CHAPTER 1
CHARLOTTE
The zipper snagged halfway up her spine, and Charlotte held her breath while Kate wrestled it over the spot where the lace overlay bunched against the satin lining.
"Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't even think about breathing."
"I'm turning blue, Kate."
"Beauty is pain." One final tug and the zipper glided home. Kate stepped back, hands raised like a surgeon who'd just saved a life. "There. Oh my god.There."
Charlotte turned to the mirror.
The woman staring back looked like someone she'd seen in a magazine once — someone with brown curls pinned into an elaborate updo that had taken a stylist and two assistants to construct, tendrils left loose around her face. Her brown eyes were lined and luminous, her skin glowing under expensive foundation. She looked beautiful.
She looked like someone else.
The dress was a thing that belonged to someone else's life, too. Ivory silk with a fitted bodice, a skirt that moved like water when she shifted her weight. Dominic's mother had sent her to aboutique on the Upper East Side where the consultants spoke in murmurs and the cheapest gown was a year’s salary. She'd tried to suggest something simpler — a tea-length dress, maybe, or something she could actually sit down in — but Ginnifer Weston had given her a look that said:absolutely not. Charlotte had stopped suggesting.
Now, Charlotte touched the beading along the neckline. Tiny crystals, hand-sewn. Hundreds of them. She thought about how long it must have taken someone to place each one.
"You look unreal," Kate said from behind her, chin hooked over her shoulder so they were both in the mirror. Kate's dark hair against Charlotte's brown strands. Kate's sharp face next to her softer one. "Like, offensively beautiful. I hate you a little."
"I look like I'm wearing a costume."
"You look like abride,Charlie."
Charlotte stared at herself.Bride.The word still tripped something in her chest every time she heard it: a fizz of disbelief. The disbelief hadn't faded in the four months since Dominic proposed. Four months. She'd known him for six. Kate had opinions about that timeline, and she'd voiced them exactly once. Charlotte had saidwhen you know, you know,Kate had saiddo you, though?and they hadn't talked about it again.
She knew. She was almost sure she knew.
"Is Mom here yet?" Charlotte asked.
"Downstairs. Your dad's been pacing the lobby in his suit since seven a.m. He asked the concierge if the cufflinks were 'real gold or just gold-looking' and I think the man almost had a stroke."
Charlotte laughed. It loosened the tension in her shoulders. Her parents were here. Her dad was downstairs in a rented suit, baffled by the fancy hotel, proud and happy. This was real. This was happening.
Her phone buzzed on the vanity. She picked it up.
Dominic:Running a few minutes behind. See you out there.
She beamed. Typed back:I can't wait to marry youwith a heart emoji, then deleted the emoji because Dominic didn't use emojis. She always felt faintly silly when she did.
His reply came ninety seconds later. A thumbs-up.
Kate saw her face. "What?"
"Nothing. He's running behind." She set the phone down and turned back to the mirror. Smoothed the front of the dress with both hands. "He's busy. There's a lot going on."
Kate nodded. She didn't say anything, which was Kate's version of saying a lot.
The bridal suite was on the fourteenth floor of the Whitley, a hotel Charlotte had walked past a hundred times on her way to the subway and never once imagined entering. The bathroom had heated floors. The closet was larger than her classroom. There were orchids on every surface, white and sculptural. Charlotte had been afraid to touch them since she arrived. Everything about today was like that: exquisite, slightly terrifying and not quite hers.
A knock on the door. Kate opened it and Charlotte's mother swept in, already crying, clutching a wadded tissue and a small velvet box.
"Oh, baby. Oh, look at you."
"Mom, don't — if you cry, I'll cry, and Kate just spent forty minutes on my eyes."
