know of what I speak when I say you need to think about what’s important to you and make sure your fiancé feels the same.” She and Neil had always felt perfect for each other, until they weren’t.

      The bride leaned in close to Beck, like they were teen girls sharing a confidence. “Tanner and I met through online dating. It’s possible, you know. The trick is to make sure you pick the right dating site. Some are for people looking for easy...” She paused, words rolling through her eyes before she settled on, “Companionship. The good sites attract men looking for marriage and commitment. Pick one of those.”

      “Thank you,” Beck said surprised. The woman wasn’t giving her new advice, and she was a stranger, but she meant her advice honestly. Sincere, much like Beck had been when telling this couple to think about what they want before settling on a wedding venue.

      “I’m looking,” she said, hesitant to confide too much to a stranger and prospective—though unlikely—customer. “I’ll admit it’s hard.”

      Though, there was that message waiting for her when she’d come home from the walk yesterday.

      She’d thought about that message all through making her dinner of roasted beets, blue cheese and pita bread—all things her ex-husband hadn’t liked. Eating her dinner, she’d still been thinking about that message. At that point, the amount of time she had been putting into thinking about the message had seemed excessive. And a little scary.

      So much portent put into a little message by someone she didn’t know and might not even like. So much power in that little notification at the top of her cell phone.

      She understood now why people said that you couldn’t take online dating personally. She hadn’t even been twenty-four hours in and already that message felt like life or death.

      So, she’d made a deal with herself. No checking the message until she hadn’t given it a thought for at least five hours. By her count, when the bride had mentioned online dating, it had been four hours and fifty-seven minutes, not counting the hours she’d spent sleeping.

      Close enough.

      Jennifer patted her on the back. “You’ll get there. It’s hard, but it will happen. You’ll get your Prince Charming,” she said with a loving glance at her fiancé, who was looking too closely at the art on the walls to really be looking at them at all.

      “Thanks. I hope you’re right.” Beck had only been separated for a year and divorced for twelve days, but she knew she wanted to get married again eventually, even if she occasionally pretended otherwise. The saying about fishes and bicycles was all well and good, but what if the fish wanted a bicycle? What if coming home to a bicycle had been better than coming home to nothing?

      Take your time. Learn to love yourself alone. Spend time looking at all those couples you work with. Then you will know what you want out of your next husband. Get right into that dating pool or all the good ones will get away. Make sure to use a good moisturizer. Once you start getting wrinkles, it will only get harder.

      All the advice was well-meant and none of it helpful. The fact that one piece of advice often contradicted every other piece of advice, sometimes out of the mouth of the same person, only muddled her already muddy mind more.

      “You seem like a good person,” the woman said, giving her another long look. “So, I’ll give you a little more advice. Stay away from the handsome men.”

      It was rude, but Beck couldn’t help glancing at the woman’s fiancé. He was good-looking enough—on the cusp between someone she thought would look good on someone else’s arm and who would look good on her arm.

      “Tanner’s good-looking, but not handsome,” Jennifer said under her voice. “And as my grandmother used to say, handsome is as handsome does.”

      Beck wasn’t entirely sure how to take this piece of advice, so she said, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and decided to leave it at that.

      If his picture was anything to judge, Mr. Swoony was handsome. She smiled to cover up the desire to beat her head against the wall. The message might not even be from Mr. Swoony. It could be from someone else altogether. Mr. Less-than Swoony, for example, or Mr. Rotten Eggs.

      “Thank you, to the both of you, for coming in today,” she said, her hand outstretched for the prospective bride to take. “Even if you decide that Buono Come Il Pane isn’t for you, I’m glad to have chatted with you and we appreciate you thinking of us.”

      “Oh, of course. Tanner’s father insisted. And this does look like a nice place.”

      Nice place, hah, Beck thought, the advice and comments about the wall colors and thinking about handsome men getting to her.

      If only getting remarried didn’t have to involve dating, this process would be much easier. Meet a nice guy. Fall in love. Get married. That’s what she’d done in college, with Neil.

      And here she was, newly evaluating what she wanted out of her future. That, at least, was a lot like college.

      Once the happy couple left, holding hands and whispering to each other as they walked out the door, Beck went back to the tiny room they called her office and sat in front of her computer. Before she got back to her planning document for the bridal event she was working on, she pulled her phone out of her purse and checked the message.

      Hey. Cute smile. Cute dog, too. What’s his name?

      Mr. Swoony had written back. Her shoulders fell with a relief that she would be embarrassed to admit to anyone. Whether or not she should need validation from a stranger on an online-dating service, getting it felt better than not getting it and that was the darn truth.

      Before writing back, she checked her other notifications. No other messages, just a couple of winks and a couple of likes for the pictures

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