Page 9 of June Bride
“Do you not want to do that?”
See? Even Anita was surprised that Sunny might not want to be confined to a suit for her wedding.I really project the whole butch thing better than I thought.Which was funny, since she never personally called herself butch. Not out loud, anyway. She was simply… Sunny. A woman who liked jeans, short hair, and a no-nonsense life. That described half the women, gay or straight, in Oregon.
“I may or may not have already bought a dress before this all came out,” Sunny muttered.
“Huh? What was that?”
Anita didn’t sound that way to be sarcastic. She had genuinely not heard Sunny, because Sunny didn’t want to be heard. If she told her best friend the truth, then it was like pulling back the mask to reveal the scars. Everything felt much too late now. She had her chance to speak up, and had let it pass. Sunny might as well embrace the inevitable.
“I said I’ve bought a dress already.”
“Whoa. Really?”
Anita dropped the decoration in her hand. Was it really so impossible to imagine Sunny in a wedding dress? Or was this all done for comedic effect at her expense? What was so wrong with her wanting to look like a bride alongside her fiancée? Maybeshehad some visions that extended beyond Waterlily House. How could something that seemed so simple to her completely rock people off their foundations?
“It was sort of spur of the moment.” Sunny sat on one of the desks, feet in the chair as she detangled one of the colorful streamers in the orange tote. “I didn’t mean to buy a dress, really, but when I saw it on the clearance rack…”
“Wait, so you actually went into a bridal boutique and sifted through the clearance rack?” Anita put her hands on her hips, as if she were about to scold one of her students. “Here I thought you fell in love with a dress on a mannequin in a store window. Anyway, go on.”
The desk rocked beneath the force of Sunny’s scoff. “I was curious to see what they had! Brandy and I had recently gotten engaged, and I felt the whole wedding thing until I realized it really wasn’t for me and that she should do it. I was compelled to go into a shop in the city. Most of it wasn’t really my thing until I started sifting through the clearance rack. Suddenly a $200 dress that only needs a few alterations doesn’t seem so bad. I tried it on and…”
“You said yes to the dress, huh?” Anita slapped her hand on Sunny’s shoulder. The desk rocked some more. “When were you going to tell me about this?”
“I haven’t told anyone. It’s been my secret shame ever since.”
“Brandy really doesn’t know, huh?”
“No. I have no idea how to tell her. If I ever do.” Maybe she would donate the dress to a charity that could resell it to a woman who desperately needed it more than Sunny did. “Brandelyn’s so wrapped up in me wearing a tuxedo to match her image that…”
Anita didn’t hesitate to cut her off mid-sentence. “You have to tell her.”
“What?”
Shoulders squared and face grim, Anita turned her friend toward her. “You can’t start your marriage off like this. Are you crazy? Keeping something like this from Brandy, never asserting yourself about what is most important to you… that’s how you start a marriage off with her shoe treads all over your back. It’s only going to get worse. Because as soon as you’re married, she’s going to take everything she’s ever learned about you over the years and use that as thebaseof your interactions. Trust me. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Says the woman who’s never been married.”
“I’ve been in a committed relationshipwaylonger than you. For Bonnie and me, it was moving in together that brought it out in us. Let me tell you, having seen a lot of couples get married over the years? Doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight. Shit changes. You don’t have to change your last name or move across the country to feel it.”
Sunny hated to admit that her best friend was right. She had left her spine somewhere beneath the floorboards of Waterlily House, and she best dig it out again before it was too late.
She simply didn’t know where she had stowed her hammer.
Chapter 7
BRANDELYN
It took one day and two rental vans to haul Brandelyn’s extended family from the airport to her house in Paradise Valley. Why they insisted on coming two weeks before the wedding, Brandy could never guess, but she knew she would never again have peace until her honeymoon.
Two vans full of Meyers? She might as well ask for a lifetime supply of Tylenol.
“Lizzie?” her mother, Mrs. Cathy Meyer, shouted toward the third row. Brandy’s sister looked up from her phone. Between the first and third rows, a handful of Meyers bickered about the type of trees growing alongside the highway. All Brandy knew was that they were wrong. “How are those bagels holding up? You know I don’t like my bagels soggy!”
Lizzie didn’t try to look in the bag holding the precious bagels Cathy insisted on bringing from New York. Supposedly, there was one for every day she would be in Oregon.Only my mother would pull a stunt like that.“They’re fine, Mom!”
With a huff, Cathy threw herself into the passenger seat and motioned for Brandelyn to pay attention to her. “If you weren’t driving, I’d tell you to go check for me.”
“There are plenty of decent bagels around here. We can stop at the Safeway and get you some fresh ones before we get home.”
