I expected her to slip her arm around Seth, but it was me she grabbed a hold of and jerked away. I stumbled a bit. Fiveinch heels weren't normally a problem for me, but the vodka complicated things a bit.
"Georgina," she exclaimed, once we were far enough away from Seth, "I need your help." Reaching into her purse, she pulled out two pages torn from magazines.
"With wha-oh." My stomach twisted uncomfortably, and I hoped I wouldn't be joining Doug in the bathroom. The pages were of wedding dresses.
"I've almost narrowed it down," she explained. "What do you think?"
Grudgingly accepting that the man I loved was going to marry one of my best friends was one thing. Helping them plan their wedding was an entirely different matter. I swallowed.
"Oh, gee, Maddie. I'm not very good at this stuff."
Her dark eyes widened. "Are you kidding? You're the one who taught me how to dress right in the first place."
She apparently hadn't taken the lessons to heart. The dresses, while beautiful on the anorexic models wearing them, would look terrible on Maddie. "I don't know," I said lamely, dragging my eyes away. The dresses were making me conjure mental images of Maddie and Seth walking down the aisle together.
"Come on," she entreated. "I know you have an opinion."
I did. A bad one. And honestly, if I were a good servant of Hell, I would have told her they both looked great. Or I would have endorsed the worst one. What she wore was no concern of mine, and maybe if she showed up at her wedding looking sub-par, Seth would realize what he'd lost when we broke up.
And yet … I couldn't. Even after everything that had happened, I just couldn't let Maddie do it. She'd been a good friend, never suspecting what had happened between Seth and me before and during their relationship. And as much as that petty, selfish part of me wanted it, I couldn't let her go forward in a bad dress.
"Neither are good," I said at last. "The full skirt on that one will make you look short. The flowers on top of that one will make you look fat."
She was taken aback. "Really? I never … " She studied the pictures, face falling. "Damn. I thought I had this stuff down now."
I can only assume my next words came from the liquor. "If you want, I'll go with you to some places this week. You can try some stuff on, and I'll tell you what works."
Maddie lit up. She wasn't gorgeous in the popular, magazine sort of way, but when she smiled, she was beautiful. "Really? Oh, thank you. And you can look for your dress, too."
"My what?"
"Well … " Her smile turned sly. "You're going to be a bridesmaid, aren't you?"
At that moment, I reconsidered my earlier thoughts about nothing being more painful than helping plan her wedding. Being her bridesmaid pretty much blew that out of the water. Those who believed we made our own hells on earth must have had something like this in mind.
"Oh, well, I don't know … "
"You have to! There's no one else I'd rather have."
"I'm not really the bridesmaid type."
"Of course, you are!" Maddie's eyes suddenly looked at something beyond me. "Oh, hey. Doug's back. I'm going to go check on him. We'll talk about this later. You'll give in." Maddie scurried off to her brother, leaving me numb and speechless. I decided then it was worth risking illness to go get another drink. This party had taken a definite U-turn.
Yet, when I turned around, it wasn't toward the bar. It was toward my patio. One of the best features of this condo was its expansive balcony, one that looked out over Puget Sound and the Seattle skyline beyond. As I stood there, though, it wasn't the view that captivated me. It was … something else. Something I couldn't explain. But it was warm and wonderful and spoke to all my senses. I imagined I could see colored light on my balcony and hear a type of music that defied all human words.
The party faded into the background as I slowly moved toward the patio. The door was open to air out the hot room, and my two cats, Aubrey and Godiva, lay near it to look outside. I stepped past them, drawn toward that which had no explanation or description. Warm autumn air engulfed me as I groped for what called me. It was all around me and yet out of my reach. It was summoning me, drawing me toward something right on the balcony's edge. I almost considered climbing on the ledge in my heels and looking over. I had to reach that force.
"Hey, Georgina."
Peter's voice jerked me out of the trance. I stared around, startled. There was no music, no color, no beckoning embrace. Only the night and the view and the patio furniture on my balcony. I turned around, meeting his eyes.