Bird Song (58 page)

She looked at me, as though deciding something, and then grabbed me in a brief and uncomfortable hug.
 
I didn’t have time to return it when she let me go and rushed out, a curler coming loose as she did so.

I placed the box that was still in my hands and reached over to my nightstand.
 
I pulled its only drawer open and grabbed the phone that lay inside.
 
Quickly, I dialed Stacy’s number and waited for someone to answer.

“Uh, hello?” a rough voice answered on the other end.

“Hi, this is Grace, Stacy’s friend—could I speak to her please?”

I heard a shuffling sound and a few thumps before I could detect the muffled voice of Stacy on the other end.

“Give me the phone, you jerk!” she snapped.

“You heard mom, no phone calls before ten.
 
You’re so going to get-
ow
!” the other voice replied before the sound of the receiver dropping on the floor caused me to pull my own away from my ear.

“Grace?
 
Is that you?”

Putting the phone back against my face, I responded.
 
“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What’s up?
 
You have to be quick—my mom has this rule about the phone ringing before ten in the morning,” she said hurriedly.

I spoke as quickly as I could, hoping to get everything out before Stacy’s mother discovered her on the phone.
 
“Janice just told me that
Ameila
offered to hold the wedding at their family retreat, which means that she’s going to be here.
 
If she’s here, there’s a chance that Lark might be as well.”

“Do you know for sure?” Stacy asked before a distinct click ended our conversation.

“Stacy?
 
Stacy?” I called into the receiver, but the beeping sound of a disconnected call confirmed what I knew.
 
“Ugh, why don’t you have a normal mom like everyone else?” I grumbled to myself before hanging up the phone and shoving it back into the drawer.

I glanced at the clock and, sighing with resignation, got up to get ready for my shower.

***

Katie, Janice’s sister, was exactly what I had expected:
 
a shorter, somewhat younger version of Janice with bottle-dyed blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes.
 
She was very adept with a set of rollers as she somehow managed to turn my perfectly disastrous head of hair into a mound of curlers and pins in a matter of minutes.

While I sat and stared at my lumpy, almost abstract-shaped head, Katie was busy putting the final touches of spackle onto Janice’s face.
 
I had to hand it to her; she was very quick and skilled when it came to transforming someone into someone completely different.
 
Janice looked ten years younger, her skin flawless, her lips miraculously fuller than they had been this morning.

“The trick is brushing your lips first with a toothbrush before applying those new lip plumping glosses they have out now,” she told Janice who apparently had asked what it was that she had done to create such an illusion.

“I won’t look like I got punched in the mouth, will I?” Janice asked with concern as she gently touched her bottom lip.

“Oh God, no, Jan; you’ll just look like you got some work done but no one will know how,” Katie laughed.

I looked at Janice’s lips once more and pulled my own in, tucking them beneath my teeth—I did not want to look like I had been punched in the mouth; wearing a dress I hadn’t seen yet was bad enough.
 
I spied Katie looking at me from the corner of my eye and I quickly turned my head in the opposite direction, not wanting to get her attention—the longer it took for her to get to me, the better.

“Grace, have you taken a look at your dress yet?” she asked me from behind Janice.
 
I turned my head to look at her, unsure how exactly to go about answering her without drawing her into a conversation.

“No.”

“Well, let’s take it out so that you can see it and try and figure out what you want for your makeup, alright?” she said as she reached for the smaller white bag that hung across a garment rack.
 
We were in a small tent several feet away from where the reception ceremony would be held, the sound of activity quietly humming just beyond the canvas walls.

“I helped Janice pick this out, but she thought the original color was all wrong, so she ended up choosing something different—oh, Jan, this will look beautiful on her.”

I couldn’t help it, I turned my head to look.
 
The bag had been pulled away from the dress, allowing me to see it in its entirety.
 
It was another strapless number, this time in a dark, almost blood-red shade.
 
The bodice was a mass of shirred, shimmering fabric that ended in a cinched, empire waist, accented with hundreds of tiny, matching crystal beads, the skirt falling down beneath them like a waterfall of red wine.
 
“Wow,” was all I could manage to say.

“Do you like it?” Janice asked, a tinge of worry easily detectable in her voice.

“Yes,” I whispered as I stood up to take a closer look.
 
The dress draped to the ground, and I now understood the necessity of the suicidal heels.
 
“I was afraid—I thought you’d get me something pink…with ruffles,” I admitted as I touched the glimmering little beads sewn into the dress.
 
“It’s a stunning dress, Janice.”

Katie clapped her hands and Janice sighed with relief at my response, obviously worried that my distaste for dresses would automatically cause me to dislike the dress.

“Alright, well now that we know that you like it, let’s talk about makeup, Grace,” Katie said as she began to pull a few bottles and jars from the large bag she had brought with her.
 
“Do you want a dramatic eye or something more natural?
 
If we go natural, we’ll have to do a darker, dramatic lip and vice versa.”

I stared at her in utter confusion, the words sounding more like a foreign language than anything I had ever heard before.
 
“What?”

Janice coughed, a blatant attempt to mask her laughter as she tapped her sister on her arm.
 
“She doesn’t use makeup, Katie, so asking her about it really won’t help.
 
You’re going to have to take the reins on this one.”

Katie nodded in understanding and began to pull out a few more items from her bag, including several brushes and tubes.
 
“Well, since it looks like I’m being given complete liberty here, I’m going to give you a fabulous new face.”

