Midnight Bride

The Arrangment

"Maria? Saskia? Did you stay here all night?" I wake up to yelling from my boss. I open my eyes wiping the drool off my chin. "Will one of you answer me?" My boss says looking between me and Saskia.

"I must've fallen asleep while working" I yawn rubbing my face. My boss rolls his eyes  "Did you at least finish the paperwork?" He grumbles gripping his coffee cup so hard a small bit drips onto the carpet. I look at my computer scanning over the work I did.

"Yes I finished It all, I'll send that through now" I reply hitting send.

"Good thank you Maria, not to alarm you but the people are waiting at the church to have a look at it and help set it up in about 10 minutes" He says calmly leaving the office. I get up frantically grabbing the documents and lazily stuffing them in a folder. 

I rush over to Saskia shaking her desperately trying to wake her up. She grumbles muttering something about her mother. "Saskia! Wake up!" I yell in her ear, waking her up instantly. I fill her in and we rush out of the office and into my car. Saskia, insisting on driving.

"What did you tell your wife?" I ask as we pull out of the parking lot. 

"Exactly what happened, I fell asleep!" She replies.

"And she believed that?" I laugh. She mumbles something and switches on the radio. I text my neighbour and make sure she fed my cat, which she replied saying she did making me heave a sigh of relief. My stomach rumbles making me realise we had nothing for breakfast. 

"Why don't we make a quick stop at Starbucks? I could kill for a cappuccino right now" I whine.

"That's a great idea" Saskia says taking a sharp turn. We drive a bit more before making it to a small Starbucks. We pull into the drive-thru ordering what we want and move up to the front window. 

"Here's your drinks- Oh my god." I look up from my phone to the window.

"Arthur." I grumble. Saskia giving me a weird look, I roll my eyes in return. 

"You never answered my texts." Arthur says completely ignoring Saskia desperately trying to grab her drink.

"I didn't? Whoops." I say sarcastically.

"I'm not dumb Mara, you've been avoiding me for ages. You can't tell me we don't have something." he demands pushing the drink out of the way to lean out further. Saskia grumbles, giving up and slumping into her seat. 

"Well I've been busy, and you know I'm not looking for anything." I reply, he clenches his jaw looking down.

"Mara...I lo-" "You can talk later! I need my coffee and so does that huge line of cars behind us!" Saskia yells. Without another word Arthur grabs our coffee and food handing it to Saskia. He goes to say something but Saskia drives away.

"Saskia!" I whine flopping into my seat. 

"I was just saving you from him! You told me you didn't want a relationship and he was not giving up!" She replies taking a long sip of her mocha. 

"Thank you" I mumble taking a bite of my sandwich. I suppose it was good, but on the other hand what was he trying to say? 'I love you'? I guess we will never know, and besides Saskia's right, I'm not looking for a relationship.

After about 5 minutes of driving we finally arrive at a beautiful church. We get out of the car looking around for a couple.

"You see anyone that looks like they're head over heels for each other?" Saskia whispers, I shake my head and we enter the church. Two people in suits, a man and a woman, in about their 30's turn their heads towards us. A puzzled look starts to form on Saskia's face until one of them speaks.

"Are you the wedding planners for Miss Teal and Mister Vitale?" The woman inquires stepping forward. I look at Saskia and she looks back at me with the same confused look.

"Yes we are, but where are they?" I ask looking around. 

"They're not here, Mister Vitale requested that we do it instead" Her answer makes me quirk a brow. 

I nod my head never the less and follow their instructions. 

After a long 2 hours of organising the wedding and decorations me and Saskia are free to go home.

"Well there's our answer they are definitely not in love" I say turning the car on.

"Don't say that! Maybe they're just busy" Saskia mumbles trying to put her seatbelt on.

I turn the car wheel and pull onto the highway. "It doesn't matter if they're in love or not, the money is the important part." I argued.

Saskia sighs with a slow nod. "What if it's an arranged  marriage?" Saskia asks biting her lip. I glance over to Saskia briefly thinking her question over. "What if it is? We can't do anything" I remark pulling into Saskia's driveway. 

"We can refuse service" Saskia exclaimed. 

"Why would that help? They would find somewhere else, we would lose the money and our jobs." I snapped. Saskia rolls her eyes and gets out of the car. Before closing the door she whispers,

"It's not right Maria" She closes the door. I turn my attention back on the car and pull onto the road. Saskia's words hang around in my head all the way home. When I get in my house all I can think about is the wedding tomorrow. Even if it's an arranged marriage its not a big deal right? Can you get arrested for this kind of thing?

My thoughts start to drift away when I feel something fluffy brush up against my leg. I look down to see Vesper my cat. "Hi sweet thing, did you miss me?" I ask patting her, she brushes up against my hand purring ever so quietly. I take my shoes off flinging them in opposite directions. I walk to the kitchen and open the fridge.

"Lettuce..Rice..or Pasta" I wonder. I grab the pasta and shove it in the microwave. My answering machine beeps making me spin around. 'one new message.' I furrow my eyebrows, who could that have been? I shuffle over to the phone and press a few buttons.

'Hey Maria! It's your dad here, I've found you 5 men your age and they would all love to meet you, call me back love you sweetie.' I roll my eyes and shuffle back to the microwave grabbing out the pasta. Some things don't change.