“Dresses don’t have shoes,” I said lamely. Just like apps don’t have elbows.
“Come on, just do it. What are you afraid of?”
“When it comes to my mother? Everything. And she’s like a tiger. She’ll smell my fear clinging to the dress. She’ll know.”
“She’ll never know. Your secret will be safe with me.”
He clicked the door closed and left me alone with just the garment bag, its reflection mocking me from every angle in the mirror.
Aren’t you a little too old to be playing dress-up in your mom’s closet, Laney Jane? It felt a little naughty. But this wasn’t the 1980s and there were no racks of blazers with linebacker shoulder pads to hide behind. Face your fears, Noah had said.
You’re a little too old to have to ask permission or seek approval from your mother about everything, I told myself. Or maybe that was the Crown Royal talking. I scowled at the drunken girl in the mirror. Was she trying to pick a fight with me?
With shaking fingers, I unzipped the bag slowly. After lugging the thing eight hundred miles, the least I could do was take a peek at it. Sure, my mother had shared some of its physical detail with me. But each utterance—Eggshell white! Silk! Taffeta! Beaded and sequined!—had felt like pepper spray to the eyes—a stinging insult.
You’ve got a dress dictating your every move. That’s what Noah had said back in the airport food court. And he was right, even before knowing that it wasn’t mine. It was as if the dress, even flat in its bag, embodied my mother. And everything she had ever criticized me for, disapproved of, and forbidden me to do was stitched into the very fabric and held fast.
Resentment and terror sobered me somewhat. But I still had enough alcohol fueling me to propel me forward. I roughly pushed open the garment bag and it fell away from the hanger, like a creature shedding its cocoon.
Wow.
I couldn’t fault my mother’s taste, when it came down to it. With all her controlling and planning and single-mindedness, it was no surprise she had chosen this specimen. It didn’t scream virgin, it didn’t hint at skank ho. A smattering of pearl beads and Swarovski crystals allowed the eyes to dance and linger on the dress’s curves.
Wait. Those were my curves. I turned one way in the mirror, then the other way. Its bodice was modest, with a sweetheart neckline, but had a gauzy lace coverlet attached that draped down the shoulders in a sleevelike attempt. I flapped my elbows out: bat wings.
I turned and peeked over my shoulder. The lace dipped to a V at the waist, allowing much of my phoenix tattoo to show, but not all. The skirt was long but not too busy, with tiers of scalloped fabric. At least it had one thing going for it: it made my waist look minuscule.
When I was twelve years old, my favorite comic was the giant-sized annual, #21, of The Amazing Spider-Man. It was the special wedding edition and featured Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker standing as bride and groom in front of a crowd of well-wishers, with a big heart-shaped Spidey face in the background. To my preteen sensibilities, M.J.’s dress was the epitome of gorgeous at the time. I had read somewhere that a real-life fashion designer had created the wedding gown especially for the comic book bride. It had a mermaid-style skirt that clung all the way past her thighs before fanning out, down to the floor, and a Playboy Bunny–style top softened by an overlay of sheer fabric up to her neck. M.J. looked as if she had been poured into the thing, and she hung on Peter’s arm and smiled a carefree, million-bucks-lottery smile. That was happily ever after to me.
Until, of course, alternate-universe issues of Spider-Man were released, along with the “One More Day” plot that erased the marriage from both their memories.
In comicbookland, anything was possible, and improbable.
“Checkout is at eleven A.M. . . .” Noah’s teasing reminder brought me out of my reverie.
“Give me another minute.” I leaned on the bathroom counter and stared down the girl in the mirror.
In an alternate universe, this could be my dress. My wedding. In an alternate universe, my dad would’ve stuck around long enough to walk me down the aisle. But life, as Allen had reminded me, wasn’t comicbookland.
The girl in the mirror stuck her tongue out at me.
“Now, now,” I said to her. “Be polite.”
She smiled demurely. Then she reached up and pinned one side of her hair back with the rhinestone clip I had stashed in my cosmetics bag for Hawaii. She popped a breath mint and glossed her lips. And with a wink, she reached for the doorknob.
• • •
“Hey, now, look at you!”
“Speak for yourself,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Noah was in his blazer.
“I thought you might feel more comfortable if I got back in the monkey suit.”
“You could be wearing a gorilla suit. That wouldn’t make me feel any less foreign in this thing.” I wriggled a bit. “Itchy.”
“So not exactly the dress of your dreams, huh?”
“What do you think?” I asked, hands on hips. I could feel the corset bones under my fingers getting tighter by the minute. I had to pee, too. But that was another story.
Noah cocked his head. “This part is nice.” He waved his hand in the vague direction of what my mother would refer to as my décolletage, but I wasn’t about to utter that word. “Maybe get rid some of that stuff”—he gestured to the lace overlay—“or make it a shawl or something.” Secretly, it was kind of fun watching him struggle to find the words.
“Admit it. It’s a nightmare.”
“Yeah,” he hastily agreed. “It’s pretty bad. But that’s good.”
It was my turn to cock my head at him and his logic.
“Your mom chose this dress. This is her dream, for herself. Not for you. You have your own dreams that you would choose. Hers don’t fit you.”
