T/N: "Um dia é da caça e outro é do caçador" = "One day is the day of the hunter and the other is the day of the prey.". It has the same meaning of the expression "Every dog has his day."
Chapter 01.
"I'm not a romantic, Mr. Beilschmidt. A marriage must be a social arrangement beneficial for both parties. It needs to be convenient and comfortable, not melodramatic and saccharine. Love is not an essential element in a relationship, don't you agree?"– Some may say that's bullshit, but I guarantee that I can remember vividly the moment when the young lord abruptly made this confession. It was our first month organizing the event,at five in the afternoon and we were alone in what would be, in the next morning, the wedding reception hall for a different client. My last job before I devoted myself exclusively to the aristocrat for the next coming months. I was doing my tasks and arranging the recently-delivered white rosesin vases and he, as usual, was watching me in a chair, at a distance, for no particular reason. We were silent for some time and that question came out of nowhere.
Well, this wasn't the first time that I had heard that viewpoint. That historically inaccurate claim that "Marrying for love is such a old way of thinking!" accompanied by an contradictory concern for choosing a dress the groom would love or worrying about the possibility that the band wouldn't play 'their song' had appeared a few times, and it was always a curious thing to hear, though not unusual. I interacted with too many brides and grooms to keep bothering with the marital problems of each couple.
However, that aristocrat's statement was practically recorded in HD quality in my memory. That was somewhat unexpected, I admit, although it was not as impressive as he wished. In general, the people who said "A marriage doesn't need love!" were men who had had a wild sex life in the old days and wanted to preserve some of their "honor" by communicating indirectly that "No! I didn't become one these guys that I used to tease in the past! I'm getting married because it's more practical for me, not because I turned into a sentimental fool! I swear!". Heh! It was hilarious! There were also those who said it because their bride or groom were so unbearably annoying that it would be humiliating to confess that they had fallen in love with that thing. They felt the involuntary need to justify their relationship to humanity, and, in certain cases, I would agree that they really should.
Roderich Eldestein, my fancy client, didn't fit in either of these two profiles. He was marrying a joyful fellow named Antonio and, man, I swear that guy was so cool that he would give his house to you if you asked with a "pretty please". The aristocrat didn't have to justify to anyone why he was marrying Antonio, since almost all members of my team were willing to marry Antonio too. What can I say? Just like my awesome self, Mr. Carriedo was one of those irresistible guys. Oh, it's a gift and a curse. Continuing my line of reasoning, yeah, he didn't need to explain himself, neither do I need to comment how hilarious it would be to think about the young master as a cheap seducer. Roderich waking up in unknown beds and bragging about how many he banged at a party? Pffff! Just with this very thought, I have to control myself to not cry out laughing!
Taking all of these considerations in account, I was somewhat surprised by his statement, sure, but not as shocked as the young lord would like. I don't know, dude, I think that he was waiting for me to slip out a scandalized "Oh! How dare you say such a thing, Eldestein?! You are about to get married!"He thought he was starring in a big scene and all that. Too bad for him that we weren't in a opera by Puccini. When he made his more-repetitive-than-he-assumed speech, I just asked, finding the situation quite funny:
"And your fiancé is aware of this?" I raised an eyebrow with a teasing smile forming on one of the edges of my face. 'Social arrangement'. Man, the young master came up with some really interesting lines. He couldn't open his mouth without making me laugh. "Have you already discussed the terms of the contract? Signed a treaty? Talked with the legal authorities?"
In response, he narrowed his eyes, staring at me as if to identify a type of insect.
"You're not reacting in the right way," he complained with an offended pout.
See? He probably wanted to make a big scene and became frustrated with the fact that it wasn't so easy to shock the amazing me. To his disappointment, I didn't even move from my position. I remained kneeling before the vases of flowers that I was arranging, only adding a note of amusement in my expression and slightly inclining my head to the side.
"Well, Roderich, what the hell do I have to do with this?" I shrugged, still smiling and keeping my hands working. "I am a wedding planner, not a fairy of love! Do you see me sighing dreamily as I organize this stuff?" My smile grew a few degrees to the left and my gaze distilled all my sense of the ridiculous as to that hypothesis. "Of course not. Do you know why? Because, personally, I have nothing to do with love and weddings and don't give a damn about what my clients think about it."
