“You can’t take it back?”
Allie shook her head. “I wouldn’t anyway. It’s a great dress. And now we’re going to make it pink, and I’m going to wear it and get fabulously drunk.”
“We don’t even have time to dry it.”
“If it won’t dry on that shelf thingy in the dryer, we can use towels and the hair dryer. It’ll be fine.”
“It’ll be damp and chemical-smelling.”
“So what? I’m the bride. No one will be able to say a thing.”
“I don’t know.”
Allie gripped her shoulders and leaned in to lock eyes with May. “Please. Big sister. I’m having a personal crisis here. Help me dye my cry for help.”
Allie grinned, and May had to grin back.
“Okay.” She pushed the shower curtain aside, flipped the drain closed, and started running water into the tub.
“Get the hair guard out, or it’ll turn pink.” Allie leaned past her to grab it, then straightened and went round-eyed staring at May’s chest. “Where did you get that shirt?”
“I had it at the back of my closet.”
“For how long?”
May sucked in her cheeks as she considered the question. The wine she’d swallowed was already humming its way into her bloodstream, making the very act of sucking in her cheeks more interesting than it ought to have been.
Had she eaten lunch? Possibly not.
She should correct that mistake.
“We need to order a pizza,” she said.
“You order it. I’m going to dump Rit in your tub.”
“This is such a bad idea.”
May finished her wine before she left the room. She ordered her and Allie’s favorite pizza on the kitchen phone and came back just as Allie was dumping the dye granules directly into the water.
“Five years ago,” she said.
“Five years ago what?”
“I bought this top five years ago.”
“I’ve never seen you wear it.”
“That’s because I’ve never worn it. You know you’re supposed to dissolve those in a measuring cup first?”
Allie shrugged away this concern and started swirling dye powder with her fingers. “It looks good on you.”
May didn’t glance at the mirror this time. “I know.”
In five years, she’d tried it on three or four times, but every time, she’d talked herself out of wearing it. Too skimpy. Too trashy. Too brazen for a girl like her.
She knew better now. She’d had her heart trounced, but her confidence remained, stubbornly refusing to be crushed. It was a relief to find she could keep on bending under the weight of so much difficulty, so much pain, and still not break.
A relief, but not a surprise.
The part that surprised her was that she wasn’t more devastated about Ben. As the afternoon flew by, her anger had faded, but sorrow hadn’t taken its place. She’d been right when she told Allie she wasn’t done with him yet.
It was the opposite of how she’d felt about Dan. She’d broken up with him badly—ineptly, shamefully—and it hadn’t felt good. But it had felt correct, because it had been the right thing to do.
Nothing about Ben’s leaving felt correct, so May simply refused to accept that it was over. “I’m going back to New York,” she said.
Allie turned off the faucet, and the sudden silence echoed in the tiny bathroom.
After a few beats, Allie said, “Give me the dress.”
May removed it from the hanger. She ran one finger over the plain strapless bodice, its horizontal pleats the only decoration that the elegant, heavy satin required.
She placed the dress on Allie’s lap. Allie flipped it over, took a deep breath, and plunged the hem into the tub with her eyes squeezed shut.
“What if he won’t see you?” she asked.
“That’s not why.”
“Please.”
“That’s not all of it. I need to find out … who I can be there, I guess. Who I am, when I’m not trying so hard to be who everybody expects me to be.”
Allie swished the dress around in the water. “You think it’s been in here long enough?”
“No. Are you kidding? You just put it in.”
“I think it’s long enough.” Allie lifted the dress out. It wasn’t pink. It was sort of … liver-colored. “Whugh,” she said. “That is not good.”
“I told you.”
“You always tell me. How am I going to avoid turning into a human disaster if you leave me here alone? No Matt, no May. I’ll be a train wreck.”
“So come with me.”
“Do you think this will turn more pink if I put it back in?”
“No.”