Page 39 of My Fake Fiancé

Juliana

“Juliana, are you excited?” Merrin nudges my side with her elbow. I am wedged between Merrin and my mother while Mrs. Michaels drives us with my grandmother in the passenger seat.

“Well, I still don’t know what we’re doing... Sooo…” I trail off and hope one of them will fill me in on what the appointment is. No one finishes my sentence so we ride the rest of the way to the appointment with Mrs. Michaels leading the conversation. I answer politely whenever directly addressed but for the most part, I stay quiet.

Merrin and my mother block most of the windows so I can’t see where we’re going. Eventually, we pull up to a curb, Mrs. Michaels parallel parks effortlessly and we all pile out of the car.

“Ta-da!” Mrs. Michaels gestures excitedly and grandly at the store in front of us. I look up and see white lace dresses lining the windows. My eyes dart up to the name above the door. Beautiful Bride . A bridal shop. My heart starts beating faster. Before I can say anything the door to the shop flies open and Tatyana bursts out onto the sidewalk in front of us.

“Oh, thank god,” I say under my breath and move forward to greet her. I shoot her a look as she grabs me in a hug.

“What the hell is going on?” Tatyana whispers.

“I was just about to ask you that!” I whisper back, she pulls back and gives me a similar look I gave her a few seconds earlier.

“We booked a wedding dress appointment!” Mrs. Michaels cheers and looks so excited, that I feel guilt creeping up inside of me.

“Wasn’t that nice of Mrs. Michaels?” My mother asks, pushing me to speak so I don’t come off as rude for not responding right away.

“Yes, thank you. That was very thoughtful of you.”

“I know it’s pretty soon and I asked your mother who else to invite but we figured to keep the group small, just family and your best friend, Tatyana.” Mrs. Michaels gestures to Tatyana, her smile growing as she beams with pride at her idea.

“No, of course, this is great. Thank you.” I step forward and give her a big hug. “Thank you,” I say again, softly and offer her a smile.

“Of course! Anything for my future daughter-in-law!” Mrs. Michaels says those words and I have to keep myself from physically reacting. I look over at Tatyana and she senses my need to be rescued before someone notices my restrained reaction.

“Should we get inside? I’m sure they have other appointments after us, we wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.” Tatyana speaks up and opens the door to the shop for us while gesturing for the group to move inside. All of the ladies file in with Tatyana and I bringing up the rear.

“Thank you,” I whisper to her as I enter the shop. “I don’t know how I would have survived this without you here.”

“We don’t know if you’ll survive it even with me here.” Tatyana comments as we follow the rest of the group further into the shop. “Who knows if I’ll survive either!”

“Wow, thank you for the support.” I narrow my eyes at Tatyana, not amused with her response, even if I agree with her.

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I guess we should just try to enjoy it.” Tatyana gives me a look and I know she feels almost as guilty as I do for this whole situation. “Just maybe don’t fall in love with any of the dresses. Oh! I will help you pick out the worst dresses and hopefully, your mom and Kurt’s mom and everyone won’t like them either, and then if we are lucky we can escape this appointment without choosing a dress.” I nod in agreement. It’s not a terrible idea but hopefully, our ideas for the worst dresses are the same as theirs.

We make our way to join the rest of the group and I can feel my nerves getting worse. I wasn’t expecting them to take it this far, especially so soon. I should call Kurt and tell him. I need to talk to him, I have no idea what to do here. I am about to excuse myself to use the restroom and call Kurt but Merrin reaches her hand out before I can speak.

“Okay, hand over the cell phones, ladies,” Merrin says and wiggles her fingers at me. I look at her hand then over at Tatyana and around at the group. Everyone else begins digging through their purses or pockets to retrieve their cell phones. “Come on, bride. Hand it over. We can’t have anyone interrupting or giving away the surprise if we find the dress or dresses.”

“Dresses?” I ask as I reluctantly hand over my phone. Tatyana groans and puts up a bit of a fight but Merrin is persistent and eventually, Tatyana hands it over.

“Yes, dresses. Of course, we are here to find your wedding dress, Juliana but they also sell bridesmaid dresses here. I thought it would be fun to look at those as well!” Merrin beams happily at me then her smile drops and she looks a bit embarrassed. “ Oh wow, sorry it’s not that I’m assuming I will be a bridesmaid, I just thought with Tatyana here we could have her try on dresses and I can too if you want, and then you can see different styles on different people and how they would look together.” Merrin grows quiet and the room is quiet too. I realize everyone is watching me and waiting for my reaction but I’ve hardly had time to process what is currently happening so it takes me a few minutes to understand what Merrin just said to me.

“Oh!” I say when my brain finally catches up. “Oh no, it’s okay. Of course, I want you to be a bridesmaid, Merrin. You are Kurt’s only sister but you’ve also always been sweet to me. That sounds great and I’m sure Tatyana would love to try on a dress as well.” I look over at Tatyana and give her a smile, kind of an evil smile. She narrows her eyes at me but puts on a smile for the group.

“Sounds awesome,” Tatyana mutters through her teeth and the group smiles happily. Mrs. Michaels gives me another hug and then hugs Merrin and Tatyana. I can tell she is very excited.

“This is so great! Thank you so much for having me as a bridesmaid!” Merrin pulls me into a big hug and squeezes me a bit before pulling back. “Okay! Let’s look at bridal gowns first!”

“Of course!” Mrs. Michaels grabs the attention of one of the ladies working and they come over to greet us and tell us we are free to wander around for a few minutes to see if anything catches our eyes, seeing as how I don’t have a particular style in mind. Everyone spreads out in the store and I stick close to Tatyana.

“See any that look hideous?” I whisper to Tatyana and we both giggle.

“You girls having fun?” Mrs. Micheals calls out to us, hearing us giggle.

“Yes, so much,” Tatyana responds and pulls me to the back of the store where there are racks of dresses on sale. Some from brides who returned the dresses including custom-made dresses that were returned as well. Tatyana and I shift through them and we come across a very puffy, off-white ballgown-style bridal dress with sparkles throughout the entirety of it.

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