Throughout my triumphant speech, as if he wanted to fight back my previous lack of surprise, the young lord remained impassive. Oh yeah. This forced indifference could only be a kind of childish vengeance, since receiving the revelation that the person who is doing the preparations of your wedding is not a sentimental or a great admirer of love and its variants, is not a very common event.
I mean, I've never used eye-drops to create tears, pretending to have emotions that, in reality, I considered comical, but it was not like I could show that skeptical side to my clients often. To be honest, I've never been sure what motivated me to reveal só much to the aristocrat. We just had this mutual effect. You know, the effect of erasing any need of impressing each other, which spontaneously caused events like this one.
Due to my knowledge that Rod couldn't care less about what I thought of him and that he was aware that I wasn't bothered with whatever he thought about me, I concluded that he would end up a bit angry and complain of 'My rude and immature sense of humor!', staring down at me while adjusting the position of his glasses
Interestingly, this didn't happen. As I mentioned, instead of making his characteristic expression 'Beilschmidt, you big fool!', he left his appearance more neutral than normal throughout all of my speech; and that's saying a lot because his face was already abnormally neutral. Also, instead of taking the offensive, he was quiet for few seconds longer than necessary.
I can't imagine what went on in the mind of the young master at that moment. I can only say that when he finally expressed himself, his words were even more incredible than I had imagined:
"Your lack of poetic sensibility is mortifying." was his comment, with a disapproving slant to his mouth. I'm not even joking here. He was complaining about my lack of poetic sensibility! Pffff!
Goddamnit, Rod!
"Says the guy who just called his wedding a 'social arrangement' out of an anthropology class!" I cried, laughing way too hard, my eyes widening with a mixture of wonder and fun, admiring his formidable audacity. Then, lowering my eyes and my astonishment level, I went back to what I was saying "However, organizing a wedding depends on aesthetic knowledge, budget and contacts. It doesn't involve the ability to cry watching 'A walk to remember'. I won't have any concern with your feelings if you keep them from affecting the flowers and the buffet. Ah! And especially that damned statue of ice of yours! It took a lot of work to get that freaking thing!"
He appeared to be satisfied with this answer, since, from that point on, he began to demand that I work faster and ended our prior discussion. That was just fine by me.
Seriously, I had nothing to do with Rod's emotions and thoughts or whatsoever.
But Roderich never learned it. For this reason, we reached our tipping point.
I had this conversation with Roderich before his first wedding. In six years, I would organize a total of three weddings for him.
Unbelievable, right? When he said he wasn't marrying for love, he was not bluffing. On the other hand, it seemed that his method of joining hands for pure convenience was in need of some serious revisions.
His first marriage was with Antonio Carriedo, a great person. He said his reason for marrying Carriedo - despite the very noticeable contrast between their personalities and even though their relationship was more friendly than romantic - was because Antonio was rich, stupid and could provide a comfortable life to him ... Yes, yes, can you believe that Rod almost threw one of the desserts samples at me when I said that this was the same reasoning of an single woman of the fifties? Totally unfair.
Rod and I had a moderate number of interactions in that first year. He hired me six months before the wedding and everything was rather quickly resolved. However, there was enough time for me to meet him occasionally and learn more about that aristocratic personality. I discovered, for example, that he was a real expert in desserts and knew how to prepare some that could seriously serve as my payment (and this was information that I could never, never allow to reach him), that he boasted that whole aura of sophistication but was more disorganized than a six year old's room, that he was a composer of soundtracks for introspective films and that he liked traditional decorations. Among other small things.
Then, six months passed and I left him in the hands of his fiancé, ending our association with a party as fantastic as would be expected of something produced by such a amazing person as myself. I confess, however, that I was a little ... I don't know. I didn't enjoy being there.
I had few encounters with the aristocrat and due to the short time-frame I received for planning, we spent most of the time running and screaming at each other ... We were not exactly the best picture of cooperation between a groom and a wedding planner. Heh! To be honest, I think that if anything, we were closer to being the worst example of cooperation between a groom and a wedding planner.
Still, part of me regretted that my job had ended. He was such a unique person, that young lord. Being with him was always a comic and strangely fascinating experience.
I concluded that our relationship would end there. Wedding planners and grooms don't usually become friends. Business were business.
