Two-Penny Wedding

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  When the table tilted, Tina jumped onto her chair and then into Lee’s unsuspecting arms. He caught her, but fell against Sydney, who pushed him upright and into a running walk, like a juggler balancing a broomstick on his nose. Mitch’s flailing arms latched onto Sydney and dragged her backward in a reeling waltz that ended in a crashing finale.

  Being the first on his side of the table to realize what was happening, Pop had jumped up and out of the way. He caught the edge of the table and attempted to hold it steady, but when Frannie tripped over his chair, knocking it backward, he made a grab for her, flinging the table into a cartwheel, that scattered another four tables like pins in a bowling alley. Knowing he was going down, Pop threw his weight to the side and fell against another guest, who lurched to the right and went down on top of the nearest table, which buckled under him, sending yet another group of sitting guests to their feet and into the chain reaction, which rolled over the crowded terrace like a synchronized wave through a crowd of sports fans.

  Standing in the center of destruction, between Sonny and Jake, Gentry watched in wide-eyed disbelief as the anticipated brunch turned into a B-movie disaster. The guests went down like dominoes, one on top of another, in nearly every direction, and when it was over, the Hamiltons’ terrace was strewn with overturned chairs and broken tables, and was littered with pieces of glass, scattered forks and raspberry goo. Not even the buffet tables had been spared, and the remains of the brunch floated like so much flotsam in the Hamiltons’ pool. Everyone, it seemed, had suffered some damage, either a scrape, bruise or stain. Everyone, that is, except the three people still standing at center stage.

  “Excuse me.”

  Gentry turned to see Hillary struggle to her feetstill carefully clasping the pitcher of punch, which she had miraculously kept from spilling—politely apologizing when she pushed, poked or stepped on anyone. “Pardon me,” she said as she picked a path through the debris.

  In all, there were four “excuse me’s,” six “I beg your pardons,” and one “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience,” before always-proper Hillary crossed the last fallen table and stopped in front of Gentry. Without a word, she held out the pitcher.

  Gentry took it from her hands. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Hillary stepped back as Gentry turned to Sonny.

  “I believe you mentioned punch,” she said, and then she upended the pitcher over his head.

  “HEATHER?”

  “Yes?”

  On the lounge chair, Sydney fluffed a pillow and propped it behind her head before reaching for her magazine. “What are you doing in the closet?”

  “Nothing.” Like a whimsical thought, Heather’s reply drifted through the adjoining dressing room and into Gentry’s bedroom. “Just looking.”

  In the window seat, Gentry rested her chin on her knees and let her hand drop down to scratch Cleo’s ear. “What’s wrong with Heather today?” she asked. “She’s been wandering like that ever since we got back from the Hamiltons’.”

  “You’re in her usual place. Maybe she doesn’t feel right sitting anywhere else.” Seated at the lighted makeup table, Hillary sorted through a bag and withdrew a slim eyebrow pencil. “Some people are like that. Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man, for example. His bed had to be next to a window or he couldn’t sleep.”

  “In my opinion, her current state of existence is closer to Snow White than Rain Man.” Sydney turned a page in the magazine she’d looked at the day before…and at the same, uninvolved pace.

  “Are you saying she’s a little Dopey?” Hillary managed to toss out the pun while she sketched a hint of color into one perfectly arched brow.

  “Happy would have been my guess,” Gentry said.

  “I say you’re both wrong. Listen.” Sydney turned her head toward the dressing-room door. “Heather?”

  “Yes?”

  “Someday, my prince will come….” Sydney sang the first line of the song and stopped. Heather’s giggle followed like a puppy chasing a bouncing ball. Sydney lifted one shoulder in conclusion.

  Hillary put down the eyebrow pencil. “Does that prove something?”

  “Yes, Hillary,” Gentry said. “Think back. When was the last time you heard Heather laugh like that?”

