Chapter 18 - Day 251
Lucy finished signing her name on an arrest report and looked up to see Tim walking down the hallway. She jogged to catch up to him.
"Our shift ends in five minutes and I just checked the traffic," Lucy reported. "We should be able to make it to the wedding planner's office with plenty of time to spare."
"Good," Tim said. "Aaron mentioned that lateness is her biggest pet peeve."
"Then she shouldn't live in LA," Lucy remarked.
The wedding planner that Lucy and Tim had an appointment to see was Aaron's second cousin. Although Tim was worried based on Aaron's expensive tastes that the woman would be way out of their budget, he had agreed to meet with her at Lucy's insistence. They had only been engaged for a little over a month, and the idea of actually planning a wedding was giving Lucy hives. Ever since they had announced their engagement to all of their friends upon their return from Boston, everyone seemed to have an opinion about how they should get married. But Lucy and Tim had been so busy with the move and with work that they hadn't had much time to talk about what kind of wedding they wanted.
"Dispatch to any available unit," a female voice came over both Tim and Lucy's radios. "We have a 911 hang up from 402 Washington Street. Unit 3C"
"402 Washington Street?" Lucy said out loud. "Isn't that the strip mall we went to that got robbed a while back?"
Tim nodded. "Yeah."
"And wasn't 3C, Martha the Mystical's shop?"
"Yeah," Tim breathed.
"Tim, we have to go to this call."
"Why? We barely know the woman."
"She's the one who convinced me to tell you I loved you."
"Are you really suggesting that we would never have admitted our true feelings for each other without Martha the Mystical?"
"Tim…"
"We have to be out of here in ten minutes if we have any hope of making it to…"
Lucy took her radio from her hip. "This is Seven Adam nineteen. Show me responding."
"We're going to be late," Tim warned.
"Are you coming?"
Tim grabbed his radio. "This is Seven Adam sixteen. Show me responding with seven Adam nineteen."
Lucy smiled at him and they raced off to her shop.
With sirens blaring, they made it to Martha the Mystical's shop in four minutes. The door to the store was open and Lucy burst in. Martha was watering one of her many potted plants.
"Hello dear," Martha said as if she wasn't surprised to see Lucy at all.
"A 911 call came from this address. Are you ok?" Lucy asked.
"Oh, I'm fine."
"Ma'am, did you call 911?" Tim questioned, his voice no-nonsense.
"No, but perhaps the spirits did," Martha answered.
"Unbelievable," Tim muttered. "Ma'am it is a crime to call 911 when there's not a real emergency."
"I told you, it wasn't me. But since you're here, congratulations."
"Excuse me?" Tim said.
"On your engagement."
"How did you know we're engaged?" Lucy questioned. Her ring finger was empty. Her engagement ring was on a chain around her neck, tucked into her white T-shirt under her uniform. The ring was too big to wear on her finger when out on patrol. But the minute Lucy was off duty, she proudly put it on her left ring finger.
"Lucky guess," Martha said with a wink.
"If you're not having an emergency…" Tim began.
"But perhaps you two will soon have an emergency," Martha interrupted.
"What do you mean?" Lucy asked.
"Seriously?" Tim scoffed, not believing Martha for a minute.
"Don't let anyone push you into a wedding you don't want," Martha stated. "A happy marriage isn't about a big, fancy wedding. It's about all of the days that come after."
"I'm going back to the shop," Tim said, clearly aggravated and feeling as if Martha had wasted their time.
"Thank you for the advice," Lucy said. "Are you sure you're ok? You don't need anything?"
"I'm fine, dear. Sometimes the spirits around here have a mind of their own. Maybe they thought there was some reason you needed to be here."
"Well, it was nice to see you again, Martha. Maybe next time tell the spirits to only call 911 if they're having a real emergency."
"Goodbye dear. Oh, and remember, jealousy is the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties."
Lucy looked at the older woman, perplexed. "Did you just come up with that?"
"No. Gene Tierney the actress said that. I'm not a fan of actors myself, but every once in a while they say something smart."
"Well, thank you for the words of wisdom. Have a good evening, Martha."
Martha waved Lucy away and went back to attending to her plants. When Lucy got back to the shop, Tim was sitting in the driver's seat, annoyed.
"We're going to be late for the wedding planner," he told Lucy.
"It'll be fine," Lucy replied.
Tim pulled out of the parking spot with the sirens on.
As Tim had predicted, they were, in fact, late for the wedding planner. Twenty-six minutes late to be exact. When Tim and Lucy arrived at the office building, they were greeted by a receptionist who offered them sparkling water while they waited in the waiting room. They both declined the water. Sasha Carver, dressed from head to toe in a hot pink business suit with matching heels, greeted them moments later.
"You must be Aaron's friends," the woman said.
Lucy noticed she wasn't overly friendly and she had to guess it was because they were late.
"Yes, I'm Tim," Tim greeted, reaching out his hand to shake hers. "And this is my fiance Lucy."
"We're so sorry we're late. We got a last minute call and…"
"We have a lot to go over in a short amount of time," Sasha interrupted. "I don't want to keep my next client waiting."
"Right, of course," Lucy said.
Sasha brought Tim and Lucy to a room with a large table down the middle. On the table were different colored fabrics, pictures of flower arrangements and centerpieces, as well as several black binders that held wedding ideas. Tim and Lucy sat next to each other while Sasha sat at the head of the table. She grabbed a clipboard and a pen.
"Let's start with what kind of wedding you want," Sasha said.
Lucy looked over at Tim. "Ah…we know we want all of our friends and family there."
"But what theme are you going for?"
"Theme?" Tim questioned. "I don't think we've thought of a theme."
