“People wouldn’t leave us alone about how we got together.” Celia looked at me. “I’m sorry. We can talk privately. Properly.”
For a second, I wanted that. Her voice had the old softness she used when she knew I was close to crying. Then I looked at Ruth, who had spent eighteen months believing I might appear on a doorstep shouting.
“Not privately,” I said. “Correct it to the people who received it.”
Grant pushed the menu away. “We’re not restarting all of that before our wedding.”
“An apology should be between us,” Celia said, shaking her head.
“The accusation wasn’t.”
Neither of them offered to send anything.
I opened a blank email. I copied the recipients from Grant’s original message, checking each address against it. No wedding guests who hadn’t received it. No clients. I included Celia’s instruction, Grant’s approval, and the matching sentence from the accusation, with their dates. I left the rest of their correspondence out.
My correction was short: I did not threaten an uninvited confrontation. These excerpts show how that claim was created. I am sending this only to the people who received the original accusation.
“You’re doing this here?” Celia asked.
“Yes.”
I sent it. I wish I could say my only feeling was relief. Part of me wanted them embarrassed at that table, and they were.
Then I opened the contract. I showed them the termination clause and sent the notice through the portal. The unused-fee refund went into processing; I saved the payment confirmation and instructed Imani to transfer the vendor contacts and booking records. Nothing already booked would be canceled by us.
“You’ll need another coordinator,” I told them. “Your vendors stay yours.”
Ruth gathered the dinner menus into a stack.
“And you’ll need to make your own rehearsal-dinner arrangements,” she said.
Grant said, “Mum.”
“You can correct a lie to your friends, or keep asking me to host people while they believe it. I won’t do the second.”
She put the menus in a drawer. I closed my laptop.
The refund cleared the following week. Grant and Celia acknowledged the handover in the portal, and I checked every transferred booking before closing their account. I wasn’t going to make a caterer or a florist pay for my anger.
After the wedding, Ruth told me they had married with another coordinator. Fewer people attended than originally planned. Her dinner had stayed canceled.
Celia also wrote. Could we meet without all the wedding business? I miss our friendship.
I read it twice. I missed having a best friend, which wasn’t quite the same thing.
I don’t want to renew the friendship. The handover is complete. I won’t be posting about this through the company.
I had considered it. A carefully anonymous post would still have been recognizable to everyone who mattered. I kept the evidence in the closed client file instead.
I was relieved the accusation had finally been answered. I was less comfortable with how much I had wanted Ruth to hear Celia admit it. Both feelings stayed. Neither required another conversation with them.
At my desk, I removed their folder from the active-weddings tray and put the next couple’s seating plan in its place.
