by Bella Falls
After we said our goodbyes, we solidified the bachelorette night plans before splitting up. Before getting in my truck, I grabbed Dani and headed back inside, a different kind of plan percolating in my head.
“Oh, sweetie, did you forget something?” Ms. Robin asked.
Breathless, I made my request. “I don’t suppose you might have something classic that I could wear to the wedding?” If I could look my absolute best on Azalea’s big day, then maybe Luke would take notice. A dress might not fix everything, but maybe I could kindle enough heat to remind him of the good that existed between us.
The seamstress tapped her lip with her finger. “How much is your budget?”
Although I wasn’t rich, I did well enough. And what price would I pay to Luke drool? “No limits.”
Dani gasped and bumped my hip with hers. “Really? You willing to empty your savings for a dress?”
Her question chilled my enthusiasm. “Well, maybe not more than a few hundred. I can eat stale cornbread in milk or mayo and banana sandwiches for a while if it means I’ll knock my boyfriend’s socks right off.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “You know I’ll never let you starve. You can eat anytime you want at the Rise & Shine. I’m not here to rain on your parade. Guess I’m just surprised you would spend so much on something for yourself.”
Doubt doused my excitement. “Maybe you’re right. How can one dress fix everything?”
Ms. Robin rushed to my side and took me by the crook of my arm. “Do not underestimate the magic of a well-fitted dress. Come with me. I know I’ve got at least a couple here that I think will change your mind.”
Chapter Two
I followed the banging of cupboards and clanging of pots into my kitchen and collapsed onto a chair at the small table, praying for death. Dani waved a strip of bacon in front of my nose, and I snatched it out of her hand only to chuck it back at her.
“Hey, it’s a Southern sin to waste bacon. It’s not my fault you overdid it last night,” she chastised, rescuing the crispy slice and munching on it.
I lowered my head onto the cool wood surface and emitted a long, painful moan. The stilted shuffling of feet and two more chairs scraping the floor alerted me to my other friends and their reluctant presence.
“Good mornin’, ladies!” my cousin shouted at the newcomers with way too much glee, setting a plate of ooey gooey cinnamon rolls in the middle of our pathetic group.
Crystal and Cate replied with their own declarations of woe. Out of solidarity, I managed enough energy to lift up my hand to flip Dani the bird.
My cousin popped the back of my head with a spatula. “Y’all are gonna need to eat if you want to start feeling better so we can enjoy the wedding today.”
Placing my elbows on the table, I propped my head up with both hands. “There better not be bacon grease in my hair,” I warned her and winced at my loud tone.
“Be nice or I won’t make you toad-in-a-hole eggs,” Dani threatened. “And you girls? What kind can I whip up for you? Over easy? Scrambled?” She pointed the spatula at all of us barely holding it together.
Crystal groaned and tried to run her fingers through the bird’s nest of hair on top of her head. “If I had the energy, I would hex your chirpy behind right now.” After her fingers got caught in the tangled tresses, she gave up and poured all of us deep cups of coffee. “Thank goodness my husband isn’t seeing me like this. I don’t think I’ve been this wasted in a long time.”
“Yeah, it should be against the law for anyone to be lookin’ like you are right now. I don’t think you partied right,” accused Cate with a pointed finger, blinking at my cousin with blurry eyes outlined by smudged mascara and eye liner. “Remind me again how we ended up participating in a kind of impromptu second bachelorette party last night?” she asked, reaching for a cinnamon bun off the full plate in the middle of the table and taking a bite.
I tapped the side of my mouth to alert her to the big glob of frosting hanging from her lip. “If you’d overheard what Azalea’s parents said to her at her own rehearsal dinner, I think you would have sided with me and Gloria that she needed to blow off some steam.”
“Her parents didn’t really offer to pay her not to marry Harrison, did they?” Dani stopped fussing over the food, her expression full of sympathy and disbelief.
