Say Forever(43)

Violet's shoulders fall, and she hunches awkwardly while kicking the carpet with a spiked heel. "It's not me."

"But you're beautiful." Grace turns to the plump, thirty-something saleswoman, who's beaming from ear to ear as she hovers behind them. "Do you sell these wigs here?"

"We sure do," the woman says.

Violet tugs at the wig until it's sitting at an awkward angle on her head. "Can I take it off now?"

Grace gasps and swats Violet's hands while adjusting the wig. "Don't you want to look sexy for me?"

"Lesbians," Tia hisses again.

Oh, dear God!

I can only imagine Tia's panicking how to explain all of this to the family priest. First a "soiled" bride and then lesbian bridesmaids in "puta" dresses.

Violet jerks the wig off her head and storms back into the dressing room. Grace tries to stop her and nearly gets her hand caught in the door.

"I'm not wearing this damn wig," she hollers from behind the door.

"Stubborn jerk!" Grace punches the door and then storms toward me and flounces into a nearby chair. Groaning, she hangs her head in her hands.

I don't want to turn around, but I'm sure Tia and Marie are sharing disapproving glances.

Karri comes out of the adjacent dressing room. Sadly, the dress isn't doing much for her. The bright red only makes her pale complexion look more sallow and the circles around her sunken eye sockets more pronounced. And her cotton candy hair clashes with that bright apple dress in the worst way. She looks like a mutant circus snack.

I cringe when I hear Marie's raucous laughter behind me. I still can't believe I allowed Tia to bulldoze my wedding plans. That I allowed Marie to have any part at all in my wedding. The bitch should be lucky she's even invited, and now here she is making fun of my bridesmaid dresses, actually pretending she wants to be in my wedding? Now that Karri has been pulled into this, I feel like I'm about past my breaking point.

But what pisses me off the most is that I've allowed this wedding circus to continue. I didn't put my foot down from the start and demand to have my wedding my way. What the hell is wrong with me? Seven months ago, when I walked out on my domineering ex-fiancé and controlling mother, I vowed I'd never allow anyone to push me around again. Now here I am right back where I started, the wimpy pushover Christina. I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones turning me back into the old Christina, but I don't like her one bit.

Karri flashes me a hesitant smile. "Isn't it pretty?" She says as she bunches the fabric in her hands and spins around. "I feel like we're back in high school, and we're prom dress shopping."

Those days are long gone, I want to tell her, but I don't. Something about Karri's half smile looks so pathetic, I actually feel more pity than anger toward the girl who screwed my ex-fiancé and then ran out on her family.

Kari spins another slow circle and her face falls as she stops to stare at herself in the mirror. I'm thinking maybe she doesn't like the reflection of a washed up druggie staring back at her, but she reaches across her body and settles it on one pale shoulder. The shoulder with Tyler's name scrawled inside a heart tattoo.

I remember the day she got it. It was our first night clubbing after she'd had Tyler. We hadn't stayed out late, mostly because I insisted she needed to get a good night's sleep, so she would be alert for her baby the next day, but she'd insisted on stopping off in that tattoo shop. I remember how angry I was she'd spent a hundred bucks on a tattoo when she was always complaining about the cost of diapers. But anger turned to empathy when she emerged from the artist's chair with a tattoo dedicated to her baby boy.

Nora, whom I'm pretty sure had been napping just moments earlier, sets down her empty champagne glass and rises from the sofa on wobbly legs. She walks up to Karri and slowly circles her, looking sideways at her like she's an errant dog who's been caught humping the pillow cushions. "You'll have to tone down your hair."

Karris' eyes bulge as her hands fly to her scalp. "My hair?"

Nora's collagen enhanced lips twist into a puffy scowl. "It's too pink. It will detract from the bride." She waves at me with an impatient flick of the wrist. "This is her day, not yours."

Really, Nora? Because it seems more like everyone else's day.

Karri's bottom lip turns into a pout. "But it matches the dress."

I fight to keep from laughing out loud. Karri's never had great fashion sense, and I've always suspected she was color blind, too.

Karri looks at me with eyes as big as a little lost lamb's. "What do you think I should do, Christina?"

Her question catches me off guard, maybe because it's the first time anyone other than Grace actually cares what I want.