The Bridesmaid (10 page)

“What’s that stuff for?” Delila asked.

“At the end of the ceremony as we walk back down the aisle, I’m either gonna have the guests ring these little bells or”—she opened a little white bottle with two hearts on the top and pulled out a bubble wand—“have everyone blow bubbles!” She demonstrated by showering Abby and Delila with said bubbles.

“I thought rice pelting was traditional,” Delila said.

“So did I,” Tucker said. “Until Carol educated me on the fact that the rice is bad for the birds.”

Tucker and Carol exchanged a sickeningly sweet smile and Delila shot Abby an incredulous and pitying look.

“So, what do you guys think, bells or bubbles?” Carol asked. She held one of the bells up next to her face and tinkled it.

“Why don’t you just do both?” Delila asked.

Carol clucked her tongue. “Delila, this is serious.”

“Right, as opposed to, say, the homeless problem or oppression of women in the Middle East or the perpetual state of war in the Congo,” Abby said.

“Or mad cow disease!” Delila added with satisfaction.

Carol’s face darkened. “Fine. If you guys don’t want to help, I’ll just deal with it myself.”

Carol placed the box on the floor and sat down at the desk again. Abby let out a sigh of relief. She knew Carol was disappointed, but the idea of helping pick out wedding stuff when Abby wasn’t even sure there would
be
a wedding was just a little too depressing. Besides, it was just bubbles and bells. Carol would get over it.

“Don’t worry, Carol. We’ll figure it out,” Tucker said patiently.

“So . . . Ab? The park?” Delila said.

Abby was about to grab her sunscreen and flee when she saw Carol’s face crumple.

“Oh! You’re going out?” She put her chin down on the back of the desk chair and looked up at them with her big doe eyes. This did not bode well. “I was hoping you’d come with me. Mom and Becky and I have an appointment at Here Comes the Bride.”

Abby blanched. “Wedding dresses? Already?”

“Well, we are trying to put a wedding together in just a few weeks,” Carol said. “Most people have a year or more. Mom’s going to use all her connections to get me a dress right away, but then there are measurements and fittings. . . . I have to order a gown ASAP.”

“Okay, I get that. I do,” Abby said, backing toward the door as if she were backing away from a rabid animal. “But I have plans. Delila and I were going to go to the park. I mean, if you’d given me some notice . . .”

“Oh! Delila can come, too!” Carol said, grabbing a stack of pictures out of Abby’s printer. She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’d love another opinion!”

“I’d go, but Carol wants the dress to be a surprise,” Tucker said, slipping both arms around Carol and kissing her cheek.

Ick. Does he kiss
Melissa
with that mouth?

“So, Delila?” Carol asked, beaming.

“Uh—that’s okay,” Delila said, shoving the boom box into Abby’s hands. “I just remembered I have to be somewhere that’s—not—here.”

She turned and rushed down the hall.

“D, don’t leave me,” Abby said desperately, following after her.

“Sorry, Ab. But wedding dress shopping? I’d rather eat mud,” Delila whispered, halfway down the stairs already. “Call me tonight. If you survive.”

A minute later Abby heard the door slam and resigned herself to her fate. She was a bridesmaid now. Her life was no longer her own.

“Ready?” Carol asked, wrapping her arm around Abby’s back. “This is gonna be so much fun!”

Abby looked down at the stereo she was hugging and wondered where it had all gone wrong. Coming home seemed to be the problem these days. She should really consider not doing that anymore.

“Sure,” Abby said. She forced a smile so big it actually made her face hurt. “Can’t wait.”

“Oh, Abby! You look just beautiful!” her mother trilled, clasping her hands together.

Abby’s face was red and blotchy and she was sweating profusely. She could not believe this was happening. For the first two hours everything had been fine. But then Morgan Rice, the owner of the shop, said she had to leave in half an hour. And Carol had freaked out because she wasn’t going to get to try on all the ones she liked. “Sometimes girls get their bridesmaids to try on dresses too. That way you still get to see what they look like on, but you save time,” Morgan had suggested helpfully. So now here Abby was. Putting on actual wedding dresses.

It was too horrible to be real.

