Big Girls Do It Married (10 page)

"Spit it out," Jeff said, brushing a strand of hair away from my mouth with his finger.

"I'm ready," I said.
 

"You're ready?" Jeff watched me spin my ring around my finger. "Sure? I've been trying not to—"

"I know you have," I said, sliding my arms around his waist, "and I can't even begin to thank you for giving me time."

"So what made you ready?"

I explained what had happened at Meijer, and how I'd talked to Jamie in the parking lot.

Jeff frowned. "She's your best friend, and I get that. But I guess I wish you'd talked to me first."

"It's instinctive, on some level," I said. "Something big happens and I call Jamie, or tell her when she comes home. Except now this is more home than my apartment, but she's still my best friend and I tell her everything."

"I know. I'm just saying. I want to be the first person you call when something happens." He kissed my cheekbone. "I'm not saying you can't tell Jamie things. She's your friend and that's important. I'm not trying to take that away."

"I know. It'll take a while to adjust my thinking, I guess."

"So. Where do you wanna start?"

"Well, that's what Jamie and I were talking about. I think she and I are gonna go look at dresses."

"When?"
 

I set out the chicken to thaw and flipped through a cookbook, looking for something to make. "I don't know. Jamie says you need an appointment first, but I don't even know where those kinds of stores are. Bridal stores, dress boutiques, all that."

"Are you looking forward to it?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It could be fun."

Jeff leaned against the counter next to me, flipping his phone in his hand. "So should I start looking for churches around here? Or do you want to do a destination wedding? We could do the Florida Keys. I have—"

"Lemme guess, an Army buddy," I said, still flipping pages but not really seeing anything.

Jeff laughed. "Yeah. I must be kinda predictable, huh? Well, anyway, yeah, my buddy Arnie has a house on the beach down there, lots of room. There's even a country club nearby Arnie's a member of, he could arrange for the reception to be held there."

I quit flipping pages and looked at Jeff. "Then everyone would have to travel down there to be at the wedding."

"Well, yeah, that's the point of a destination wedding. I'm pretty sure most everyone on my side wouldn't have a problem taking a few days, especially if we have it in the summer, when people take summer vacations anyway."

"Wouldn't it be crazy hot in Florida in the summer?"

"Late summer, then. Have it in the evening."

"I guess this means I have to actually decide about my mother, huh?"

Jeff glanced away, out the window, and then back at me, as if containing a subtle irritation. "Yeah, guess so. That's the real reason you didn't want to think about the wedding. Right?"

I nodded. "I can call my mom. Jared, too. Maybe he can get leave if we give him enough time. If we have it in Florida, Miri and Kyle and the boys can be there. Doubt they could take a vacation to anywhere far."

"I guess Florida sounds good. We can talk more later. Depends on Mom and Ed, though."

"All right."
 

*
 
*
 
*

"I don't know, Jamie. I'm not sure about this one. There's too much tulle and lace. It's not me."

Jamie tilted her head, biting the corner of her lower lip, eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah, you're right. It's too...frou-frou. Something simpler next."

I turned to the may-I-help-you person, a woman a few years older than I named Brandi, slim, with pale white skin and flaxen hair pulled into a high, severely tight ponytail.
 

She nodded. "I think I have something that might work. I'll bring it into the changing room."

Jamie and I went back to the changing room and Jamie helped me out of the dress.
 

"This is stressful," I said, adjusting the straps of my bra tighter. "Half of the dresses I try on I'm falling out of, the other half make my ass look huge. And the rest are ugly."

"That doesn't make any mathematical sense," Jamie said, hanging the old dress up.

"Shut up. It doesn't have to. I thought trying on wedding dresses was supposed to be fun."

"It is. You're just difficult. And the only dress that made your ass look big was the mermaid one."

I snorted a laugh. "That didn't make my ass look big, it made it look like my ass had its own damn zip code. Which I'm starting to think it does."

Jamie smacked my shoulder. "Shut up, hooker. Your ass does not have a zip code. It doesn't even have an address, 'cause our lease just ran out."

"Don't remind me. Are we renewing?"

