Not that it mattered.
This was happening, like it or not.
Washing my hands at the sink, I took in the sight of myself in the mirror. The hair artist Mrs. Richmond paid for had shellacked my hair into an updo—spraying the hair equivalent of glitter into it to “brighten” my dirty-blond coloring. And don’t get me started on the makeup artist, who had airbrushed my skin with foundation to cover up my freckles, used a shade of eye shadow that she guaranteed would make my eyes look “less hazel,” and then spent a good five minutes enlarging and darkening my eyebrows. When she spun the chair toward the mirror, I gasped. And not in a good way.
“Can we just—fix the eyebrows?” I asked.
The makeup artist and Mrs. Richmond frowned.
“They’re a little… Fozzie Bear?” I tried to explain.
“This is the trend,” the makeup artist explained. “It makes you look younger.”
Mrs. Richmond, who had recently told me I was too old to have long hair, nodded in agreement.
Was Iold at twenty-six?
No matter. I wouldn’t dare fight with Mrs. Richmond on her wedding day.
Sorry—mywedding day.
And now here I was, in a beige church bathroom with a bouffant hairdo, pausing to take in the sight of myself as a bride. And all I could see was… eyebrows.
Was the organ music getting louder?
Time to go. Everyone was waiting for me.
The bridesmaids were all lined up near the altar by now. My mom—who had stayed up until two in the morning assembling gift bags—was already seated in the front row with her wrist corsage on. My Grandma Dodie was wearing pearls and kitten heels. And my dad—my former-marine, workaholic dad (always an elusive get for any family event) was about to walk me down the aisle.
This was happening. Time to take my eyebrows to the sanctuary.
It’s just normal, ordinary, everyday cold feet, I told myself as I hustled back along the hallway. That slight feeling of nausea? That was agoodsign. It meant I knew what I was doing, and I was taking it seriously, and I was stepping boldly into my future.
Who doesn’t feel nauseous in big life moments?
It wasn’t a red flag. It was anhomageto my upcoming best life.
And so was this itchy-ass frigging dress.
That’s exactly what I was thinking as I reached the vestibule: This was a life-changing moment in every way. In twenty minutes, the whole thing would be over, and I’d be transformed—and I don’t just mean covered head to toe in contact dermatitis. This single event was going to change me from JoJo Burton, serial commitmentphobe and legendary boyfriend dumper, into Josephine Richmond: happily, legally, and incontrovertiblycommitted.
Twenty minutes total to change my whole personality. Easy.
We’d timed it beforehand with the reverend.
Or, actually—maybe a few minutes more than twenty.
Because just as I was about to give thegiddyupsignal to Mrs. Allen to fire up the processional at last… the vestibule double doors burst open at the same time with a swoosh, blasting out the beige room with golden-hued sunlight.
And into that sunlight walked a guy.
A guy who was not in a suit, like all the others.
A guy with a rucksack on his shoulders like he was just arriving from the French Alps.
A guy with an overgrown beard and shaggy hair… who looked a lot, I decided, as my eyes adjusted—an uncanny amount, even—like my childhood friend Cooper Watts. Who he most certainly could not be. Because my old friend Cooper had already, most definitely, mostdefiantly, RSVPednoto the wedding—circlingRegretsten times on the return card and adding a handwritten addendum that read, and I quote:
“Don’t marry that douchebag. This is a boycott.”
