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“Weddings are expensive.” She moves her hand in a circular motion as a smile blooms to life. Then she says, “And so are babies.”
40
FIRST COMES LOVE
JUNE, AGE 23
The gems on my tulle skirt twinkle like tiny prisms as the sun streaks in through the pop-up tent. I stand before a full-length mirror while my mother bounces one of my long curls inside her cupped palm, her eyes also twinkling. Incandescent blue. “You look like a dream,” she murmurs to me.
I smile, fingering the bluebird pendant around my neck.
Celeste pops her head up from her bottle of nail polish as she glides it over a long fingernail. Her baby-blue dress sparkles in the afternoon sunglow. “I feel like I’m in a game of Candyland. I’m Queen Frostine.”
Giggling, I realize that I did go all out with the rainbow theme. I’m wearing a white lace leotard with a magnificent skirt infused with Technicolor silk and tulle. A rainbow train spills out the back, and I’m quite an eccentric sight for a bride, but…
Still a step up from a zebra.
Wendy chuckles, sitting at the same small table as Celeste and scrolling through her phone as we count down the final minutes before the wedding begins. Her dress resembles Celeste’s, the icy-blue color a striking contrast against Wendy’s fiery red hair. “I sent Wyatt a selfie. He told me I look like a Smurf.”
I chuckle. “How is Wyatt? It’s been years.”
“Miraculously, not in jail. He actually met a nice girl and got his shit together,” Wendy says, smiling as she types out a text. “He works for the union, has a dog named Lucy… Heck, I think he’s well on his way to becoming fully domesticated.” Glancing up at me, she adds, “He sends his congratulations, by the way.”
“Really?” My eyebrow lifts.
Wendy snorts, tucking her phone back into her purse. “No, he said to eat a bowl of fuck, but he sent it with a little heart emoji so I think that’s basically the same thing.”
Mom stiffens behind me and clears her throat as my cheeks stain with blush.
“The food looked great, June. I can’t wait to see if Pauly’s beef Wellington is as good as Brant’s.”
My mom changes the subject like a pro.
She is right, though. I can already smell the delicious food that Pauly has been cooking, after he volunteered to be the one-man caterer on our special day. When Pauly moved back to New York this past spring, he ended up purchasing an expansive property with a horse farm, reminiscent of his childhood. He doesn’t have any horses yet, but he plans on naming his first horse “Stellina”—the pet name he gave to Wendy, his new fiancée who joined him in New York and is helping him run his restaurants.
Shockingly enough, Wendy and I have become close.
We’re friends.
And while Celeste has been swamped with stage shows, earning herself starring roles in critically acclaimed performances, Wendy has stepped in to help me with—
“Oh, Caroline, sweet little love of mine.” Dad pushes through the tent opening, his eyes brimming with adoration and his arms full of a tiny, perfect being.
Our daughter.
With tufts of curly brown hair and cheeks fat and pink, she makes little cooing noises that I swear sound like “Aggie.” My dad plucks the toy elephant off a folding chair as if hearing what I just heard, and bounces her up and down, still singing his silly rhymes. “Kip and I were putting the finishing touches on the arbor while this little angel serenaded us with baby giggles in her bouncer.” He lifts her up high, then brings her back to his chest, holding her head with his big bear paw. “Weren’t you, darling girl?”
My father is completely whipped.
He melts into putty every time Caroline gives him a gummy smile or wraps her baby fist around his finger.
I swoon. “Give her here, Dad. I need to smell and squeeze her for good luck.”
Caroline just turned four months old. She was born with wayward sprouts of golden hair that have since fallen out, replaced by dark-brown curls. I wonder if her eyes will be blue like mine or hazel like her father’s. She has my button nose, Brant’s dimples, and a unique birthmark on her hip that Brant says looks like an apple—the apple of her daddy’s eye.
I think it looks like a peach.
My father hands her over to me, and she smells like lavender, baby powder, and bubble baths; I want to bottle up her sweet scent and savor it for life.
