I felt my eyebrows rise even as I tried to keep looking in the same direction and not get stabbed in the eye by a mascara wand.
“And then we got back together, and he said that I should come. I might have pushed him on it—I really wanted to meet all of you, and I thought it meant something that he asked me. . . .” I blinked but tried to keep looking ahead, at the height lines that crawled up my doorframe, marking every year of my life until I’d declared myself over it at eleven. “But I think it’s just hard,” she said, taking a step back and capping the mascara. “I don’t . . . think it’s what he thought it would be.”
“Well,” I said, taking a breath, getting my automatic defense of Danny ready. But I hesitated, Brooke’s words hitting me, and letting myself see, for the first time, just how she might have felt about this weekend. I suddenly saw all the times we had made it clear we hadn’t known she was coming, all the times Danny had wandered off, not making sure she felt comfortable or happy. But he probably hadn’t meant anything by it. He probably just hadn’t realized how she felt. I tried to tell myself this—and I believed it—but it didn’t necessarily make me feel any better.
I opened my mouth to respond to this when Brooke nodded and spun my desk chair around so that I was facing my dresser mirror, causing Waffles to raise his head and look around, like he was confused as to why we were moving. “You’re done,” she said, stepping back with a smile.
I blinked at my reflection. My hair was in rollers all over my head, but my makeup looked amazing. I was wearing more than I normally ever did, but it didn’t look like it was garish or too much—I still looked like me, but with all my features subtly enhanced.
“What do you think?” Brooke asked, giving me a hopeful, nervous smile.
“It’s great,” I said, returning her smile in the mirror. “Thank you.” I took a deep breath. I knew I needed to try to make this better, even though something inside me knew that it was probably Danny who should be saying this, not me. “Brooke,” I started slowly, picking up the dog’s ears, then dropping them. “I’m really—”
She waved this off. “It’s okay.”
“But—”
“Really,” she said firmly, then smiled at me. “But thank you. Now,” she said, her voice suddenly businesslike. “I need you to leave the rollers in for as long as possible, okay? And I’m going to need to touch up your lipstick in about an hour.”
I glanced down at the time on my phone and jumped, sending Waffles tumbling to the ground. He shot me a look of betrayal, then hopped up on the bed and rolled onto his belly. I pushed myself up from my chair—it was later than I’d realized and I still hadn’t put on my dress. “I should go,” I said, already halfway to the door. I opened it, but then turned back to Brooke, who was giving Waffles’s belly a scratch. “Um . . . thank you.”
Brooke nodded, then pointed out the door. “Go,” she said, and I hurried out of the room. I ran out to the landing, where J.J. was standing in his suit, fastening his cuff links.
He took one look at me and immediately burst into laughter. “Oh my god,” he said, doubling over slightly. “What is on your head? Oh my god.”
“Shut up, Jameison,” I snapped at him as I headed to Linnie’s room, which thankfully looked empty. “They’re just rollers!”
“No, wait, come back,” J.J. said, sounding out of breath, still laughing in between every word. “I didn’t mean it. You look, um . . .”
I slammed the door to Linnie’s room, then tried to hit the lights, not remembering until I flipped the switch twice that the power was still out. J.J. being upstairs, in his suit, either meant that the group that had gone into the basement to try to fix things had either failed, or they’d just told J.J. to go away and stop trying to help. Figuring that the second option was more likely—frankly, hoping it was—I looked around in the dark. The power outage looked like it had stopped the getting-ready party that had been going on in here not that long ago, though I could still see the evidence of it—half-empty champagne glasses on Linnie’s dresser and makeup and Q-tips scattered across it. I walked to the closet, opening the door wide, since there were no windows in the long, narrow space and it was totally dark in there.
I made my way to the end of the closet and, with the little light that was left, pulled my bridesmaid dress off the rack. I changed quickly, then walked back through to Linnie and Rodney’s room. I looked at the mirror over the dresser, in which I could kind of see myself, but not really. My bridesmaid dress was peach silk, with spaghetti straps and a little V cutout on the bodice. We’d all had to wear the same color, but could pick our own options in straps, length, and fit. I smoothed down the skirt, which flared out slightly and which I’d felt would be more fun during the dancing portion of the evening. Peach wasn’t my favorite color, and on my own, I never would have chosen this dress—but it had been Linnie’s pick, and I had to admit, as I looked at it now, that I kind of liked it.
I peered out into the hallway before leaving, to make sure J.J. wasn’t still lurking around, waiting to make fun of me. When the coast was clear, I hurried down to the first floor, hoping that while I’d been getting my makeup done things hadn’t gone too far off track downstairs.
“No,” I heard a voice say as I stepped off the last stair and into the front hall. “Still a negative on power in the house. I have the number of an electrician . . . okay. Sounds good.” Then there was a sound of feedback, and Bill came around the corner, holding a walkie-talkie and wearing a tux.
I took an instinctive step back, remembering a second too late that I was right in front of the stairwell, and I stumbled slightly, reaching out to the banister post and holding on to steady myself, trying to look like I’d done all of this on purpose. But the fact was that Bill was wearing a tuxedo.
