“How are we supposed to do anything about it now?” Emilie looked away from the road for a moment to give Kate a dubious frown. “Besides, I specifically recall informing you in no uncertain terms that I refuse to go anywhere near the place you let that man know you in the Biblical sense.”
Kate’s voice turned pleading. “Pleeease, Emmy? I just need to put clean sheets on the bed and set out a few candles. It will only take ten minutes, twenty tops.” She twisted around to better guilt-trip Lana. “You don’t mind helping me do you, Lan? You know I’d help you!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Emilie muttered. She glanced in her mirror before making a screeching U-turn in the middle of the road, causing Lana and Kate to shriek in terror.
“Fine, we’ll go.” Emilie smiled calmly at her friends while they clutched their hands over their frantically beating hearts. “But I am not cleaning your entire house for you. You’ll just have to deal with the cheesy smell — that is the price you must pay when you make your future with Stupid Will.”
Kate groaned at the dig, but accepted Emilie’s teasing since she was at least getting what she wanted.
Ten minutes later Emilie and Lana were making the bed while Kate was rooting around in the hall closet in search of candles and air freshener.
As it turned out, Emilie had been correct about the smell.
Not at all thrilled to be right, Emilie glanced around the room with dismay. “Maybe it’s just me, but I would never willingly choose to spend my wedding night in a tiny, dusty room with pine cone and moose bed sheets.” She bent down and picked up a pair of dirty boxer shorts. A second later she realized what they were and promptly hurled them across the room. “Sick,” she said with a revolted shudder.
Lana tried and failed to suppress her amusement at the utter disgust on Emilie’s face, though she had to admit that moose bed sheets and dirty underwear didn’t really do it for her either.
“I wonder why they didn’t go to a hotel for the night. You know, make it more special?”
Emilie’s eyebrows reached her hairline. “I guess hotel rooms aren’t all that special for Kate anymore, now that she’s become such a connoisseur of dodgy motels.”
“I heard that.” Kate bustled back in the room with a large, avocado-hued candle and rolled her eyes at Emilie’s innocent expression. Kate frowned at Emilie, but decided to ignore her remarks since they were kind of true. Instead, she thrust the candle into Lana’s arms. “I couldn’t find any air freshener.”
Lana scrunched her face as she bent down and got a whiff of the candle. “Ugh!” She held it away from her. “That’s worse than the cheesy smell!”
“Nothing is worse than the cheesy smell,” said Emilie. She delicately sniffed the candle before swiftly lifting her head. “But this comes in a close second.”
She shoved the offending piece of wax back at Lana, who laughed and tried to foist it off on Emilie. The two of them began to play hot potato with the smelly candle while Kate smiled in spite of herself.
“Would you both stop teasing and help me? I’m stressed enough as it is.”
Emilie smirked and tossed the candle back to Kate, who caught it with one hand and stuck her tongue out at her. This caused Lana to laugh harder. Emilie heaved a put-upon sigh and put her hand on her hip. “Where do you keep your dryer sheets? They might alleviate some of the stench.”
Forty minutes later, the girls were speeding towards New Bern Baptist, a charming red brick building with tall white columns in the front that lent it a Tara-esque ambiance. The inside of the sanctuary, with its pale yellow walls and snow white shutters covering the high windows, and the grand, old-fashioned organ pipes occupying an entire wall behind the altar, looked like it had been plucked straight out of colonial Williamsburg.
Kate really liked the church. She just hoped they all made it there in one piece with Emilie behind the wheel.
“Would you please slow down, Em?” cried Lana. She had a white-knuckled grip on her seat in the back and refused to loosen her seatbelt even though it was beginning to cut off the circulation to her legs. “You’re going to get us all killed!”
“Oh please, I’ve never even been in an accident.” Emilie waved their concerns aside and she pressed her foot more firmly down on the gas pedal. “We’ve got to hurry. We’re late now.”
Kate tightened her own seatbelt and glanced back at Lana, whose eyes were shut tight as she whispered a hurried prayer. Kate fervently hoped that it helped.
