She Called the Bride the Help, So I Read the Bill Aloud novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Help
At her own cake table Joelle hears her mother-in-law call her the help, borrows the bassist's microphone, reads the catering invoice aloud to 190 guests and drops her ring in Priscilla's champagne.
"She's the help, dear."
My mother-in-law said it over my shoulder, loud enough for the whole cake table to hear.
I had both hands pressed against the second tier of my own wedding cake.
A woman in a lavender hat had just asked Priscilla Claiborne who the girl in the apron was.
The girl in the apron was the bride.
I had been married for three hours and ten minutes.
My ivory dress was under a white work apron, because the cake had started to lean in the April heat and nobody else knew how to fix it.
Priscilla did not lower her voice.
"She does the catering, so she can't help herself. Joelle, the lady wants a slice. Cut it thin."
The woman in the lavender hat laughed, because she had been told it was allowed.
I looked at the cake knife in my hand.
It was silver, and it had the Claiborne family crest on the handle.
I looked at Anson.
My husband stood six feet away with a plate of ham biscuits and his mother's friends around him.
He had heard her.
His blue eyes met mine for one second, and then he looked at the biscuits.
"Mama," he said to the plate. "Not today."
That was all.
I set the knife down on the linen.
I untied the apron and folded it in half and laid it across the cake stand.
Then I took the folded paper out of the apron pocket and shook it open.
It was the final invoice from Ferrand Table Co., my company, with my name signed at the bottom.
I had printed it at ten that morning for one reason.
At nine, Priscilla had added seventy guests to the list, and I had fed all of them anyway.
I had meant to hand the page to Anson tonight, in private, and ask him to take it to his mother.
The band was playing a slow song by the hedge.
The bass player had his eyes closed, one big hand moving up the neck.
I walked across the grass in my wedding dress to the bandstand.
The bass player opened his eyes.
He was a lean man of about thirty-five with sandy hair going gray at the temples and a short beard.
I knew his face from somewhere, and I could not think where.
"I need the microphone," I said.
He looked at my face, and then past me at the cake table, where Priscilla was watching.
He did not ask a single question.
He lifted the microphone off its stand and put it in my hand.
His fingers were rough, and they stayed against mine a moment longer than the handoff needed.
"Take your time," he said.
The band stopped playing.
A hundred and ninety people turned around on the lawn.
"Good evening," I said.
My voice came out of the speakers over the azaleas, steady and a little too loud.
"I'm Joelle Ferrand. I'm the bride. I'm also the caterer, and I'm the help, according to the groom's mother."
Somebody near the hedge made a small noise.
Priscilla started across the grass toward me.
"Joelle, dear, that's enough."
I held up the paper.
"I have the final catering invoice for today's reception. Since everybody ate it, everybody should hear it."
I read the first line.
"Ferrand Table Company. Reception for one hundred ninety guests at Bellwood. Billed to the family of the groom."
"Joelle," Priscilla said.
"Crawfish bisque, two hundred servings. Fourteen hundred dollars."
Priscilla stopped in front of the bandstand with her pearls rising and falling.
"Shrimp and grits stations, four. Smoked duck on cornbread. Eight hundred pounds of ice. The groom's cake, which I baked at four this morning, and the bride's cake, which is now leaning in the sun."
A few of the guests laughed, and then looked embarrassed.
"Seventy additional guests added at nine o'clock this morning at Mrs. Claiborne's request. Three cooks and four servers, paid by me."
I looked up from the page.
"The total is forty-one thousand two hundred dollars. I charged cost only. I did it as a wedding present."
Nobody laughed now.
"Mrs. Claiborne told me in February that family doesn't send invoices to family," I said. "She also told me she was handling everything else, the flowers, the tent and the band, so I wouldn't need to worry."
My mother-in-law's face had gone a flat pink.
"You will not do this at my son's wedding."
"I'm not the one who called the bride the help," I said.
I handed the microphone back to the bass player.
He took it without a word, and his eyes stayed on my face.
I walked back to the cake table.
My husband was still holding his plate.
"Joelle," Anson said quietly. "Babe, come on. She didn't mean it like that."
I took hold of the gold band on my left hand.
It came off with a little twist, still warm.
Priscilla was a step behind me, breathing hard, her champagne glass in her fist.
I dropped the ring into her glass and watched it sink through the bubbles.
Then I lifted my skirt out of the grass in both hands and walked out through the garden gate in my wedding dress.
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