This was only the third dress she had tried on, but the process was giving her more of a workout than any soccer game she’d ever been in. Not only did these things weigh more than she did, but they were impossible to struggle into. Plus it was like every wedding gown on the planet was made with some kind of insulating material that kept her body temperature at an even 110 degrees.

“I look like a cupcake,” Abby said. She wiped her brow and stepped in front of the three-way mirror.

Somehow Abby had ended up with all the dresses her mother had picked out. The hoops and the five layers of skirts and the itchy, itchy lace. This was the biggest one yet with a skirt that extended about three feet out in every direction. It weighed a good four hundred pounds and had a train that went on for days. At least her athletic frame could handle it. Abby was sure Carol would buckle under the weight.

“Carol! Come look at this!” her mother called as she and Morgan pinned the dress tightly around her waist. Lace crackled and a pin jabbed Abby in the side.

“Ow!”

Becky stepped out of her dressing room in a tasteful spaghetti-strap dress with a simple skirt and not a poof in sight.

“Oh, Abby! Look at you!” she said. Her hand was over her heart like it was just overflowing.

Abby fanned her face with her hands and blew up at her hairline, trying to move the piece of hair that was plastered to her forehead.

“Carol!”

“I’ll be right there!” Carol replied.

“Please come out before I melt,” Abby pleaded.

Finally the door opened. Carol stuck her head out, took one look at Abby and cracked up laughing. “And the Cheesiest Bride Award goes to . . .”

“Thank you! Get me out of this thing!” Abby said, flapping her arms.

“Carol, this dress is beautiful,” her mother said. “Don’t you think you should at least try it on yourself before you dismiss it out of hand?”

“Mom, that dress is awful,” Carol said. “She looks like a parade float. No offense, Morgan.”

“None taken. Everyone has different tastes,” Morgan said diplomatically.

“That is exactly the dress I would have worn if I had had a real wedding,” Abby’s mother said wistfully.

“Yeah, Mom. But that’s you. And I’m not you,” Carol said.

Abby’s mother stiffened, obviously hurt. At the moment, however, Abby couldn’t think of anything other than the pin that was digging itself deeper and deeper into her side, and the fact that the heat was starting to make her dizzy.

“Morgan, do you think you could—”

“What about this, Mom?” Carol asked, stepping into full view for the first time.

Becky took one look at her and gasped loudly. “Oh! That is gorgeous!” she said. Of course, her opinion didn’t hold much cred. She’d said the same thing about every single dress in the store.

Abby pulled the lace collar away from her own neck and fanned at her skin as she studied her sister. Carol’s hair was gathered up in a messy bun and her cheeks were all flushed, but it was her grin that told the tale. Abby knew Carol well enough to realize that her sister thought she’d found
the
dress.

Miraculously, it seemed that the girl had managed to find the one wearable gown in the place. The top was plain with a kind of scoop neck and the skirt was straight. A lace triangle covered only half the skirt at an asymmetrical angle. Definitely modern and semi-cool— for a bridal gown. She could see why her sister liked it.

“Isn’t that the same one you just had on?” her mother asked.

Carol slumped slightly, clearly perturbed. “No! The one I just had on was
all
lace.”

“Well, I like it,” Abby said.

“Yeah?” Carol turned to see the back in the mirror.

“Yeah. Now can someone . . . help me . . . out of this thing?” Abby asked as she grasped in vain for the back clasp. No one even looked at her. The train started to gather up in a twist around her feet as she turned and turned.

“Mom?” Carol said, holding her arms out. “I really think this is it.”

Her mother tilted her head to one side. Abby was sweating so much from the exertion that she was starting to smell.

“Really, anyone. Just a little help here,” she said, stretching her arms behind her. She felt the clasp beneath her fingers, but it slipped right through them thanks to all the perspiration.

“I just don’t understand why you want to wear something with no shape,” her mother said. She walked behind Carol and turned her to face the mirror, then stood behind her. “Don’t you want to look like a bride?”

“Mom, we’re in a bridal store. All the dresses in here are wedding dresses,” Carol said. “I look like a bride.”

“That design is all the rage, Phoebe,” Morgan said, coming to Carol’s rescue. “There are a lot more modern dresses out there these days.”