  “Mmmm, the fraternity homecoming dance…No, that was you, Syd. Wait, I do know. High school. Senior year. Honors English. Mr. Rossinski. Oh, geez, she was so in love with him….” Hillary’s voice trailed off in discovery and she turned around to share a look with the other two. “Oh, my gosh,” she whispered. “She’s met…”

  “Mr. Right,” they all said together and laughed. Gentry folt better. The disastrous brunch had left her moody and impatient, and wishing she and Sonny had eloped months ago. Planning this wedding had been a mistake, no matter what he said about rewriting their history. Maybe it would have been okay if Jake hadn’t shown up to revise the history they were trying to rewrite. Maybe if he hadn’t been there last night to sit with her in the emergency room or the police station. Maybe if he hadn’t kissed her. Maybe if she hadn’t kissed him back. Maybe if Pop had never read that article about the old wedding gown.

  “Heather?” she said to the closet. “While you’re in there, why don’t you try on the wedding dress?”

  “No, thanks.” The dreamy reply drifted back, surprising Gentry with the refusal.

  “But, Heather, it’s a magic dress.”

  “I know. I didn’t even have to put it on.”

  It wasn’t easy talking to the closet, but Gentry tried again. “You can try it on now, Heather. Really, I wish you would.”

  “No, thanks.” The refusal was a little less dreamysounding than the first, which made it even more surprising. Gentry caught Hillary’s eye in the mirror and raised her eyebrows in a question.

  “Come on, Heather,” Hillary said. “Model the magic wedding dress for us.”

  “You do it,” she answered. “I don’t want to.”

  Clearly, Heather wasn’t herself. Normally, she could be persuaded to try on clothes simply by a suggestion…and anything as romantic as waltzing around in a bridal gown…

  “Why not?” Hillary asked, leaning toward the makeup mirror to check her eyebrow for imperfections.

  “I already know it’s magic. Someone else should try.”

  Sydney held up the magazine, opened to a page and showed it to Gentry and Hillary. “I’m thinking about changing my hairstyle. Do you like this?” She tapped the picture. “Short and sassy. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re sassy enough as it is.” Gentry returned her attention to the closet. “Heather? I really want you to put on the dress. Please?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gen,” Sydney said. “If you want someone to put on the silly dress, why don’t you do it? It is, after all, your wedding gown.”

  “It’s not my wedding gown,” she said firmly. “It’s just a wedding gown. There’s a difference.”

  “If it was just a wedding gown, you wouldn’t be begging us to try it on.”

  “I’m not begging, I merely thought it would be fun—”

  “For one of us to try on the gown and look in the mirror and let you know whether we see our true love’s reflection.” Sydney held up the magazine and frowned critically at the short and sassy haircut. “I think I might like my hair like this.”

  “I know whose reflection you’d see in the mirror,” Gentry stated confidently. “Your own. Period. No matter who puts it on.”

  “Then what are you worried about?” Sydney cupped her hand at her nape and pushed her luxurious, dark hair on top of her head, trying to shape it like the pictured cut. “Put on the dress, look in the mirror and take your chances.”

  “I’m not going to let you or Pop or anyone else manipulate me into trying on that dress. It’s a joke and I’m not going to fall for it. Besides, I have other things to do right now.”

  Sydney laid the magazine in her lap and frowned at Gentry. “Like what? You and you
r fiancé aren’t exactly on everyone’s favorite guest list after this morning’s brunch. He’s probably still washing punch out of his hair, anyway.”

  “Don’t you dare forgive him too soon, Gentry,” Hillary said. “Picking a fight with Jake is a stupid thing to do at any time, but to do it at the Hamiltons’…”

  “I believe you made your disgust evident, Hil,” Sydney said. “And I’m proud of you for not dumping the punch on him yourself.”

  “I wanted to, but it was Gentry’s place to do it.”

  Gentry hugged her knees a little tighter. “I only wish I’d had a pitcher for Jake, too.”

  “At least he tried to avoid the confrontation,” Sydney said, moving past the haircut. “He’s leaving today, Gentry. Did you know?”

  “He mentioned it, yesy.” Jake was leaving, which should make everything perfect again. She sighed without enthusiasm and put her chin on her hands. “Has he left already?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you go to the pool house and find out?”

  “No, thanks. I have better things to do.”