“Heard it myself when I went to go thank Gus, the owner of Spinner’s, for putting together such an amazing seafood meal for the families. They’d cornered her on the way to the bathroom.” I grimaced at the memory of their hushed tones of judgment and the pounding of my head.
“You should check on Azalea. Or maybe with Gloria. See if everything’s okay,” my cousin suggested, placing a plate in front of me with two slices of bread with the crusts cut off and eggs perfectly fried up in the middle. The two yellow yolks stared back at me in judgment of my current state.
“We should have cut ourselves off when you did, Dani Jo. I think we might regret not following your fine example last night.” With one finger, I typed out a text on my spell phone and waited. I winced at the quiet chime apprising me of the incoming reply. “Gloria says that she and Azalea are at the pre-wedding breakfast with Azalea’s mother and the other bridesmaids. No apparent drama in the light of day.”
“Wow,” Crystal exclaimed. “That’s impressive that they’re both fine.”
I read the next text that pinged. “They’re not. Gloria claims Azalea’s amazing skills with makeup helps them to look livelier than they are, and that there’s not enough magic in the world to kill her hangover headache, even though she swears she made sure they both drank a lot of water and took some medicine before passing out.” The phone chimed again. “And a little sneaky hair of the dog in their coffee.”
“I just can’t believe Azalea’s parents. I mean, who tries to bribe the bride not to get married the day before their wedding? That’s cold on a whole other level,” exclaimed Crystal.
“I asked Gloria for more details when I filled her in somewhere between the drinks at Tortugas and the Tiki. She said that Azalea’s been fighting with them on and off since the engagement. They think she could do better than a bartender.” Having served as one myself before joining the family business, that sentiment burned my behind.
Crystal scoffed. “He’s moved up to manager and has talked about investing in the place or even opening up his own bar on the beach.”
Cate snapped her fingers. “Wait, is that why her parents seemed cold and aloof at their binding ceremony with the coven? Because he’s not a witch either?”
Based on the expletives that exploded out of Gloria’s mouth when she’d confessed all the dirty details of the riff between the bride and her parents, I knew exactly where they stood with their daughter getting hitched to a mortal.
I wiped my hand down my face. “Let’s just say I’m amazed at how well Azalea’s managed to stay so upbeat this entire time. Gloria’s doing her absolute best to get her down the aisle and keep her from going off the rails. Last night was my attempt to achieve the same goal.”
“Yeah, but whose idea was it to turn a glass of wine into a full-blown beach bar blowout?” Crystal groaned, rubbing the sides of her temples.
Dani cracked an egg in the skillet. “I thought it was fun revisiting all of the places we used to frequent and recall funny stories. Y’all were the ones who guzzled all that booze.” At the mention of drinks, I did a quick mental calculation of how much we’d consumed.
“Why are you turning green in the face?” Cate asked.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I stupidly tallied up the shots and amount of drinks we must have had last night.”
“Stop! No good can come from going down that long, twisted path to destruction,” insisted Crystal, holding up her mug of coffee. “Here’s hoping today will go off without any problems.”
Dani placed a plate of scrambled eggs for sharing in between the two girls. “You better hope she didn’t pick up some actual jinx when Harrison saw her last night
.”
I stopped chewing and tried to clear the fog of drunkenness from my brain. “That’s right. He did show up at the Tiki. Said he’d forgotten something there that he needed for the wedding.”
“Oh, yeah.” Cate giggled, careful not to spill coffee on her. “You two hilariously tried to cover up Azalea with your bodies and ended up knocking her on her behind.”
Crystal and I pointed at each other and shouted at the same time, “It was her fault.” The entire table of my girlfriends cackled at the recovered recollection.
“And it was after midnight. The groom wasn’t supposed to see the bride on the day of the wedding. We were trying to protect her from tempting fate and earning any bad luck,” I explained. “If our balance hadn’t been shot to heck, we might have been more effective.”
