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Be a wedding planner, her guidance counselor said. It’ll be fun and use your background and skills and interests well, he said. It’ll get you around people and let you see how stories play out that you can use to inspire your writing, he said. And like an idiot, Charlie believed him.
She’d always been a bit of a romantic. She loved watching other people fall in love, and writing their stories. Helping people achieve their special day, the crown jewel in their story, was supposed to be a dream job. Of course she’d expected the Bridezillas and the Momzillas, but in her innocence, she’d assumed that they would be the worst of it.
They weren’t. There were the relationships where she had to hold her tongue because it was obvious that there was abuse going on, and although she’d started off trying to point that out and encourage the abused person to get out of that relationship before there were so many legal hurdles, at some point she needed to just accept that there were limits to what she could do. There were the weddings where it was obvious that one party was not serious about the vows, but again, without proof, all she could do was privately mention her suspicions to the other person. There were the weddings where family members were intent on causing drama. Loneliness, Charlie had come to believe based on the terrible choices in marriage some people made, was the most powerful self-destructive force in the universe.
And then there was facing up to the fact that her own love stories were, to put it mildly, crap. She kept picking girls who were adventurous, sure, but they always turned out to have commitment issues. Gilda had only stuck around a few months before moving to Belize to “find herself”. Dorothy ran off to Australia to work with the wildlife there. Jo at least hadn’t felt the need to leave the country, she just took off one night with no indication of where she’d gone aside from a note not to try to find her with some lame excuse about it not being safe for her to get too close to anyone and she needed to get out before Charlie was put in danger. Anna had left without even a note, and although Charlie had reported her missing, the cops didn’t really put much effort into finding her. It was hopeless, which made her job difficult, trying to be happy for all the couples whose wedding she was planning despite her disillusionment.
Her current wedding was one of the difficult ones. The bride, Ruby, had some kind of sick power over her groom, Sam. Sam’s brother had even offered to pay Charlie double her usual rate if she would find a way to screw up the wedding so horribly that Sam called it off. After this morning, Charlie would be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted to take it. What kind of bride insisted on choosing her groom’s best man, especially when the choice was so obvious to anyone who wasn’t a raging control freak? Sam had a combination brother and best friend. Why insist on the weird college ex-roommate who Sam was on shaky terms with?
Charlie was leaning back in her chair trying to collect enough mental energy to call the florist with another requested flower change when her door slammed open. “I know you’re planning my sister’s wedding and a job is a job to you, but this cannot go on.”
Charlie’s feet hit the floor, eyes flying open to stare at the dark-haired woman who had barged in. “You’re Ruby Damon’s sister, I take it?”
“Yeah. I…” She paused, tilting her head and staring at Charlie with her mouth slightly open. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so.” Charlie stood up and walked around her desk, holding out a hand for a handshake. “Charlie Bradbury, wedding planner. What, exactly, do you want me to do about your sister’s wedding?”
“End it. I know it’s not exactly the most professional thing to ask a wedding planner to do, but someone’s gotta do something about how my bitch of a sister is ruining a perfectly good man. Look at Sam! He’s got anxiety now!”
Charlie put a hand to her mouth, trying and failing to suppress the laughter. “I understand, believe me. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, but this is the first time I’ve had the bride’s own sister in here trying to convince me to pull these kinds of shenanigans. The groom’s brother, sure, of course he wants Sam out of this situation. The problem is, if I screw things up too badly, they’ll just find another wedding planner and get married anyway. I can’t save Sam.”
“It’s a bit late to replace you,” the sister pointed out. “The wedding’s in three weeks.”
“And you don’t think she’d just reschedule if she needs to? Yeah, she might lose some deposits, but from what I’ve seen from her budget, money’s not a problem,” Charlie argued. “I really would like to help you, but unless you’ve got a really good plan, I don’t think I can.”
“Damn. Worth a try, but I can’t really say I’m surprised.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket. “Are you sure I don’t know you from somewhere? Social media under a different name or something? Because you feel really familiar.”
“I…” Charlie took a moment to really look over the other woman, face screwed up in concentration. Now that she was looking, she saw what she meant – there was a connection to this woman that she really couldn’t deny. “I have a few things under the name Celeste Middleton, which is gonna be my pen name when I start taking my writing career seriously, and I’m the Queen of Moons on Moondoor.”
“Nope, neither of those sound familiar. I’m Meg Damon, a nurse, but online I go by Meg Masters. Dunno if either of those will mean anything to you.” Meg stared at Charlie some more, and instead of flinching away, Charlie just stared back. “Okay, this is where you kick me out of here and call me crazy, but do you believe in reincarnation and soulmates?”
“I’ve heard the legends. I’ve used them in stories. Whether it’s real…” Charlie gave an exaggerated shrug. “I’ve planned a couple weddings where the couple swears they’re soulmates who have found each other in multiple lives, so you don’t sound that crazy. What, you think that’s why we feel so bonded despite having just met?”
“Unless one of us suddenly remembers an old social media name that the other knew, it’s the best I’ve got. And, uh, I have a friend, Pamela, who’s walked me back to prior lives through hypnosis. I know a lot of people are skeptics, but the stories all make sense and when I’ve been able to search records, it lines up. I can’t exactly look up the girl who claimed to be a pre-colonization Merina girl in Madagascar, but the Irish girl born in the 1860s who immigrated to America in the 1880s existed. I’ve found her records in censuses and immigration records and stuff.” Meg smirked at Charlie’s obvious shock. “Yeah, I know. I’ve found four so far, and while there’s a lot missing one thing all four of them have in common? As an adult, they live with a woman. No marriage records, but they say married on the census records. Sometimes there’s kids, sometimes not, but either way my partner and I live together from, near as I can work out, the moment I leave my parents.”