She then re-focused on Emilie’s undaunted expression and lead foot, wincing as she took another hard right. “Uh,” Kate whispered. “It’s okay if we’re a little late, Em—”
Emilie briefly took her eyes off the road to glare at Kate, causing the car to swerve and a few passing vehicles to honk their horns. Emilie studiously ignored the honking, righted her car, and then glanced back at Kate.
“What are you on?” Emilie’s tone had a definite bite that almost caused Kate to wince again. “You’re the bride. You have to get there, get your dress on, do something with your hair, and get your pictures taken before any of the guests arrive. Did you even look at the schedule I gave you?” she asked as she took another abrupt turn, causing Kate and Lana to be thrown against the doors.
“Of course I did, Emilie.” Kate rolled her eyes as she peeled her face from the window. “I studied it all night.”
Lana giggled briefly before Emilie shot her a freezing look in the rear view mirror. Her laugh was stifled, but she could do nothing about the smile threatening to split her face.
Emilie glared at both of them. “Yuk it up all you want. I am clearly the only person in this wedding party who is capable of respecting the merits of a schedule.” She mumbled something under her breath that made Kate gasp with amusement.
“You know we’re only kidding.” Kate leaned over to give her a one-armed hug. “And I am more than happy to bow down to your wisdom on all things related to today’s agenda. I promise.”
Mollified, Emilie smiled in return. Her tires squealed as she pulled into the lot of the church. She brought her exceptionally speedy car to a standstill and put it in park, causing her friends to jerk forward against their seatbelts like rag dolls.
“Okay.” Emilie turned around to face Lana. “We need to unload the bouquets from the trunk and then we’ll come back for the dresses…” Her voice trailed away as she looked at the empty seat next to Lana with slowly dawning horror.
“What?” Lana said blankly.
“Where are the dresses?” whispered Emilie in an odd, strangled tone of voice.
“Oh!” Lana looked at the plainly dress-less seat next to her and then glanced hesitantly back at Emilie. “Um, where did you see them last?”
Emilie appeared ready to burst a blood vessel.
Kate, however, seemed only mildly interested in the drama. She indulged in a huge yawn before solving the mystery of the missing dresses. “I must have left them in the trunk of my car,” she said.
Emilie whipped her head around to stare at Kate in disbelief. “This is exactly why I told you not to cart those dresses over to your mother’s last night, Katherine. Didn’t I say that we would forget to move them back to my car? Didn’t I?!”
Kate blinked at Emilie’s shrill tone. “My mom wanted to look at them. I remembered to put them in my trunk this morning,” she defended herself, continuing to look completely indifferent to this new predicament. “I just forgot to put them in yours when we switched cars.”
Emilie’s face turned red as she tried desperately to hold on to her temper. “That’s all you have to say? Did I not just explain the importance of the schedule?!”
“Jeez, Em, chill out,” Kate said with a shrug. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Emilie’s brown eyes sparked dangerously before narrowing to slits, but she didn’t say another word. Instead she turned back around in her seat, slapping Kate in the face with a mouthful of red hair in the process, and turned the ignition back on. Before Lana an
d Kate knew what she was about, they were once again thrown against the doors as Emilie backed the car up and zipped out of the parking lot before they had even managed to sit up straight.
“Hey!”
“Slow down!”
“Would you take a Valium or something? I can have my mom bring a few with her to the church if you want.”
“Oh sweet Lord in Heaven, please do not let me die in a fiery car crash.”
“Oh shut it, the both of you.”
In record time, Emilie reached the circular driveway in front of Kate’s mom’s house, grabbed the keys from a shaken Kate and managed, with Lana’s help, to wrestle the dresses from the trunk of Kate’s car into the backseat of her own.
She then raced back to the church as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels and pulled into the lot approximately ten minutes later, having shaved the normal driving time by at least half.
