by Molly Harper
“Mama, I think Margot’s got enough dresses to choose from,” Frankie protested.
“It is that creamy color you like, shug. Maybe it will look better on a person than on the hanger,” Tootie suggested, though even she didn’t sound convinced.
“Okay, I’ll try it on,” Margot said with a sigh.
Brooke didn’t say a word as they retreated to the fitting room.
“I’m sorry about that,” Margot told her. “There’s a lot of emotional baggage attached to my parents’ marriage. I only reconnected with my dad’s family last year. And the reactions since I announced my engagement have been kind of weird . . . and really, really involved.”
“Truly, Margot, don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t believe the hissy fits I see here every day. Last week, we had a mother of the bride and mother of the groom get into an honest-to-God fistfight over who got to wear bigger rhinestone earrings. So your aunt? That was nothing. I just don’t want you to buy a dress you don’t want because of pressure from your family.”
“Well, it is a maternity dress, and it is in my size. None of my choices worked out. Maybe a palate cleanser will help us get back on the right track.”
“Just so you know, we can make another appointment for you to come back later,” Brooke said. “Without so much . . . company. A lot of brides find that to be helpful.”
Margot huffed as Brooke helped her out of the massive tulle ball gown. “I’m sure they do.”
Margot knew it was a bad sign when Brooke didn’t say anything after zipping her into Leslie’s dress. She simply opened the door to the dressing room, solemn as a prison guard walking someone down death row. Margot shuffled into the salon and deliberately didn’t look at the mirror until she was in the sweet spot where she could view herself from all angles.
She gasped in horror at the apparition before her. There were ruffles, ruffles everywhere: at the hem, at her throat, around her waists, both her natural waist and her empire waist. The long sleeves trailed from her elbows and snagged on the narrow bell-like skirt that only served to emphasize the distension of her middle. If her hair were in a bubble bouffant, she’d look like a Grand Ole Opry act gone horribly, horribly wrong.
“It’s not that bad,” Marianne said kindly.
“Oh, honey,” Tootie said, shaking her head.
“You look beautiful!” Leslie crowed.
Frankie took her mother’s hand. “Mama, I mean this in the nicest way possible. Are you high right now?”
“Frances Ann!” her mother exclaimed.
“I just think I need to know what sort of substances are in your system, and if you would be willing to share those substances with your daughter.”
“Oh, hush your mouth, Frankie! Margot looks just adorable.”
“Mama, just look at the unhappy expression on Margot’s face. Do you really think she wants to stand up in front of her friends and family looking like she’s swallowed a persimmon?”
“Is this from some sort of collection that’s supposed to punish the bride for getting pregnant before the wedding?” Tootie asked.
Thinking about the tub of Ben & Jerry’s in her freezer was all Margot could do not to cry. How could she be this bad at being a bride? How could nothing in this store remotely interest her? Sure, her family was driving her nuts, but they weren’t the ones making the dresses look so tragic on her. Was it because her mother wasn’t here?
Didn’t most women want their mothers at a time like this? She searched her reflection, which did happen to look a lot like Linda. She tried to imagine what Linda would do if she were standing in the bridal store with Margot, besides chasing off Stan’s relatives because Linda couldn’t stand them and vice versa.
She couldn’t imagine her mother looking at her like Leslie would look at Frankie, with pride shining in her eyes and hands pressed to her lips as she took in the image of her daughter ready to start a brand-new life with someone she loved. Margot and Linda never had those moments. They had never been close. Linda was so focused on herself, on making a name for herself in the Chicago social scene, on keeping her marriage to Gerald secure, she just didn’t have time to connect with Margot. Most of their conversations focused on what Margot could be doing better, which girls from better families she could befriend, which schools she should be applying to, how she could make the most of all the advantages Linda had provided for her.
