Read The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One Page 12

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  The maid of honor dress is dark green. It has no straps. This means I am going to have to wear a strapless bra. Usually, I wear the most comfortable bras I can find—ones without under wires or sculpted cups or padding. The idea of a strapless bra sounds like torture. I haven’t even put one on yet, and I know I’m going to hate it. I’m trying on the maid of honor dress with my regular bra on, so when I look at myself in the mirror, I can see the straps.

  Antonia and her mother are watching me as I come out of the dressing room at the bridal shop. Antonia claps her hands together. “Olivia, you look beautiful.”

  I steal another glance in the mirror. I look like a girl. I mean, I always look like a girl, but in this dress, I look like a real girl. Like the way other girls look. Girls who aren’t me. Who aren’t driven to become the heads of their jettatori families. I can’t help kind of liking the fact I look girly.

  Antonia’s mother comes around me and starts tugging on various parts of the dress, seeing if it’s loose anywhere. “I think it will work,” she says. The maid of honor dress was originally fitted for Maddie. I guess Maddie and I are about the same size.

  I never meant to be such a different kind of girl. But after my mother died and my father went to jail, I was really sad. I didn’t fit in with anyone, because I was so sad. At least, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the other girls. They were interested in things that seemed stupid to me at the time. They talked about cute boys in bands, and they wanted to go out and buy clothes. I didn’t see the point in any of that stuff. It wasn’t that I felt like I identified with boys or anything. They were equally as shallow in their interests in cars and video games and sports. During that time, when I was about twelve, everyone else was becoming an adolescent. I was becoming tough. That was when I taught myself not to cry anymore. That was when I taught myself how to get through the sad times. I learned to focus on something, to let it consume me. As long as I focused on a goal, I could stop thinking about how awful everything was. When I was twelve, I made goals like getting straight A’s on my report card or learning how to make frittatas. But those goals got too easy. I kept having to make them bigger and bigger. There’s no goal bigger than being the first female boss of a jettatori family. I’ve been consumed with that goal for years.

  It’s easier to talk to boys sometimes. Not because they have big goals like me, but they understand needing to prove yourself. They understand challenging yourself. Girls just make me feel like hiding, with all their hugging and talking about feelings and stuff. Plus, somehow, while I’ve been retreating into myself and focusing on my goals, they’ve all got to be these graceful, poised people. I’m still just as awkward as I was when I was a little girl climbing trees. When I’m around girls, I felt like they’re real girls, and I’m some kind of clumsy circus freak. For instance, I’m terrified I’m going to trip over this dress if I try to walk in it.

   A dreadful thought occurs to me. “I’m not going to have to wear high heels, am I?”

  Antonia’s mother fiddles with the skirt of the dress. “Well, it is kind of long...”

  “I’ll fall down,” I say. “I can’t walk in heels.”

  “Maybe wedges,” Antonia suggests.

  I don’t think that’s going to make any difference. I imagine falling when I’m coming down the aisle at Antonia’s wedding, ruining everything. I feel sick to my stomach. “Antonia, are you sure you don’t just want to let Maddie be the maid of honor?” Please?

  “Don’t be silly. I picked you. Besides, you look so good in the dress. Doesn’t she, Ma?”

  Antonia’s mother nods. “You look just like your mother, Olivia.”

  My mother? I look at myself again, trying to see it. If I don’t move, my arms do look slender and graceful. My mother always looked like that. I wonder who my mother even was? Did she betray my father? “Do you think my mother was happy?”

  Antonia’s mother looks at me strangely. “Why would you ask something like that?”

  I shrug.

  Antonia’s mother pats me on the cheek. “I think you made her happy, Olivia. I know she was so proud of you. I remember how she carried you everywhere after you were born.”

  “But...besides me?”

  Antonia’s mother shrugs. “I’m just not sure she was cut out for this kind of life. It takes a special kind of woman to be with our men, if you know what I mean.” She chuckles and nudges me back into the dressing room to take the dress back off. “God rest her soul.”

  Not cut out for this kind of life? That’s not what I want to hear. I let Antonia’s mother help me unzip the dress. It falls off me and pools on the floor in liquid green shimmers. Would my mother be proud of me now?