Page 44 of The Wedding Menu

“Mydress, you mean?” I ask, turning to face her.

With her shoulders drooping, she nods. “Yes. Could I try it on? Because I can’t find anything else I like, and Trev’s mom keeps asking. It’s just so stressful, and since you’re not engaged yet—I mean, by the time Frank proposes, who knows? Maybe you’ll have changed your mind. There’ll be different trends and dresses and—”

“Actually, Frank proposed before leaving for Mayfield.” I set the flute down, my arms bowing at my hips. “So, no. I’ll need my dress, and I’ll need it soon. Six months, to be exact.”

Barb and Martha stare at me, open-mouthed and speechless. When Martha got engaged, she planned a whole party where she got us to dress up and announced it over a microphone. It’s one of the few memories I have of that night, before the Jell-O shots started being passed around, but I’m fairly certain there were fireworks. The news of her wedding certainly wasn’t sprung on people during an argument.

“You’re engaged?”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”

“Ryan didn’t say anything either!”

“Let me see the ring!”

The saliva in my mouth thickens. God, I’ve got no ring. I have no ring, and I didn’t even think about it until this very moment. I doubt Frank even remotely planned for it, seeing as he’s busy living his best life.

“It’s… it’s being resized, actually.” I fidget with my dress, tugging and pushing as if it doesn’t look perfect already. “And we didn’t want to make a big deal.”

“But it’s your wedding,” Barb says softly. “You love weddings, Ames. You’ve been dreaming about this moment for—”

“Andyouhave dreamed the exact opposite for just as long,” I say sharply, turning to Martha, and feeling a pang of remorse at cutting Barb off in mid-sentence. “Care to tell me why you’re after my classic white dress now?”

She hesitates, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I just… I realized it’s not appropriate to get married in a short red dress.” With an uncomfortable giggle, she shrugs. “And you have such good taste with these things. I don’t have a shred of a clue.”

“Notappropriate?” I throw a disgruntled look at Barb, who shrugs. This is the woman who only seven months ago, at her birthday, was hanging upside down from her boyfriend’s shoulder and drinking from a keg of warm beer while everyone shouted, “Drink.” She complained, demanding everyone shout, “Swallow,” instead.

“You’re obsessed with weddings!” Martha continues. “You can find other things you’ll like. Please, Ames, your dress is the first one I don’t hate.” As her eyes well with tears and her lips wobble, she continues, “I’ve tried on hundreds. Hundreds!”

“Martha, I’m sorry, but—”

“You’re always saying how much you owe me, right? How much I changed your life and how without me you would have had a depressing childhood,” she says with a pout. “Can’t you do thisonething—just one—to pay me back?”

“Martha, that’s not nice,” Barb interjects as she stands. Considering her soft-spoken nature, so unlike mine and Martha’s, this is a full-blown scene for her. “You can’t manipulate her into doing what you want.”

“How am I manipulating her?” Martha shrieks.

She’s using my gratitude to guilt me into giving her my wedding dress, that’s how. And it’s bad enough when I do it to myself,but that she would? This is so unlike her. “Martha, what the hell is going on with you?”

Sitting on the couch, she begins sobbing wildly. Danielle pats her shoulder, and Barb meets my gaze with an apologetic expression, then holds out some tissues for her.

“Please, Ames, just this one last thing,” she says through a wall of tears. “I promise I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t desperate.”

I don’t know what’s going on. Frank is acting like the very opposite of the man I love, Martha is basically unrecognizable, and theoneevent I’ve been waiting my whole life for is turning into a nightmare. It’s an avalanche, burying me alive and leaving no escape whatsoever. Wherever I turn, there’s just more and more weight keeping me trapped until I can’t breathe.

I speed toward the changing rooms, the need to get out of this place overpowering. I slam the door behind me after spitting out, “Just have the dress.”

I navigate the aisle of the store, throwing random glances at gardening products and vases. There’s a cute black ceramic one with a white rim, but never has a plant survived my care, so, with a yawn, I move forward and take my phone out. The last thing I feel like doing is choosing a bunch of crap we don’t need for our registry.

On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about my comeback to the Marguerite’s last tweet almost obsessively, but nothing has felt right so far.

I tap on Twitter, and once the app opens, their latest tweet is the first thing that shows up. It’s a retweet of That’s Amore’s update, where the Italian restaurant wished the Marguerite a happy tenth anniversary.

Seizing the opportunity, I click on the “new tweet” button.

I glance at the shopwindow, a pathetic little rush of excitement making me giggle, and stare at the rain still pouring down in buckets outside like it’s been doing for the entire month of September. When my phone vibrates, I peek at the screen, a certain disappointment settling on my chest as I notice it isn’t Frank. But it lasts only a second before my eyes widen and the humming in my veins quickens.

Ian is calling me.