I checked the date on the contract. Thursday was before the Friday cutoff, so I would still have time to cancel for a full refund if I chose to. I asked June to keep the contract and transfer form available too. She agreed.
Tessa answered my message that night. I told her I’d arranged a meeting with June on Thursday to discuss the booking and that Malik should come. I didn’t tell her why I’d requested the receipt.
Her reply came a few minutes later: We’ll be there. Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.
I read it twice. I could still tell her about the payment before Thursday. My thumb rested over the keyboard, but I put the phone facedown instead.
The next morning, Tessa called before I left for work.
“We’ve sent the save-the-dates,” she said. “Mine and Malik’s. People have already started making plans.”
I sat on the edge of the bed with one shoe on. I had known they wanted the venue, but I hadn’t pictured envelopes going out with his name where mine had been.
“When did you send them?” I asked.
“Over the weekend. We thought you’d sign the form.”
“You thought that before you asked me?”
She paused. “We didn’t know how to tell you. I know how that sounds.”
It sounded like the transfer had been supposed to take care of more than a piece of paperwork. I imagined a guest turning up expecting my wedding and finding Malik at the front. Tessa must have planned to explain it somehow, but she’d sent the cards before she had the booking.
“June said you’d asked about replacing me,” I said. “You knew you needed my signature.”
“I thought once you had time to calm down, you wouldn’t punish everyone else.”
I wanted to say I had paid for the date she was asking me to surrender. Instead I said, “You shouldn’t have sent them.”
“Are you still coming Thursday?” she asked.
“Yes.”
After we hung up, I stood in the hallway holding my keys. I could still call back. I could tell her exactly what the receipt would show, and maybe she could start warning people not to book travel. I went to work without calling.
Malik rang that evening. I nearly let him go to voicemail, but I was tired of watching his name appear on my screen.
“Tessa told me about the save-the-dates,” I said.
“We should have waited,” he said. “But we can’t afford another deposit, Rowan. Not after everything else we’ve spent. If we lose this booking, we can’t just go somewhere else and put that money down.”
He sounded frightened, and I hated that I still recognized it in his voice. He had called me like that after losing a job years ago, and I’d sat with him in his car until he was ready to go home. I kept my hand over my mouth for a second.
“Then why did you send the cards?” I asked.
“We thought the deposit was covered. We thought you might let us have the date.”
I looked at the contract on my kitchen table. He was wrong about whose money covered it. He was also right that I could have signed. I could have made them reimburse me as I’d offered, if they had the money and would agree. I could have told him all of that.
“Come to the meeting,” I said.
“Is there something June needs to tell us?”
“We’ll talk there.”
I ended the call before he could ask again. I told myself June’s receipt would make the facts harder for them to dispute. That was true, but it wasn’t the whole reason. I wanted them to hear it in front of her.
On Thursday, June had the booking file open when I arrived. The transfer form sat on one side of her desk and the contract on the other. Tessa and Malik came in together a few minutes later. Tessa kept her coat on; Malik stood behind her chair until June asked him to sit.
Tessa looked at the form. “Are you ready to sign?”
