Chapter 1: Gracie 1 GRACIE
Some unsolicited advice: when choosing your team for the zombie apocalypse, consider enlisting a wedding planner. I know, I know—at first glance, the two seem completely unrelated. But as both a wedding planner and zombie film aficionado, hear me out. Weddings, much like the zombie apocalypse, are extremely high stakes.

On the big day, every moment has the potential to be a cherished, lifelong memory or a disaster that’s rehashed at every Thanksgiving in perpetuity. I mean, technically, no one’s going to have to fend off the undead during cocktail hour, but I can name at least three of my brides (including the one about to walk down the aisle) who’d probably choose a fight with a zombie over the stress hives I had to cover up before their first-look photos. But thanks to Kit, it wasn’t a problem.

Like a reflex, I rest my hand on the black leather satchel that may as well be an extension of my body. Inside are critical emergency essentials: a sewing kit. Eye drops. Boob tape. A nip of whiskey. Staple gun. Antinausea and antidiarrheal pills. There’s a lot more, of course, all neatly organized into a color-coded warren of zippered pockets, but my point is that a good wedding planner is prepared for anything (just ask me how many uses there are for extra-strength hemorrhoid cream—I dare you).

From my hidden position under an ornate stone portico, I look out at the large crowd seated for this outdoor wedding ceremony and quickly glance at my watch. Seven till. You’re still early. My earpiece is silent, which means my two assistants, Mark and Phoebe, aren’t dealing with any emergencies inside. I let out a breath and force my shoulders down from where they’re trying to get cozy with my ears. At this point, I’m usually like one of those overeager helper fish that cling to more majestic marine life, ready to clean up anything that might annoy my client. But my bride, Jasmine, asked for a moment alone with her mom, so I stepped outside.

I’m considering going back in to check on them when a flash of white catches my eye. I turn to see Jasmine striding toward me, her gown flowing like a Renaissance painter’s dream. Golden hour sunlight streams through the rambling rose garden to kiss her skin and upswept hair. It’s a moment dying to be put on the glossy cover of a New England bridal magazine, and it very well might be.

Larkwood Estate—where I both live in a tiny guest cottage and work—is a blend of architectural styles that I would personally classify as “Fairy Tale.” Vines of ivy and climbing roses tangle in a romantic battle over the creamy-gray limestone walls, while turrets and leaded windows seem to guarantee the existence of a secret library.

It’s the kind of place you dream of living in when you’re six years old and Beauty and the Beast has been permanently burned into your retinas. Or, when you’re thirty years old, still reeling from the worst breakup of your life, and desperate for a place to live out your dissociative Romantasy dreams. Not that I’m speaking from personal experience or anything.

“Gracie!” Jasmine calls to me in a half-whisper as she approaches. I shove down my souring thoughts and return her beaming smile.

“You look radiant,” I whisper back, glancing at the seated crowd as she grasps my hands in hers. “How are you feeling?” I ask, pulling her deeper into the shadowed portico. “Ready to go?”

“Of course. Sorry I came outside—I just needed some air. I can’t believe the moment is here.” Jasmine’s eyes well up, threatening to overflow, and my hands are already leaving hers to open Kit.

“You have nothing to apologize for. Here,” I say, once I’ve found a dainty white handkerchief. “Dab—don’t rub.”

“Gracie, you think of everything.” She chokes back a laugh, delicately dabbing at the corners of her eyes.

“That’s my job,” I reply with a smile, even as my regularly scheduled wave of sadness begins to swell. Jasmine tries handing back the handkerchief, but I shake my head. “Keep it. You’ll probably need it again.”

While Jasmine tucks it into the bodice of her gown, I press a button on my earpiece.

“Hey, Mark, we’re nearly ready. Could you bring out the wedding party? I have Jasmine with me.”

“You got it, on our way.”

The next few minutes feel like the backstage of a Broadway show if all the actors were emotional wrecks, but with Mark’s help, I can handle it. This is only my third year of coordinating weddings, but I’m a fast learner. I’ve had to be, ever since I planned my stepsister’s wedding here, and the owner of Larkwood decided to bring me on permanently.

Her offer couldn’t have come at a more desperate hour, and my gratitude—the undying, eternal variety—is why every single “big day” I’ve been entrusted with has to be perfect.

After directing the wedding party into formation, I send Mark to check in with the wedding band. As he rushes away, I make eye contact with Kyle, the lead violinist of the string quartet I always hire, despite his firm stance on not brushing his hair (“Bridesmaids love it, Gracie!”). I hold up a one-minute warning finger and press the button on my earpiece to check in with Sofia, my childhood best friend and lead photographer.

