Chapter 16: The Fitting

The text came at seven in the morning, from a number I had never deleted.

Please. The fitting is at ten. I have nobody.

I read it four times and didn't answer.

At ten I was standing in a bridal salon on Newbury Street, because I wanted to see her face when she saw me.

The seamstress had gone into the back to find pins.

Bree stood alone on the little round platform in a wedding gown.

Ivory silk, a fitted waist, a train three feet long.

I had tried on the same gown in this room two months ago, with Bree holding my veil.

"You came," she said.

"I'm not here for you."

"I know."

"I'm here because I want to hear you say it to my face, without a microphone."

Her chin shook.

She wasn't wearing makeup.

Without it she looked younger, and sicker, and scared.

"Porter hasn't touched me since the gala," she said. "He sleeps at his father's. He told his mother I'm 'emotional.'"

"Is that supposed to make me sorry?"

"No."

"Good."

"I just don't have anyone else to tell."

"You had me," I said. "For fifteen years."

She flinched.

The mirrors showed her from three sides, and none of them was kind.

"You knew about the hospital bathroom," I said. "You were the only person alive who did."

"I know."

"You held me while I cried. And you took that to a microphone."

"I didn't want to." Her voice rose. "He told me exactly what to say."

I went very still.

"Who told you?"

She pressed her lips together.

"Bree."

"Richard."

The seamstress's footsteps sounded in the back room and stopped, as if she'd heard it too.

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