The tux fit him well, somehow transforming the lanky guy I’d been running errands with this morning. His black bow tie was perfectly tied, and his hair had been combed back. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him dressed up—just last night, he’d been wearing a suit. So I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly having trouble focusing as I looked at him.
“Hey,” he said, lowering his walkie-talkie and smiling at me. “You look great.”
“Oh,” I said, just blinking at him, then looking down at my bare feet, trying to pull myself together. “Thank you. So do you. Um, with the whole tuxedo thing.”
“Thanks,” Bill said, sounding pleased as he adjusted his shirt cuffs. “It’s a thing of my uncle’s. He thinks if we’re dressed up, we blend in more with the event. You don’t notice the people running around the scenes as much if they look like maybe they could be guests.”
I nodded. “That makes sense.” I reached up to tuck my hair behind my ears, but met only the foam of the rollers. I felt my stomach drop as I remembered, all at once, what my head looked like. “Oh my god.”
“I think your hair looks nice,” Bill said, his smile widening as he clearly realized what I was thinking. “It’s very . . . sci-fi.”
“They’re just . . . for my hair,” I managed to say. It was like I could practically feel the heat coming from my cheeks. “Because there’s no power.”
“Yeah,” Bill said, holding up his walkie-talkie as he shook his head. “We’re working on it. The caterers are about to kill me. We got the generator working outside, so everything in the tent is up and running, but . . .” He grimaced.
“Do you think it’s going to be able to be fixed?” I asked, my humiliating hair situation forgotten as I started to walk toward the basement door. “Don’t we really, really need power?”
Bill nodded. “We really do.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I have an electrician I can call and see if they can get here fast. I was waiting to see if your dad was able to get the fuses working again.”
“But if they can’t?”
Bill just looked at me, and I realized I’d been waiting for something optimistic from him, for him to say that we’d be fine, that there was some kind of solution h
e’d thought of. “Then we need to hope an electrician can get here and get things fixed in . . .” He glanced down at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
I swallowed as I walked over to the open basement door. It was pitch-black inside, except I could see a few flashlights bobbing around. “Hey,” I called down into the basement. “Uh—how’s it looking?” Nobody responded, and after a moment, I added, “It’s Charlie.”
“I know it’s Charlie.” This was my dad, sounding annoyed. “I do have the ability to distinguish between my children. I didn’t just get here.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“We’re working on it.” This was Danny, and I could hear that he sounded stressed.
“Just . . . give us a second, okay?” my dad called, and I nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see me.
“Okay,” I called. I glanced at Bill, and we walked toward the front hall together. “It doesn’t sound great.”
“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m giving it just one more minute before I get the electrician. I don’t want to step on your dad’s toes, but . . .”
I nodded. “It’s the right call.”
“Because we don’t have that long to wait.” Just as he’d finished saying this, the lights snapped back on, and the entire front hall was suddenly very bright. Machines whirred to life in the kitchen, followed by the startled yelps of the caterers, who had apparently not been prepared for this. I could hear the sound of three separate television sets blaring, all turned to different channels, and a low persistent beeping that was coming from somewhere I couldn’t identify. I looked at Bill and blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust.
It was that feeling like when the lights come up after a movie—how it takes a minute to let go of the world you’d been immersed in. Bill smiled happily at me, and now that I could see his features clearly, I was reminded all over again that, Jesse Foster or no Jesse Foster, he really was cute.
“Let’s see what else has to be done,” Bill said, picking up the walkie. “All of which will be much easier now that we have power.”
“Thank god,” I said. I gave him a quick smile, then headed upstairs, feeling like, judging from how unhappy the caterers had seemed, it might be a good thing to avoid the kitchen at the moment.
As I was coming up the stairs, Rodney was making his way down them, but with difficulty, and when he got closer I understood why. He was wearing Ralph’s terrible suit—which was as purple, and checked, as ever. But even though I’d known Ralph was shorter and smaller than Rodney, I didn’t quite understand just how much until Rodney was in front of me, wearing his suit. It was far too tight, and the pants stopped somewhere around Rodney’s mid-calf. It was a terrible look on anyone, but especially for a groom on his wedding day.
“I can’t wear this,” Rodney said, shaking his head as he looked down at himself, and I had to agree.
I winced. I knew it was my fault that he was wearing it—but at the time, it had seemed like the only thing to do. Now, though, looking at the reality in front of me, I wasn’t quite sure. Maybe Rodney could have worn his suit and gotten a fake marriage from Max, and then he and Linnie could have just gone to a courthouse afterward and not told anyone.
The door to the other guest room opened, and the General came out, looked at his son, and frowned. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“It’s a long story,” I said quickly, hoping we could skip over the parts of it that I had been directly responsible for. “But . . . um . . . Rodney kind of doesn’t have his wedding suit.”
Rodney shot me a dark look and then nodded. “Unfortunately, it’s true.”
“And you thought this was a good substitute?” The General shook his head. “Son.”
