Shattered Glass(4)

“I don’t really think she wants a rainbow suit,” I reassured him, hiding my grin. To Angelica I raised an eyebrow. “Is your sister gay now? I’m losing track of her sexuality. One week bi, one week straight. It changes faster than our wedding colors, and that’s saying something. What are they now, by the way?”

“I don’t know. I think she’s still testing the waters. She told mom she was going to Pridefest and ride a Harley naked with some woman called…” She tapped her perfectly manicured nail against a pile of shirts, “I don’t actually remember what she was called. Something that sent mom into fits because it was definitely female.” Putting down the gold tie, Angelica held up a grey cravat dotted with dark flecks for my inspection. “Navy and silver? Can we see that navy suit again, Jeffrey?”

“Great. I wouldn’t even need Jeffrey. I could just wear my dress uniform.” Jeffrey threw me a look bordering on murderous and stomped to the back room. Actually, wearing my dress uniform would have been preferable. The idea of wearing another tuxedo for any occasion made my skin itch.

“Mm. You are yummy when you wear your costume.”

“Uniform,” I corrected with a rueful grin and chuckle.

“Whatever,” she replied airily and laid the grey tie atop a stack of white button-down shirts. She didn't mean to be flippant about my job; she was just preoccupied with wedding planning.

“Exactly,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

“You’re not helpful,” she said and shook her head, smiling absently.

“Because I want to live to see twenty-seven. You’re on the wrong side of crazy with this wedding planning.”

“Pah,” Angelica huffed. “You’re exaggerating.”

I really wasn’t. Angelica was one of the kindest and most uncomplicated women I knew; but since she’d started planning this wedding, I was a little afraid. And I dealt with drug dealers and crack whores for a living.

She had fired the caterers when they didn’t “condescend to make a buffet style dessert table”. The florist had quit after Angelica had said she wanted the roses to match the bridesmaids’ dresses, and then promptly changed the wedding colors two days later. She had asked me to tell Mark, one of my groomsmen, to wear heels because he was shorter than all the bridesmaids. I refused and she blamed me for all of the bridesmaids wearing ballet slippers.

Later she would apologize and promise to do better. We forgave her because, in all honesty, the girl who apologized was “our Angelica”, not the crazy bride.

Angelica was the barracuda lawyer to whom I could send troubled kids and expect her to defend them vigorously from prosecution. She routinely tried to cook dinner and laughed harder than I when it ended up smelling like an outhouse. She dropped her head and snored loudly when I talked about sports. She burped and watched Saturday morning cartoons.

Angelica was not flakey or indecisive. Until she had to pick chiffon or silk, or roses or chrysanthemums.

Truth be told, I didn’t recognize her during wedding planning. So I preferred to steer clear of it.

“Should I stay for another fitting, or have we determined my uniform will work? Or maybe the navy suit he already made?” I asked. Jeffrey, carrying said suit, was approaching us. The sound that echoed in his throat conjured up images of choking cats.

“We’re going with the navy suit,” Angelica decided with a perfunctory nod and wrinkled her nose at the bundle the tailor held. “Oh, not that one, Jeffrey, the one with the mandarin collar,” she clarified.

The strangling cat sound erupted as a screech. “That was black, mademoiselle. Not navy!” I stifled a grin.

“Mm. Oh, Jeffrey, calm down. It’s basically the same suit, just in navy.” She patted his wiry hair and walked toward the back rooms. Jeffrey’s face was red enough to sub as a police light. “Don’t disappear, Austin,” Angelica called over her shoulder. I watched the way her ass moved under the halter dress. “And stop leering. It’s unnerving poor Jeffrey.”

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving.” Or of stopping my leering. “But I’m reasonably sure you’re the one unnerving him.” The little man made another choked sound and tensed so hard he shook. Being fitted for another suit while a pin-wielding Jeffrey was in the apoplectic throes of agony, officially made me a masochist. By the end of the day I’d have enough pricks to prove it.

I should stop thinking about pricks. And bunnies. And pricks fucking bunn—

“Please, I beg of you, stop her, Monsieur Glass,” The tailor’s nervous eyes twitched from Angelica at the back of the shop, to me. I couldn’t blame him for his plea; she was now investigating a beige suit jacket. “I haven’t completed one suit!”