“Wow,” Charlie breathed. “Do you, uh… do you think it’s the same woman each time? Reincarnated like you are?” It was too good to be true. Too romantic. It was the kind of fairy tale story she hadn’t believed in for years now, no matter how many romance novels she planned out.
Meg nodded, biting her lip. “I know it sounds ridiculous. Two women loving each other not just for one lifetime but over and over again? How do they find each other?”
“Like this,” Charlie offered. “Maybe? I don’t know that I believe, but… can you get me in touch with Pamela?”
Meg could, and did, get Charlie in touch with Pamela. Despite Charlie’s skepticism, Pamela had managed to hypnotize her and gather information about what she claimed were Charlie’s past lives. She had struggled to get to sleep that night, but when she did manage it, she dreamt of one of the lives Pamela had brought out. Agnes McDermott, an Irish immigrant to the United States in the 1880s where she set up housekeeping with fellow immigrant woman Julia Ryan. When she woke up, she was convinced – at least enough that when her phone rang later that morning and it was Meg’s phone number, she greeted her with the name Julia.
There was a pause. Meg’s voice was hesitant, full of wonder, when she finally whispered, “Agnes?”
“Wow.” Charlie leaned back in her chair. “I saw Pamela, and… yeah. Agnes. 1882, we met on a ship when I was seasick and you gave me one of your dresses after I threw up on mine.”
“I… well, I don’t remember, exactly, but I’ve heard myself telling Pamela the story under hypnosis,” Meg said. “Found you again.”
“Seems like.” Charlie took a moment to bask in the joy, and then cleared her throat. “So, were you calling to ask if I’d talked to Pamela yet, or was there something else?”
“Actually, I had a brilliant plan for how to break up my sister’s wedding,” Meg drawled. “I’ve got Dean on board with the plan, and I wondered if you would be interested in joining.”
No thought necessary. The chance to see Meg working shenanigans? Even if it ended her career, why the hell not? “Certainly willing to hear you out, anyway. What’s the plan?”
“Dean got Sam incredibly drunk last night, drunk enough to spill why he’s putting up with all of this. Grandpa Damon, the asshole, has basically promised him he’ll be set for life after the wedding, and Sam’s got this idea that once he’s in and Grandpa’s gone, he can divorce Ruby and keep control of everything and work to reform it from the inside. Well, it just so happens that one thing Grandpa’s forgotten to mention to Sam is that he’s under threat of a hostile takeover, and me and Dean happen to be best buds with the guy who’s trying to take over’s grandson. Dean’s convinced that Clarence would be a perfect match for Sam, so you keep planning the wedding and at the last second I make sure my bitch of a sister is temporarily indisposed long enough for Sam to marry Clarence instead. Sam’s got the knowledge to figure out what’s keeping Michael from managing the takeover.”
“And are you going to warn Sam about the switcheroo?” Charlie had to ask. “And how do you keep Ruby from finding out, in that case?”
“We’re planting the idea already, talking up Michael and Clarence and how it’d be easier to change things with a takeover than with trying to fill Grandpa’s shoes and having that come with the expectations of living up to him. You’re the secret weapon – even if Ruby finds out, you can tell us if she changes plans or does anything we need to account for. I’m not above knocking her out and tying her to a tree in the middle of the woods to keep her from crashing the wedding.” Meg winked. “If you haven’t heard the story yet, I did once. Rescued your ass from Prince Charmless and we ran off to live in a village as a couple of alemaking old maids.”
Charlie giggled. “Nope, hadn’t heard that one yet. I dreamt of one of my past lives last night – does that happen to you?”
“Yeah, sometimes, even lives that hadn’t come out yet under hypnosis,” Meg admitted. “Probably happen to you too. I don’t wanna spoil you too much, but if you have dreams and want to talk about them, you have my number.”
“Awesome.” Charlie grinned, and came to a decision. “You know what? Let’s do this. Get Sam hitched to your boy Clarence.”
The plan went smoothly. Ruby found out about the scheme to get Sam with Clarence – whose name Charlie learned was actually Castiel – but brushed it off as an annoyed sibling trying to undermine her. She was confident enough in her hold on Sam that she didn’t bother trying to change anything.
The one glitch was Ruby arriving at the wedding just after Sam and Castiel had been declared husbands. From Meg’s smirk, Charlie didn’t quite believe it was a glitch. She was just grateful that it hadn’t been before the declaration, while there was still time to object and derail the wedding. Ruby’s screech caused the priest to wrap up the ceremony as quickly as possible, since the important parts had been taken care of.
Sam and Castiel skipped the reception in favor of getting the hell out of the country on the honeymoon trip they’d set up for Aruba. Ruby could still use her ticket to Cancun if she wanted to, but Sam wouldn’t be there. Ruby marched up to Charlie. “I will ruin your career. You are going to pay for this.”
Meg threw an arm around Charlie. “Back off, Ruby.”
Charlie leaned into her girlfriend. “I’m quitting anyway. I need to get out before I can’t pursue my dreams of writing romance novels anymore. Before people like you ruin everything for me.”
“And how are you going to survive on a struggling author’s salary?” Ruby snarled. “Good luck with not being homeless.”
“And that’s where I come in,” Meg whispered to Charlie. “I’ve got the money to take care of you while you get yourself off the ground. Come live with me again?”
“You know it.” Charlie kissed Meg’s cheek. Ruby’s boiling rage was icing on the cake. “Have a nice life, Ruby. It has absolutely not been a pleasure knowing you.”