Page 44 of A Dead End Wedding

“Oh, my goodness!! Your dress! I have your dress in my car. I can’t believe you didn’t ask about it.”

Come to think of it, I couldn’t believe it, either. Maybe I’d been barraged with too many dresses. But this one—mine—was special. Molly and I had picked it out together, and I’d even flown to Atlanta for the last fitting.

“Yes! Let’s get it! How did the others turn out?”

“They’re absolutely gorgeous.”

Molly and Shelley, my two maids of honor, and I had put our heads together and chosen coral floaty summer dresses for them that worked with their coloring. Molly’s was cut in a more dramatic style and showed off her gorgeous tattoos. Shelley’s was appropriate to her age, but with the same floaty look and feel.

“Did you show your aunt, Eleanor, and Lorraine their dresses?”

I grinned. “Nope. They deserve a bit of torture, after they ganged up on me and made me wear the hideous pink cupcake dress at Eleanor’s wedding.”

But the “flower girl” dresses were beautiful, too. Cream-and-coral stripes with tiny flowers and leaves scattered throughout. They’d all look completely lovely.

I felt myself get emotional while we pulled dresses out of bags to hang up and examine, but the actual tears arrived when we got to the centerpiece.

My wedding dress.

I’d wanted simple, and we’d found it. One of Molly’s friends was an up-and-coming designer, and when she’d found out that the king and queen of Atlantis would be at my wedding, she’d insisted on donating the dress to me.

I’d loved her design so much, I’d insisted on paying at least her costs.

“Voila! What do you think?” Molly unzipped the bag with a flourish, like a magician unveiling her favorite trick.

“It’s magnificent,” I whispered.

And it was.

Long and narrow, the simple but elegant gown fitted me closely on top, with a deep-for-me, but not scandalous for Dead End, V-neck bodice. The skirt draped in beautiful lines from the waist down. It was white, and I had shoes to match. I planned to wear my hair down and only gather a few strands to pull away from my face and wear with a fresh-flower circlet.

I couldn’t help it. I cried.

“Oh, honey.” Molly hugged me. “You’re going to be the most beautiful bride who ever walked down an aisle!”

“I am?”

“You are! I bet if Nancy Hoffman saw you in this dress, she’d be really sorry she stole your crayons!”

“Kindergarten was rough,” I said, sniffling.

“The worst. But we found each other!”

She was right.

We spent the rest of the day catching up, and we had a girls’ night at my place that evening, playing with facial masks and hair experiments. Then we painted our nails and ate piles and piles of junk food and drank a couple of bottles of wine.

Naturally, when I had cotton balls stuck between my toes and a virulently green clay mask on my face, a knock sounded at the back door.

“It’s probably the troll,” I told Molly, carefully walking down the hall so as not to mess up my toenails.

When I opened the door, Braumsh made a weird sound and actually took a step back, which made me laugh.

“You thoughtyouwere the scary one around here, Braumsh,” I told him between giggles.

There’d been alotof wine.

“What happened to your face?” he rumbled.

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