She dialed Jayne’s cell and listened to the ring tone. Then the call connected.

“Em!” Jayne cried. “You’re on speaker.”

Emily paused. “Why am I on speaker?”

“We’re in the conference room. Me and Ames.”

“Hi, Emily!” Amy called brightly. “Is this about the job offer?”

It took Emily a moment to work out what they were talking about. The candle business that Amy had started from her bedroom at college was, over a decade later, suddenly flourishing. She’d employed Jayne and had been trying so hard to get Emily into the fold. Neither could really understand why Emily would want to live in a small town rather than New York, why she’d want to run an inn instead of work in a swanky office with her two best friends, and they certainly couldn’t work out why she’d want to take on another man’s child (a man with a beard no less!) without any reassurance that he’d give her her own children one day.

“Actually no,” Emily said. “It’s about…” She faltered, suddenly losing her resolve. Then she checked herself. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Even if her life was going in a different trajectory to her best friends’, it was still valid; her choices were still her own and they should be respected. “Daniel and I are getting married.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by shrill screaming. Emily winced. She could imagine her friends with their perfectly manicured nails, their moisturized skin that smelled of rose and camellia, their shiny hair flailing as they jumped up and down in their seats.

Through the noise, Emily made out Jayne shouting, “Oh my god!” and Amy shouting, “Congratulations!”

She let out a sigh of relief. Her friends were on board. Another hurdle had been overcome.

The incomprehensible screeching finally died down.

“He hasn’t knocked you up, has he?” Jayne asked, as inappropriate as ever.

“No!” Emily cried, laughing.

“Jayne, shut up,” Amy scolded. “Tell us everything. How did he do it? What’s the ring like?”

Emily recounted the story of the beach, of the declarations of love in the snow, of the gorgeous pearl ring. Her friends cooed at all the right moments. Emily could tell they were ecstatic for her.

“Are you taking his name?” Jayne probed further. “Or double barreling? Mitchell Morey is a bit of a mouthful. Or would it be Morey Mitchell? Emily Jane Morey Mitchell. Hmm. I don’t know if I like it. Maybe you should stick with your own name, you know? It’s the strong, empowered, feminist thing to do, after all.”

Emily’s mind whirled as Jayne spoke in her characteristically fast over-caffeinated way, barely pausing to give her time to answer any of the questions.

“We’re going to be your bridesmaids, right?” Jayne finished, in her typically blunt, straight-talking way.

“I haven’t thought about it yet,” Emily admitted. Jayne and Amy may indeed be her oldest friends, but she had made so many more since moving to Sunset Harbor; Serena, Yvonne, Suzanna, Karen, Cynthia. And what about Chantelle? It was important to Emily that she played a pivotal role in the whole thing.

“Well, where’s the venue, then?” Jayne asked, sounding a little grumpy that Emily was even considering other people as her bridesmaids.

“I don’t know that yet either,” Emily said.

It suddenly hit her how enormous the task ahead of her was. There was so much to organize. So much to pay for. She suddenly felt very overwhelmed by the whole thing.

“Do you think you’ll have a big wedding or small one?” Amy asked. Her questions were less loaded than Jayne’s but she still had an air of judgment about her. Emily wondered whether Amy was still upset about her own failed engagement to Fraser. Maybe she resented Emily for having a ring and fiancé when she herself had lost both.