The Debutante

by Magnolia Mason

  Epilogue

  “Oh, my word, you’re going to be late to your own wedding.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said as my mother fiddled with the back of my hair. “A bride can’t be late for her wedding. It can’t happen without her. She is, by default, always on time.”

  “Whatever you say, Cassy,” mother sighed as she moved across the room to find a hair pin.

  Butterflies warred in my tummy, so I tried to distract myself by looking out the French doors onto the sweeping lawn of the Governor’s Mansion. The river stretched out at the edge of the green grass, moving lazily down toward the Gulf like an endless, glinting snake.

  Why did I agree to do this big ceremony? I thought for the hundredth time as a surge of anxiety rushed through me. We should have just eloped.

  “Here. Let me just get this one last curl under control…”

  Mother spoke through a mouthful of bobby pins as she fussed with my hair. I wanted to slap her hands away, but I let her do what she needed to do. It made her feel calm, I think.

  “It’s fine, mother. It looks fine.”

  Honestly, I didn’t much care about my fancy up-do or my makeup or anything else but standing with Jack and holding his hand. I hadn’t seen him for two days and it was making me crazy.

  “Look at yourself,” said my cousin Ana with a little sob of emotion. “You look gorgeous, Cassy. My goodness, you’re like a princess.”

  I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to be a princess… until I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time. The makeup and hair was subtle and soft, not unnatural like I’d worried it would be. My dress… my dress was a mile of pale blush tulle sweeping out around me like a ball gown. The bodice glimmered with the palest rose-gold crystals that wrapped around my waist and trailed down my hips, showing off my curves. It was gorgeous.

  “Oh—oh, wow,” I whispered when I saw myself for the first time.

  “You’re gonna make me cry,” mother said as she turned away and dabbed at her eyes with a little silk pocket square.

  “Don’t cry, mother. It’s not like I haven’t been living as a married woman for the past six months.”

  “I know, I know, it’s just all so real now. You’re going to be a wife. You—you were just a baby five minutes ago, it seems.”

  I glanced over at Eden asleep in her carrier in her little dress and booties. She was so tiny still, but she was growing. I knew one day I’d be standing right where my mother was, crying my eyes out because this little bundle of perfection was getting ready to start her own life away from me. It was almost too much to handle.

  “Alright, I need a minute alone,” I said as I smoothed my hands over the front of my dress. “I’ll call you five minutes before we need to get down there, okay?”

  “You sure, hon?” Ana asked as she grabbed her pashmina and draped it around herself.

  “Quite sure, Ana-Banana. Thanks.”

  She smiled and patted my arm as she led my mother toward the door. When they were gone, I turned back toward the mirror and took a good long look at myself.

  Being a womanly woman was never a cornerstone of my identity, and I knew that from a very young age. I wanted more, or so I thought. It turns out I wanted more than was shown to me. I’d had no idea the strength of character a woman needed to navigate the world with all its pitfalls and judgements and expectations. Turns out, I had everything inside me all along. I was a woman.

  Downstairs, I heard someone strike a chord on the harp and another player tune their violin. They were readying themselves for me. It was almost time.

  “Ready, baby?”

  Eden looked up at me with her big, dark eyes, a little smile bending her Cupid bow lips. She kicked her feet against her carrier and let out a little squeal as I lifted her into my arms. She’d walk with me down the aisle, I’d decided. She’d be with us when we consecrated our bond.

  Candles flickered all around, competing with the early evening sunlight spilling in from the ceiling-high windows. I stood at the end of the ball room behind a screen of carved wood looking out at the assembled guests.

  Mother and Conrad and a hundred Louisiana cousins lined my side, along with a handful of friends and people I was otherwise fond of. Jack’s side was packed with people I didn’t know and had never seen, his own extended family from all across everywhere.

  Greenery hung from the ceiling, making the room feel like an enchanted forest, just like I wanted. Each seat had a crystal lamp glowing beneath it, casting a soft, otherworldly glow through the massive room, making it feel more intimate and special.

  “Here goes nothing,” I whispered to myself as I held Eden close and closed my eyes, giving up a silent prayer that everything would go smoothly.

  The first refrain erupted from the musicians, filling the room with a soft, sinuous chorus of sound. It was the loveliest thing I’d ever heard. All heads swung toward me and I felt the intensity of a couple hundred pairs of eyes eager to see me.

  “Lord help me,” I exhaled as I tried to calm my nerves.

  A chorus of voices echoed through the room, drowning out the music as I stepped from behind the screen into full view. I’d never in all my life been the subject of so much approval and it was intense. I nearly ran out, it was all so overwhelming.

  Just look at Jack. Keep your eyes on Jack, I told myself as I stepped to the center of the aisle and lifted my face to the altar.

  He stood like a beacon at the edge of a sea of faces, smiling at me—at us. He lifted one brow just barely, just enough to tell me what he was thinking—Can you believe this fuss?—and I smiled back just enough to let him know—No, I cannot and I can’t wait to get out of this corset.

  The music pushed me toward the altar like a wind pushes a sail boat. I had eyes only for him, for my groom, for the father of my baby, for the love of my life. It was as if we were suddenly alone in that cavernous ballroom, just the two of us standing under a bower of magnolia branches.

  Eden smiled at her daddy, cooing as he took her in his arms and kissed me on the cheek. He smelled of sharp, clean cologne and a little bit of bourbon courtesy of the flask I knew was hiding in his pocket. If I’d been less concerned with creating another scandal, I’d have dipped my hand into his pocket and took a swig off it myself.

  “You look like a living dream,” he whispered as he kissed my ears lobe and gave me a grin.

  “You don’t look too bad yourself, Jack Jolivet.”

  God, I wanted to get out of that corset—and I wanted him to be the one to take it off me.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”

  The pastor’s words rang out, drowning out all thought. I savored every word I said, and every word Jack said in response. He held my hand as he spoke, stroking my fingers with his work-calloused thumb as he stared so deep into my eyes, he was practically reading my soul.

  “Will you take this man to care for him and love him, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?”

  “I will,” I said, perhaps a little too loudly.

  “And you, Jack Jolivet, will you take this woman to care for her and love her, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?”

  “I will. And more.”

  The pastor, an old family friend, closed his bible and set his hand on the worn leather cover as he smiled at us both.

  “By all the powers of Earth and Heaven vested in me by God and the state of Louisiana, I declare that you two are bound in everlasting matrimony as each others’ carer and lover and friend from this day until the very last. You may now kiss.”

  Time passed in heartbeats as I watched this man, my husband, lean in to kiss me. It felt new, like a renewal, like something had shifted inside me. He was mine and I was his. We were hers, our little girl’s. We were a family.

  Forever and ever and ever.

  Amen.

  The End

  About the Author

  Magnolia Mason write
s steamy, small town romance with a slightly Southern twist. She loves her family, her faith and all things football.