by Liz Botts
“I, um, I’ll think of something,” I said. The promise seemed to mollify my grandmother because she smiled and tucked the picture back into my stack.
“Now, as far as other details are concerned, since you will clearly need much help to pull off a feat of this magnitude, I will give you the card of my favorite florist. You’ve seen her work before. She did the flowers for your grandfather’s retirement party.”
I cringed at the memory of the neon-colored flowers arranged artfully around clown dolls from my grandfather’s collection. The whole thing had felt like a psycho circus party. Not how I envisioned my wedding.
As my grandmother continued to talk I found myself drifting back to the fact that she wanted Walter to walk me down the aisle. I supposed that I could tell myself that it was my past meeting my present meeting my future. The words sounded romantic and hopeful, but they filled me with irritation and gloom instead. The solution had made my grandmother happy, though, so I counted that as a small consolation.
Chapterette Four
“And this is the reception room.” The woman pushed the door open, revealing a pretty room that was long but not so wide.
“I like the windows,” I said, walking over to the wall that overlooked the river. “But… it’s kind of small.”
The woman, Lisa, laughed. It was the kind of sound that people made when they wanted to fill an uncomfortable silence, but in this case it seemed like Lisa was trying to preempt one. I glanced at Beau who nodded in agreement.
“The thing about that is,” Lisa began, then paused. She seemed to be weighing her options. Finally, she continued. “We do have another room downstairs that I could show you, but I’m not sure it’s in your price range.”
I could feel my jaw unhinge. Before I said anything regrettable, Beau jumped in. “I don’t believe we’ve discussed our budget with you. Now if you’d rather we take our business elsewhere, just say the word. We have a very short timeline for this, as I think I told you at the beginning. Come on, Elle, let’s get out of here.”
“No, wait,” Lisa said. “I hope I didn’t offend you. It’s just that you both look so young, and in my professional experience young people tend to want to stick to a tight budget. By all means, let me show you the other room. Let me show you the boat.”
“Boat?” The word tickled my imagination. “You can rent the boat?”
Lisa laughed again, but this time she sounded delighted. Beau laced his fingers through mine as we followed Lisa and her sharply clicking high heels down the stairs, and out onto the beautiful deck. The big paddle wheel boat that had drawn us to this spot in the first place sat docked on the gently rocking river. Once we had toured the boat, I just knew it was the perfect place for our reception, but when Lisa named the price tag my heart sank.
When Beau and I climbed back into the car, tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Beau rubbed my knee but didn’t say anything. We headed down the road toward home in silence. I turned the numbers over in my mind. There had to be somewhere we could cut expenses to help us afford this place. And there was always the off chance that we might be gifted with some money to help toward the wedding expenses, but for now it was all on us.
“I really want this place,” I said in a whisper.
Beau nodded. “I know. Me too.”
For the second time in a few hours I felt my jaw unhinge. Beau always seemed so much more sensible than me on things like this.
“Well… how can we afford it?” I asked.
Beau shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on the road in front of him. “I don’t know, but we’ll find a way.”
Chapterette Five
“Now, I’ve set you up with several styles in your size. Just start trying them on, and once you find a style you like, I can bring you more.” The salesgirl held the curtain to the dressing room back so I could enter.
When she left I looked around the space that was actually quite spacious for a dressing room. Three sides were covered with floor to ceiling mirrors, making the room feel even bigger. The fourth wall had pretty prints of flowers on either side of the curtained doorway. A rack of dresses sat off to one side. For a moment I felt paralyzed by the choices. The girl must have put at least ten dresses on the rack.
Out in the waiting room I could hear my mom, Evie, and Katie chatting while they drank coffee and ate little finger pastries. I had never really been one of those girls who fantasized about my wedding when I was little. Sure I played wedding with my dolls but I never really had any preconceived notions about what my big day would look like.
Before we came on this shopping expedition Evie had sat me down and forced me to browse dozens of websites that featured wedding dresses by different designers. The thing that surprised me the most was how similar most of them appeared, at least on the computer screen. With the most pressing question seemingly whether or not I wanted sleeves or strapless, I figured we’d find my dress quickly and could move on to the equally daunting task of finding the right bridesmaids’ dresses.
Now faced with all these choices, I wasn’t so sure. Forcing myself to move to the rack I sifted through the dresses until I found a pretty strapless one with a fitted bodice and fluffy tulle skirt. On the hanger it looked beautiful, very princess-like. Once I had wiggled into it, I nearly gagged. I was too short for a dress like this I decided; all the puffiness of the skirt made me look twenty times wider than I actually was. Ok, so volume did not suit me. Duly noted.
“Have you tried one on yet?” Evie called.
“Let us see.” Katie’s voice followed, sounding a little muffled, like she had her mouth full. Sort of gross, but that was one thing I loved about my best friend. She never censored herself around me.
“Fine.” I stepped out into the waiting area. My mom made a cooing noise that I took to be approval for the look of the dress, but Evie and Katie both grimaced, reaffirming my own sentiments.
“You look like one of those weird cakes. You know the ones where they stick the doll in so the cake is like the skirt of her dress?” Evie frowned at me.