As soon as the car screeched to a halt, Kate and Lana stumbled out of it, taking deep breaths to calm their frazzled nerves. They glanced up as Emilie coolly emerged from the driver’s seat to open the trunk and take out the box containing the bouquets and flowers for their hair.
Emilie smiled at the two of them. “Feeling better?” she asked solicitously. When they nodded weakly, Emilie smiled again and shoved the box of flowers into Kate’s numb grasp.
Kate fumbled for a moment before steadying it and grunting a minor protest. “I thought the bride didn’t have to carry things on her special day.”
Emilie glanced up, juggling the three dress bags, her huge purse, and a gym bag containing all of their underpinnings, shoes, and accessories without putting a hair out of place. “That rule only applies when the bride hasn’t thrown a monkey wrench into the schedule.”
Lana, having recovered full control of her nervous system, grinned and took the gym bag and purse from Emilie, who serenely nodded before herding them all towards the side entrance of the church.
Emilie had just slipped into her tea-length, Tiffany-blue dress and was trying in vain to stick a white rose into the back of her upswept hair. The braid was too tight, and she was afraid of messing up the smoothness by pulling out the rose and starting over. Since Emilie could not abide lumpy hair, she was brought to the brink of emotional crisis while she decided what to do about the stupid flower.
Lana caught sight of her predicament and paused in the middle of tying a snow white sash around the waist of her own dress to brush Emilie’s hand aside and give the flower a sharp nudge into place. Emilie gave her a thankful smile before reaching over to tie the sash for her. A thud, followed by a muttered curse from behind the silk screen in the corner of the room caused Lana and Emilie to sigh.
“Everything okay back there?” called Emilie.
“No,” Kate said plaintively. “I can’t get this corset bra thingy to stay in place while I put my hose on.”
Lana’s eyes crinkled with mirth at Kate’s dilemma. “I told you to put the pantyhose on first.”
Muttering some more choice curses, Kate shuffled out from behind the screen carrying her enormous crinoline slip over her shoulder and tugging pitifully at the offending bra around her torso. They saw that she had managed to pull on one leg of her hose, but the other was trailing the ground behind her.
Her underwear, Emilie noted with a groan, were predictably ratty and discolored by bleach stains.
With a muffled laugh, Lana sat down in one of the folding chairs against the wall and motioned for Kate to stand in front of her. Lana removed the slip from Kate’s loose grasp and set the crinoline aside while she tried to straighten out the pantyhose situation.
Emilie stayed across the room, rummaging through her purse in search of powder from the emergency make-up bag since Kate was looking a bit sweaty from her ordeal behind the screen. Unfortunately, she had not thought to bring new underwear.
“Stop wiggling,” Lana huffed, blowing a wisp of platinum hair out of her eyes.
“You’re pinching me!”
“If you weren’t wiggling I wouldn’t be pinching you!”
“Well, it hurts.”
“If you don’t stop moving you’re gonna get a run in these things and then we’ll have to start all over with a new pair.”
Kate stopped wiggling. Blowing out a frustrated puff of air, she glanced over at Emilie. “Hey, you never told us why you were late last night.” Emilie froze with her hands in her purse, and Kate’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Clutching the makeup bag to her chest, Emilie cast a hesitant look towards Lana, who paused in her pantyhose struggle to give her a questioning smile.
“It was no big,” Emilie said with a shrug. She firmly re-zipped the bag and set it aside before grabbing her own white sash and pulling it around her waist.
“Oh come on, Em. You can’t leave us hanging like that.” Lana winked at her as she pulled Kate’s pantyhose up as far as she was willing to pull them before nudging Kate and letting her take over.
“Yeah,” said Kate. “It’s my wedding day. What I say goes, and I demand that you spill the beans.” She tugged at the top of the nylon as she waited for a reply.
Emilie met their curious gazes and shrugged her shoulder again. “Leo kind of proposed to me.”
Kate, in the middle of pulling her pantyhose over her rear, suddenly lost her balance and fell into Lana’s lap. Lana’s mouth dropped open even as she tried in vain to dislodge Kate from her sprawl across her knees. After about five seconds of silence the room erupted in a chorus of “What? Why? When? What?”