Two years later, guess who shows up in my office while I was sitting at the table dealing with budgets? Roderich Eldestein, ladies and gentleman. I was so honestly confused that I ended up joking:
"Oh. Mr. Fancy Pants! So you already have come to request my services for the marriage of your adopted son?" I extended my hand in a mocking gesture, giving one of my most sordid half-smiles as a gift of welcome. "The time surely passes fast! I remember your wedding as if it had happened two years ago!"
When I saw the aristocrat crossing his arms over his chest tightly in response, as if carrying a heavy suitcase, and transforming that usually indifferent expression in a subtly disapproving one, so typical of him, those two years suddenly felt ike a mere moment. Technically, when two people meet again after a long separation, there should be an initial strangeness. And that wasn't our case. When I saw the young lord, I felt transported to the past, as if all those days apart didn't have any influence on us, as if we were somehow immune to the flow of the time.
Probably with the same feelings, he sighed and gave an answer that absolutely didn't match with a touching scene:
"Frankly, I fail to understand how you still have customers, if that's how you greet them," he proclaimed with his usual complete-apathy-that-was-still-strangely-recriminatory-at-the-same-time.
Ah! How I missed that proud pseudonoble!
"I have clients because I am the best and they know it." I started to turn in my chair and moved my shoulders and my hands slightly upward in a gesture that intended to demonstrate my immense disregard for a question with such a simple answer. "I can't help if you don't understand my advanced sense of humor, young lord! How pitiful!" I closed my eyes and smiled with false complacency. "Very sad, indeed! I'm gonna cry thinking about you tonight!" After laughing abundantly at my clever sarcasm and laughing even more at the sourness that it generated in that noble figure, I wiped my eyes, finally ready to go to business. "Now, seriously, who is my customer?"
"I am your customer, you fool," he said impatiently, clearly conveying a message of I-can't-believe-that-you-really-haven't-noticed-it-yet in his expression of exhaustion with my existence, that didn't required any other body language.
And maybe he had a legitimate reason to be impatient with me, considering that, even though he had been more explicit than Kate Winslet's last movies, that didn't prevent my mind from saying "HOLD ON A SECOND!" and then stopping abruptly
Wait. Wait. Wait.
I am a wedding planner. I work with wedding parties. And Rod is looking to hire me.
Roderich is married, isn't him? Heck, Gilbert, of course he is. You organized his great and magnificent wedding party. He's married.
… Or he waaaaaas married?
My eyes darted to his left hand and, as if he knew what I would do, he opened it, making the movements of a king cleaning the hand that was kissed by a commoner. There was no ring in that hand. However, there was a new one in the other.
"Huh?" I let this significantly confused sound escape, looking at the young lord, as if he had just announced that he wanted to record a video dancing to "Like a Virgin". It had been two years since he had married a guy who seemed perfect ... However, here he was. Wearing a new ring on his hand and, what was even stranger, in my room again. At that time, I thought I understood what was going on, but at the same time, I couldn't understand a single thing.
Then, Roderich's eyelids drooped slightly. This simple action changed his offended expression into something more smug and billions of times more annoying.
"I divorced Antonio. We are no longer married. I'm marrying another person who isn't..."
"I get it, I get! You can drop the cynical attitude!" I interrupted impatiently, rubbing the back of my hand against my forehead. "Urgh. You're always such a pleasant and lovely fiancé, aren't you, Rod?" I questioned, struggling to ignore how much he was emanating a revolting victorious air without doing anything more than adding a layer of pride to his features. As they say, one day is the day of the hunter and the other is the day of young masters who acquire a sense of humor in the worst moments. Or something like that. "Why did you divorced Antonio?" Inevitably, I went straight to the point. "Did you met a richer and more attractive man? Damn! Show me this guy!"
"What an uncouth suggestion," he scolded me, closing his face. "And take this stupid grin off of your face. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be interested in this person. I'm with a woman this time," he said dryly, and if it isn't obvious enough to you, the young lord knew that girls weren't and have never been my thing. Not like Roderich, who didn't care at all about the gender of the person he was dating, only with the practical benefit that it would bring to him. So he was with a woman, huh? When his composure returned and my interest subsided, he continued his explanation. "As for my divorce, I merely concluded that my husband couldn't offer me what I was looking for. Money isn't that important in a marriage, I discovered." That part, I was kind of 'Wow! This is the same young master with whom I met two years ago?!'when he added, "...at least, not when you already have money, of course."That relieved me considerably. Phew! That was the lazy materialist that I knew!
