Page 37 of Craving Dahlia

I finish getting ready, and meet Evelyn downstairs about a half-hour later, feeling my stomach tighten with dread as I head down the staircase and hope that I don’t run into Alek. There’s no sign of him until my feet hit the marble of the entryway, and then I see him emerging from a room to the left, his gaze dark. He strides towards the back door, not even noticing me, but it gives me a moment to observe him.

Everything about him is tense, like a brewing storm waiting to break. He looks wound tight, and I remember how he felt that night that we went home together, like something in him was being unleashed. Like he was starving for everything that we could do together. I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now.

“The car is waiting,” Evelyn says as she comes out of the living room, wearing a lightweight wrap dress in a bright, springy paisley pattern of mint and pink and cream, the slightest swell of her bump showing. “Genevieve is going to meet us at theBean and Page.”

I manage a smile at that—that particular coffeeshop has been one of our favorites for a long time, half bookstore, half coffeeshop. Evelyn and I used to go there and do homework when we were in college, and I know she picked it for the nostalgia, and the familiarity.

Genevieve is waiting for us when we get there, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a cropped cream-colored sweater, her hair loose. She looks as elegant as always as she gets up and comes to give me a hug, squeezing me tightly.

“Evelyn filled me in,” she says. “I’m sorry about your family. And about…everything.” She gives me a lopsided smile. “It’s a small world, isn’t it? The man you went home with turning out to be Dimitri’s brother?”

“It is.” I wince. “I’m sorry I didn’t text or call you myself. I meant to fill you in on all of it, it’s just been…”

“No, I understand,” Genevieve says firmly. “I’m glad Evelyn was there for you. And she’s the one closest to all of this besides you, so I understand huddling up and weathering the beginning of it together. But now I’m here too, and we’ll get through it. And today, we get to shop!”

“With an unlimited credit card,” Evelyn adds with a grin. “So let’s make the most of it.”

We get coffee to-go—a vanilla raspberry latte for me, decaf, a flat white for Genevieve, and a decaf hazelnut latte for Evelyn—and head back out to the waiting car to drive to Oscar de la Renta.

“Itishard to believe I’m going to get to buy a dress here twice.” I shake my head as we get out of the car, a tiny bit of excitement trickling in despite the situation. I’ve always loved clothes, and shopping—it’s one of the things Evelyn and I bonded over early on. Getting to shop here once is a dream come true, and getting to shop here for my wedding gown would have been exactly that, under any other circumstances.

Underthesecircumstances, I try to just focus on the dress, and not the man I’m going to marry in it.

We’re greeted by a pretty, dark-haired sales associate who introduces herself as Marie, and is exactly as eager as the one who helped us when we came here for Evelyn. She takes us to the dressing area, getting champagne for Genevieve and sparkling cider for Evelyn and I, and takes some measurements before promising me she’ll be back with an assortment of dresses.

“I have no idea what I want,” I murmur as we wait. “I didn’t ever think about this, really.”

“Well, the world is your oyster today,” Evelyn says with a grin. “Just try them on, and you can get whichever one feels right.”

I’m not really sure anything is going to feel ‘right’. Nothing about this entire situation feels right. But I force the thought out of my head, sipping at my sparkling cider and trying not to think about how much I’d like a glass of that champagne right now.

Marie brings an armful of dresses, promising Evelyn and Genevieve that she’ll bring potential bridesmaids’ dresses for them as soon as I’m settled. I glance at Evelyn, briefly confused.

“I’m having a bridal party?”

“Well, we’re not going to let you walk down that aisle alone,” Evelyn says firmly, and I see the momentary confusion flicker over Marie’s face as she seems to finally pick up on the general mood surrounding this wedding. Her gaze flicks down to my bare ring finger, back up to my face and over to the other two women, and then she pivots, still looking as if she’s doing mental math as she goes to hang up the dresses in one of the pink-curtained rooms.

It almost makes me burst out laughing, but I think I might cry if I do. Instead, I press my lips tightly together, forcing back both laughter and tears as I get up to follow Marie to the dressing room.

Marie hovers, helping me in and out of dress after dress as two more associates come in to help Evelyn and Genevieve if they need it. All of the dresses are beautiful, and I quickly realize that it’s going to be nearly impossible to choose. It would be one thing if I had some emotional attachment to this day, or some long-held fantasy of what I’ve always wanted to wear on my wedding day, but I have neither of those things. Every emotion I have about my impending marriage to Alek is one that I’m trying to cram down so that I don’t have a panic attack in the middle ofOscar de la Renta, of all places, and even if I had some fantasy of a wedding dress that I’d dreamed of one day wearing, I wouldn’t want to wear it for him.

Instead, I let Marie put me in one dress after another and then take me out of it, listening to what Evelyn and Genevieve say they do and don’t like. They’ve both ended up with gorgeous spring-themed dresses for their bridesmaids’ gowns—a lavender strapless silk for Genevieve, with cascades of blue and pink flowers embroidered on the gored skirt, and a mint-colored bustier gown for Evelyn, with a draping chiffon skirt that has small lace flowers embroidered in the hidden folds. It reminds me a little of the gold gown that she made for me, for that fatefulawards dinner at the Met when I received a curator’s award, and Evelyn met Dimitri for the first time.

Now they’re sitting by the mirrors again, sipping champagne and sparkling cider and watching as I come out in each dress. Evelyn isn’t a fan of the puffed sleeves on one, while Genevieve thinks the simplest white silk gown that I try on is too plain—although elegant. There’s something that one of them thinks is off about each one, until I finally step out in a clinging all-over lace gown, with a neckline cut straight across just below my collarbones, the sleeves long and off the shoulder. The gown clings to my every slender curve, accentuating the small swell of my breasts and the curve of my hips, skimming down my thighs to pool around my feet.

“That’s it,” Genevieve says decisively. “It’s perfect.”

“It’s beautiful,” Evelyn echoes. “What do you think?”

I look at myself in the three-way-mirror, trying to feel like a bride. All I feel like, in this moment, is a woman in a beautiful dress. But itisbeautiful, and I have a momentary, petty thought that Alek will regret his stipulation of no sex in the marriage when he sees me in this dress.

Not that I’d let him touch me again, after the way he’s acted. But all the same—he’ll regret it, and that gives me a small, petty amount of satisfaction.

It’s not what I ever imagined feeling as I looked at my reflection in my wedding dress, but it’s what I’ve got to get me through.

“I think it’s the one,” I say decisively, my voice more flat than it should be. “I’ll go with this one.”

Twenty minutes later, the dress is paid for and zipped into a garment bag, and Evelyn is hustling me on to the next shop, undoubtedly to keep me from having too long to think about anything. By the time we break for lunch, we’ve gotten jewelry,shoes, and a veil, and I drop into the booth at the small bistro that we go to for a bite to eat, exhausted.

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