Please Don't Say I Do
Prologue
I can pinpoint the exact moment my life fell apart.
I was coming home from work with a fresh stack of essays to grade written by my English II class and was hopping up the stairs to my townhouse, ironically enough humming "It's the End of the World As We Know It."
I remember finding my cell phone blinking on the table where I'd left it that morning and considering who on earth might have left me six messages. I picked it up, flipped it open, and frowned at the flashing number six on my screen.
The first two were from my older sister, asking what would cause strange men to come into their house, which she lived in with my father, and take away their "vital possessions for life." I shook my head and muttered under my breath, "Yes Lizzy, if you refuse to pay your taxes they will take your things." But it would never be of any use to tell her that. The Repo Man, in Elizabeth's world, was about as mythological as the Grimm Reaper.
The next two were from my younger sister, Mary. Apparently she was positive her husband was going to leave her… again.
My father had left me one. He wanted to know why I hadn't told him about these "supposed taxes."
None of those were the cause of my life falling apart. Repossession had been on the horizon for as long as I could remember. My father had been about as good with money as I was with hair care. (As in clueless.)
It was the sixth. From Mary's in-laws.
"Annie!" I heard Louisa screech over the phone. I wasn't totally shocked to hear from her. Lou and the rest of the Musgroves had lived next door to us since long before I'd been born. Our fathers used to fish together. Our mothers, before mine had died, had played Bunko together. I'd dated the oldest son, Charlie, briefly in High School, and our families had formed a permanent attachment when Charlie had married Mary. But I was just as close to the Musgroves as I was with my own family.
Lou and her twin sister, Haley, commonly called to catch me up on the goings-on in my hometown, Annapolis, since I'd moved to Baltimore.
"I have the absolute best news. I've fallen in love! And I'm getting married!"
I held the phone farther from my ear to help muffle the wretched screaming issuing from the tiny device.
"But any way, we were thinking we'd do the ceremony in about six months. Mom wants to do something big like one of those five day ceremonies, so you just have to be there!
"I'm just so happy," she continued to gush. "He's gorgeous and perfect and I've only known him for about three months, but when you know, you know. Right?"
I nodded. Yeah, I supposed she was right. I'd only ever known it once, but a lot of good that did me. Freddie and I had met over a simultaneous reach for a bag of Oreos at the local Meyers and I was smitten with his blue eyes and Naval uniform immediately. We were both in love by the time we'd left the grocery, sharing our bag of Oreos. Still, I was hardly the authority on the subject of love. I was the one that was dumb enough to let the love of my life slip through my fingers.
"Oh I can't wait for you to meet him. Fredrick Wentworth is the best thing that ever happened to me!"
There. That was the moment my life fell apart: Freddie Wentworth was getting married.