Do You Take This Man (14)
“I like pink,” she said with an eye roll. “It looks good on you, and I’m not letting you wear all black to my wedding.”
My tablet dinged as Kat entered the call, her trademark upbeat expression slipping when the video connected and she could see the screen. “Sorry I’m late. Wow, Britt . . . that dress is . . . pink.”
“I like pink! What do you two have against this color? All the bridesmaids can pull it off.”
I ran a fingertip over the beading that lined the bodice. Britta was getting married early in the fall to her former-CEO-turned-PE-teacher fiancé. I was officiating, but she told me she didn’t want me in black, which brought me to a dress shop during my lunch break on the Thursday the week after Trevor and Veronica’s wedding.
“Oh, we’d help each other pull it off. It would be in order to throw it on the floor, but . . .” I shook my head. “I’ll wear whatever you tell me to, but if you want my opinion, this is thumbs-down.”
Kat nodded, eating a sandwich. She was on her lunch break at school, where she taught first grade. Brightly colored posters filled the background of her screen. Ever the peacekeeper, she added, “You’re right, though. The color would look okay on everyone.”
I turned, reaching a hand behind me to unzip the gown, which gave me a fresh view in the mirror of the layers and layers of cotton candy fabric surrounding me. The move to North Carolina was the right one professionally, maybe personally, too, but I missed being in the same room as those two. Kat would clap at every gown and Britta would make jokes while I was in my underwear changing. I missed them and I hadn’t made time to make new friends locally. As I caught the zipper between my fingers and pulled it down, my expression frowned back at me in the mirror, and I shook it away. “Anyway, you haven’t picked a dress yet. Why do we have to already?”
“I’m waiting until you come to visit. Stop whining and try the next one.” Britta pointed at the wall where three dresses hung on decorative hooks that read I Do and True Love on the knobs.
I rolled my eyes at the store’s cheesy hardware. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, pulling a tea-length dress off the hanger, taffeta flowing from the waist in waves.
“How’s work going, RJ? I never hear from you anymore!” Kat said as I was pulling the dress over my head with my hands poking out the top. I wasn’t sure the bodice would make it over my hips, and that method felt safer until I had to work it down as my best friends laughed from their seats seven hundred miles away.
“Not bad. Busy.” I twisted in circles, letting the skirt of the dress fan out. The soft peach color reminded me of summer and drinking fruity drinks on the patio at our favorite Puerto Rican restaurant back in Humboldt Park. “I like this one.”
Britta cocked her head to the side. “Hmm. I thought I’d like it more, but isn’t it kind of . . . young?”
“Well, yes.” I placed a hand on my hip and turned to the tablet, where they both looked back at me. “The fluffy peach dress you asked me to try would appeal to a seven-year-old with a doll collection, but were you expecting something with this much taffeta to look some other way?” I glanced at myself in the mirror again, stifling the urge to twirl. I liked my reputation as the tough one in the group. I proudly wore black. It gave people the impression you weren’t to be fucked with. In the end, my ex complained I wore too much black, that it was too severe. He did this unironically while dressed in dark suits. “I like it.”
“You just never go for things like that,” Kat said diplomatically. “It doesn’t feel right for you.”
I glanced away from my friends, facing the wall where the other dress hung. I didn’t like that Kat’s words evoked my ex, and I shrugged, unzipping the dress.
“It’s cute on you, though,” Britt said, backtracking. “Just . . . not the right one.”
“No worries,” I said, my back to them, pushing the uncomfortable thought away. I traced my fingertips over the taffeta as I hung the dress back on the hanger. I’d stopped buying pink years ago in favor of power colors, bold reds or blues to go with my closet full of black and gray.
Kat began pulling baby carrots from a small container, which reminded me I hadn’t eaten anything since a bagel at eight. “Have things calmed down since the thing?”
The thing. The thing was turning out to be an albatross around the neck of my career. The thing was being swept away in the moment of the proposal I’d witnessed and the hurried wedding in the park. “Some of the press cooled off, and I’m working through this summer with multiple weddings, but then I’m done.”
“It’s so romantic,” Kat said. “Getting to stand with people on their wedding day and help them declare their love.”
“Mostly it’s attempting to not roll my eyes when someone quotes song lyrics in their vows, because the photographer might catch it.” I wrestled the fluffy green dress into submission and stepped into it. “But I know half of those couples will be in my office in a few years, unable to stand each other. It’s hard to get too invested in love stories.”
“Some love stories are real,” Kat said, glancing at her ring finger.
I bit my lip. Kat’s husband didn’t cheat. He wasn’t cruel, but he made her so unhappy. He never seemed to actually see her. I skirted it, though, not wanting to upset her. “I’m sure your love stories are real. Everyone else’s . . .” I tipped my hand back and forth. “Doubtable.”