Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

became real friends, in fact, before we became lovers. Did you feel this was possible eventually with this boy you were seeing, this Ethan?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “We really didn’t see each other that long, Lucille.”
    “Still, you might reserve your judgment abouthim until you find out what his reason was for not attending your graduation and meeting us. We’ll see.”
    Why was this so important to her?
    “How?”
    “Time will tell,” she said.
    “What if I never see or hear from him again?”
    “Well . . . then time told, didn’t it?” she said with a grin. “Now, look at those designs for wedding cakes. I’m anxious to see what strikes your fancy.”
    I gazed at the book. There were multitiered cakes with all sorts of flower decorations. The traditional cakes were round, but there were also hexagon- and octagon-shaped cakes. The variety was dazzling. I had no idea how any bride would go about choosing, until I saw a design that resembled the cake in Mother and Daddy’s wedding photographs. It was shaped like a richly wrapped present with the silhouettes of the bride and groom airbrushed.
    “You like that one?” she asked, seeing me spend so much time gazing at it.
    “Don’t dare recommend the cake that our parents had at their wedding,” Cassie warned.
    I shrugged and turned the page.
    There was a huge hexagonal cake with a jade topper of an angel. At the bottom of the page was an estimate of one hundred dollars per serving. I started to turn the page.
    “That’s my favorite,” she said.
    I quickly did the multiplication.
    “That’s one hundred eighty thousand dollars for just the cake,” I said.
    She laughed. “Well, one thing I never expectedto hear from you was a comment on the cost of anything. Bravo. That shows you do have a bit of a head for business, but your father and I intend to be married only this one time more, Semantha. It’s a wedding for a lifetime,” she said. She pointed to the cake. “What I was thinking of doing is having the Heaven-stone Store emblem on top of this cake in jade like that or maybe silver. The Heaven-stone Stores are so much of who your father is, and I will be so much of who he is now, too. When you marry someone, you marry all of him, all that is important to him. What do you think?” she asked, nodding at the cake. “Should I have that one made for us?”
    “I guess that would be nice.”
    “Oh, it will be more than just nice. It’ll be the piéce de résistance, Semantha. Can’t you just imagine the guests circling and admiring it, taking pictures?” She laughed. “It will be the most expensive dessert most of them have ever had. This will be a wedding no one will forget. We’re having a twenty-six-piece orchestra. Your father is having a two-thousand-square-foot dance floor built, with multicolored lighting strung above it. We’ll have tents with tables all decorated according to the theme of love and union, and we’re going to provide the guests with a memento they will cherish and not just put into some box to forget. I have lots of ideas for that. We’ll be going to the wedding planners after the dress designer to work on that and see his suggestions for the menu. Of course, we’ve hired not just a wedding photographer but also a professional movie director to film the entire event.
    “Regarding the menu, here’s what I was thinking.” She turned fully around to me. I smiled to myself. She was like a little girl turned loose in a toy store and told not to worry about any costs.
    “There’ll be caviar and champagne, of course, a variety of at least three special soups, lobster in cream sauce with chopped truffles, as well as beef and pork filets and chartreuse of pheasant. Of course, there’ll be sherbet to cleanse the palate between courses, a wide variety of red and white wines, any possible liquor, and very expensive port for after dinner. I’m getting advice about the wine from a famous French sommelier. I think it’s important to provide a good variety at a wedding like this, especially with such a big guest list, don’t you?”
    I nodded, but I saw she wanted a more enthusiastic reaction.
    “Isn’t this exciting?”
    “Yes,” I said, widening my eyes. “It’s very exciting, Lucille. I can’t imagine any wedding grander, except maybe the wedding of a king or a queen.”
    She laughed at my obvious attempt to match her enthusiasm.
    “I’m sorry. I’m overwhelming you with my passion. You must