Page 5 of Once Bitten, Twice Fried
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
The two turned into the commercial gallery that was off the main street. Julie already felt lighter, not having to carry all of Yasmine’s heavy purchases. They entered the book store located at the end of the passageway.
“What are we looking for here?” Julie asked.
“Wedding things.” Yasmine shot her a look like it was the most obvious answer ever.
“Wait, what? You’re getting married!?”
Yasmine jokingly punched Julie in the arm. The bags swayed and hit Julie harder that Yasmine had meant to.
“Ouch.”
“Stop complaining and help me look for the wedding section.”
The wedding section, part of the lifestyle section, was lodged between the interior design and the cooking section. Julie smiled.
“I guess they weren’t allowed to just call it the women’s section.”
Yasmine was already flipping through some books.“I need more mood boards and ideas.”
“I think you can get those for free on the internet.”
Yasmine looked up. “I’ve already read the entire internet and I need more. I want to dive into full-coloured spreads, plus my coffee table could use a book or two on it. Can you help me find a good one?”
Julie browsed through the heavy volumes on display. They were all stuffed with cheerful women in all white, sunnymeadows and grooms with perfect hairlines. After a few minutes, all of these extremely similar-looking pictures were already melting into each other. She couldn’t tell if she had seen this photograph already or not. Julie felt Yasmine’s judgement on her neck.
“I can sense your boredom from here.”
“I’m sorry Yas, this is a whole other level of wedding madness. I wasn’t prepared for weddingvolumes.” Julie put back the hard-cover she was looking through and stretched.
“You should take this more seriously. You’ll thank me when you’re planning your wedding with the woman of your dreams.”
Julie chuckled. “At this rate, I think the woman of my dreams might get married before I do. Or maybe she’s already married, even.”
Yasmine noisily closed the book she was browsing. “That’s because you’re too difficult. And you know you’re cute, so you’re going around breaking hearts.”
Julie frowned. “I’m not difficult and I’m not breaking hearts. I have to agree that I’m cute though.”
“Yes, you are. What about Lisa? She was nice.”
“She also decided to sell my car online because we had to be more environmentally friendly.”
“A woman with a purpose who cares about the world. I don’t know what more you’d want. What about Anaïs?” Yasmine narrowed her eyes on Julie.
“She was alright. But she was the one who left me, remember? For the butch firefighter who saved her cat from the tree.”
“Sorry, Julie.”
“No worries, we never had anything in common. I was more relieved than sad in the end.” Julie sighed. “Dating women is tough.”
“You should try dating guys, they’re so much more relaxing.” Yasmine said with heavy sarcasm in her voice. “But yeah, you’re right. I don’t know why I thought you were breaking hearts. You’re more like being broken-hearted .”
“Ouch. Thanks for your support.”
Yasmine picked up another book and flicked through it. “I’m going to get this one. The pictures look nice and I don’t have it in me to look at more smiling white women in white dresses.”
“Great! Let’s go.” Julie was very happy to get out of this section.