Harrison had declared us menaces to society before pushing Crystal and me off of his fiancée and lifting Azalea to her feet. It took the rest of us begging to convince him to leave his soon-to-be-bride with us for her big finale. In the bright light of the morning, I wondered if she wouldn’t have been better off letting him take her home after the rehearsal dinner instead of coming out with us.
“I think Azalea may have more to deal with than worrying about bad luck from Harrison seeing her last night,” I insisted. After a second, I added, “And if her parents try anything, maybe we can hex their mouths shut.”
Dani tossed a piece of egg at me. “Don’t even joke about that. If you use magic against a fellow coven member without a formal challenge, they could kick you out.”
I shrugged. “It might be worth it when the recipients are acting like they are.” Thoughts of what my own family thought of Luke and wondering how they’d treat him if we ever got so far as a wedding distracted me into silence.
We forced ourselves to eat some of my cousin’s excellent cooking. Quiet moans of pain turned into grunts of acceptance and even a little pleasure by the time food filled our bellies and chased away our hangovers.
Buoyed by food and conversation, we finished up our breakfast and made plans to meet up to sit together at the wedding later in the afternoon. Dani stayed to help clean my kitchen despite my protests, but her cheerful spirit helped me to deny my instincts to wallow and to pull up my big girl britches to get on with my day.
“How are things with Luke?” she dared to ask, probably guessing where my thoughts had headed with all the wedding talk.
Having confided more to her than anyone else in the family, I relied on her take of the truth to help. “It’s not that he isn’t a good boyfriend. He is. But there’s been this consistent distance between us ever since the effects of me tasting his blood wore off.”
Luke hadn’t been kidding with his warning that consuming even a drop of his blood to help enhance my own magic would be tough. It had helped me defeat whatever was living in the crystal ball that night, but it had also messed with my general senses. I had no idea how he’d lived for so long when he could hear things amplified in volume or at a distance of hundreds of feet away. Smell my aunt’s baking at the cafe that sat at the edge of our property. Pick up on people’s emotions before they were even aware of what they felt.
At first, I’d reveled in the extra abilities, feeling a little like a superhero. They definitely came in handy when picking and scrounging for used goods. Uncle Jo and my father had showered compliments on me for my finds and savvy bargain hunting. About two weeks ago, I noticed the effects finally waning when the constant chirping of cicadas in the evening soothed me rather than drove me up the wall with the volume of their rhythmic song.
“If you could see the way he looks at you, you’d know how much he’s in love. That man would do anything for you.” Dani tossed the damp dishcloth onto the counter and pulled me into a hug.
I rested my head on her shoulder, desperately willing tears not to fall. “I do know that deep down.”
It wasn’t his love I didn’t trust. I couldn’t shake the suspicion that he was hiding something from me. Or maybe it was the wall he threw up when I pressed my newfound powers to try and sense more about him. Whatever big secret he kept locked away had caused the kernel of worry to take seed. And when my extra powers faded, his insistence that everything was normal fertilized my doubt.
My cousin rubbed my back. “When he sees you all dolled up in that dress you bought, I’ll bet you’ll definitely know how he feels about you. There’s no way he’s going to let anyone else dance with you tonight.”
“Best money I’ve spent in a long time,” I admitted, squeezing her one last time and letting her go with a sniff.
“Now, no waterworks except for what’s in the sink.” Dani splashed me with the dirty dishwater, and I answered her by soaking her T-shirt with wet sloshes of my own.
A knock on the door interrupted our soapy water fight, and I grabbed the damp dish towel and wiped myself off as best I could. Dani answered the door and escorted Ms. Robin into my humble abode.
The talented designer carried a garment bag in her hands. “Good morning, ladies.”
“Ms. Robin, I wasn’t expecting you to drop off my dress. I thought Tara was going to do it,” I exclaimed, clearing the way for her to come inside.
The older lady sighed with a smile. “When I talked to her this morning, I surmised she might have had a little too much fun with you girls last night. Ah, to be young and foolish.” She handed me the bag. “I sent her to the Wallace House to set up the bridal suite with everything we might need to get Azalea and the rest of the bridesmaids ready. I like for everything to run as smoothly as possible and for the bride to want for absolutely nothing on her special day.”
