Page 108 of Friendshipped
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Lexi
The bridal suite actually takes up a whole guest house. When I walk in, I’m surrounded by laughter, chatter and people walking here and there with curling irons, makeup, and glasses of water with lemon slices or cucumber and mint floating in them.
My mom rushes at me the instant the door closes behind me.
“Lexi! You’re here!”
“I was here this morning mom, not even two hours ago.”
“I know. I know. Oh, just do me a favor and ignore me until tomorrow. I’m beside myself with excitement for your sister.”
“You get a twenty-four-hour pass,” I promise her. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
Mom puts her hand to her chest and sighs. “Really? Because, as you know, this whole escapade of trying to find the perfect mother of the bride dress took years off my life.”
“Let’s hope not. And you found the perfect dress.”
“Well, look at you in that dress,” Mom says.
It’s one of those sentences similar to the wordinteresting.
Like, when someone asks, “How was the movie?” And you say, “Interesting.” It can mean great, or it can mean beyond horrible, or it can mean I’ve never seen anything like it before and I hope I never do again.
Look at me in this dress. Or how about we don’t look at me in this dress. I’m planning to see whether this dress has any materials that could be harmful to the environment when burnt. If not, we’re having such a bonfire after this wedding. The flaming peacock!
We all take our turns with makeup and hair while the photographer moves around us to capture the whole experience. Finally, it’s time for the ceremony. Felicia looks beautiful. It feels so overdone to say she’s radiant, but I can’t think of another word to describe my sister today. It’s like she’s lit from the inside.
The wedding coordinator drove in from Columbus. Felicia said she didn’t want to take a chance on Aunt Glenda volunteering. I say that was one of the wisest moves in the history of marriage celebrations.
We line up and gather Felicia’s train so it doesn’t drag across the lawn, and then we make our way to the meadow where Gregg and the groomsmen all stand next to an arbor that backs up to a small pond on the property.
White chairs draped in tulle bows line the lawn. We walk up behind two free-standing trellises covered in a flowering vine. The runner leading up the aisle away from us heads right to where Gregg stands waiting for Felicia. The trellises block Gregg’s view of us. But I see Trevor. He’s sitting on the bride’s side only two rows back from the front. He turns and our eyes meet.
Maybe it’s watching Felicia glow all morning and knowing she’s marrying a man who completely gets her, who would never dream of trying to change her, and who loves her with his whole heart—whatever it is, I feel an almost irresistible tug toward Trevor.
Does he feel it too? I’ve only seen that particular glint in his eye two other times in my life. One was the almost kiss in high school, and the other was outside my dorm room junior year when he surprised me by showing up and asking me to date him. He had taken my cheeks in his hands and held my face with such tenderness and desire.
I see that look now. I know I do. Does Trevor want me? As more than a friend? My head is swimming. I look at him again and he winks. He winked! That has to mean something, right?
Karina nudges me.
“Time to walk,” she says.
I nod.
Focus Lexi.
I remind myself this is Felicia’s day, not the day I figure out if my best friend might possibly reciprocate my feelings for him.
Christina Perri’s song,A Thousand Years, starts to play and Karina leads the way down the aisle. She’s the matron of honor and I’m the maid of honor. I follow Karina, my eyes somehow drifting to Trevor and locking with his. We stare at one another my whole walk up the aisle. I pass him and his smile makes me forget I look like a colorful peafowl.
I feel like passing him a note like we used to do in junior high.Do you like me? Check yes or no.Before today I’ve been petrified to ask that question, but the way he’s looking at me like he’s a starving man and I’m the buffet at the Golden Corral is giving me a boldness I haven’t had up until now.
And, maybe thoughts of a smorgasbord are partly due to me not eating breakfast or lunch.
Trevor hasn’t taken his eyes off me. I can barely look away from him. But, once the two other bridesmaids join me and Karina at the arbor, the music shifts toThe Wedding Marchand my eyes join everyone else’s to watch my sister.
