Martha Fletcher has only ever had one job- Executive Assistant to Sam Courtenay.
She'll schedule his diary, pick up his dry cleaning, usher girls out of his apartment first thing in the morning... nothing was out of bounds until one night, that blur...
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Since I'd given Charlotte the idea to elope, Martha's been talking non-stop about weddings. Dresses, colour schemes, flowers, music, wedding breakfast, bridesmaids, flower girls, page boys, best man, venues, fireworks... the long list of all things wedding related went on and on and on. I can't blame her; Martha's ridiculously excited about being able to finally legitimately call Charlotte her step-mum, minus the 'step.'
For the most part, I liked how enthusiastic Martha was being but then a few days ago, she started getting serious and was asking questions like, 'What colour scheme do you think we should have at our wedding?' and not, 'I wonder what colour scheme Daniel picked for Charlotte and Dad's wedding?' It went from zero to a billion in the blink of an eye. I'm years off even thinking of proposing and here she was, drawing up the guest list already.
I love Martha more than words could ever describe but that type of conversation wasn't something I wanted to get into. Not with an eighteen-year-old who hasn't seen most of the world yet. Which brings me to another thing that Martha's said to unnerve me.
She has a bucket list of all the things she wants to do before she's thirty. A few of those things are on her list of things to do before she's twenty-one. For example, she didn't want to hike Machu Picchu because that was too mainstream. Instead, she wants to hike Choquequirao, the lesser known Inca trail in Peru. She wants to take a road trip across America. She wants to skydive, bungee jump and quad bike some sand dunes in Mui Ne, Vietnam. She'd like to compete in a contest, volunteer in Madagascar, gamble in Vegas, invest on the New York Stock Exchange, buy a dilapidated house and return it to its former glory, go to an ice bar, go glamping, go camping, go skinny dipping, take her passport with her to the airport and jet off somewhere without luggage, swim with sharks, get a tattoo, attend the Olympic Games, become a cheese connoisseur, crowd-surf, pull an allnighter and come home just as the sun comes up, visit a part island, climb Kilimanjaro, attend a full moon party in Thailand... And those were just the first in a long list.
Martha had it all planned out, too. She wanted to do most of this before she's twenty-four because once we have a baby, we won't be able to do most of these things. Even then, she had all the names picked out. Anderson was 'cute' for a boy and for a girl, she likes Matilda. Names are negotiable, she smiled my way.
I smiled back but on the inside, all I could do was shudder at how set Martha was with all her plans and ideas. The things on her bucket list were to be savoured, not rushed because she was determined to grow up so fast. Martha's too young to have a five-year plan but here she is, setting goals and chasing dreams.
"Earth to Sammy," Evie waved a hand in front of my face. Snapping my gaze up to meet her inquisitive blue eyes, I see a frown line fixed between her eyebrows. It was the same look the others around the table wore, including my two nephews. Placing a motherly hand on my forearm, Evie leans closer and says, "You look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, darling."
