Free Small Town Secret: Mayfield Springs Book 1 by Carrie Curtis Page B

striking Cassandra. You look positively spectacular."  
    I recognized the voice as Claudette's, and I shuddered at the thought of having to see her and the other bridesmaids again. Knocking on the front door, it was the photographer who opened it. He looked stressed and exhausted, and it was only ten in the morning.  
    "Hi, I'm Amy. I'm the maid of honor," I said as I stepped through the door.  
    He shook my hand in greeting before swiping back his disheveled hair from his eyes.  
    "So I take it things are pretty chaotic in here?" I asked.
    "That's an understatement," he replied, with a pained expression in his eyes that made him look like he was suffering from an abominable headache.  
    "Geez, that bad eh?"
    He was too polite to say anything, but he nodded.  
    "It's frantic up there, but I'm just here for the behind the scenes shots. The official photographer, my boss, will be here just before the ceremony, you know for the cars and all that stuff."  
    "Wow, no expense spared then."
    "Well...Love is a beautiful thing. You get what you pay for," he said half-heartedly.  
    As I walked down the hall, his words hung in my mind. "You get what you pay for." I didn't realize you had to pay for love. It was a depressing thought.
    Still, I could sense that Cassie was happy with her big wedding. The house was filled with flowers and balloons. Makeup artists and hair stylists were running back and forth trying their hardest to keep up with the demands.  
    "Dear God," I said to myself as I made my way up the stairs. "This is going to be a long day."  

    I poked my head around the corner of Cassie's childhood bedroom. It was comforting to see that nothing had changed. Her old boy band posters were still stuck up on the walls, and an inflatable chair from the nineties lay abandoned and partially deflated in the corner.  
    "Hey girls," I said, stepping into the room.
    The three bridesmaids were so preoccupied with their makeup and squeezing into their dresses that they didn't even notice me. Nicky was talking nonstop. "So I said to the hairdresser that I wanted lowlights, but I swear to God she gave me highlights. Why can't these people just follow instructions? It's really out of order."
    "Yeah I know," agreed Suzanne. "I was supposed to be getting a gel manicure but the girl down there, you know the one with the trashy pink top, all she could offer were acrylics."
    "Eeeeeuw!" The three girls screamed in unison.  
    "Well I asked the makeup artist if I could get a gentle, soft contour you know more like a non-tour look," Cassie was now joining in. "But look what she's done. It's strobing! I could just cry."
    I stood dumbstruck in the doorway feeling both bewildered and completely out of place. I looked down at my jeans and sneakers and thought how little what they were talking about meant to me. I didn't understand half of it - gels, acrylics, contours, highlights, blah, blah, blah. About the most sophisticated I ever got was a blow-dry and a curling wand. I could understand it coming from the bridesmaids. They'd been nothing but superficial since I met them. Cassie, though, what the hell was she talking about? That's not how she spoke. She was an intelligent, articulate girl who never used to be into superficial stuff like that. Although if there was ever a day I needed to forgive her for caring about her make-up, I guess her wedding day was it.  
    "Er..... Hi, ladies," I repeated, louder this time.
    They turned to face me. Everyone but Cassie just looked me up and down, and it felt like they were assessing every inch of me before deciding whether I was good enough to be in their company.  
    "Amy!! Come and give me a hug," Cassie gestured excitedly.  
    "Mwah, mwah!" she air kissed me, and it felt like she was just putting on a show.  
    "So how are you feeling? Are you nervous?" I asked her.
    "Nervous?" Cassie burst out laughing. "I've had one too many champagnes to be nervous," she said gesturing towards the bottle on ice