“I didn’t!” Rodney spluttered. “I was hoping this was all a big joke, but apparently, it’s what I’m expected to wear on my wedding day.” Rodney’s voice rose at the end of it, and I could hear just how upset about this he was. I took a breath, about to suggest that J.J. wear this and Rodney wear his groomsman suit—they were roughly the same size—when the General stepped forward and clapped his hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, son,” he said, steering him into the guest room. “Let’s get you sorted out.”
“Charlie?” My mother came out onto the landing, adjusting the wrap around her shoulders. Her mother-of-the-bride dress was a pale lilac that I’d hated on the hanger (and had not been afraid to tell her this) but looked absolutely stunning on.
“You look so nice, Mom.”
“Really?” She smiled, pleased, and I could see that her cheeks had gone slightly pink. “Thank you, hon. So do you. Though I’m not sure about the hairstyle . . .”
My hand flew up to my rollers. “I’m going to take them out,” I assured her, figuring that maybe now that the power was back on, I could use a hair dryer on them, maybe speed up the process a little.
“I think that might be wise,” my mother said with a smile. “But have you seen your sister? They need to get set up for pictures.”
“No,” I said, trying to think of the last place I’d seen Linnie. “Um, do the bridesmaids know where she is?” My mom gave me a look that clearly indicated she didn’t trust the bridesmaids to know much of anything. “I’ll check her room,” I said, already heading upstairs.
I saw that the door to J.J.’s room was open, and I crossed over to it, knocking once before pushing the door open all the way. Mike was sitting on the oversize baseball-glove chair. “Hey,” I said, more quietly than I normally would have.
“Hey,” he said, and I was happy to see that he no longer looked like he was going to fall over in a strong wind. “The bridesmaids are in my room,” he said faintly. “They’re . . . loud.”
“How are you doing?” I asked, not entirely sure if I meant with his hangover, or with being back in the house again.
Mike made a so-so gesture with his hand, which I realized might have covered either of these things.
“Seen Linnie?”
“No,” Mike said, looking alarmed. “Have we lost the bride?”
“No,” I said, lowering my voice. “Don’t—”
“We lost the bride?” This was J.J., standing behind me in the doorway. He stepped into the room and grinned when he saw me. “Oh good, your hair still looks crazy,” he said happily. “Now I just need to get a photo. . . .”
“No,” I said, taking a step out of their room.
“It’s not for blackmail!” he called after me unconvincingly.
“Leave me alone,” I said, backing out of the room before J.J. could find his phone and take a blackmail picture of me. I checked the bathroom, but Linnie wasn’t there, either. Though I did use the opportunity of having a mirror I could actually see into to finish getting ready. I went over the rollers quickly with my hair dryer, then took them out one by one and shook out my hair. I piled them carefully on the bathroom counter, giving silent thanks for Brooke. My curls were falling softly around my shoulders, and this, coupled with the makeup she’d put on me, made me feel like maybe I was ready for this wedding after all. I looked at my reflection, thinking how in just a few hours, Jesse would be seeing me, and for once, I’d be prepared to see him too.
I gave myself a last look in the mirror before I headed to Linnie’s room to see if she was there, but the room was dark and quiet. I was about to go, to try and see if maybe Linnie and the bridesmaids were all somewhere together, when I noticed a strip of light extending from the closet onto the floor.
I pulled open the closet door. My sister was sitting on the carpet, underneath the hanging racks of my clothes. She’d put on her wedding dress, and she looked absolutely beautiful.
“Hi,” I said, trying to fight down the lump in my throat as I looked at my sister on her wedding day.
“Don’t,” Linnie said, smiling up at me. “You’re going to get me started and we haven’t even done the rest of the pictures yet.”
I dropped my heels in the doorway and walked into the closet, si
tting across from her after carefully smoothing my dress underneath me. “You look so pretty.”
Normally Linnie would have brushed off a compliment like this, or made a joke. But maybe you weren’t supposed to do that when you were a bride, or maybe she understood just how lovely she actually looked. Because she just smiled at me and inclined her head slightly. “Thank you.”
“What are you doing in here?” I leaned back against the wall, hanging clothes just inches from my head. I couldn’t help but flash back to all the times Linnie and I had sat here like this, legs extended, talking about everything and nothing, or laughing until my cheeks hurt. We were in our usual spots, though we’d never been quite this formally dressed before.
“I don’t know,” she said, leaning back against her own wall. “I just wanted a minute of quiet before everything got started.” She gave me a smile. “Your hair looks great.”
“Brooke.”
“Really?”
“Really. She did my makeup, too.”
“Well, thank god for that.”
I smiled at that, even as I wondered how long I should wait before telling her she was wanted downstairs and people were waiting for her. She looked so peaceful that I was hoping it could actually be a few minutes from now. “Oh—Siobhan can’t come,” I said, trying to just toss this off. “She got stuck in Michigan. I’ll pay you back whatever her meal would have cost.”
“It’s okay,” Linnie said. She leaned forward, looking at me closely. “What?”
I shook my head, not wanting to put this on her when she was getting married so soon. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
I waved it off. “We kind of had a fight,” I said with a shrug, like this really didn’t matter to me at all. “But it’s not a big deal. I mean, I don’t really need her. I have you guys. And she’s leaving next year for school anyway, so . . .”