One and Only(53)

Sometimes you have to open your eyes and jump.

“I have an idea,” he said, looking at Elise. The bridezilla. His future sister-in-law. “But you’re not going to like it.”





Chapter Twenty-Four

THE WEDDING DAY



Elise kept looking at her watch.

Was it weird that Elise was wearing a watch? She was in her dress, which was a stunning strapless thing with a giant, puffy tulle skirt and a veil that hung halfway down her back. She was wearing the understated earrings and bracelet that Jane and the others had helped her pick out after about eleven hundred hours of shopping.

She was also wearing a huge, chunky men’s-style watch with a wide, black leather strap. Probably it was Jay’s.

But whatever. Elise was running the show here. If there was one thing Jane had learned from her beloved bridezilla, it was that there was always a method to the madness. It was better not to ask questions.

They were obviously keeping Cameron away from her, because she hadn’t seen him all day. Part of her was screaming that she shouldn’t let them, in the name of preserving some dignity. That she should be above needing to be babied, that they shouldn’t have to move mountains on Elise’s big day because they were concerned about Jane’s tender sensibilities. That she should be able to lay eyes on the man and not collapse on the floor sobbing.

But another part, the part concerned with self-preservation, knew better. Her heart wasn’t just broken, it was absolutely shattered.

Cameron had talked about IEDs—improvised explosive devices. It was an apt metaphor. Because what was left after the damage wasn’t even recognizable as a heart. And because she’d been the instigator. She’d overseen the destruction of her own heart. She’d pressed the button herself. As much as she wanted to blame him, to be angry at him, she couldn’t. He had told her, explicitly, what he wanted—and didn’t want. But she, with a degree of hubris sufficient to star in its own Greek tragedy, had thought she could change him. Hadn’t she learned from her father and Felix that people didn’t change?

Clearly, she would have to see him at the ceremony, and at the reception, but until then, she was happy to minimize her contact with him. She appreciated that the girls seemed to know that without her having to say anything. In fact, she wondered if maybe he’d left, either of his own volition or because Elise or Jay had asked him to. Did she dare hope? She wanted to ask Elise, but she didn’t want her friend to think she was suggesting they kick Cameron out of the wedding if they hadn’t already. You couldn’t ask the bride to eject the groom’s brother merely because he’d hurt your feelings.

“Here, sweetie, put some of these in.” Gia entered the room the girls were using to get ready and handed Jane some Visine.

“Is it still that bad?” Jane asked, looking around for a mirror. Last night, in the motel she’d escaped to, she’d cried all the tears out of her body, then fallen asleep in Wendy’s arms and succumbed to a few fitful hours of sleep. She had awoken to bloodshot eyes with racoon circles underneath them. Gia had done her best with the concealer, but no amount of makeup could disguise the redness of her eyes themselves.

Instead of answering, Gia came over and tapped Jane’s forehead, prompting her to tilt her head back.

When she was done, Jane’s eyes were watery from the eye drops. The act of wiping them somehow triggered actual tears. Again.

“Why does this keep happening?” she asked as Gia pulled her into a hug.

“I think it’s totally normal to cry a lot when you get your heart broken.”

“No. Not the crying. Why is it that every time I put myself out there, I get slapped down?”

“That asshole.” Wendy joined in the hug. “That asshole,” had become Wendy’s mantra. It was like she was a non-native English speaker who knew only those words. Jane had never seen Wendy so angry. It was a little bit gratifying, but she had had to extract a promise that Wendy wouldn’t disrupt the wedding by attacking Cameron, or, like, shouting her new mantra at the top of her lungs at an inopportune time.

Elise, who was the only one among them fully dressed and made up, came over and mimed putting her arms around the whole lot of them. “I will totally hug you for real if you want me to,” she said, wincing as she looked down at her impeccably groomed self.

Jane laughed and blinked away her tears. “No, don’t ruin yourself. I’m gonna give you the world’s biggest tackle-hug after the ceremony, though.”

One silver lining of this whole debacle was the reminder that she had the best friends a girl could ask for. Who needed a man when you had this kind of loyalty?

