Outside the Lines(10)

I stand and smooth out my dress. Danielle’s eyes land on me, and her brow furrows.

“Oh, Felicity,” she says, blinking. She holds onto the banister and pauses when she steps off the last stair. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“Hopefully that’s good?” I inquire.

Jake laughs. “You clean up well, sis.”

“Thanks.”

He gets off the couch and goes to Danielle, linking his arm through hers. “I loaded everything in the car. I’ll come with to help you carry it, but I don’t need to be there, right?”

Danielle’s eyes widen as she looks up at Jake. Even in heels, she’s a good few inches shorter than him. “I’d really like you to be there, but you don’t have to. Most guys don’t go to the shower.”

“Well,” he says and leans down to kiss her. “I’m not most guys, am I?”

Her full lips pull into a smile. “That’s why I said yes.”

They kiss again and the vomit I was holding back threatens to come up again. I turn to get my purse. Mom, who’s still frantically getting ready, calls to me, making sure I’m ready. The house is pure chaos for the next ten minutes with people bustling about, checking the cars for all the supplies, a temporary freak out when the caterer calls and says one of the cooks is sick and they might be running late, and Danielle chipping her “chip-proof” nail polish.

Maybe I don’t want to get married anytime soon. All this seems like too much work for just one day, and fuck, it’s not even the wedding.

Finally, we load into the cars and drive half an hour to the country club, pulling around to the back to unload everything. The shower is starting with a cocktail and appetizer hour in the garden, before moving inside for games, lunch, then finally opening presents and cake.

Are all showers this fancy? I’d only been to a few, and they were for my cousins who came from families as laid back as my own. They were Mom’s sisters’ kids, after all. The wedding planner is already here, and greets Danielle like they’re longtime girlfriends. The other bridesmaids arrive within minutes, and soon we’re all gathered around the wedding planner so she can assign us “tasks.”

Along with two other bridesmaids who I met at dinner last night,—Michelle and Chloe or Zoey or whatever— my job is to carry the vases of fresh-cut flowers from the car and put them on the high-top tables in the garden. We each take a cardboard box and go through the well-maintained courtyard.

“Don’t blink,” I say when we pass a statue of an angel, her head turned down and covered by her hands.

“What?” Zoey says, looking behind her to see me. There is something familiar about her blonde hair and heart-shaped face, but I can’t recall ever meeting her. Still, I swear I’ve seen her around before. I probably have, actually. Mistwood isn’t that big of a city.

I motion to the angel statue. “Weeping … you know what, never mind.”

“Uh, okay,” she says and keeps walking. I shake my head. Remember who you’re with. We set up in silence. Half an hour later, things are in place and I’m wondering if they will let us have a few early appetizers.

I sit in the shade and pull out my phone. Erin is on her way with the cake, and the party starts in an hour. It’s going to be a long day.

“Thanks for helping,” Jake says and takes a seat across from me.

“Of course,” I say, smiling. “You’re my baby bro. I’d do anything to help you, you know that.”

“I do. And you have,” he says quietly, referring to the times I bailed him out of trouble when he was in college and never told Mom or Dad. Or maybe it was the time I paid his accumulated parking tickets, or helped him beat a level in a video game. Whatever it was, he’s grateful.

He looks across the courtyard at Danielle, who’s throwing a mini-fit about the mimosa bar not being how she wanted it.

“She’s a bit of a diva,” he blurts, then looks embarrassed to have admitted that out loud.

“Just a bit,” I say and nudge his foot under the table. “But so are you. You were always the high-maintenance sibling.”

“That is so far from the truth.”

I laugh. “No, that’s how it is in my mind. Diva or not, Danielle seems great.”

“She is. I wish you got to know her more. Maybe you guys could go out or something. Have some sister-in-law bonding time.”

I have to work to keep my face neutral. “Yeah, maybe. That’d be fun.” I push my hair over my shoulder. “Is she always like this or is the diva-ness an offshoot from being a bridezilla?”