“We’ve got walkers,” I say softly, knowing only she’ll get my Walking Dead reference. “I repeat, we’ve got walkers.”

“Roger that, Ring-Slinger,” comes her familiar voice. “In position.”

My palms begin to sweat, despite the perfect, June-in-Rhode Island weather. Have I mentioned weddings are high stakes? At any moment, the maid of honor’s secret flame for the groom could combust. The four-year-old ring bearer could mistake his precious cargo for shiny Cheerios. The groom’s questionable choice to pound a beer with his groomsmen right before the ceremony could manifest in an ill-timed burp.

But so far, everyone is holding it together. I take a breath. Giving Kyle the thumbs-up at last, I dart behind a pillar so I’m not in the photos as the first notes of Canon in D rise from the quartet. The crowd turns in unison toward the portico, and I signal for Jasmine’s mother to start walking. The procession unfolds until it’s time for the big moment. The crowd gasps as they catch sight of Jasmine and her father for the first time, perfectly framed within the carved stone archway covered in ivy. Right on cue, my eyes close.

After months of planning a wedding that would give Martha Stewart herself the warm and fuzzies, this moment should make me feel triumphant. But instead, it only reminds me of everything I’ve lost. The music swells, and my tear ducts launch a stinging Pavlovian response. It’s not something I can control—trust me, as a double Virgo, I’ve tried. So instead, I hug Kit to my chest like it might be able to mend the ripped seam in my heart—sadly, the one thing it doesn’t carry a remedy for.

There was a time, before Larkwood became my postbreakup fallout shelter, when the only wedding I thought I’d be planning was my own. Back then, I was starting a bridal wear line, ignoring my ever-growing mountain of debt, and happily hoping for him to pop the question.

So much has changed since those naive days. Now, as a single, debt-riddled, cottage-dwelling hermit who lives a hundred yards away from where she works, securing my own Happily Ever After seems about as likely as this particular groom not sweating through another shirt (he’s on his third).

Before I’m too tempted to slide down this pillar and directly into the fetal position, I hear a voice I can only describe as crisp and crinkly (much like its owner).

“You better be reminiscing about the ménage à trois you had with that carpenter and acrobat and not moping over Kevin again.”

A reluctant smile tugs at my lips as I look at my boss, Agatha. I’m fairly tall myself, but Agatha is taller. At a sprightly eighty-four years old, she’s all sharp angles and long limbs, perpetually draped in eye-wateringly bright colors. Today, she’s in a head-to-toe fuchsia ensemble that was probably shipped directly from Paris. Paired with poker-straight silver hair and her signature “just try me” expression, I’d probably be terrified of her if I didn’t love her like a grandmother.

“It’s Calvin, not Kevin,” I remind her, even though saying his name feels like unzipping the contents of my chest and watching them plop onto the cold stone floor. “And I’m definitely not reminiscing about a ménage à trois I never had.”

She squints an eye at me. “Are you sure you didn’t? I swear you gave me the most lurid details about the acrobat’s—”

“No, Agatha, I didn’t,” I whisper nervously, taking a quick peek at the wedding guests. Thankfully, they’re too enraptured by the bride to hear her. Agatha isn’t exactly in the habit of lowering her voice. Ever.

“Hmm. Must be a memory of my own. Forgive me, dear. Going senile,” she says with a wink.

“Agatha, if you’re senile, then the rest of us are hopeless,” I say distractedly. Jasmine and her dad are halfway to the spectacular Victorian arbor covered in white roses, and no one has vomited or started sobbing uncontrollably. We’re almost in the clear.

“I never get tired of this,” Agatha comments softly, pulling my attention from the ceremony. “Seeing my home become the starting point of someone’s Happily Ever After.” She pauses before saying, almost to herself, “Larkwood was meant to be a place of hope. Of new beginnings.”

My heart squeezes. A new beginning is exactly what Larkwood and this woman have given me.

The night of my stepsister’s wedding, she found me crying in a corner of the ballroom while my whole family cha-cha’d real smooth across the dance floor—fully unaware that I was in the middle of a quarter-life crisis. Between my breakup with Calvin and the swift death of my business, which followed, the bottom of my life had officially fallen out and caught fire.

But after confiding in Agatha—a sympathetic stranger I had no expectation of ever meeting again—she offered me a job on the spot. And even though she isn’t in touch with modern costs of living and nearly every precious cent I earn is swallowed by the black maw of my debt, Agatha is the only reason I’m not still sleeping on the lumpy pullout in my mom’s basement.