He paused by my shoulder. “Nice tat, by the way.”
I turned this way and that in the length of the mirrored closet doors. My wings were clipped. I frowned at the thought. How drolly appropriate, my mother finding a way to hold me back once again.
“You’re quite philosophical at a quarter past midnight, aren’t you?” I commented to both the girl in the mirror and the guy standing next to her. Neither responded, except to provide a twisted smile.
“So what’s the story behind the phoenix?” he asked.
“Sacrifice and renewal,” I said simply and left it at that.
I had gotten the tattoo shortly after the Javits Center debacle with Allen. A reminder that if I ever felt the urge to look back, I should, well . . . look back at it. I’d offered my memories of Allen up to the rebound gods and vowed to reinvent myself as a sharper, more focused Laney.
But, like the tattoo itself, those lines had blurred a bit over the years and faded. The pain was a vague memory, buzzing permanently below the surface.
“Oh, wait. Something borrowed.” Noah fetched his red Converse high-tops from where I had ditched them near the door and held them out to me.
“Perfect!”
They looked even more Bozo-hilarious peeking out from under the flouncy gown. I gathered a bit of the skirt at the waist so I wouldn’t trip and did a little soft-shoe shuffle in them.
With a bow and a flourish, Noah held out a hand. As soon as I accepted, he maneuvered us in fluid circles through the hotel suite.
“Shall we expand the dance floor?” he suggested, swinging the door open. I twirled right under his arm and out into the hallway.
“That’s one long ‘aisle,’” Noah commented, with a nod of his chin toward the end of the hallway. “Let’s boogie.”
“Where’d you learn such smooth moves?” I laughed as he waltzed us past the elevator doors. He may not have been the master of freestyle on the dance floor, but he cut a respectable rug.
“Junior cotillion.” He grinned, leading. “El Paso, Tex
as.”
“And that was city number . . . ?”
“Four and six. While my dad was at Fort Bliss.”
“Bliss, that sounds . . . blissful.” I laughed, then squealed as he dipped me dangerously low to the hallway carpet.
The doorway of 1209 across the hall flew open, and out popped a head full of hot rollers. We had apparently disturbed our neighbors. The woman’s sourpuss expression softened upon sight of me in the dress and Noah in his suit. Behind her came a gruff male voice, demanding to know what all the ruckus was.
“Oh, pipe down, Hal,” she said with a sigh. “They’re just newlyweds. You remember what that was like, right?”
With a smile and a shake of her hot rollers, she clicked the door closed.
Noah and I stifled our giggles and fled back to the safety of our room before bursting out laughing.
“Oh, wait. We forgot something old.”
Noah unwound the green wire stem of his boutonniere and pulled it from his coat’s lapel. I recognized the small red flower now: it was one of those crepe-paper poppies the war vets handed out in exchange for a donation in front of the post office every Memorial Day. I had always equated them with Santas ringing bells outside department stores during the holidays and regarded them as the same: an annoyance. But now, after hearing how Noah had lost his father, I began to grasp the significance. It was telling that he had managed to keep the delicate flower intact from May till March.
He reached for one of our empty minibar bottles and popped the bloom into it. “There,” he announced. “A bouquet for the blushing bride. It matches your shoes.”
“Thanks.” I clasped the bottle between both hands and smiled up to the sky angelically.
“Gorgeous.”
“Oh, please,” I scoffed. “I’m just the lowly dress bearer.”
“Hold that pose.” I heard a click, and then another.
“Hey, who said you could take blackmail photos?”
“These will be just between you and me, promise.”
Thank goodness he was staring at the phone and not witnessing the goofy smile spreading across my face.
“What’s your number?” he asked.
I recited it and watched as he entered the info into his phone.
“There,” he said, hitting a final button. “Saved. And when’s the wedding?”
“Saturday, at three o’clock.”
“Okay, setting a task reminder . . . Nevada will be two hours ahead of Hawaii, so . . . there we go. I’m going to send these to you while your mom is walking down the aisle so you can have a good laugh, okay? Come on—selfie!” Noah squeezed in next to me and held up the phone to capture both of us. “And to remind you,” he murmured, his cheek practically pressed against mine, “that you are an incredible person, with or without her approval.”
I inhaled his amazing scent, and breathily exhaled my thanks. “Wait, I think my eyes were closed. Take another?”
“You got it.”
Shameless excuse, but it kept him closer for another few seconds.
Noah
CROSSING THE LINE
She was just the dress bearer?
That changed everything.
Actually, Laney passing out changed everything. Part of me was disappointed, because I wanted to stay up all night talking with her. I can’t remember the last time I had so much to say or felt so in tune while listening to someone else. But the more practical part of me knew it was better to get some sleep. It was oh-dark-thirty, as Pop used to say. Beyond late. Time to let gravity take over. And reality.
She looked divine in that dress. Something about the color made her skin shimmer. I thought about the way the back of the gown scooped below the bones of her shoulders, allowing all but the tips of her fabulous wings to show through. I know they say that every bride looks magical in her wedding gown, but forcing Laney to put on a dress that wasn’t even hers turned the table on every tradition and old wives’ tale I had ever heard.