  “That’s right,” Hillary said. “Like trying on your wedding dress. This is an ideal time to put it on, to make sure it fits and that all the buttons are still on it. You want it to be in perfect shape for Saturday.”

  “I’m wearing the other dress on Saturday. It doesn’t have buttons, and I already know it fits.”

  “Boy, does it ever.” Hillary feathered her lashes with a mascara brush.

  “Listen, Gen,” Sydney said. “We’re your friends and we can’t let you wear that sequined sarong. I’m sorry, but this time you’re going to have to defer to our better judgment. Go with the million-dollar golden oldie.”

  “Syd’s right. Sequins aren’t for you.” Hillary met Gentry’s gaze in the mirror. “Besides, Sonny saw you roll down the stairs in it, and now that he’s seen it, wearing it would just be asking for bad luck.”

  “Also, it’s white,” Sydney pointed out.

  “That’s right….” Hillary began before she caught sight of Sydney’s droll smile. “Well, it is white.” She gave her blond hair a flippant little toss. “My opinion on that remains unchanged, regardless of what the rest of you think.”

  “And my opinion on the million-dollar dress remains the same, as well.” Gentry put her hand in her lap and Cleo nudged her, requesting continued ear rubs. “Why don’t you try it on, Hillary?”

  “It would be bad luck,” Hillary informed her as if she were stating a well-researched fact. “It wouldn’t fit me, anyway.”

  “How do I look?” Heather pirouetted into the room and the conversation stopped. She wasn’t wearing either of the wedding gowns. She was barely wearing anything at all.

  Sydney’s magazine dropped to the floor. Hillary’s makeup bag spilled onto the counter. Gentry accidentally pulled Cleo’s ear. Heather’s softly curved body was nestled inside a red, ribboned teddy like chocolates in a valentine box. What it left to the imagination wasn’t much, but it was enough. Just enough.

  “My God, Heather,” Hillary said. “Where did you find that?”

  Heather bent in a graceful plié. “In Gentry’s closet.”

  Two stunned glances turned to the window seat, and Gentry felt a blush steal across her cheeks. “I was married at the time,” she offered in self-defense.

  “So, can I borrow it?” Heather asked.

  Sydney jerked the pillow from behind her head and sat up. “All right, Snow White, who is he?”

  Heather giggled, sighed, and then sighed again. “He asked me to go ice skating tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you borrow some slacks and a sweater, instead?” Hillary suggested as she began picking up her makeup. “You’re going to get very cold in that.”

  “I wasn’t going to wear this then,” Heather said. “And I can never imagine being cold again.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t put on the magic dress and look in the mirror?” Gentry gently teased.

  Heather’s eyes shone like candles in a window. “I didn’t have to. It worked, anyway. I touched it and he touched it and it was magic….” Her voice ebbed into the dream-filled smile.

  “Who is he, Heather?” Gentry tried to pull the conversation down to reality. “Where did you meet him? When? What does he look like?”

  Heather hugged herself, enjoying her secret for another moment. “He is Mitch McAlister. Sonny’s best man. Do you remember when I came to visit you after Christmas? He was here, visiting Sonny. We were introduced then, but I didn’t really know him. Then, last night…well, it just happened.”

  Sydney looked up with new interest. “You had sex?” She rounded her eyes. “Uh-oh. You know what that means, Heather. Now you can’t wear a white wedding gown, either.”

  Hillary rose to the bait immediately. “It has nothing to do with virginity, Sydney. It’s whether you’ve been married or not.”

  “We didn’t have sex,” Heather said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “No sex?” Sydney shook her head and picked up the magazine again. “Well, if that’s not what just happened, I can’t imagine what it was.”

  “Magic,” Heather clarified, going dewy-eyed once more. “Magic and Mitch.”

  Gentry’s stomach knotted with concern. Mitch McAlister came with a reputation for short-term affairs and an easy-on, easy-off kind of charm. On a scale of experience from one to ten, he was a fifteen, and Heather, a questionable three. Gentry shared her concern with Sydney and Hillary in a brief three-way glance.

