The Wedding Swap

Chapter 4 The Foundation

The story was in the Ashford Bay Ledger by Thursday.

I had not called the paper. I had not called anyone. But someone in that church had a phone, and someone in that church had a cousin who worked at the desk, and by Thursday morning there was a piece on page two with the headline FAMILY WEDDING ENDS IN PUBLIC DISPUTE, and a photograph of the church doors, and a paragraph that said "a member of the Bennett family" had objected to the ceremony.

They did not name me. They did not name Piper either. But in a town like Ashford Bay, everyone knew.

I was at Nora's hotel room when the story ran. She had checked out of her original hotel and moved into a smaller one near the bay, and we were sitting on the bed with coffee and the paper, and she read the paragraph out loud twice.

"Family dispute," she said. "That's one way to put it."

"It's better than I expected. I thought they'd blame me."

"They will. In a week. Right now it's too fresh."

She was right. By Friday, the foundation had released a statement. It was two sentences long, on letterhead, and it said that the organization was aware of a private family matter and that it had no comment on the personal lives of its staff. Grant's name was not mentioned. Piper's name was not mentioned. But the message was clear: the foundation was closing ranks.

I had not heard from Piper since the church. I had heard from Grant once, a text at eleven that night that said, I'm sorry it happened this way. I had not answered.

On Friday afternoon, I sat in the small hotel room and opened my laptop and began to think about money.

This was the part nobody talked about. The wedding had cost my father a fortune, and part of it had been mine. I had put eleven thousand dollars of my own savings into the deposits: the venue, the caterer, the florist, the photographer. I had paid them myself because Grant had said it was simpler that way, that he would cover the rest, and I had believed him.

Now the wedding had not happened, and I needed to know where my money had gone.

I called the venue first. A woman named Diane answered, and when I explained, she was quiet for a moment and then said, "Mrs. Mercer's office called us on Monday and moved the contract."

"Mrs. Mercer's office."

"Marsha Mercer. She said the event was being reorganized. She asked us to change the name on the contract."

"To what."

"To Piper Bennett. And to bill the foundation."

I sat very still. "So the money I paid. The eleven thousand."

"That would have been applied to the balance. But the balance was transferred."

"Transferred where."

"To the foundation's account. They're handling the invoicing now." She paused. "I'm sorry. I assumed you knew."

I thanked her and hung up. Then I called the caterer and got the same story. Then the florist. Then the photographer. Every one of them had been called on Monday, the day before the wedding, and told that the event was being reorganized, that the name on the contract was changing, and that the billing was moving to the Mercer Foundation.

By Friday evening I had a list of five vendors and a total of nineteen thousand dollars of my own money that had been quietly absorbed into an organization I had nothing to do with.

I called my father.

He listened without interrupting. When I finished, he said, "That's fraud."

"It's not fraud. It's a name change on a contract I signed."

"It's fraud if they used your money for an event in someone else's name without telling you."

"I don't have it in writing."

"You have the receipts. You have the bank statements. You have the vendors."

I looked at the screen of my laptop, at the spreadsheet I had built that afternoon, and I felt something begin to settle in my chest. Not calm. Something colder than calm. Something that had a shape.

"I need a lawyer," I said.

"You need more than a lawyer," my father said. "You need to know what you're walking into. The Mercers have had that foundation for thirty years. They've been on every board in this town. If you go after them, they'll come back at you."

"Let them."

"That's what you say now."

"That's what I say now and what I'll say in six months. Dad, they took my money. They took my wedding. They took three years of my life and put my sister in it. I'm not going to sit in a hotel room and let them do it."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "I know a woman. Susan Reyes. She does contract work, small firm, out of Bellhaven. She's good and she's not afraid of anyone. I'll send you her number."

"Thank you."

"And Vera."

"Yes."

"Don't tell your mother."

I almost laughed. "I wasn't planning to."

"Good," he said. "Because she'll tell Marsha before you've finished the sentence."

He hung up. I sat there with the phone in my hand and looked out the window at the bay, at the water turning silver in the evening light, and I thought about the version of me who had stood in the bridal suite that morning in a silk robe and not known anything.

That version was gone.

I called Susan Reyes on Saturday morning. She answered on the first ring.

"Ms. Bennett. Your father told me about you. Come in Monday at ten. Bring everything."

"I have everything."

"Good," she said. "Most people don't."