Chapter 17: The Second Dress

At seven on Saturday morning, a text from my mother came in.

"I will be in the front row. I'm so sorry, honey."

I read it three times at the window of the garden suite.

Then I put the phone face down.

The coordinator had moved me here on Tuesday, to a small room on the garden side.

Shea thought the big one was hers, and nobody had told her any different.

At nine, Jared's gray dress arrived on a hanger.

It had a sash and a note pinned to the sleeve.

"Wear it, babe. Don't make this hard. J."

I hung it on the back of the door and looked at it for a while.

It was a nice dress.

It was the dress of a woman who was about to be told to wait outside.

Lorna came in at ten with a long garment bag over both arms and her curls full of bobby pins.

"I took it out of the shop like a bank robber," she said. "The girl at the counter cried."

She unzipped the bag.

The ivory gown I had picked in March lay in its tissue, with the plain sleeves and the long skirt.

I had chosen it because it had pockets.

"You're sure?" Lorna said, and her voice wasn't loud for once.

"I'm sure."

"Because I will absolutely throw a vase at anyone."

"I know you will."

She zipped me in, and she stood back, and her eyes went bright and furious.

"There she is," she said. "That's the bride."

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