"Well, here are some ideas," Sasha said, grabbing one of the blink binders and opening it in front of Tim and Lucy. She began quickly flipping through the pictures. "We have country chic, modern, a winter's ball…"
"Winter? We live in LA," Lucy interrupted.
"A bride can have whatever a bride wants. We once had snow machines we rented from a movie studio," Sasha explained as if Lucy had just said something incredibly dumb. "It was magical." Tim and Lucy exchanged a glance. "We even did a Little Mermaid theme for a couple getting married at the aquarium."
"I don't think we're that…committed to a theme," Lucy stated.
"Well, when are you planning on getting married? The best places are booking at least two years in advance."
"Two years?" Tim questioned.
"I think we're looking more at within the year," Lucy said with a slight question at the end. Tim nodded.
"Definitely within the year."
"Well, that will be tough. Have you thought about colors?"
"I like green," Tim offered, squeezing Lucy's thigh under the table. She smiled.
"Then that's a start," Sasha replied. "Although I must admit that most of my clients have more of an idea of what they're looking for."
"We're really open to ideas," Lucy said, feeling like she was being interrogated and wasn't putting up a very good defense.
"Well, Aaron told me you're both police officers. We could do a cop themed wedding. I've never done that before, but…" Sasha gasped and she flashed her hands in the air. "What if we did a murder mystery dinner? Your guests would have to solve a pretend murder. We could hire actors and…"
"I think we do enough police work all day," Tim interrupted.
Sasha sighed. "Ok. How about a fairy tale theme? You know, the bride is the princess in her large flowing dress and you'll have the most dazzling diamond tiara on your head."
Tim actually snorted and then tried to cover it up as if he had been coughing.
I'm not exactly the princess type," Lucy admitted as she bumped her knee against Tim's, signaling to him to keep it together.
"I see," Sasha crossed her arms. "If you don't like any of those ideas, let's go with something else that's important to you. What is something you both like? What are you passionate about?"
"We both like food trucks," Tim stated. This time it was Lucy who had to keep herself from laughing.
"Food trucks? At a wedding?" Sasha was staring at them both in disbelief. "She folded her hands on the table, clearly getting annoyed. "Ok, let me ask you this. How did you propose?"
"At an art museum in Boston," Lucy explained. "It was very romantic."
"Great! I can work with art museums. There are several downtown that will rent out their spaces for weddings. They offer great ambiance. However, the minimum to rent a place usually starts at thirty grand."
If Tim had taken the sparkling water the receptionist had offered, he would have spit it out.
"Look, Sasha, it was very nice of your cousin to give us your name and number, but I think we have some things we need to figure out first before consulting with such a fabulous wedding planner as yourself," Lucy said. "So thank you for your time and best of luck in your business."
Lucy stood up. She gestured for Tim to do the same. Taking his hand, they walked out. When they were safely back in Tim's truck, Lucy and Tim both busted out laughing at the same time.
"What was Aaron thinking?" Tim asked, still laughing.
"Can you imagine me in a tiara?" Lucy giggled. She was laughing so hard that her eyes were beginning to water.
"Absolutely," Tim answered with a straight face.
Lucy turned to him, furrowing her brow. "In what world can you see me getting married in a tiara?"
"Oh, I didn't say I could see you getting married in a tiara. I'm picturing a fantasy of you naked in a tiara. That I can picture quite clearly and it is…hot."
Lucy slugged him on the shoulder. Tim pretended to be hurt, but of course he wasn't.
"But seriously, what are we going to do about our wedding?" Lucy asked.
"Sasha isn't the only wedding planner in town. And we could just figure this out on our own."
"We don't have any ideas of what we want," Lucy reminded him.
"I know I want to marry you."
"It just seemed like everything Sasha mentioned isn't…us. The idea of a big wedding isn't us."
"You don't want a big wedding?" Tim asked.
"Do you?"
"I want whatever you want."
"Tim, this isn't just about me. This is about us."
"I know, but I've done this before, Lucy. I had the big wedding. And like Martha the Mystical said, the wedding doesn't make the marriage. I want this to be whatever you want."
"So, maybe Martha the Mystical isn't such a kook after all?"
"Oh, she's definitely a kook. But she did make a fair point. Isabel and I had the big wedding and look what happened to us.
"Maybe we should just elope?" Lucy wondered out loud.
"I don't know if our friends or family would be too happy with us if we did that."
"You're right. I think some of them feel like they've been waiting years for us to finally get married."
"Well, look at the one thing we told Sasha we both liked. Food trucks. So, that's a place to start, right?"
Suddenly a lightbulb went off in Lucy's mind. "And you like sports."
Tim was confused. "Right, but…"
"What if we got married at the park? Where the Little League field is? They have that nice covered pavilion nearby. We could decorate it and hire a few food trucks and invite our friends. It would be lowkey, but it would be us. And it wouldn't be too expensive and we wouldn't have to wait two years for an opening and…" Lucy trailed off, trying to get a read on Tim's face. "Do you hate the idea?"
"No!" Tim exclaimed, his face lighting up with a big smile. "No, I love it. You're right. It's perfect. It's us. But I don't want you to feel like you're missing out on the whole big wedding thing."
"I'm not missing out on anything as long as I have you."
Tim leaned across the center console and kissed her.
"I love you," he said.
"I love you, too."
"And now can we go back to that naked with a tiara thing because I can't get that out of my head."
Lucy laughed. "I'll tell you what, I'll get a tiara and pretend to be a princess if you get a crown and pretend to be the naughty prince."
"Deal," Tim replied quickly. He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.
"Do you want to grab some dinner on the way home?"
"Hell, no, I'm going to the party store, your royal highness."