Although perhaps the loyalty of one of them would be tested when she found out about Jane’s latest problem. Refreshingly, though, and unlike the whole Cameron disaster, it was a very specific, very tangible problem: as she had feared, her dress wouldn’t zip up. Like, at all. It was beyond “who needs to breathe anyway as long as the damn thing zips up” territory.

Everyone besides Elise had been walking around in various states of undress for the past hour or so, so no one had said anything about the gaping back of Jane’s dress.

But it was time to face the music now that Gia was back from her eyedrops-sourcing mission. Jane was holding out hope that the model might have some kind of high-fashion ninja skills she could apply to magically make the dress zip up.

“Um, you guys?”

The group hug had broken up, but all eyes swung back to her.

“Two things. Number one: I love you all so much.” Jane didn’t let the “aww-ing” and “me-tooing” that ensued really take off before plowing on. “Number two: I can’t zip up my dress.”

She braced herself for Elise’s reaction. Just because Jane was a mess didn’t mean she expected any mercy on this front. But the bride grinned, looked at her huge watch, and said, “That’s okay.”

Huh? “No, Elise, I mean it. This dress will not close.”

Elise’s phone chimed, and she plucked it off the sofa.

“Hey now, let’s see what we can do about this,” said Gia, speaking to Jane—in a tone that seemed kind of artificially singsongy—but looking at Elise.

Elise’s head popped up from her phone. “Right. Yes.”

Everyone converged behind Jane.

“I see what you mean,” said Gia, trying the zipper, but not with much gusto.

“I’m gonna hold my breath, and you zip,” said Jane, even though she knew it was futile. “On three.”

Jane counted, held her breath, and sucked in her stomach for all she was worth. Gia tried again, but Jane had the sense that she wasn’t putting her everything into it.

“Listen to me,” she said, turning to face her friends. “We have to figure this out.”

“Eh, it’s not a big deal,” said Elise, waving a hand.

“Not a big deal?” Jane echoed. Had an alien switched bodies with the bridezilla? “I can’t walk down the aisle with my dress hanging open.” But then, maybe she could. It would be the perfect completion of her humiliation for Cameron to see her in the un-zip-upable dress. Why not go for broke on the shame front?

She turned to Wendy. Wendy would be the voice of reason. Wendy had never let her down. “Can we at least pin it?”

“Of course,” Wendy said. “Let me see what I can do.”

Finally, someone who was acting like a normal person. Jane hitched a shuddery breath and lifted her hair so Wendy could get an unobstructed view.

Silence settled over the room as Wendy started pinning. At least until Elise shouted, apropos of nothing, “We need to go outside!”

“What?” Jane and Wendy said in unison.

“Here,” Gia said, holding open a robe for Elise. “Put this on so Jay doesn’t see you in the dress.”

“Ah!” Elise beamed at Gia. “I didn’t even think of that—thank you!” Once she was tucked inside the robe, she made for the door, clapping her hands. “Chop, chop, girls.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait until I get Jane pinned up,” Wendy said testily.

Elise turned and froze, hands on hips. “No, it cannot wait.” Ah, there was the familiar drill sergeant bride. “Everyone follow me. Now.”

Jane threw a shawl over the gaping back of the dress and did as she was told.





“Will someone please explain to me what we’re doing out here?” Wendy said as the girls, Jay, and Jay’s mom stood in a line in the parking lot outside the B&B. “The wedding is supposed to start in half an hour!”

Jane was curious, too. But she figured all would be revealed sooner or later. Elise obviously had some sort of surprise for them. Maybe she was having personalized thank-you Mason jars delivered. But, hey, she’d take it. Anything to distract her from the smoking ruins of her heartbreak.

Anything except the blue Corvette that came tearing into the parking lot and screeched to a halt in front of them.

“No way,” she said, turning to go. To flee, really, opting for the “flight” option presented by the burst of “fight-or-flight” adrenaline the sight of Cam’s car had triggered. There was pride, and there was pride. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that running away like a coward was better than sinking to her knees and wailing—with the back of her dress unzipped, to boot.