Page 50 of Love and Other Trials
Dax responded with a pout. “You want to braid this into a heart?”
Another middle finger and more insults to his manhood made Dax grin.
They were back on track.
ELEVEN
She was in hell.
Make no bones about it.
“Oh my God!”Tiffany pressed a hand to her forehead, shock making her unusually tanned face pale as she stood in front of the shop they’d just left. “That’s the second seamstress who’s said there’s no fixing my dress! Ariel, do something!”
All of Deverell women turned and looked at her, their eyes as panicked as a deer frozen on an interstate. She had to tell herself yet again not to clutch the garment bag that contained Tiffany’s wedding dress. Because it was time to get real. If Tiffany didn’t have a wedding dress, she wasn’t getting married. Ariel wouldn’t get her house.
The end of the world was nigh, and that woman who’d cursed the Deverell weddings was having yet another last laugh.
Still, she was a professional. She knew how to talk reasonably in chaos and focus on fixing things. “Let’s all calm down. There are more people on the list I found online who do alterations. We’ve only visited two. I think we should take a break, eat, and get y’all a drink?—”
“I don’t think so.” Mother smoothed her white blond hair back, a gesture of outward cool that she always rolled out when agitated. “Clearly the last thing Tiffany needs is food. God help us if Terry and Tricia can’t get into their dresses.”
Her two sisters clutched each other with little care for the state of their sundresses. Tiffany stutter-stepped over to Ariel and slumped against her side, more tears in eyes. Ariel put an encouraging arm around her.Not helping, Mother.
“Ariel is the only one who looks to have lost weight,” her mother commented, her motherly appraising eye falling to her waistline. “Nice job, honey.”
“Working tornado sites will do that to you,” she answered dryly. “Let’s keep focused. I still think a break would do everyone good.”
“Tea, then.” Mother crossed her arms stiffly over her navy cotton dress, her knuckles white as she clutched her white purse. “No food. Not until dinner. You’re going to have to do a crash diet, Tiffany. You other two should join in. But not too much because then your dresses might not fit well.”
Terry and Tricia only bleakly nodded while Tiffany gripped Ariel. She wanted to shut her mother down, but she knew distraction was the key rather than a direct offensive. Whatever it took, they were not going to get distracted by the body-shaming or the diet talk. “Let’s get that tea while I make some more calls.”
She guided the walking wedding dress mourners to the next coffee and tea place on King Street. Everyone dutifully got a tea. Mother paid. Ariel didn’t bother to say she wanted a chai latte or that the wedding dress was starting to get heavy. Mother had already complained about her setting it down. Like wrinkles were their enemy right now. Still, they were in seriousdon’t rock the boatwaters.
God, she needed some aspirin. Or Dax.
While she sipped her Earl Grey from the corner of the coffee shop, she called two other alteration shops on the list, balancing the garment bag against her side. Both said that even if they could help, which they doubted after hearing Ariel’s details, they couldn’t alter it in time for the wedding.
Yeah, time was against them.
As her mother was tossing her tall English Breakfast tea into the trash, Ariel finally reached a seamstress on the list who said she had an idea that might work. Closing her phone, she gathered their depressed group huddled together around a round café table.
“I found someone who says she has an idea.” She hefted the garment back up, wishing one of her sisters would offer to help, but no…
That would be wishing on the moon.
“Let’s go, then.” Mother rose and headed toward the door at a brisk clip in her white heels.
Tiffany looked at her with bleak eyes, the very image of a woman in a horror movie, what with her yellow sundress and shocked raccoon eyes. “Do you think it will work?”
Ariel took her by the arm and led her out, sending Terry and Tricia pointed glances as they followed, hoping they would be supportive. But they were in their own world after Mother’s comments about their figures. Everyone had had a fitting two weeks ago—even Ariel—and there hadn’t been any issue.
“Maybe Terry and I should go back to the resort and try on our dresses.” Tricia put her arm around an equally rumpled Terry. “We’re worried we might need a seamstress too.”
This was getting out of hand. “One thing at a time.”
“But if we need our dresses altered, wouldn’t it be better to know sooner?” Terry asked, nervously making circles with her finger in her blond hair. “Besides, I can’t stand not knowing.”
“Me either!” Tricia practically wailed.
