Chapter 6: Cold Feet

The bridal salon on Madison Avenue had a pedestal, a three-way mirror and a seamstress who held pins in her mouth.

I stood on the pedestal on Thursday in the dress I had chosen in March, and Marisol sat on a velvet chair with her shoes off.

She had brought me an iced coffee, again.

"Turn," the seamstress said around her pins.

I turned.

"Oh, Ing," Marisol said, and put her hand over her heart.

Her eyes were wet, and I believed the wet part.

The tears were real, and so was the lie.

The dress was ivory silk with a plain high neck and a long train.

In the mirror I looked like someone who was happy.

"You're going to take his breath away," she said.

"He doesn't deserve me," I said.

I said it lightly, as a bride would, and I watched her face in the glass.

Her smile stayed exactly where it was.

"None of them do," she said. "That's what a maid of honor is for. I'll tell him every day."

The seamstress went into the back for more thread.

It was the two of us and the mirror, and the quiet of a shop that costs a great deal to enter.

I had told myself I would say nothing.

I had a recorder, a log and a father, and I did not need to be in a hurry.

I heard myself say it anyway.

"Mari, if you were keeping something from me, would you tell me before I wore this?"

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