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When I finished my drink and Rhys had gone to bed, I festered a little while longer about romance. Caleb and I were planning a trip to Hawaii, where we’d drink, swim, and never leave our bed because we were the priority. Instead, we didn’t book the tickets once he accepted his opportunity in Germany, and I’d be spending that same week standing behind my pregnant sister as she married some British guy I’d seen three times.
Lifting my wine glass high in the air to drain the last drop, I realized I wasn’t much better than my sister. I’d slept with my British guy I’d seen four times… And I missed him. It was probably the wine mixing with those pesky reminders of my ex that made me feel anything. Sitting alone in my living room, a situation I normally didn’t mind, I was feeling a little less in control. I missed my British guy, but I knew where anything beyond our phone calls and messages would end and I wanted to keep it contained as perfectly as it was. Things were safer that way, with a lid and across an ocean.
My sleep was restless, and I spent most of the time tossing or staring at my ceiling or willing my phone to ring. The rest of my weekend wasn’t much different. I purposely tried to hide my phone from myself, but it seemed like no matter where I stood or sat in my kitchen and living room Rhys’s sibling paintings grew in vibrancy and reminder of him, and how invigorating life was on the night we spent together.
When Sadie called me after my last lecture on Wednesday afternoon, I answered hesitantly. I muttered to myself that I would not rescue her about five times before I answered, not caring that Angelo looked at me over his laptop screen like I’d lost my mind.
“Mia,” she began, not asking anything about me in classic Sadie style, “are you able to go to a fitting at a bridal parlor on Fifth Avenue this weekend? Matthew’s mom connected with the owner who’s getting a sample of the bridesmaid dress I picked out.”
“The lace one?” I clarified, hoping she’d changed her mind because I wasn’t sure about how I’d look from the pictures she sent me last week.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Let me know if you can go try it on. Unless you can come to London for the weekend?” She giggled, realizing how that wasn’t possible two months in a row, but she didn’t know how the idea intrigued me this time around. “Wouldn’t that be great? I miss you, Mia. Matty is really looking forward to getting to know you, too.”
“How is he?” I swallowed a lump of nerves when I thought of not hearing from Rhys in a few days. “And Rhys?”
“Matty’s amazing.” I listened while she described just how perfect her doting fiancé was, from pregnancy spa days to meeting Sadie’s every need before she realized she wanted something. “I had dinner with Rhys last night, actually. Funny you should mention him. Matty’s out of town this week, so Rhys has just been here as often as he can be. He’s not himself though,” she paused, “but I think it’s because of what Matty told me before Rhys left on the weekend.”
My cheeks warmed while I waited for Sadie to say anything else, but I couldn’t appear too eager to know the family gossip because I hadn’t really even talked to her since her shower. Nerves wiggled in my stomach, and I felt uneasy. What chapter of mom’s book is this mess part of?
“I’m going to be without either of them through the weekend though, so that’s a bummer.” She turned the conversation back to her, leaving me hanging. “Matty doesn’t come back until Sunday, and Rhys won’t be in town. Their mom has been amazing though, so maybe I’ll stay with her.”
Rolling my eyes, I knew Sadie would not tell me something that didn’t directly involve her. I asked her a few questions about her pregnancy and I could tell it made her happy, which was a relief compared to the drama of Christmas. When she told me about the fitting time for the bridesmaid dress and where to go, I clicked around a map on my phone. It was the same store I’d stood near in Rhys’s neighborhood, but he wouldn’t be anywhere near this time, and maybe that was a good thing.
I’d successfully avoided time with Angelo for the rest of the week, especially when he tried to get me to go out again on Friday after not getting the clue a week ago. When I arrived at the bridal parlor that Saturday, the women were expecting me. Their red lips, big hair, and sparkling jewelry made me feel severely out of place in my jeans and ponytail.
“It’s a beautiful dress,” one woman informed me while I followed her through a hall lit by chandeliers. “It will definitely make your husband drop dead. You have an insurance policy, right?”
“On my husband?” My eyes widened when I repeated her words to myself. “I don’t even have one of those.”
“Yet,” she grinned, winking at me. “I meant an insurance policy on the dress that’s at the London store, dear, not your husband. Although, we all need those.”
She opened the door to a fitting room the size of my entire home; the walls framed by mirrors and the ceiling covered in shimmering lights. Not sure what to do with myself, I took off my coat and purse and placed them on a chair in the corner. She motioned toward a pedestal surrounded by three mirrors as she sorted through a clothing rack.
“It’s stunning,” she told me while unzipping the garment bag. Swaths of ivory silk tumbled from the bag. “Isn’t it?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but that’s not the bridesmaid's dress. That’s the bride’s dress.”
The woman’s head snapped back and forth between me and the dress, as if I was lying or somehow the next time she’d look, the dress would be correct. Flustered, she muttered something under her breath once she hung up the dress and quickly left the room. Caught in a swirling cloud of her perfume once she disappeared, I was alone with Sadie’s wedding dress.
It was beautiful, but not my style. Maybe marriage wasn’t either, or even a relationship.
I quietly took the dress off the rack and admired it, my fingertips reveling in how soft the silk was. Wondering if Sadie knew everyone that would even attend her wedding, I thought of how frivolous those big parties were. Benji and Amelia got married in a church, had a reception in a fancy banquet hall, with a small bridal party. It was sweet because it was all them and the people attending were people they’d spoken to in the last few years. Not someone’s great-ex-second-three-times-removed someone just to please a distant relative.
Thinking of weddings, I wanted to know what Rhys’s was like, and if it was something flashy like Matthew’s or something small in one of the foreign lands he captured in his photography. I wasn’t sure why my mind went there, but I didn’t feel threatened by thinking of it. We all have pasts, it’s just some of ours aren’t popping up on our calendar at work or on our mom’s news clippings at brunch.
Pacing the room with my phone pressed against my ear, I waited for Sadie to answer without considering what time it was in London.
“Mia? Is everything okay? I’m just sitting down for dinner with Matthew’s parents,” she informed, “and they have tons of people over.” It was far from adorable that she could have emergencies, but I couldn’t. Heck, this was her emergency again that I was trying to solve.
“I’m calling to tell you I’m in the fitting room with a copy of your wedding dress and not the bridesmaid’s dress. I thought you’d want to know, but it sounds like your dinner is much more important than your dress and my time,” I snapped at her.
“This is a disaster,” she overreacted. “Maybe you can talk to the store owner or at least play dress up.” She mumbled something I couldn’t hear over her distracted conversation with someone near her, so we both hung up in an irritated huff just in time for the employee to return.
“If you’d try it on,” she suggested, taking the dress from the hanger, “I could at least see how this style and measurement fit you. It’ll be like you get to be a princess for fifteen minutes.” I wasn’t laughing, but she was and it was so Sadie that I wanted to say no, but then within three minutes she somehow talked me into the bridal corset and squeezed me into the wedding dress.
“On the podium,” she directed, waving her hands at me. Spinning around me, she pulled and altered fabric, feeling no remorse for adjusting my boobs or moving me around. “Now, stay right there with your hands in the air. No fingerprints, sweetheart. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Pinned and prodded, I stood on the podium and tried to keep my fingerprints off the dress. Sadie’s idea of a neckline was non-existent, as the fabric barely contained me, but I was more modest than her, so maybe it didn’t look as bad as I feared. When I tiptoed to turn myself around on the podium, I was thankful to be alone.