Dani hugged me around my waist. “Aww. I can’t wait to get married so you can design my dress.”
“Well, sweetheart, you better get a move on quick. I stopped by to talk with your daddy about consigning some of my stuff once I close the shop for good as I was driving back here.” She frowned. “Strange thing, though. A big rooster about the size of a small dog interrupted us and chased Jo around the yard.”
Dani and I exchanged knowing glances, and I snorted. “Everyone’s afraid of Rex the Rooster. He’s decided that he not only gets to strut his stuff with our new chickens, it’s also his job to guard the barns. He gives our cat Buddy, and anybody else trying to get into them, all kinds of problems,” I explained, leaving out the part that Rex only tolerated Deacon, my cousin and Dani’s brother, who’d been cursed into giant pig form by a scorned witch he tried dating once.
“Well, one of you girls tell your fathers that I’d like someone from your family to come after hours to the shop and evaluate what I have.” A cloud of sadness passed over her face. “It’ll be one of the hardest things I’ll ever do, letting my old sewing machine go. I used it for some of my very first jobs. Even now, every dress I make has some part of it sewn by her.”
Sympathy flooded my heart. “You can always keep the sewing machine with you.”
“No, as long as she keeps working, she needs to belong to someone who will use her to make beautiful things for others.” Ms. Robin flexed her hands in front of her. “I wish I could do this job for the rest of my life, but…” she trailed off. With a sniff, she shook her head and shifted moods while she took her leave. “Oh well, no point in being so maudlin on a day like today. I think the weather’s going to be perfect for tonight’s event.”
“I hope it is,” I added, glancing out the open door at the brightened sky. “But rain or shine, I’m gonna look amazing in your dress.”
“It’s your dress now, darling, and I hope it brings you much happiness.” Ms. Robin waved at Dani and me. “See you two at the reception. I think it’s going to be an unforgettable event.”
Chapter Three
For the hundredth time during the wedding, I wiped a tear away as Azalea and Harrison walked down the aisle as officially husband and wife. Their joyful faces beamed at everyone when they weren’t glancing with absolute delight at each other.
I clutched my hand o
ver my heart. “That was a beautiful ceremony.”
Luke leaned against me and whispered in my ear, “It has to be a sin that you look better than the bride.” His heated eyes raked over my body with appreciation, and I made a mental note to do something special for Ms. Robin in gratitude for my incredible dress.
“Thank goodness for waterproof mascara.” Dani pulled a tissue out of her clutch purse and dabbed at her eyes.
Crystal sighed. “You’d better give me one of those, too. Sweet tea and spells, I thought I was going to lose it during Harrison’s vows.” She patted her husband Odie’s arm. “Don’t worry, honey, your vows were perfectly good enough that I’m still married to you,” she teased, quickly kissing his bearded cheek after her joke.
“See, this is why I know they’re right for each other,” I interjected with a sniff. “Before he met Azalea, there’s no way I would believe he could compose anything like that. I kinda feel bad for all the men here tonight.”
Luke raised an eyebrow at me. “Why?”
I winked at my girlfriends. “Because y’all will have to raise your games now that Harrison set the bar so high.”
We filtered out of our row of seats along with the rest of the guests to allow for the professional photographer to take some pictures with the bridal party. When I paused to watch the group assembling into place, the sour expressions from Azalea’s parents caught my attention. Gloria spotted me spying and rolled her eyes behind their heads and shrugged. I waved at her, wishing her supportive luck from afar.
While most of the guests mingled for cocktails in a designated bar area, my girls and I left our men and snuck into the reception area to peek at all of Azalea’s hard work and planning put into action. Although her family could afford the very best in wedding preparations, the bride wanted to add her own personal touch and try to do as much as she could on her own to save a little bit of money. Any professional wedding designer would have been awed by the decorations all of us had helped her create over the last few months.