  “You can give each other that look all you want,” Heather said with a confidence Gentry had never heard from her before. “This is different for both of us, and I’m going to trust my heart this time…and the magic wedding dress.”

  Gentry groaned. “I don’t want to hear this. Heather, it’s just a dress. There isn’t anything magic about it.”

  “How would you know, Gen? You say that because you’re afraid it is and that if you put it on, you might find out—” She stopped abruptly and refused to meet Gentry’s eyes. It was clear what she was thinking, though. What every one of them was thinking, but would not say. If there was such a thing as a magic wedding dress, she might find out that she was about to marry the wrong man.

  “Heather, we’re all a bit concerned that Mitch McAlister may be a little more experienced—”

  “I know his reputation,” Heather interrupted Hillary. “We talked about that. What happened between us last night surprised him, too.”

  Sydney eyed her sternly. “What, specifically, did happen?”

  “Okay.” Heather could have passed for a schoolgirl giving a report…except for the red teddy. “As everyone was leaving the country club, I went to get the wedding dress to bring it home. Mitch saw me through the window and came to make sure I was all right and didn’t need a ride home or anything. I know this part sounds kind of crazy, but I couldn’t pick the dress up off the floor. It kept sliding out of my hands and then—this is the magic part—the dress sort of twinkled. I swear it really did make this kind of sparkle, and then we started laughing and talking, and well, then we kissed.”

  “And he didn’t invite you to his bachelor pad to show you his etchings?” Sydney asked, and received a frown in reply.

  “No. He asked me to go ice skating. He’s never been and neither have I. Mitch said he wanted our first date to be something new and different for both of us.”

  “That outfit could fall in the same new-and-different category,” Sydney observed dryly. “Aren’t you making a pretty broad jump from Virgin of the Year to Boudoir Betty?”

  Heather merely smiled. “Maybe I want to borrow this to take on my honeymoon trip.”

  “He proposed?” Hillary’s eyebrows rose. “Before you’ve even gone out on a date?”

  “No. But he will. And I’ll accept.”

  Sydney smiled. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

  “Some things are right and you just know. It was that way for you and Jake, wasn’t i
t, Gen?”

  “That’s the way it was.” There was no reason to point out that some things didn’t stay right, no matter how sure you were.

  “And that’s the way it is for Mitch and me.” Heather did another pirouette, spinning happily in the daring red teddy. “Look, I’m twinkling. Can you see me?”

  Sydney tossed the magazine aside, stood and walked through the dressing room and out of sight. When she returned, she had the million-dollar dress in tow. “Okay, one of us has to put on this dress and look in the mirror. Who’s it going to be? Heather?”

  “Not me. I’d see Mitch and then you’d tell me I’d made it up. You should do it, Syd.”

  Sydney pulled the dress against her and looked in the mirror. “No. Gentry wouldn’t believe me, even if I swore on the Blood Sister Oath. Hillary?” She held out the dress. “You’re it.”

  Hillary hesitated, glancing at Gentry, who tried to appear uninterested. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s too small.”

  “Come over here.” Sydney motioned her into the dressing room and positioned her in front of the mirror. “Now, stand still while I measure this against you.”

  HILLARY FIDGETED as Sydney took the wedding gown off the hanger. She tried to catch Gentry’s gaze in the mirror, but couldn’t. This wasn’t a good idea. She could feel the tension in the bedroom, even though she didn’t fully understand it. Certainly it wasn’t emanating from Heather, who looked a little like today’s raspberry tarts, their filling bubbling over the crust, just as her body was bubbling over the red teddy, and her heart over a new romance.

  Tension and Sydney were synonymous. She wore it like a medal of honor, always bringing a sense of energy and forward motion with her wherever she went. But this tension was different, and it made Hillary nervous and excited. “Are you sure you don’t mind, Gen?” she asked.

  “She doesn’t mind.” Sydney stood behind her, pulling, adjusting, fitting the bodice to her. “It might be a little short-waisted for you, Hil, but I think it will fit. In fact…” Stepping back, Syd looked at the dress questioningly. “Heather, look. If I didn’t know this was Gentry’s dress, I’d almost believe it was made to fit Hillary.”