When Margot thought about her mom standing there with her, all she could think of was the list of excuses she would have had to come up with to prevent that from ever happening. She was relieved her mother wasn’t there. Linda would have sniffed at the “insufficient” supply of designer dressers at the store. She would have analyzed each dress for how it revealed the “weaknesses” in Margot’s figure and let her know which of her friends’ daughters would have looked much better in the dress. So, no, Margot did not miss her mother’s presence today.
Margot didn’t want her mom. But for the first time in a long time, she really, really wanted her daddy.
“I’m going to need a minute,” Margot told Brooke and marched back to the dressing room. She sat on the chaise lounge and pulled her phone from her bag, hitting speed dial. Stan picked up before the second ring.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, Sweet Tea. How’s dress shopping going? Have you found any winners yet?”
Margot gave a watery laugh. “Oh, sure, it’s going fine. We’re having a lot of fun. I’ve tried on a bunch, but we haven’t really found one that works yet.”
“Honey, you don’t sound okay. You sound kind of wobbly.”
“I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all,” she promised, trying to keep her tone airy.
“Margot.”
“It’s just really hard,” Margot whispered, her voice growing hoarse. “I feel so weird. I don’t look how I thought I would look, which is okay, but none of the dresses really feels right. And Mom’s not here and I don’t miss her and that feels so wrong. I mean, what sort of person is relieved that her mother isn’t around for these big life moments?”
“Honey, your mother was a difficult woman. And I say that as a difficult person myself. Knowing your limits with difficult people isn’t a bad thing. Knowing that person wouldn’t meet your expectations if they were included in a pretty big moment in your life? Well, that’s just having more common sense than either of your parents ever did.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“And you’re also smart enough to know when you’ve had enough. You don’t have to settle on anything today. Just call it a day and regroup. You’ll figure it out.”
“If we keep talking like that, the wedding’s not going to be scheduled until this kid is in college.”
“Well, that’ll give people something to talk about,” he chortled. “Go on and tell the shop that your appointment is over. And then go do something fun while you’re in town. Get your toes done or whatever you call it. Something you want to do. If your aunt Leslie gives you too much grief, you send me one of them texts and I’ll straighten her out.”
“All right, Dad. Thanks. I’m not used to Aunt Leslie being this way.”
“She’s just wound up over your wedding because she’s not sure how Frankie’s is going to play out, and she thinks she might not ever get the chance again. For all we know, that girl could get married in a spaceship-shaped chapel in Vegas by an alien Elvis.”
“That—yeah, that is true. Thanks, this has been very helpful.”
“That’s the job, honey. You’ve got this. The wedding. The baby. The girls. Everything. You handle damn near everything else. Why not this?”
She put her yoga pants and shirt back on and grabbed her handbag. Brooke was waiting for her outside the dressing room with a bottle of water and a tiny box of chocolate truffles. Margot threw her arms around Brooke. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I love you.”
“That’s a very normal reaction,” Brooke assured her, patting her back.
“I�
�m going to end the appointment now. I may call you to schedule another one. I think I’ve just hit my limit for today.”
Brooke gave her a kind smile. “I think that’s a good idea. And now that I know what you don’t like, I can make better selections for next time. This is all very normal, Margot. It’s when you start getting to seven or eight appointments with no feeling besides ‘eh’ that you need to worry.”
Down the hall, Margot spotted a linen shift dress hanging on a hook near the STAFF ONLY door. It looked delightfully breezy against the Caribbean-blue paint, its handkerchief hem embroidered with pink and yellow tropical flowers. And for the first time since she stepped into the store, Margot’s inner reptilian shopper’s brain quivered with want.
“What’s that?” Margot asked.
Brooke led her down the hall and took the hanger off the hook. Margot inspected the embroidered flowers with their tiny stitched petals in irregular, undulating patterns. “Are these hand-sewn?”
