Jake & Mimi Read Online Free PDF

this point. Even if I believed, does she think I’d put everyone
     through a one-hour mass? The groomsmen would sneak beer into the church.
    “Mom. We’ve been over this. Please.”
    “If you have a change of heart, dear, that’s all. Sorry. I’ll leave you. Bye.”
    I looked up to see Mr. Stein in the doorway, his hand raised to knock, his kind eyes, under the old-fashioned wire rims, trained
     graciously on a spot just past me. “Hi,” I said, and the phone rang again.
Great. He thinks I’m a party girl
.
    “Thirty minutes?” he asked quietly, ducking his head as if to be pardoned. “The Cortez return? In my office?”
    “Of course,” I said, then picked up the phone, hoping it was a client whose name I could repeat while Mr. Stein was still
     within earshot.
    “Mimi Lessing?”
    Madame Brodeur. And before I could remind her, delicately, that home is a better place to call me, she started in on the “schedule.”
     Each precious element of my wedding day — the recessional, the tossing of the bouquet, the first dance — scripted with martial
     precision. And before I could tell her about the angels’ share, explain to her that my wedding was not a military maneuver
     and wouldn’t be planned like one, she was on to her “concerns.” Had I asked the reception hall about a noise ordinance? What
     if the band is late? Or the caterers? Will there be vegetarians on the guest list? Who will tie the ring to the ring pillow,
     and with what kind of knot?
    It was ten minutes before I was free of her and staring at the Cortez return again. Just minutes ago it had been as clear
     as dawn, the last figures set to fall into place, but now all I saw was a mess of numbers. I looked at the clock. I had twenty
     minutes. Where had I gotten these depreciation figures? They couldn’t possibly be right. That last deduction — what was it
     again? Noise ordinance? I picked up the phone.
    “Mark, what is a noise ordinance?”
    “A law against making too much noise.”
    “Our wedding band — what if they violate one?”
    “In the Boathouse in Central Park? Who’s going to gripe — the ducks?”
    “What if the caterers are late?”
    “She called you, didn’t she?”
    “What if we have vegetarians, Mark? What will they eat?”
    “Each other. Mimi, relax.”
    “The ring pillow. What if the knot is too tight?”
    “Mimi.”
    “What?”
    “What are the only two ‘don’ts’ at any wedding?”
    “I know, but —”
    “Say them.”
    I took a breath. “Don’t run out of liquor, and don’t run out of music.”
    “We’ve got liquor for an army and tunes for a dance marathon. Stop obsessing. It’s sexy, but it’s hell on your nerves. I’ll
     see you tonight.”
    I put the phone down, walked to the window, and was all right again. I looked down at midtown Manhattan, at the row of trees
     that stretch in a pretty line up Park Avenue. Mark was right, of course. It is the day that matters, not the details. And
     the day will come. It will come and we will stand at the altar and he will ease the ring onto me, lift my veil, and give me
     my first married kiss. Then we’ll turn and walk, to “Ode to Joy,” through all the people we love, and step from the church
     doors out into the sunshine. (
There’s
something Madame Brodeur can arrange, if she really wants to earn her pay.) And then to Central Park, all of us, to party
     on the grass by the lake, through the late afternoon and into the night, drinking and dancing under the trees and even, if
     luck is with us, under the stars.
    I sat back over the return, and it was as simple again as a coloring book. Cows, yes, that was the key. On a cattle ranch
     you can capitalize cows. And they can depreciate. I put in the new numbers and printed it all out. Thirty-one pages in all.
     A marvel of compression, really, and it hit all our targets. Ten minutes later Mr. Stein smiled over the top of it from behind
     his large oak desk.
    “A spirited return, Mimi.”
    I