“I need you to call the manager,” Lindsey said. “Mary is the one we worked with, and she was personally handling this because it was a multi-thousand-dollar order.”
“We can’t call her,” the girl said. “She gave explicit instructions that she didn’t want to be bothered on her day off.”
“No, that is not acceptable,” Lindsey said. “By signing a contract with you people, I gave explicit instructions to not screw up my wedding day, but you are going back on the deal.”
“Do you have the contract?” the girl asked.
“No, it’s in my binders back at the house,” Lindsey said. “I shouldn’t have to have the contract. You should have it. How does something like this just completely disappear? I know it didn’t grow legs and walk out of your store.”
“I’m going to go in the back and check again,” the girl said, obviously not knowing what to do at that point.
When she walked away, Lindsey threw her arms up in the air and looked at me. I smiled sympathetically and shook my head. She paced back and forth for a few minutes before walking over to the desk and setting her purse down. She crept quietly around the desk, and I watched with wide eyes. She grabbed a binder that was labeled as the “Employee Book” and flipped it open. There was a tab at the back for phone numbers, so she went there, found Mary’s number, and pulled out her cell phone. She typed the number in her phone and put the binder away.
“I guess I will have to do this myself,” she said, shrugging as the phone rang in her ear. “Hello? Mary? This is Lindsey. I am standing in your catering store, and we have a huge problem.”
I looked up as the girl came back to the front, stopping and listening to her conversation. Her eyes got really big for a moment, and then she walked back into the back. I kind of felt bad for the girl. She wasn’t even working there when Lindsey set everything up. Still, it was the catering company’s job to make sure everything was being handled.
“Fine,” Lindsey said, hanging up the phone and turning to me. “She will be here in a little bit. I just can’t fucking believe this.”
I watched as she sat down in the waiting area, pulled out her phone, and texted furiously. I could only assume she was texting Jordan, letting him know what was going on. I felt terrible for her that she had to deal with all of this when her wedding was coming up so quickly. There was nothing I could do, though, and yelling at the girl at the front was obviously not helping the situation. When Mary finally got there, Lindsey had worked herself up into a complete meltdown. She was so upset that she had to walk outside to cool off and collect herself. I figured I should probably handle this.
“What happened?” Mary asked.
“They say they have no record of the order,” I explained. “Not even a paper trail.”
Mary turned and walked into the back, immediately talking loudly to the girls back there. I turned and paced, trying not to listen to what she was saying. When she came back, she took in a deep breath and straightened her jacket.
“There is a record,” she said. “It’s on my desk. The order wasn’t supposed to be given until tomorrow, but they screwed up.”
“So, what do we do now?” Lindsey was calmer as she walked back in.
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“I will personally make sure that your food is ordered as specified,” Mary said. “The food company will extend this courtesy since it is such a large order. I will also now be catering your wedding with a fifty percent discount due to all the trouble that you have been put through. I am glad you came in and caught this mistake, and I am terribly sorry that you had to go through all of this. It is not like us to make a mistake of this proportion. We are known for our excellent service and quality products. You have my deepest apologies.”
“Thank you,” Lindsey said. “I really appreciate you doing all of this. I am sorry that it got so mixed up, but you coming in on your day off and straightening things out for me makes up for that. It shows me that I can trust that I will have everything in order on my wedding day.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “And feel free to call in as much as you want to ease your mind. I will send you an email with the invoice after I have placed the order, which I am going to do once we are done. Again, I am terribly sorry for this misunderstanding.”
I could tell that Lindsey was happy with this, and she nodded her head and turned to leave. We walked down the street to the Irish pub and pulled ourselves up to the bar. We decided to get a drink to celebrate the fact that everything was pretty much put together and ready to go for her wedding. It had been a long year planning, worrying, and freaking out over all the details, but the caterer was the last thing. Luckily, it was also the only thing that we had a near disaster on. As I sipped my beer, my phone started to buzz on the countertop. I looked down and smiled, seeing Nathan’s face pop up on the screen. He knew I was handling wedding stuff and normally didn’t call when I was out with Lindsey.
“Hey,” I said, picking up the phone.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you busy?”
“I’m just getting a celebratory drink with Lindsey,” I said. “We finalized the last thing for the wedding.”
“And it was almost a disaster,” Lindsey yelled in the background.
“That’s great,” he said. “Listen, I desperately want to see you. I have a proposition for you. Is there any way that you could meet me at my house?”
“What kind of proposition?” I asked.
“I’d rather talk to you about it in person,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, it’s nothing like that.” He chuckled. “I’ve just been thinking about it all day, and it is driving me insane.”