Brooke made a sad little cluck with her tongue. “Yes, one of our clients asked a pregnant friend to be a bridesmaid in her beach wedding, knowing that she’d be about seven months along. But the friend got put on bed rest and she’s not going to be able to leave the house, much less stand out on the beach in the hot sun for an hour for the ceremony. It’s so sad, because it’s a custom dress, made by our in-house seamstress, and it doesn’t really fit with any of our other collections. I don’t know if we’ll even be able to display it. Believe it or not, we don’t get a lot of maternity beach wedding bridesmaids.”
Margot splayed the dress out from the hanger. It had no waistline; it was basically a shift that would drape over her shape unstructured. And it looked more than big enough for Margot, even if she waited to wear it until the ninth month.
“I don’t suppose you’d sell that to me?” Margot asked.
Brooke beamed at her. “Really?”
“Well, if nothing else, I’ll take this for the honeymoon. I’m pretty sure we’re going somewhere beachy. We haven’t really decided. But no matter where we go, it will be super comfortable.”
This time it was Brooke who threw her arms around Margot. “I could kiss you! My manager said we’d never sell it. I’ll even give you a discount, because I bet I’m gonna get a bonus.”
“Aw, bless your heart,” Margot said. “And I mean that in the nice way, not in the Southern way.”
Brooke laughed and carried the dress to the register for Margot, who returned to the salon and told her relatives it was time to go. Aunt Leslie protested mightily, particularly when Margot declined to show her the dress she bought, telling her that it was something special for the honeymoon. But with Frankie and Marianne lifting Leslie off the couch and damn near frog-marching her out of the salon, she had little choice.
“Margot, honey, I don’t want you to feel bad about not finding a wedding dress in that place. We’ll just go to a few more appointments a little closer to home and we’ll find something for you, I promise,” Leslie told her once they’d reached the central area of the mall. Margot spotted a shop across the corridor called Blessed Beginnings. The windows featured several stylishly dressed mannequins in maternity outfits that almost compared to Margot’s former wardrobe.
Margot was so lost in contemplations of stylish pants she could sit down in that she almost didn’t catch Leslie’s exclamation of “Or I can make a dress for you!”
Margot was shaking her head before Leslie even finished the sentence. Tootie seemed to sense the outburst forming behind Margot’s lips and slipped her arm through Leslie’s, dragging her away. “Leslie, let’s go to that gourmet pet food store down the way there and get some treats for my babies. Girls, we’ll catch up with you in a little while. Go do something nice for Margot. The closest thing to booze you can manage.”
Tootie scurried away with Leslie in tow while Frankie marveled, “Tootie just made a fatal error. She gave us an unparalleled amount of leeway.”
“Not really,” Margot said, nodding toward Blessed Beginnings. “We’re going over there.”
Frankie scanned the store and frowned. “That store looks like the opposite of fun.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a real cautionary tale,” Margot muttered, dragging her toward the storefront.
“Not for me. I’m a grown-up. I know how condoms work.” Frankie snorted, and then winced as Margot smacked her arm.
“You better watch it, she’s hitting for two now,” Marianne told her.
5
LOADED WITH SHOPPING bags from Blessed Beginnings, Margot walked in the door, calling, “I’m home!”
While Blessed Beginnings carried far too many T-shirts with mama’s precious gift written over the belly, they did have some business clothes she felt comfortable wearing to the office, plus maternity jeans and tops that made her feel remotely stylish. Margot had used a considerable amount of her last month’s wages to buy all the office wear and maternity blouses that didn’t make her physically recoil. She’d also gotten some nursing bras and some ginger lollipops that promised to cure morning sickness, and had even picked up some gender-neutral baby blankets and hats. She’d walked out of the store feeling more accomplished than she had in weeks.
“Hey, those look heavy. Let me get them!” Kyle scrambled off the couch to help her carry her burden.
“Thanks!” Margot glanced around the living room, which was devoid of children and clutter. There were, however, several candles lit on un-child-safe surfaces and soft non–Taylor Swift music playing over the speakers. “Where are the girls?”
“Eric picked them up in his sheriff’s truck and took them to his place. He even let them run the blue lights. Frankie’s bringing over pizza and they’re going to keep them tonight. Poor Hercules will be wearing pink glittery nail polish by morning . . . Eric, too, probably.”
