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“She did?”
“And a name badge.”
“Wow… okay. Maybe Idowork at the diner.”
“You’re one of us, now,” she says. “Soon she’ll have you in charge of the griddle. I’ll warn you, you gotta move fast when you’re at that station.”
She snaps her fingers a few times, to show me the drill. Then she gestures to the bulky bathrobe I’m still in. “Which isnothow you’re moving this morning, I take it. You need to get dressed already. What are you waiting for?”
I laugh. “You should’ve been a coach, you know that? You’re great at giving orders.”
At a sound near the basement’s back room, we both turn.
My mother emerges. “Found it!” she says triumphantly. She’s holding a small, pearl brooch, about as big as a quarter. “I knew it was in my wedding-day box… The thing was buried all the way at the bottom.”
I hop off the couch and lead the way upstairs. In the kitchen, we find my grandmother still seated at the table. Makeup covers the surface in front of her. She lifts a mirror as I settle into the chair beside her, and aims it my way.
My mother leans over me and gets back to the work she was doing before we ventured to the basement to find the brooch. “Now, where were we?” she says, as she studies my face.
I peer at my reflection. “I think…”
“Her eyes,” Roxie finishes for me. “I don’t think you’re done with her eyes.”
“That’s right,” my mother says. She picks up the palette of eyeshadow.
“That’s what I was going to say,” I protest.
Roxie leans over me, scrutinizing my makeup. “You were too slow. When it comes to saying your vows, you have to be on the ball. None of these daydreamy pauses you like to do.” She snaps her fingers a few more times.
“Would someone tell her to quit being so bossy?” I quip.
My mother laughs. “That’s like telling a zebra to ditch his stripes.”
My grandmother giggles, too. “Roxie’s bossy because she knows what’s best.”
Roxie shoots me a smug grin. “I did set up you and Nick, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and you roped me into the Saturday morning diner shift. Gran, you’re not really going to put me on the griddle, are you?”
“Only once you’re ready. It’s an art.”
“And speaking of art,” my mother says, “I think I’ve perfected this eye shadow. Maddison, maybe I should go into the movie business, too. Do they need makeup artists for this comedy of yours?”
“I think you need actual training for that line of work,” I say, as I inch closer to the mirror. “Wow, hey, you are good at this…”
“See?” she says proudly.
“Thank you, Mom.” I slide my new, mauve-framed glasses in place.
My sister claps. “Cute!”
“Now, dress time?” I ask the three generations before me. Mostly, I aim the question at my mother. It is her dress I’ll be wearing, after all.
She nods, and when I try to stand, she taps my shoulder so I stay seated. “Let me get it. You have a bite to eat before we get this thing on you. We don’t want you going down the aisle hungry.”
“I brought fruit salad,” my grandmother says. “It’s in the fridge.”
“Have a bowl of that,” my mother instructs, before bustling off to get the gown.
