As my stylist clips the sides of my hair into a silver barrette, I can’t stop smiling stupidly at my reflection in the mirror. Karissa surveys my peeps—Jillian is perched on the couch; my sister, Olive, sits on the desk; and Emerson stands next to her, still sorting through a makeup bag. Skyler ran out to refill a water bottle, but she should be back soon.
“Say the word, and I’ll arm wrestle Katie till she stops waxing on about her groom,” Karissa says to my friends.
Jillian taps her chin, deep in thought. “I’m tempted simply because of the arm-wrestling match.”
I pinch Karissa’s toned biceps. “She’d win. She’s got Gal Gadot arms.”
“I moonlight as Wonder Woman,” Karissa says as she runs a flat iron over one of my blond curls. My hair has darkened a bit over the years. It was bright blond when I was younger, golden in my twenties, and now it’s heading into a dark blond palette. Seems fitting—I still feel perky and bold, but stronger, surer of myself, and maybe a touch more vulnerable too. Time has done its thing. So, letting my natural color shine through fits who I’ve become in my mid-thirties and who I want to keep being—the best me possible.
“But seriously, I am so happy for you I could cry rainbows,” Karissa says as she squeezes my shoulder. “You’re going to be the most gorgeous bride in all of San Francisco. I swear, Silvio won’t know what hit him.”
“I don’t know what hitme.” I lean back in the chair, catching Emerson’s knowing look as our eyes meet in the mirror.
“What hit you is a smoking-hot Italian artist who’s a real-life Romeo,” my good friend says. Her smile tells me she’s thrilled for me. She has been since he swept me off my feet the night I met him—New Year’s Eve.
Jillian straightens her shoulders, tucking strands of silky black hair over her ear. “And who treats you like the goddess you are.”
“And who’s almost too good to be true,” Olive chimes in as she ties a bow around a bouquet of sunflowers. She holds it up for praise. “What do you think? Maybe if the whole numbers thing doesn’t work out, I could become a florist.”
“Hey! Don’t panic the bride on her wedding day,” I say, only part joking. “I need my numbers wunderkind.”
“I would never abandon Sassy Yoga,” she replies and ties the twine in a bow just so. She can’t help herself. She has a penchant for crafts. “But if I was to start a floristry side hustle, I would never sell sunflowers. They kind of stink.”
“Mom begged me to have them,” I say with a shrug. “She said they’d be perfect, and pretty much got down on her hands and knees. It was easier to let her have her way than to argue. I’m not a big flower person, anyway.”
“You’re a tiger lily,” Emerson announces. “That’s what you should have.”
“Thanks. I’ll have tiger lilies at my next wedding,” I deadpan.
Emerson crosses the suite, stops in front of Jillian, then swipes the brush down my college bestie’s nose. Emerson taught herself classy wedding makeup through YouTube tutorials. No surprise—she loves YouTube.
And I love my friends.
This is my dream come true. A pack of women. Good friends through thick and thin.
“I’m so glad you’re all here,” I tell them, love and happiness rising to bring a shine to my eyes.
“You say that like we’d be anyplace else,” Olive quips, adding ata-dawhen she finishes another bow.
“Well, you have to be here. You’re family,” I say to her.
“So’s Mom, technically, but I’d say she doesn’thaveto be here.” Olive laughs drily.
“C’mon, you know she can’t resist a wedding,” I tease.
“Who can’t?”
I tense everywhere as my mom’s voice carries across the suite. Is she a freaking cat? I didn’t even hear her enter. But now she saunters in, head held high, clasping a pretty white ribbon and a garment bag, which I presume holds her mother-of-the-bride dress.
I hope she didn’t hear me. She’ll go full drama llama, tears and all.
“No singleshein the universe can resist a wedding.” Olive jumps in, and I could kiss her for taking that grenade for me. If my mom knew I’d thrown shade on her love of weddings, she’d fling a hand on her chest, fall to the floor in a fit of tears, and demand to know what she’d done wrong.
I can’t. Not today.
She hangs the garment bag on the hook on the door. “I love weddings. I just do,” Mom says with a dramatic sigh, and maybe she’s why I never imagined my own nuptials growing up. I witnessed too many of hers.
But this is not the day to think about her four failed marriages.