Jamie shrugged, fidgeting with the dress on the hanger, studiously avoiding my gaze. "Why would we? You're getting married in a few months. You should just move in with Jeff now. Save yourself the trouble after the honeymoon. 'Sides, you already live there half the time anyway."

I let my hair out of the ponytail and retied it to get the strays off my neck. "Then what will you do?"

She still wouldn't look at me. "I don't know. I'll figure it out. Not your problem."

"You're my best friend. Of course it's my problem."

Brandi came in then, effectively ending the conversation. "I think you might like this. It's A-line, just a touch of lace around the hem and the bust. It's simpler than the others you've tried on, but I think it'll look lovely on you. I think the bust line will nicely accentuate your full figure."

I winced.
Full figure
. Means plus-size. Curvy. Voluptuous. More euphemisms for not size-zero.
 

Brandi noticed my reaction and touched my shoulder, stammering. "I—I mean—"

"What she means is, you've got great tits," Jamie cut in, "and this will make 'em look even better. Jeff won't be able to take his eyes off your boobs."

Brandi breathed a soft sigh of relief when I laughed, and then she turned to hang the dress on the hook and pull it out of the bag. I stepped into it, and Brandi helped me adjust it to my full-figure boobs and zip it up the back. I hadn't looked at myself in the mirrors as I got into the dress, and I wasn't sure I wanted to yet. This dress felt nice. It felt...comfortable. Not heavy or draggy like some, or too light and airy like others. I could feel a lot of skin bare to the air, and I knew, even without looking, that my breasts would indeed be on display in a big way. Jeff would like that, but I wasn't sure I wanted to look like a hooker or pinup girl.

I tugged the cups higher, stuffed my boobs deeper in, breathed deeply and let it out. I glanced at Jamie first, to get her reaction. She had her hand clamped over her mouth, and her eyes were shimmering.

Oh, shit.
She's crying
.
 

I closed my eyes, turned back to the mirrors, and then looked at myself. My eyes stung, suddenly burning. Jamie came up next to me and tugged my hair back out of the ponytail, fluffed it out, and then pulled a bobby pin from her own hair and pinned my bangs behind my head, leaving the rest loose around my shoulders. Her eyes were wet, tears flowing freely now.

"God, Anna. You look...incredible."

"You really do," Brandi said, setting a veil attached to a tiara on my head and arranging the gauzy white material around my shoulders. "You look gorgeous."

I sniffed hard, ran my finger underneath my eyes.
 

I didn't look at myself in the mirror too often. I did my makeup, of course, but I leaned close and didn't really look at the rest of me. Clothes shopping wasn't something I did frequently, since I always felt like I had for most of the wedding dress shopping experience of the last few weeks: insecure about my body, overwhelmed by all the different kinds of dresses, stressed about having to choose
one
dress out of thousands.

But this...was different. All the other times I'd tried on dresses I'd looked at myself and seen my belly, or my wide hips, or the bulge of my ass, or my arms, or my
full figure
bust line. I didn't see me as a bride, I saw a girl in a wedding dress. A girl playing dress-up.
 

This time, though, when I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror, even before Jamie fixed my hair and Brandi put on the veil, I felt like a bride. I felt...beautiful.

For the first time in a long time, I really looked at myself. I saw a tall woman, a few inches shy of six feet, long dyed-blonde hair wavy and loose around my bare shoulders, full breasts displayed but not spilling out. I saw my eyes, hazel and wavering with unshed tears within a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, and full lips. I didn't see a dress size or a bust line or an ass that went on forever.
 

I saw me: curvy and confident. I saw a woman with a body made for loving, hands made for holding, lips meant for kissing. I saw wide, expressive eyes and blush-pink cheeks. I saw me as Jeff might see me. I saw the body that gave him a hard-on just looking at it, naked and wet from the shower. I saw the woman he loved, the woman he desired.

I saw the woman he wanted to marry. No longer a girl playing dress-up, or a girl in a wedding dress, or an insecure plus-size girl.
 

I saw me, beautiful the way I am.
 

Jamie touched my eyes with a Kleenex and rested her chin on my shoulder. "This one?" I could only nod and try to hold back the tears. "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to cry when you find the dress," Jamie said.