Without saying anything I hurried back into the dressing room. Several dresses later I was getting the same reaction from my viewing panel, and my frustration level was almost off the charts. I grabbed the next dress off the rack without looking at it. After I wiggled it over my head, I turned toward the mirror and stopped short.
The dress was a creamy ivory color with a nice fitted bodice, and a slightly flared A-line skirt that hit right at my knee. If I had seen it online, I would have skipped over it, and yet on me, I loved it. The untraditional feel appealed to me.
When I stepped out for an opinion, my sister and Katie looked surprised, and my mom instantly frowned. My stomach tightened — with nerves or stress, I wasn’t sure — but it felt like I wanted to hurl. I tried to brace myself against their obvious negativity. I was always amazed how much a person could say without uttering a single word. “Oh, honey, that’s… nice,” my mom said finally. “Why don’t you go with a more traditional dress, though? That’s what everyone is looking forward to.”
I ran my hand down the delicate embroidery lining the bodice. Deep down I knew that this was the dress I wanted on my wedding day, and yet I hesitated. If Evie, Katie, and my mom disliked the dress this much, maybe there was a reason?
“This one is right in my price range,” I said in an attempt to feel out how opposed to this dress they were.
“I’ll pay for the difference,” my mom replied without hesitation.
Reluctantly, I headed back into the dressing room. I laid the dress over the back of a chair, and selected a very traditional one off the rack. Despite the obvious alterations that would be needed, the dress was pretty with long lace sleeves and a delicate train. I walked around the small space feeling the weight of the train drag behind me. What an odd sensation when I was sure the small scrap of fabric barely made a difference.
On my return appearance, my mom leapt off her chair and grabbed me in a hug. “This is the one,
honey. You look beautiful.”
I let her and the salesgirl fuss over me, talking about all the different ways to take the dress up without ruining the train. Before I knew it the dress was purchased, and attention had turned to the bridesmaids’ dresses.
Without saying anything I went back into the dressing room to change. After I shrugged out of the dress, I sank down onto a chair wondering what had just happened. How had I let my mother buy me a dress that I wasn’t one hundred percent in love with? She had just been so happy and focused on what she wanted that she hadn’t bothered to ask.
The other dress still lay over the back of the chair; as I stared at it my eyes filled with tears. The weird, irrational reaction startled me. The sane part of my brain told me that it was just a dress, and that the one my mom had just bought was lovely. And yet the emotional response told me everything I needed to know. With a deep breath, I got up, pulled my clothes on, and tucked the dress over the crook of my arm.
While Evie and Katie were busy looking through dress styles, I walked over to the salesgirl. “I’ll take this one too.”
She took the dress with a huge grin on her face. I noticed that her teeth were a little too shiny, too pearly white. Why did most women in the wedding industry have industrial whitened teeth? Were they hoping to blind people?
“Wonderful,” she replied. “Many women these days have two dresses. Such a wonderful compromise.”
As I gave her my credit card to swipe, I thought about her words, and I wondered how many more compromises I’d have to make before the big day.
Chapterette Six
In my dream a woodpecker was trying to crack open a giant acorn for a hungry squirrel. When the squirrel suddenly yelled my name I jolted awake. The woodpecker turned out to be an insistent knocking at the door, and the yelling squirrel was none other than my little sister.
I stumbled to the door, pulling my comforter around me as I went. Despite the heat of these late August days, the nights had already begun to harbor the autumn chill. After undoing my locks, I cracked the door and staggered back to the sofa, where I collapsed with a groan. Evie bustled in, shutting the door behind her.
“Why are you here at not time to get up o’clock?” I pulled the blanket over my head with another groan.
“We have planning to do,” Evie said in a cheerful, chirpy voice that made me want to throw things at her.
I peered at her from my cozy hole. “Not this early on a Saturday. This is my only day to sleep in. The first week of school was brutal.”
“Don’t I know it.” Evie settled onto a chair, and placed her giant bag at her feet. “This week has been murder on my social life. You’d think that once you get to college the work load would ease up at least for the first week of school.”
The urge to roll my eyes overwhelmed me so I ducked back under my blanket. Then something Evie had said stopped me, and I shoved the comforter aside. “What did you mean we have wedding planning to do?”
Evie smiled, the corners of her mouth stretching almost to her ears. She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick three ring binder. I stared at the embellished cover not quite believing what I was seeing. A large picture of Beau and I graced the front, surrounded by little appliqué hearts. Pictures of Evie, Katie, and the other members of the wedding party were pasted around the edges. If that wasn’t enough of a clue that something was off, Evie’s maniacal grin was setting my teeth on edge.
“Seriously. What do you mean, Evie?”
“You told me that I should plan on being majorly involved in the wedding. So I took it upon myself to put together a master plan for your arrangements. You won’t have to worry about a thing.” She held up the binder as proof of her statement.
Anything I had been planning on saying that would deter her plans was muted by her look of complete trust and excitement.