“Yeah,” Emilie said calmly. “I guess he’s still in love with me, in an exceptionally pathetic, Stupid sort of way…”
“What did you say?”
“What about Twiglet?”
“Forget her, what about Ethan?”
“Are you insane?”
“If you two would shut up for one minute I could tell you!”
Slightly chastened, they quieted and waited for Emilie to explain. Taking a fortifying breath, she told them about Leo’s emotional meltdown in the parking lot and, amidst their mingled harrumphs and a-ha’s, she also recounted how stunned he’d been by her rejection.
“I feel bad about letting it get to that point, but I do think I might finally be free of those pesky insecurities that made me date someone like him in the first place.” She grinned at the bemused expressions on her friends’ faces and smiled. “And it feels really good,” she laughed.
“What made you finally see the light?” Kate softly asked.
“I kept thinking about what you guys said last week. That I was so busy being afraid that things with Ethan wouldn’t turn out perfect, I was missing a lot of chances to be happy right now.”
Kate slumped down in her chair and harrumphed. “A toddler could have told you that.”
“Yesterday, it kind of hit me that if I want to be happy, then I have to let go and just…try.” Emilie leaned back against the table and sighed. “I was staring down at this person I’d wasted so much time and energy on, and I realized that all I really need to be happy is for the man I love to love me back. So I need to be brave enough to give him the chance to do that, even if it does completely terrify me.”
Lana jumped up from her chair and skipped over to Emilie to give her a giant bear hug.
Kate cursed when this action caused her to topple over again.
Ignoring Kate’s struggles, Lana gave Emilie’s hair a little tug. “I hate to say I told you so, but didn’t I tell you so?”
“Yes, you did.” Emilie nodded amiably and returned the hug. “And you have my permission to remind me about it for the next twenty years — but not a day more!” Her spirit newly light, she laughed happily. “There’s only so much humble pie I can eat.”
Lana gave her a joyful squeeze. “Do you feel kinda free, now? That’s how I felt when I walked in and caught Brian with his pants down. I just had this epiphany—”
“Epiphany, ha!” Kate muttered. She remained firmly planted in her sea
t as she reached for the crinoline and slipped it over her head.
“Jeez, do you mind, Bridezilla? I’m talking here!” Lana said with a shake of her head.
Kate glared at them through several yards of crinoline and tulle.
“As I was saying,” said Lana. “In that moment I couldn’t believe it had taken me that long to figure it out, but when you know, you just know. You know?”
Emilie nodded in understanding; Kate grunted and continued to mumble under her breath as she stood up to pull her gown out of the bag while Lana and Emilie basked in their shared glee.
“I know exactly what you mean, Lan.” Emilie gave Lana another bone crushing hug. “We are so totally awesome!” Lana laughed and they began to dosey-doe, their bright skirts swishing together as they linked arms and twirled.
In the middle of their hugging and dancing, they eventually noticed the marked silence from Kate’s side of the room. They stopped and gazed at her in confusion.
“Kate!” Lana said. “Are you going to pout all day, or do you have anything nice to say to Emilie?”
Kate brutally tugged her dress over her head and down her body without saying a word.
Quickly rushing to her side, they yanked her hands out of the way —if Kate didn’t settle down, she was going to tear the stupid thing— and they set about quietly and efficiently straightening and smoothing the gown. Lana moved around to Kate’s back and began fastening the million buttons running down it, while Emilie knelt down and pulled at the crinoline underneath until it was smooth.
Emilie looked up to see that Kate was biting her lip hard enough to draw blood. “Kate!” Emilie gave her a frantic shake. “Kate!”
Blinking owlishly, Kate managed to focus on Emilie’s alarmed face and the fact that Lana was tightly gripping her left arm. Slowly coming out of her stupor, Kate smiled half-heartedly and murmured, “Sorry, guys,” before sitting abruptly on the folding chair, slumping down and staring at the floor again.
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