“Becky, maybe?” Abby said desperately as she continued to spin, trying to find the back clasp in the mirror. “All I need is—”

“I know, I know,” Abby’s mom said. “Believe me, I’ve seen them. But Carol, just look at Abby! Now
she
looks like a bri—”

Everyone turned to look at Abby as directed and at that moment the train tightened around her feet, binding them together mummy style. As Abby made one last grab for the clasp, her knees knocked into each other, her ankles strained, and before she knew it, she was going down.

“Help!” she called out, arms flailing.

“Omigod!”

Slam!
Abby turned her face just in time before her nose broke her fall.

“Ooooow.” Abby lifted her chin and moved her bruised jaw around. She looked up, paralyzed by taffeta from the waist down as Becky, Carol, her mother and Morgan all gazed at her in a circle. “Um . . . do you think someone could help me now?”

• 7 •

The Icing on the Cake

Abby walked into her room that night, exhausted. “They should have an exercise class called cardio-dress-trying-on,” she mumbled to herself. “It’d be bigger than Pilates.”

At least Carol had made a decision about her dress, placing an order for her first choice. Once everyone had been assured that Abby was okay after her big fall, they had all had a good laugh and Abby’s mom had realized she didn’t want to be a contender for the Most Horrendous MOB list. She had agreed that Carol’s choice was perfect for her and they had all gone to the Watertown Diner for celebratory milk shakes.

Abby smiled as she sat down at her computer. It had turned out to be a fun night in the end. Even if her cheek still hurt. Now she just had to IM Delila and let her know that she had, in fact, lived to tell the tale.

Abby turned on the computer. As the desktop whirred to life, the speakers suddenly blared the classic wedding march, loud enough to wake Wagner himself. Scared out of her skin, Abby grabbed the right speaker and turned down the volume.

“She’s got to be kidding me,” Abby said. Carol had replaced the pleasant, welcoming bing-bonging sound her computer usually made with that? Was the girl on drugs?

Abby shifted in her chair and something sharp stabbed her in the butt. She reached back and pulled out a stack of fabric swatches, all shimmering plaids in an array of colors. The card at the top read “Jim Hjelm Bridesmaids” and the staple that held it all together was bent thanks to the interference of Abby’s posterior. Abby grimaced as she flipped through the fabrics. Shimmering plaid? She thought she was going to pick out her own dress.

Okay, the girl is still your sister,
Abby thought.
If you
freak out, you will only live to regret it.
She tossed the swatches on her bed and turned back to her computer. Her mouth dropped open in horror.

Her desktop—previously a black screen with a picture of the U.S. Women’s World Cup soccer team in the center—was now a light blue background with little white hearts all over it. Wedding bells blinked all around the edges of the screen and there, right smack in the middle, were two cartoon kids with huge wide eyes, dressed up in wedding garb, smiling out at her. Clenching her jaw, Abby grabbed the mouse and clicked on the preferences tab to change the whole thing back, but nowhere in her files could she find the World Cup photo. It was gone. Erased. Replaced by cherubic wedding gnomes.

“Carol!” she shouted. She whirled around just as the culprit herself walked right into the room with a cardboard box in her hands. No knock. No nothing.

“Hey! I was just coming to talk to you about gifts—”

“What did you do to my computer?”

“Oh, I know. Isn’t it totally adorable?” Carol said with a grin. She placed the box down on Abby’s bed.

Totally adorable? Since when does Carol use the word
adorable
?

“Are you kidding me? Carol, has it escaped your mind that this is
my
computer?
My
room?”

Carol’s face changed from repentant to irritated. “I think you’re overreacting a little, Ab.”

“Look, I said I would help you with the wedding stuff, but this is getting ridiculous.”

“Come on—”

“No! Look at my room! And today? Trying on wedding dresses?”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry,” Carol said. “I promise I won’t ask you to do anything else above and beyond the call of duty.”

Abby eyed her sister, unconvinced. She had a feeling that brides had a different definition of “call of duty” than most rational people.

“Now, I was wondering if you would mind keeping track of the engagement gifts as they come in,” Carol said cautiously. “It just means keeping a list of each present and who it’s from so I can write thank-you cards later. Is that cool?”

“Yeah. I guess I can do that,” Abby said.