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Henrietta
Confession: I’m a 28-year-old virgin.
I was back in Vestido,bridesmaid dress shopping for my best friend’s wedding, and I was starting to see a pattern. A pattern I didn’t like.
I met Birdie and Mara two years ago. We’d become fast friends, all single girls in our late twenties, transitioning into our thirties. It helped that we had a mutual love of breakfast food and mojitos.
Then, I witnessed Birdie fall in love with a hot single dad and stood by her side a year later as she got married.
I’d never really been the kind of person to have a lot of girlfriends, always being a loner who was more worried about school and work than fun. It didn’t help that my grandma couldn’t drive anymore and took up lots of my free time with her appointments and outings.
Or maybe that was just an excuse.
Because after Birdie got married, Mara, a famous romance author and the self-proclaimed eternally single woman, fell in love.
She got engaged.
And now she was six months from getting married.
And me?
You guessed it.
Still. Single.
Still a virgin.
I’d never had a boyfriend in high school, and I’d been too busy working in college to ever make time for a guy. At least that’s what I told myself. But the truth was, the guys I met in person just weren’t interested in me like that. And online dating at my size? I’d rather help my mom weed her massive garden or... be single for the rest of my life.
Before I knew it, they’d be printing my face on the back of a set of Old Maid cards.
Mara held up a deep-green dress that pinched in around the waist and flowed to the ground. She smiled at the gown, making her brown eyes crinkle at the corners. “What do you think about this one? It would look beautiful on all your body types and skin tones.”
Birdie laughed. “I love it. It might actually make me look like I have a waist.”
I laughed with her. Even though we’d all been friends for two and a half years now, I was still getting used to the way she and Mara so easily accepted themselves. I hoped I’d get there someday.
While Birdie was what my gran described as “apple shaped,” I was built like a brick shit house. (That’s what my grandpa used to call it, before he passed a few years back.) Square and strong enough to throw down on the football field with my brothers and bigger than half the guys I came into contact with.
This dress would look pretty on me, but I wished it had straps to hold up the girls. They did not play well with a lack of support. “Do you think we can get straps added?” I asked.
Mara nodded. “I bet Jonas’s tailor could sew some on. She does incredible work.” She winked.
I laughed. That boy did fill out a suit better than most. “Then let’s get it,” I said. It wouldn’t really matter which one we got, at the end of the day. I would feel uncomfortable in my body whether I was wearing sweatpants, business casual, or a beautiful dress worth hundreds of dollars.
Mara left, taking the dress to the saleswoman, probably to order enough for all of us bridesmaids. In just a few months, Birdie and I would be standing beside Mara on her big day, along with her future sister-in-law, Tess.
Tess’s wedding, just shy of a year ago at Emerson Trails, had been so beautiful that Jonas and Mara had taken the first opening the park had available when she wasn’t writing for TV in Atlanta. Bonus that it was during Birdie’s summer break from school, and I had enough PTO saved up to take a few days off for the event.
My phone rang, and I pulled it from my purse seeing my boss’s name on the screen. Stepping away from Birdie and Tess, I answered the call. “Hey, Janessa,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Great! I just wanted to let you know that the head contractor’s plane just landed, and he’ll be at the building in an hour to get his keys.”
“I’ll be there,” I promised. Even though it was a Saturday. Even though I was supposed to be dress shopping. Even though I’d been looking forward to a late afternoon dinner at Waldo’s Diner with my friends. I couldn’t afford to lose this job.
I put my phone in my purse, and Birdie touched my arm, her wide blue eyes on me. “You have to go to work?”