Chapter 24: The Night Before

The leaves were out on Lake Harriet, red and yellow all the way around the water.

It was the Friday afternoon before our wedding, and the sun was out for once.

Birdie walked ahead of us on the path in her new purple sneakers.

They didn't light up. She was almost ten and said lights were for babies.

"Romy," she called back. "Is this where you came in?"

"Right down there. By the bandshell."

She ran down to the little beach and stood at the edge of the sand.

She inspected it with her hands on her hips.

"It's just a beach," she reported.

"It's just a beach," I agreed.

Briggs walked beside me with his hands in his jacket pockets.

He didn't look at the water. He looked at me.

He'd done that every time we came here, all year.

"I'm fine," I said.

"I know."

"You're doing your checking face."

"It's my regular face. They're the same face."

I bumped him with my hip, and he caught my hand, and we walked the whole way around the lake.

All three miles of it.

I didn't go near the water once. I didn't want to.

Goldie was at Briggs's kitchen table when we got home.

My wedding dress was spread across it on a clean sheet.

"Don't come in," she said. "Don't look. It's bad luck."

"That's for the groom."

"I don't trust him not to tell you." She waved her shears at Briggs. "Out."

Briggs went out to the porch to fix the net on the basketball hoop. He'd been fixing it for a year.

I'd picked the dress myself, from a rack in a little shop on Grand Avenue, in about four minutes.

It was ivory, and plain, and it stopped at the knee.

It had no sleeves and no collar. It left my whole left shoulder bare.

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