I shook my head, refusing to let them fall. I was happy. I was overwhelmed. I wasn't going to cry.
 

"Anna. It's fine."

I shook my head again and swiped my finger underneath each eye. "I'm fine. Really. I just—"

 
"It's overwhelming," Brandi said, standing near the door. "You see yourself in The Dress, and you finally realize it's really real. Like, it's actually going to happen. The veil is what usually does it for most of my clients."

"That's it exactly," I said. "Until now getting married was just an idea. But now...I can actually see myself walking down the aisle."

"Better you than me, girl," Jamie said, fidgeting with the veil.
 

"That's what I always thought," I said. "But now that I'm ready for it...I'm getting kind of excited."

"I'm happy for you. Really. I can't wait to be in the wedding. You and Jeff are perfect together. But it's not happening for me. No way, no how. Never."

"You're impossible."

"Yep."

"So when you do end up getting married, I get to say 'I told you so,' right?"

Jamie laughed. "If it happens, which it won't, then sure."

"So is this the dress, then?" Brandi asked.

"Yeah, I think so," I said, my voice wavering. I looked at myself once more, head to toe, and this time my voice had conviction. "Yes. This is the dress."

It would clean out the savings I'd been setting aside for a new car, and probably max out my credit card to boot, but it was worth it. Jamie and I met Jeff for lunch after making an appointment to return for a fitting.

Jeff had already ordered for us and was waiting at a four-top table at Five Guys. "So, how'd dress shopping go today?"

He'd never come with us, obviously, but he always wanted to know what was happening.

"I found the dress," I said, sitting next to him.
 

Jamie took the spot opposite me. "It's gorgeous," she said. "Like, incredible. You just might faint when you see her for the first time."

"I'm sure I will," Jeff said.

"No, really. All the blood's gonna rush to your cock and you're gonna pass out. It's that sexy."

"Jamie, seriously? You're incorrigible." I threw a French fry at her head.

"What? It's true. I'm a girl and I got a hard-on."

"Ohmigod, Jamie. You're so freaking impossible."

"You know you love it."

"True. But seriously, though, Jeff. I really love it." I dabbed a fry in ketchup. "My credit card balance doesn't love me, but it's worth it."

"How much was it?" Jeff asked.

"You don't want to know."

"Anna. You can't go broke trying to do everything on your own."

"Neither can you."

"Anna."

I dabbed another fry. "Fivethousanddollars," I mumbled the words, all squished together and under my breath, and followed it with a bite of cheeseburger.

"Excuse me?" Jeff leaned forward, setting his burger down. "It sounded like you said five thousand dollars for a second there."

"Wow, I really like this song. I haven't heard it since the nineties," I said. "This is Gin Blossoms, right?"

"
An
na."

"Fine. Yes. It was five thousand three hundred and ninety two dollars, okay?"

"You spent fifty-five hundred dollars?" Jeff sank back in his chair. "Good lord. I thought you'd at least call me before you went and blew your entire savings. I could have helped you. We're doing this together. At least, that was the idea."

"Are you really pissed off about this? I wanted to. It was what I wanted. I'm finally getting into this, getting into the whole 'planning a wedding' thing, and now you're pissed off that I made a decision. You're not supposed to see the dress until the actual wedding anyway."

"I know that, but we could have split the difference or something. At least talk to me before you go and spend that much money. I thought that's what couples did?"

"Well, shit. I'm sorry I didn't consult you first. I guess I thought I was old enough to make my own decisions."

"That's not what I meant—"

"Wow, look at that soda dispenser," Jamie said, a little too loudly, getting up for a refill. "They have like, a dozen different kinds of Fanta."

"Jeff, let it go."

"Well, at least call your—"

"If you bring up my mother, I will straight up walk out. For real. I am
not
calling her to help pay for my wedding."

"Didn't you want your mom to be there when you picked your dress? It's kind of traditional, isn't it?"

"Jeff, you really need to stop pushing this family button, okay? Yeah, maybe it is traditional, but Jamie is more my family than my mom at this stage. Tradition can jump off a cliff. I just want a happy wedding. I don't want my family there. Just you and me and those who really matter. My blood family doesn't matter. Not anymore."