I had no idea what Sloane’s dress looked like; its classified intelligence was tighter than national security. All I knew was its “say yes or else” price tag was roughly the same as a compact car’s. And many shouting matches between her, the bridal consultant, and poor seamstresses had ensued over the months it took to choose, purchase, fit, and alter the dress. I remembered the look on my mother’s face when I had to break the news that Sloane didn’t even want her to come dress shopping with the bridal party. Having no daughters of her own to marry off, I knew Mom had hoped to be more included in the planning festivities. But looking back, I was relieved she hadn’t been subjected to that couture cage fight.
Laney sighed in her sleep as I carefully arranged the coverlet around her. She had passed out in the damn dress, and I debated whether to try to rouse her to get her out of it. One arm was up in a “Walk Like an Egyptian” move, and her knees were tucked to the left and hidden under the poufy layers of wedding fabric. Her hair was like caramel sauce pooling down a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream as she turned her head on the pillow and settled deeper into slumber.
She mumbled something that sounded like “kissloafer” to me.
I rolled gently off the bed and did a parameter check. Door locked, lights off. Then I crossed to my side of the zebra Duck Tape. The only thing in my carry-on that passed as sleepwear was a pair of Tommy Bahama swim trunks. I wasn’t sure what I had been thinking when I packed them. Perhaps that I would just laze around by the hotel pool in Vegas, waiting for my luggage, in the event it was misplaced? Ironic. They came in handy as I climbed into the padded Jacuzzi to go to sleep.
I stole one more glance at Laney. In just the quiet light of the gas fireplace, she looked like an angel, caught under a light, gauzy layer of snow. A true snow angel.
My dad used to bring home snow globes whenever he traveled. In fact, that was usually how he would break the news to me that we were moving once again. He’d place a different trinket on my palm each time, its liquid world churning, and announce, “You’re going to love this place, son.”
Some of them were frighteningly ornate: heavy glass domes on delicate bases of porcelain. Glycerin in the liquid would slow the descent of the glitter inside. Others were just cheap plastic, filled with water and glitter that clumped stubbornly in one spot. I had always hoped that one of our new homes would feel like the magical world suspended inside, but in the end, all the places felt the same. And we were never really there long enough to find out.
But tonight, sealed in a room full of warmth and light while the snow swirled beyond the windows in the dark sky, with a stranger like Laney, I could think of no better place to be.
Reality could wait a few more hours.
Noah
WAKE UP AND SMELL REALITY
I woke to my cell phone alarm chirping and Laney’s insane Batman-from-Hell talking clock yammering. Before I had a chance to ponder what was worse to wake up with, a raging headache or a raging hard-on, she was up in a flash and pacing around the Jacuzzi nest like an angry white swan.
“I could’ve drooled on it or puked on it. Or worse!” she railed. Cradling her face in her hands, she moaned. “My head feels like a coconut that someone was bashing a straw into all night. Like they sucked it dry and tossed it on the beach.”
“That’s quite an image.”
She was quite an image, but I didn’t dare tell her that. Mind over matter, I instructed my nether regions. Think kittens. And grandmothers. Kittens in baskets. Grandmas holding kittens in baskets. “I believe there were bottles of coconut water in the vending machine, if you want to replenish.”
“I blame that stupid vending machine and its lame-ass excuse for a dinner! I’m not usually such a lightweight.”
Her left arm flailed over her head and her right stretched behind her, elbows flapping like a demented chicken. She hopped. “I can’t unzip this th
ing, help!”
“Stand still, I’m kind of seeing double.”
I pulled myself up out of the Jacuzzi bed and surveyed the zipper situation. Holy hell. It started above the small of her back and went down to no-man’s-land. With shaking fingers, I carefully eased the zipper down an inch, then froze.
“I’ll take it from here, thanks.”
She was sliding away and slamming the bathroom door before I knew it.
Great, Noah. Way to go catatonic at the sight of her leopard-print panties. I ran my hands through my hair and surveyed the room. How much had we drunk? I counted a dozen minibar bottles. At some point during the evening, Laney had duct-taped them together into a glassy bouquet. They perched in the ice bucket, its ice long melted. I fingered the remembrance poppy poking from the neck of the middle one before plucking it out and winding it back into the buttonhole of my overcoat.
I should call my mother, I thought. It wasn’t like me to go completely off the grid.
The shower hissed on.
It wasn’t like me to have a naked girl in my hotel shower, either.
I envisioned Laney, turning into the spray to rinse soap off those flaming wings tattooed across her naked back . . .
No amount of cute, cuddly kittens in baskets was going to keep me from getting turned on at that thought.
Flight times. Go check the flight times. I pulled up my browser window and navigated my mouse to the refresh button. But the search bar to its right was just so tantalizingly blank. What harm could a quick search do? I typed in Alan Burnside and quickly got schooled on misspelling his name. Allen Burnside, the search engine’s display read beneath a small montage of photographs, was an American drummer who played in the band Three on a Match.
Was.
I clicked the first link.
1982–2011.
I’ll take “Dead Boyfriends in Bands with Numbered Names” for five hundred, Alex.
Poor Laney.
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