Free The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer Page B

I needed to shell out $200 an hour to learn that.
    â€œTaken that boy out to the woodshed and strapped his behind is what I should have done,” Dad is saying, his hand balling into a fist.
    "We don’t have a woodshed,” I point out. “And Kent was six-three and outweighed you by thirty pounds. You wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
    â€œOh, well. All’s well that ends well.” This is Mom’s standard line for changing the subject. “The point is we need to plan, plan, plan. Your wedding’s in September. That doesn’t give us much time. Are you sure you don’t want to put it off a bit?”
    Here, suddenly, is my out. Handed to me like dessert on a platter. A delay.What a brilliant idea. "Actually, Mom ...”
    She lets out a screech. "What am I talking about? You don’t want to put it off.You’ve waited all this time—of course you want to get him to the altar before he changes his mind!”
    With this my mother—who I’ve just concluded is perhaps more soused than I initially assessed—sweeps her arm so wide it hits the umbrella at the center of the glass picnic table and the whole thing wobbles.
    Fortunately, Lucy’s there to catch it.As always, she is smashingly coiffed and composed, in a yellow halter top and white shorts that emphasize her toned physique. This comes from her daily schedule of working out, doing yoga, and assiduously avoiding any task smacking of actual employment.
    Somewhere along the line, Lucy went from being my snotty kid sister, younger by a whopping eight years, who blew off her bills and nicked her car on fire hydrants (she is the worst parallel parker ever ! ), to being a responsible, prudent hausfrau. It was as though the moment she said those marriage vows, people decided she was mature and stable while I, in my singleness, was reduced to the family baby.
    â€œGuess what I found in the attic?” Lucy holds up a sage green book. “Don’t you want to scream?!”
    Stuffed to the gills with brochures, fabric swatches, sample invitations, and even a few dead flowers is Lucy’s old Martha Stewart’s Keepsake Wedding Planner. The very sight of its torn binding brings back bad memories of hours and hours spent tasting dry, over-sweet cake, trying on endless dresses, and debating every detail down to whether the ribbon on the ring bearer’s pillow should be narrow or wide.
    â€œI saved it for you. I knew this day would come!” She lets out a squeal and wraps her bony arms around my neck.Whispering in my ear, she adds conspiratorially, "Now you can kiss that admissions job good-bye and we can hang out together at the Arsenal Mall all day!”
    Yippee.
    We spring apart and Lucy shoves the book into my arms. I nearly keel over with its weight. “I have done so much bush-whacking for you.You’ll have it easy peasy. I’ve written down all the right florists, the right caterers, everything.”
    â€œThough maybe Genie will want to get married in England,” my mother adds, batting her eyes hopefully. "That is a possibility, isn’t it?”
    This, of course, would elevate my mother to a celestial realm among her girlfriends, to have a daughter marrying in Old Blighty.
    â€œI’m not sure there will be a wedding, Mom ...”
    Lucy jerks my arm. “No way.You have to marry here. I’ve already contacted Bea Cummings.”
    I search my personal data bank for a Bea Cummings and come up with the chain-smoking, coughing hag Lucy hired to do her wedding.
    Oh, no. She didn’t. A wedding planner already?
    â€œThis is awful,” my mother exclaims.
    â€œToo soon,” I agree. "Much too soon.”
    â€œNo,” Mom disagrees. “Too late.This morning I called Elise.”
    Elise?
    â€œMom, that’s awesome!” Lucy again squeals so loudly my father covers his ears. “Elise DuPont is in such demand. How did you do it?”
    Mom opens