“It really is,” I agree, trying not to let the sigh that escapes sound too woe-is-me. Reflexively, I slide my thumb down my unadorned ring finger.

Agatha’s eyes cut to mine, and the look she gives me is too all-knowing for my comfort. “He was never going to be your happy ending, sweetheart,” she says, like it’s a simple fact. “That’s something you’ll need to make for yourself.”

The tightness in my throat turns into a full-fledged lump. Our relationship has always been this way—she might be my employer, but there are times when I suspect she wanted a granddaughter more than a wedding planner when she hired me. Maybe she knew I needed her, too.

“I know that,” I say gently. “But sometimes I just…”

Her features soften with understanding. “Want to get laid?”

I can’t fully repress my surprised laugh, and the cellist nervously glances in my direction.

“No, Agatha,” I whisper once I’ve composed myself. “I was going to say that sometimes I wish I could find my person, too.”

Admitting this to anyone feels humiliating, but Agatha has already seen me in my rock-bottom sweatpants and helped me remedy my DIY bangs decision, so it’s only up from here.

“The only way you’re going to do that is by forgetting about Kevin and meeting someone new,” she says.

I don’t mean to snort, but my nose does it anyway. Unless my meet-cute happens in the Sad Food for Wishful Singles aisle at the local Stop & Shop, meeting someone new seems highly unlikely. “I’m not like you, Agatha.” I look down at the simple black dress and blazer I wore specifically to fade into the background. “I don’t emit a homing signal for the single and fabulous.”

“Oh, tosh. You look like Audrey Hepburn with an ass,” she says succinctly. “Who doesn’t love an Audrey with an ass? Nobody I’d associate with.” She sniffs. “You’re smart, hardworking, and far too kind for your own good. Kevin has no idea what he’s missing.”

“His name is Calvin, but… thank you, Agatha,” I say, more than a little touched. “He definitely doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

I say this with confidence because we haven’t had any form of contact since we split. Not unless you count the one—fine, three times—I’ve snuck onto his Instagram to torture myself with photos of him bonding with his fellow finance bros over happy hour drinks.

“That’s the spirit, honey,” Agatha says, rubbing my back. “You know, come to think of it, my grandson is outrageously handsome and single…” She trails off, like this thought is occurring to her for the first time, and not the five-hundredth time since I’ve known her. “He lives—”

“In Providence and doesn’t visit nearly enough,” I finish for her, thinking of the few glimpses I’ve caught of him from behind my cottage windows. I know he’s tall. That he has carefully schooled, dark wavy hair. He’s also always in a suit, he always brings her peonies, and Agatha flat-out refuses to introduce us until I ask her to. Which will be exactly never.

She gives me a wicked grin like she can tell I’m replaying every look I’ve ever gotten of him. “I’m not pushing,” she pushes. “But just say the word and I’ll accidentally bring him over while you’re scantily clad.”

It’s not… the worst idea. Not the scantily clad part—that is terrible. But maybe meeting him. The truth is, I haven’t tried dating anyone since Calvin, and yes, I’m well aware of how pathetic that sounds.

My phone starts vibrating, and quickly, I peek around the column to see Jasmine and her fiancé clasping hands while the officiant speaks. “Sorry, Agatha, I’m getting a call.”

I take my phone out of my pocket but immediately drop it onto the cold flagstones after seeing the caller. Because it’s not Mark or Phoebe. It’s a video call… from Calvin?

“Oh my god,” I say, crouching down and gingerly picking the phone up like it might detonate. My heart becomes a helicopter in my chest. Calvin is video calling me. Why? Is this the world’s most tragic butt-dial? Or is my secret hope—that he’d grow up a little and realize he let go of the one person who loved him best—about to come true?

Remnants of our last conversation come back to me like darts to the chest. We’re just in different places right now, babe. I’m not ready for the picket fence. Maybe when we’re older… who knows?

“Well, are you going to pick it up and give him the finger, or should I?”

Agatha’s voice is crisp and businesslike, yanking me back into reality. I try swallowing nonexistent saliva. “I’m going to pick up. Please, Agatha. Keep an eye on the ceremony and let me know if something, I don’t know”—I flap a hand—“catches fire.”

She harrumphs something about what she’d like to see catch fire as I speed walk farther into the shadowed portico. With a last anxious ruffle of my short bangs, I take a deep breath and accept the call.