Starfire(51)

Vern, who’d been giving us some distance, saw me bugging Dalton about his shirt and said to me privately, “He’s going through a fashion phase.”

Dalton followed me into a souvenir shop. I bought him the most outrageously tacky zip-up jacket I could find, with an embroidered Golden Gate Bridge across the front.

“Perfect disguise!” he said as he zipped into the thick sweatshirt. “And feels like a hug.”

He’d been getting stared at by a few people, but nobody had come up and asked him for his autograph or a photo yet.

The sweatshirt was a good disguise, and we looked just like all the other tourists milling around.

At the Pier 39 market, we walked by a table of leather goods that drew Dalton’s eye. He selected a fanny pack—one of those bags that’s built into a belt—which he paid for and quickly wrapped around his waist.

Grinning, he said, “Do I look like a tourist, or what?”

I pulled a pair of huge, pink-framed sunglasses from a nearby display and put them on. “These are so nobody recognizes me out shopping with some weirdo in a fanny pack.”

He handed the vendor some money for my sunglasses. “My fiancée will take those glasses, and give us half a dozen of those pins.”

Despite my protests, he proceeded to flair up my hoodie with an assortment of pins with goofy sayings on them, about leaving my heart in San Francisco, welcoming the zombie apocalypse, being a witty 1950s housewife, and giving zero fucks while dancing in an alpine meadow.

Vern gave us an approving nod. “Excellent tourist disguise, but we’ve got eyes on us at six o’clock. Don’t look, just turn around and keep moving.”

I grabbed Dalton’s hand and hurried with him into the crowd. As he had for the last few hours, Vern followed us, staying back about six feet and keeping his eyes open for potential trouble. He wasn’t a tall man, or very imposing as a bodyguard, but Dalton assured me it was his keen eyes and instincts for avoiding trouble that made Vern invaluable.

(Instincts for avoiding trouble made Vern the exact opposite of Dalton, which was probably why they were such a good match.)

We had a quick lunch, then made our way back to the truck. From there, we started driving to our main destination, which was a bridal shop near union   Square. I’d never heard of union   Square before, but I’d picked up a tourist map and was poring over it in the back seat as we drove.

“San Francisco is pretty small,” I said to Dalton, who was still keeping his distance from me by sitting in the front seat. “Seven miles by seven miles. You know, that’s not much bigger than Beaverdale, space-wise, but there are so many people here, and they’re all so colorful.” I peered out the tinted windows to find street signs and place our location on the map. “Hey, can we go to the hippie area? And see those cool houses—the painted ladies? Oh, and I want to see Chinatown.”

“Pace yourself,” Dalton said, laughing. “You haven’t even picked out your wedding dress yet.”

I looked out the window. “Well, it’s just a fake wedding, so it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll just pick the first one that doesn’t make me look like the tooth fairy.”

We drove for a few minutes in silence, then Vern pulled the vehicle over to the sidewalk and announced we were at the boutique.

“Great,” I muttered under my breath as I stepped out. “Goody, goody, can’t wait for this fresh hell,” I grumbled.

My mother had told me all about her experiences shopping for a bridal gown, and nothing had changed in the last twenty-five years, based on what my cousin Marita had told family about shopping while curvy and pregnant.

The thing about wedding gowns is, you try on the styles, called samples, and then your dress is custom-made for you. That sounds great, but the samples come in three sizes at most, and they aren’t big girl sizes. At best, the consultants will hold the back together while you admire yourself in the mirror. At worst, you stand there in your slip while they hold the dress up to the front of you.

Dalton took my hand and asked, “Are you mad that you have to do this with some stupid guy? I know it’s traditional for the bride to try on dresses with her bridesmaids.”

“Whatever.” I shrugged.

Dalton asked me to wait a second as he talked to Vern and made arrangements for the rest of the day. From what I overheard, Vern was going to drop our things off at the hotel and take the rest of the day off. Apparently, he’d already had a long day, flying up to Washington from LA to pick me up.

I shook my head in amazement at the idea of having your own airplane, to fly wherever you wanted. I didn’t even have a car.