Page 120 of Old Acquaintances

Gracie started ordering everyone around, putting the three groomsmen and three bridesmaids together. The event venue’s wedding planner stood with her clipboard, arms crossed. She did not appreciate my sister’s enthusiasm for control.

“Tucker, you’re with Hattie,” Gracie instructed.

“No,” he said. “I’ll walk with Ella.”

We stood beside each other.

“No,” she argued. “You two look weird together.”

“No, we don’t,” he and I said at the same time.

Gracie groaned, “You’re too tall!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then,she’stoo short.”

He scooped me around the waist and hoisted me to his side. My flip-flops fell to the ground and my feet dangled. Tucker challenged, “Then I’ll hold her up like a puppet.”

Jake sighed, “We know he’s going to have his hand on her ass anyway.”

“Watch it,” I muttered in his ear. “You’re going to wake the beast.”

“Move,” Gracie snapped, pointing like an angry schoolteacher.

Tucker put me back on the ground and grumbled, walking over to Hattie. She sidled up next to him and walked her fingers up his chest, teasing, “Don’t worry Tuck, I’lltryto keep my hands to myself.”

“Mom!” he called out, brushing her off.

I covered a laugh and stood next to Jake. Gracie’s bestfriend Ashlyn stood with Gavin. We went through the wedding rehearsal, standing directly under the sun. My mom assured us that it would be much cooler at sundown tomorrow, when the actual ceremony would take place.

I tied my hair up in a ponytail and commented, “Bet y’all wished you wore your Daisy Duke’snow, don’t you?”

Lori, Christian and Steven’s mom, Mae, hosted the rehearsal dinner. I’d met Mae a few times throughout the fifteen years that Lori had been married. She drank a little too much wine that night and said to me, “So, when are you Elijah getting married?”

I balked. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

She seemed very confused. Even a woman I barely knew and met a handful of times thought we were a couple.

The next morning, I went into Gracie’s room to have my hair and makeup done. She planned everything with meticulous, authoritative rage, and we had no say in any of it. I was a doll being tampered with. My hair was curled and pulled half up and tied with a ribbon.

Gracie looked at me. “No, I think I want it all the way up.”

I sat in the chair, leaning away from the woman putting false eyelashes on me. Hattie argued, “No, her hair looks so pretty like that.”

Gracie argued, “Tucker’s going to be pulling on it all night. I don’t want to look back on all of my wedding pictures and wonder what kind of fetish shit you two do in bed.” She glanced at the corner of the room. “Sorry, Lori.”

My sister was unhinged. She only relented on the hair thing when my mom reminded her that my dress - that Gracie picked out - showed a lot of upper body skin.

Three of us were wearing matching thin-strapped pastel floral dresses. I sent her my measurements and Gracie had them all picked out and shipped to my mom, lest we do anything toalter or change a thing. In my hotel room, I changed into the dress, shoes and jewelry that she chose and met them all in a room downstairs. The boys were wearing their suits, pinning flowers in. Steven took a sip of beer and looked at me.

He grimaced. “Did Gracie approve that dress?”

“Yes,” I answered when they turned to look at me.

Gavin groaned, “Here we go again.”

“Flashbacks. Burning flashbacks,” Jake snorted.

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