"So you joined the team of hearts and angels with arrows, aristocrat?" I inquired in a somewhat biting way. Nah. In fact, I was not asking a serious question but only teasing him. I didn't buy that at all. This little reunion was enough to inform me that he hadn't changed that much.
His lips and his eyebrows curled with more indignation than I could expect and with more indignation than he had anticipated too. From what I observed, that reaction caused the same surprise in both of us.
He probably noticed how much my eyes opened because in a matter of seconds, he executed a 180-degree turn in his attitude, as if correcting a small lapse.
"No, this isn't my motivation to marry miss Elizaveta," he replied with his eyes briefly closed, showing a graceful serenity, which was quite strange, coming from someone who had just looked at me with the same face of the movie vampire Nosferatus being defeated by sunlight,simply because I mentioned the idea of him becoming a romantic.
What was with this sudden change of mind, aristocrat? You went through a transformation over the last three seconds and evolved from 'Rod-can't-stand-jokes-mon' to 'Rod-can-stand-jokes-to-a-certain-point-mon'? Seriously, what the hell ...?
"I'm not in love with her."
"Oh, interesting." I put a hand on my chin and crossed my legs. "What's your reason now?"
Again, his answer was given in a placid and indifferent way:
"She's a good friend. I figured that if it's necessary to share your life with a person, this person should be someone with whom you have some kind of special bond," the young aristocrat argued, and then possibly wanting to reinforce his point and avoid my jokes (Ha! As if he could escape!), he added "Sense isn't sensibility."
Wow. That was one heck of a story.
To be honest, when the young master informed me that he wasn't in love with his fiancee, the first sensation that occurred to me was a vague evil pleasure. That's because I recognized in that speech the same inconsistency that I had encountered two years ago, so I was having the evil fun of those who know the end of a movie and laugh at the ignorance of the protagonists about their futures, while watching it again.
I wasn't counting with this change in his methods.
He was no longer following the 'wife-of-the-fifties' line. Now he wanted to imitate a romantic comedy from the 90's and experience the classic 'I-never-noticed-that-my-best-friend-was-my-true-love-this-entire-time' relationship. To what extent was he committed in this relationship? Was it merely a variation of his previous plan or did it have potential to become something bigger?
"Wait. Let me confirm something..." I pressed my forehead, deep in thought "You think you can fall in love with her because you're friends?"
"No."
Dude, he didn't even blink.
"Still taking the easier road, huh," I concluded with a soft and accidentally enigmatic smile, giving a glance to the other side.
"Do you have anything to say on this matter?"
For a second, I felt something beginning to rise in my throat. It was swallowed up so fast that I can't specify exactly what would it be. I can only guarantee that I was not as instantaneous as the last time I received a similar question to that.
Anyway, I just presented my most logical and rational response.
"It's none of my business." I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture. "Unless you're engaged to someone who stabbed you, I won't say a word about your love choices. Don't overestimate yourself, Rod. My guesses are so amazing that people have to pay to receive them. Don't think that you will win them without one or two sacrifices and promises of eternal devotion."
"You haven't changed a bit." He snorted, but I noticed that those words didn't carry hostility, really.
"I've reached the ideal form." I laughed with a shrug. "Why change?"
"Why did I even expect a different answer?" He rolled his eyes and unfolded his arms, approaching me, resigned.
"Easy!" I replied with less teasing than nostalgia in my voice. "Because you also didn't change at all, young lord."
And I swear I saw the trace of a smile through his stoic semblance as the young lord leaned to grab the wedding magazines scattered across my desk.
I would like to thank wonderful miss Zeplerfer for all the help that she gave to me. This work is actually a translation of my fanfic in portuguese "Entre Brindes" and I was very insecure about how I would keep the quality of the text changing it to english until I received her help. Honestly, I owe that girl so much. She's awesome.
Since a very long time ago, I'm a very active person in the brazilian part of the fandom but now that my english isn't that bad, I'm going to try to bring some of my best works to more readers around the world.
As I'm a newbie in the international part of the fandom, I ask you to leave a review after reading the chapters of this fic because a bit of support would be great. Have fun and until next time!^_^