“Boy, she must feel pretty bad about that knowing-how-to-use-condoms crack.”
Kyle paused midway to giving her a hello kiss. “What?”
“Long story,” she said, kissing him soundly.
“So how was it?” Kyle asked, eyeing the bags. “I see a lot of baby-related bags, which is great, but no wedding stuff.”
Margot dropped onto the squashy denim-covered sofa and put her feet up on the hassock with a sigh. “I’m trying to think of the male equivalent of the experience . . . but I can’t. Just imagine that really awkward ‘turn your head and cough’ moment of your annual physical, only with more sequins and your relatives telling you that you could cough in a much more stylish fashion.”
Kyle blanched. “Well, that is horrifying.”
“Oh, and you’re super out of shape, and the medical paper gown thing only draws attention to it.”
“Aw, honey. I’m sorry you didn’t have fun.”
“I had some fun. I mean, I got to see Frankie mortify Aunt Leslie in front of a bridal store clerk.”
Kyle pulled her into his side, kissing her neck. “I can only imagine.”
“I found out what I don’t like in a wedding dress. Had a nice heart-to-heart with my dad. I got some pants I can wear to work without the aid of a safety pin, and some relatively cute tops. So it was a pretty productive day.”
“I know you’re not feeling at your most gorgeous right now.” Kyle placed a warm kiss behind her ear. “I happen to think you look beautiful having my baby.”
“You, sir, are biased,” she said.
“Yes, I am,” he said, easing her back on the couch. “I love you and think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, no matter what tragedies befall your belly or your feet. And I am going to prove it to you, right now.”
“On the couch? The scandal!” Margot gasped against his mouth as he worked her yoga pants down her legs and carefully settled his weight at her side. He peppered her cheeks with kisses, thumbed at the buttons of her blouse to reveal the new lacy red maternity bra she’d purchased at Blessed Beginnings. It was a far cry from the plain beige cotton number she’d left the house in.
&nbs
p; Kyle grinned at the sight of her radically increased bust encased in red lace. “I don’t have the words to describe how happy I am right now.”
He kissed her deeply and took his time doing it. Between Margot’s unpredictable pregnancy symptoms, his work schedule, and the fact that they had two children living with them, it had been a while since they’d been able to enjoy long, slow kisses. She stroked her fingertips down the sharp lines of his jaw, his neck, while he took advantage of her exquisitely sensitive breasts to tease the nipples into points so tight they nearly hurt.
She pulled at his shirt, happy that at least one of them got to hold on to their pre-baby body, and tossed it over the back of the couch. She felt him growing hard against her thigh, and was at last grateful for one of the side effects of pregnancy—a ridiculous libido.
Beyond the warm bay rum spice of Kyle’s scent, she picked up another, sweeter aroma and inhaled deeply as he worked her enormous panties down her thighs. When she couldn’t find it on his skin, she lifted her head from the couch cushion and sniffed.
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
Kyle hopped to his feet and ran for the nearest wastebasket, hauling it back to her—no small feat with his pants around his ankles. “Here.”
“What are you doing?” she said, propping herself up on her elbows.
“You said ‘What’s that smell?’ Usually that means you’re about to get sick.”
“No, there’s a sweet smell in here,” she said, sitting up and sniffing again. “It’s nice. Did you buy a new scented candle or something?”
“Not since the ‘too heavily scented pumpkin spice’ tragedy over Thanksgiving, no,” Kyle told her, climbing back onto the couch next to her so he could return to kissing her neck.
Still sniffing, Margot glanced over at the kitchen counter, where she could see a purple-and-white bakery box sitting near the fruit bowl. “What’s that?”
Kyle lifted his head and peered over the back of the couch. “Oh, Duffy dropped it off for you. It’s from his friend Lucy. And this is the most convoluted message I have ever relayed, but he said that Marianne said you would know what that means.”