Save the Date(93)

“What do you think?” Brooke asked, giving me a hopeful, nervous smile.

“It’s great,” I said, returning her smile in the mirror. “Thank you.” I took a deep breath. I knew I needed to try to make this better, even though something inside me knew that it was probably Danny who should be saying this, not me. “Brooke,” I started slowly, picking up the dog’s ears, then dropping them. “I’m really—”

She waved this off. “It’s okay.”

“But—”

“Really,” she said firmly, then smiled at me. “But thank you. Now,” she said, her voice suddenly businesslike. “I need you to leave the rollers in for as long as possible, okay? And I’m going to need to touch up your lipstick in about an hour.”

I glanced down at the time on my phone and jumped, sending Waffles tumbling to the ground. He shot me a look of betrayal, then hopped up on the bed and rolled onto his belly. I pushed myself up from my chair—it was later than I’d realized and I still hadn’t put on my dress. “I should go,” I said, already halfway to the door. I opened it, but then turned back to Brooke, who was giving Waffles’s belly a scratch. “Um . . . thank you.”

Brooke nodded, then pointed out the door. “Go,” she said, and I hurried out of the room. I ran out to the landing, where J.J. was standing in his suit, fastening his cuff links.

He took one look at me and immediately burst into laughter. “Oh my god,” he said, doubling over slightly. “What is on your head? Oh my god.”

“Shut up, Jameison,” I snapped at him as I headed to Linnie’s room, which thankfully looked empty. “They’re just rollers!”

“No, wait, come back,” J.J. said, sounding out of breath, still laughing in between every word. “I didn’t mean it. You look, um . . .”

I slammed the door to Linnie’s room, then tried to hit the lights, not remembering until I flipped the switch twice that the power was still out. J.J. being upstairs, in his suit, either meant that the group that had gone into the basement to try to fix things had either failed, or they’d just told J.J. to go away and stop trying to help. Figuring that the second option was more likely—frankly, hoping it was—I looked around in the dark. The power outage looked like it had stopped the getting-ready party that had been going on in here not that long ago, though I could still see the evidence of it—half-empty champagne glasses on Linnie’s dresser and makeup and Q-tips scattered across it. I walked to the closet, opening the door wide, since there were no windows in the long, narrow space and it was totally dark in there.

I made my way to the end of the closet and, with the little light that was left, pulled my bridesmaid dress off the rack. I changed quickly, then walked back through to Linnie and Rodney’s room. I looked at the mirror over the dresser, in which I could kind of see myself, but not really. My bridesmaid dress was peach silk, with spaghetti straps and a little V cutout on the bodice. We’d all had to wear the same color, but could pick our own options in straps, length, and fit. I smoothed down the skirt, which flared out slightly and which I’d felt would be more fun during the dancing portion of the evening. Peach wasn’t my favorite color, and on my own, I never would have chosen this dress—but it had been Linnie’s pick, and I had to admit, as I looked at it now, that I kind of liked it.

I peered out into the hallway before leaving, to make sure J.J. wasn’t still lurking around, waiting to make fun of me. When the coast was clear, I hurried down to the first floor, hoping that while I’d been getting my makeup done things hadn’t gone too far off track downstairs.

“No,” I heard a voice say as I stepped off the last stair and into the front hall. “Still a negative on power in the house. I have the number of an electrician . . . okay. Sounds good.” Then there was a sound of feedback, and Bill came around the corner, holding a walkie-talkie and wearing a tux.

I took an instinctive step back, remembering a second too late that I was right in front of the stairwell, and I stumbled slightly, reaching out to the banister post and holding on to steady myself, trying to look like I’d done all of this on purpose. But the fact was that Bill was wearing a tuxedo.

The tux fit him well, somehow transforming the lanky guy I’d been running errands with this morning. His black bow tie was perfectly tied, and his hair had been combed back. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him dressed up—just last night, he’d been wearing a suit. So I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly having trouble focusing as I looked at him.

“Hey,” he said, lowering his walkie-talkie and smiling at me. “You look great.”

“Oh,” I said, just blinking at him, then looking down at my bare feet, trying to pull myself together. “Thank you. So do you. Um, with the whole tuxedo thing.”

“Thanks,” Bill said, sounding pleased as he adjusted his shirt cuffs. “It’s a thing of my uncle’s. He thinks if we’re dressed up, we blend in more with the event. You don’t notice the people running around the scenes as much if they look like maybe they could be guests.”

I nodded. “That makes sense.” I reached up to tuck my hair behind my ears, but met only the foam of the rollers. I felt my stomach drop as I remembered, all at once, what my head looked like. “Oh my god.”