I opened my mouth to argue but Katie quickly pushed my chin up, closing my mouth and effectively silencing me with the swipe of a brush.
 
I sat there for the next twenty minutes as she began to dab and sweep, brush and buff my face into something completely unrecognizable.
 
I watched the progress in the mirror that had been set up and tried my best to hide my fear that by the time she was done, my face would be caked with so much gunk, I’d be too top heavy to even make it down the aisle.

“Okay, and we’re done!” Katie exclaimed when she stepped away to allow me to admire her work.

“I don’t look like me,” I uttered as I turned my face side to side, the makeup heavy and completely masking the face that I had grown up seeing every day in the mirror.

“Yes, that’s the whole point, Grace,” she said, exasperated.
 
“I’m going to go and do my makeup and then it’ll be time for your hair.
 
Do
not
try to undo anything that I’ve done,” she warned.

I nodded grimly and then turned my glaring eyes to Janice, who looked extremely apologetic.
 
“She can get a little carried away—I’m sorry, Grace.
 
Would you like me to help you wipe some of that stuff off?”

Shaking my head, I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see myself in the mirror anymore.
 
I walked over to the entrance of the tent and peeked out at the activity going on outside.
 
Two large tents had been set up, one near the gazebo where the ceremony would take place, and another in the open field for the reception.

Tables and chairs had been set up in there, the chairs wrapped in ivory material with a large bow in the same color as my dress accenting each back.
 
There were flowers everywhere, their scent masking the smell of freshly mowed grass, and workers were busy hanging up large chandeliers from the top of the tent.

I could see nothing of Robert or
Ameila
, though if they were indeed helping to set up, I wouldn’t have been able to see them anyway, their movements were so quick.
 
I tucked my head back inside and looked at the bag that I had brought with me.
 
I had packed the corset that Lark had picked out when Robert had purchased all of the items for our first date, as well as some of the jewelry items that Robert had bought, though even I knew that they wouldn’t match the dress.

Knowing that I’d have to be dressed first so that I could help Janice, I grabbed my dress, ducked behind the changing screen that was set up in the room and began to remove my jeans and shirt.
 
I opened up the bag and pulled the corset out, then stared at it dumbly.
 
“Janice,” I called out.

“Yes, Grace,” she answered, coming over to stand on the opposite side of the screen.

“Um…could you help me put this corset on?”

I heard her soft laugh as she walked around and nodded.
 
“Of course.”
 
She helped to loosen the laces and slipped the corset over my head.
 
She then tightened and tied the laces, being careful to leave enough room for me to breathe.

“Thank you,” I said with gratitude and she smiled with affection.

“You’re welcome, Grace.”

She left me alone to change, and I hurried, quickly pulling the gown up over my hips and then zipping the dress up as far as I could before my arms became too short.
 
I walked out, carefully lifting the hem of the dress off the ground and presented myself to Janice for her approval.

“Oh, you’re beautiful,” she exclaimed, her hand covering her mouth as she took in me wearing her dress for the first time.
 
“That color suits you so well,” she said, her eyes glassing over.
 
“I am so glad that the sales woman at the store said that someone like you deserved a color fit for a queen.
 
Merlot—that’s the name of the color—is definitely fit for you, Grace.
 
And the style suits you with those beautiful shoulders of yours.”

I blushed at the compliments and patted my cheeks to try and tamp them down.
 
I pointed to my back and asked if she wouldn’t mind zipping me up the remaining few inches.
 

“Okay, I’m all done, so let’s get started on your hair, Grace,” Katie said from her chair in front of the mirror.
 
She turned to look at me and grinned with an almost child-like enthusiasm.
 
“I don’t know if you have a boyfriend or not, Grace, but if you don’t, you will by the end of tonight!”

I looked at Janice who shook her head, and I grinned.
 
“Can you get my hair done quickly so that I can help Janice get dressed?” I asked her.

“Oh yes, I already know what we’re doing to your hair.”

I looked at Janice, panicked, and groaned when I saw the bobby pins being pulled out of the now endless bag of Katie’s.
 
“How many of those are you going to stick in my head?”

Katie laughed rather maniacally, and pushed the bobby pins to the side.
 
“I’m only going to use a few.
 
I thought I’d play up that whole Asian side of yours with some chopsticks!”

My eyes grew wide and I looked at Janice once again, my face too stiff with makeup to do anything but mouth a silent question.

Janice nodded and quickly grabbed her sister’s hand before it emerged from her bag with the eating utensils.
 
“Katie, how about we just put Grace’s hair in a nice little half-up, half-down up-do?”

Katie shook her head at that idea, obviously set on styling my hair to look like a bowl of brown noodles.
 
“I’ve got a theme going on here, Jan.
 
It’s going to look fabulous.
 
Trust me; look at what I did with her face!”

Janice looked at my struck expression and forced Katie to drop the chopsticks.
 
“She doesn’t want her hair styled that way, Katie.
 
Just do a nice and simple up-do, alright?”

Katie looked at my panic stricken face and sighed.
 
“All right,” she conceded.
 
“But if no one asks you to dance, that won’t be my fault.”

I took solace in that and allowed Katie to turn my mass of curlers into a river of chocolate brown curls, some piled on top of my head and draping off to the side, while the rest flowed down my neck and back.
 
I was surprisingly pleased with the result and made sure that I let Katie know, if only as a consolation for not allowing her to use her chopsticks.