In an Instant(2)

I sneer at the pure genius of it: my sister managing to liberate herself without actually quitting and successfully shuffling the responsibility of being Aubrey’s right-hand woman off to me. I imagine Chloe smirking as she schemed, knowing how much I hate this kind of stuff and knowing that eight months of talking about it while wearing a perky, supportive smile would put a real crimp in my normally sunny, never-shop-unless-in-dire-need-of-clean-underwear disposition.

“Finn, what do you think?” Aubrey says, causing me to lift my head from my phone, which is currently showing a slideshow of the world’s funniest animal memes. On the screen is a cat riding a husky with its paw raised and the caption Follow that mouse!

I blink, and my grin drops as a surprising lump lodges in my throat. Despite my dislike of all things lacy, wedding, and girly, a well of very girly emotions balloons in my chest. For two weeks, Aubrey has been gushing about her dress, going on and on about how perfect it is. Mostly I’ve tuned it out—satin this, silk that, rivulets of pearls, something about ribbing, something else about a jewel neckline. But now, here she is, standing in front of me—towering, actually, in her very tall heels—billows of ivory satin, smooth as liquid, spilling from her impossibly small waist, the rivulets of tiny pearls swirling and streaming from what I assume is a jewel neckline, and she looks like a fairy princess, the fairest queen in all the land, and I’m stunned by how pretty she is and maybe even the tiniest bit jealous.

Behind Aubrey, my mom clasps her hands in front of her, and Aunt Karen has her arm wrapped around my mom’s shoulders. The two of them lean in to each other as they admire my sister, their matching ash-blonde heads nearly touching.

“Nice,” I say, like it’s no big deal, then look back at my phone. A black dog squints, a dripping yellow Popsicle in front of him: Brain Freeze. I smile and continue to scroll through the images as my mom and Aunt Karen gush and circle, looking at the dress from every angle as Aubrey swishes back and forth.

Aunt Karen stops beside me. “Take a picture,” she squeals. “With Finn. The two of them.” And I cringe at the thought of being posted all over Aunt Karen’s Facebook with some ridiculous tag like Gorgeous bride-to-be and future runaway bride Aubrey and Finn Miller.

“Nope,” my mom says, saving me. “Not until the big day. Bad luck to take a photo of the bride in her dress before the wedding.”

I sigh in relief and shift a little farther from Aubrey, worried that even my proximity will soil her. She smiles down at me and mouths the words Thank you, then pivots to return to the clucking hens, who have now moved past their admiration and are on to fretting and fussing about the alterations.

I feel the heat in my cheeks and tell myself to cool it. Aubrey has already thanked me like a billion times, and it really wasn’t that big a deal. The conversation I had with her future mother-in-law took less than five minutes, and Mrs. Kinsell was super chill about it.

I wouldn’t even have made the call except Aubrey was so upset. I thought Mrs. Kinsell’s wedding dress sounded fine and that it was sort of cool that Aubrey was going to be the fourth generation to wear it—“classic lines, vintage beading, a Victorian lace collar, and satin buttons down the back.” But Aubrey practically cried as she recited the words, and since I sort of suck at all the other maid of honor duties, I figured this was the one thing I could do. Mo says my way of dealing with these sorts of things is a gift, a bluntness that mystically never seems to offend. I think it’s more that other people overcomplicate things. If you simply say things the way they are, there’s really no right or wrong about it. After Mrs. Kinsell got over her initial surprise, she was fine with it. She even confessed that she had also wanted to buy her own dress for her wedding.

She must have called Aubrey the moment we hung up because Aubrey called half an hour later thanking and thanking and thanking me. And now, here she is, five months later, twirling and admiring herself and smiling, and I’m very glad I decided to make that call.

In front of me, Aunt Karen pushes her ample doubleD breasts up with her hands and says “Va va voom” in encouragement of a little more cleavage, and my mom shakes her head as Aubrey nods, saying something about how Ben would approve, and that’s when I snap the picture, their laughter concealing the tiny click of my phone.

I look at the small screen, the three of them laughing, their expressions blurred in delight, the dress reflected in the mirror, Aubrey’s smile filling her face, and my mom and Aunt Karen beaming beside her. I forward the picture to Mo with the message, She looks amazing! followed by lots of hearts and smiley faces.

The screen scrolls up to reveal Mo’s response: Admit it ur a closet romantic. Speaking of which have u decided?

My mouth swishes back and forth as I stare at the question, perhaps hoping the glowing pixels will offer some sort of enlightenment—the answer or the nerve I’ve lacked since confessing to Mo I was considering inviting Charlie McCoy to formal. It’s a girl-asks-boy dance, and last year I went dateless with a bunch of other girls who were either too shy, too proud, or too ugly to ask a boy. We wore Converse sneakers with our dresses; tore up the dance floor with outrageous, never-before-seen moves; and devoured the chocolate bar while making fun of all the girls teetering in their painful heels, smiling awkwardly at their dates, and looking longingly at the forbidden calories displayed like a torture table.

I’d been certain this year I would be opting for an encore, but that was before Charlie had appeared. It was as if I’d conjured him from thin air. Dear God, please send me one tall, gorgeous, slightly goofy, soccer-playing boy with green eyes. And kazam, there he was on the first day of school in my first-period class.