I felt myself start to crack under my sister’s persistent gaze. Don’t do it, I cautioned myself. I knew, just knew, that if I gave in to Evie on this it would start a domino effect. If I let her become my assistant wedding planner we would go down paths I hadn’t imagined and stray into territory we couldn’t afford.
The crux of the problem was that I had been doing her bidding ever since she was born. We were seven years apart, and from different marriages. My father had been “the mistake” and Evie’s “the soul mate.” Not that I could disagree with that assessment. When Evie was born she’d come nearly ten weeks too soon. Even at seven, I had understood the crisis. My mother and stepfather had spent every waking minute at the neonatal intensive care unit. Evie had been so tiny — barely one and a half pounds. Everyone spoke in hushed tones.
Beau, in particular, got on my case about it, but I didn’t know how to change our relationship. Now that we were both adults, and I was getting married, I assumed that things between my sister and I would get better.
This might be my chance to prove that things could be different for us, so I drew up a smile, and said, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Chapterette Seven
The days flew by, and despite some hiccups, things felt like they were going well. Beau and I had managed to stay on budget, and Evie was proving to be quite helpful. As a matter of fact, she had promised to bring the bridesmaid’s dress over after her fitting. The buzz of my doorbell brought me out of my thoughts.
“Let me come up. Right now.” Evie’s voice was an octave higher than normal. I winced as I realized that no good could come from a sound like that.
I could hear my sister’s footsteps on the stairs, an angry thudding. I wasn’t sure how Evie could make something as simple as climbing steps into an expressive act. Somehow everything my little sister did came across as a larger than life.
I cracked the door to watch Evie turn the corner into my hallway and cringed the moment my sister came into view. What was she wearing? The dark brown trench coat hung nearly to the floor, and the oversized sunglasses almost made her look comical.
She shoved past me into the apartment. “This? This is not going to happen. Uh-uh. No way. You have got to be kidding me. I do not care if this is your day or whatever. I refuse to be seen in public in this… this… thing.”
She discarded the coat, throwing it onto the floor. A sick feeling washed over me, and this time it wasn’t because of Evie’s antics. She was, in fact, wearing the bridesmaid’s dress that I had carefully picked out — the one I had spent hours on, right down to perfecting the exact shade of the dye. This hideous shade of pumpkin orange was not at all what I had envisioned. I had pictured elegant gowns blending in seamlessly with the autumn foliage. Jack-o-lantern was not a color the bridal shop had presented as an option.
“This is a joke, right?” I felt my lunch lurch up into my throat. “Where is the real dress?”
Evie’s expression gentled. She reached out and caught my hand in her own. “There must have been a mix up at the store. We can go over there together in a little bit. And besides it isn’t that bad.”
“It isn’t that bad?” I could feel my voice raising an octave as I stared at the dress. “We could slap a face on it and call you all jack o’lanterns.”
“Okay, I lied. It is pretty bad,” Evie said in agreement. “In fact, I think we should go there right now, and demand that they change it.”
“They aren’t going to be able to do anything about it right now.” I pinched the bridge of my nose where a small headache was building.
“If we yell loud enough they will.” My baby sister crossed her arms in front of her chest, looking appropriately defiant. For a moment I was tempted to believe her. She did throw pretty good fits. In fact, some of her tantrums could be considered legendary. Beau’s voice drifted through my mind, telling me to be the adult in the situation. “Please, go change out of that monstrosity,” I said, sighing. “You can take whatever you want from my closet.”
As Evie disappeared into the bedroom, I slumped down onto the sofa. To think that just thirty minutes ago I had been riding high
on the euphoria of the arrival of the wedding programs. Running my hands through my dark hair, I bunched it up into a ponytail before letting it fall down my back.
“How do people plan weddings that run smoothly?” I asked the question out loud but it was more rhetorical than anything else.
“They hire wedding planners,” Evie said, coming out of the bedroom in a pair of jeans and a hoodie. “I told you that you should have let me take the lead.”
“We don’t need a wedding planner. We’ve got you. Besides things are going fine.”
Evie crossed her arms. “Oh, yeah? Then how do you explain the pumpkin dress currently hanging in your bathroom?” Before I could respond, she squealed. “Is that what I think it is?”
I followed my sister’s gaze to the coffee table where the box of programs sat waiting to be opened. “Yes, it is. And no. You can’t see them. Beau and I are going to look at them after he gets off work.”
With a roll of her eyes, my bratty sister took off toward the tempting box. “Oh, come on. We’ll just take a little peek. Beau’ll never know.”
“No!” I practically leapt across the living room in one stride, smacking my hand firmly down on the top of the box. “This is something Beau and I worked hard on. We want to look at it together.”
“You are such a party pooper.” Evie huffed, but backed up and flopped down on the recliner.
“So I gather you’re staying for awhile?” I scooped up the box of programs and walked them into my bedroom.
“When does Beau get home from work?”
I paused in front of the mirror over my dresser. My hair was a mess in its ponytail. I pulled it out and dragged a brush through the long straight brown locks. Then I dabbed moisturizer on my face, running it gently under my eyes with my ring finger. I knew I was stalling, and for good reason. Standing up to Evie took skill. The girl was nothing if not persistent.