Hale Maree (24 page)

And I haven’t even told her how I left her
behind in Virginville yet. The idea of telling her all about Sophia
and Amy streaks across my mind, but I can’t think of a way to tell
her without having to tell everything, so I just keep my mouth
shut. Instead, I just smile, and we both stand back to look around
the shop.

“
Can you believe this
place?” I gape.

Sher does the same, finishing my thought,
“It’s so fancy!”

A sales woman scoops us up
almost immediately. Her sparkling, silver-bar name pin is embossed
with the name, ‘Milan’, in black print. She looks to be only a
little older than us, but just by her perfectly fitted clothes,
flawless make-up, and incredible shoes, Sher and I both agree
immediately, in glances to one another, that we want to grow up to
be Milan someday
.
She even pronounces her name stylishly,
Mee-lon
.

She asks me about dress styles, and colors,
and when all she gets from me is a blank stare, Sher steps in and
saves me. She fishes a folded pile of magazine pages from her
purse, and some of the smaller clippings fall out and flutter to
the floor. Milan helps us pick them up, and takes the mess of
scraps to the counter. She lays them out, and we all look them
over. In minutes, Milan is talking to us as if we all grew up
together.

“
Oh, I love this,” I say,
pointing to one of the three bridesmaids dresses that Sher
clipped.

“
That’s my favorite too!”
Sher says, and Milan smiles as she picks up the picture.

“
I think I have the perfect
dress,” she says. “And what about you, Hale? What kind of dresses
do you like? I understand the wedding is tomorrow, so I suppose we
should look at what we have in your size. I know Mr. Maree said
that he would pay for speed alterations, but it’s not always that
easy. Luckily, with your particular size, we’ve got a great
selection available.”

Milan takes us to a room with dresses that
line the wall. The first one I see is a fitted, sleeveless dress
that spreads out more fully at the bottom. Sher pulls in a dramatic
breath, as I pull the dress from the row.

“
That’s gorgeous!” she says.
Milan starts explaining what kind of dress it is: a mermaid dress,
with a heart-shaped bodice. She says things like brocade, and
crystals, and tulle, but all I want to know is if the dress will
fit, and if I can afford to buy it.

Once it’s on, I spin in a mirror, and Sher
says, “That’s the one,” over and over again, until I say, “You’re
right.”

“
You couldn’t have chosen a
better dress to suit your figure,” Milan says. “This style is both
elegant and sexy. I hope that is what you were going
for.”

Milan takes the dress when I’m done.

“
It will be cleaned and
delivered to your house in the morning, as will Sher’s dress,” she
says.

“
How much do we owe?” I ask,
and Milan brushes away the air with her fingers.

“
Nothing,” she says. “Mr.
Maree is taking care of the bill.”

Sher squeals and hops and tells me again,
how lucky I am. Its finally starting to sink in, just how lucky
that is.

#

Oscar and I don’t eat dinner with Mr. Maree.
Instead, we eat sandwiches on the back porch of the guest house.
The backyard is so secluded by trees and shrubs, that it feels like
we’re the only two people left in this beautiful little patch of
the world.

“
Are you overwhelmed yet?”
he asks, bumping me with his knee. I look into his eyes, and it’s
like they swallow me up. I don’t have any interest in looking
away.

“
Not at all,” I say. “Are
you?”

“
No,” he chuckles, “all I
have to do is meet you at the altar, right?”

“
That’s pretty much all I
have to do too,” I say.

“
Does that bother
you?”

“
No. Why would
it?”

“
Well, I know girls usually
want a lot of say about their wedding day. It’s kind of a big deal,
isn’t it? They make TV shows about what a big deal it
is.”

I shrug. “It’s just one day,” I say. “The
big deal is all the days after.”

Oscar reaches out, his fingertips curling
under my chin, and he kisses me.

“
I love you.” He says it so
simply, it’s like he says it every day. “You’re not a
bridezilla.”

But it’s the ‘I love you’ part that catches
me. He doesn’t say it every day. He’s never even said it before.
And he just looks away, like it’s no big deal that it’s the first
time he’s said that, and like it’s not an even bigger deal that I’m
not jumping to say it back. All he does is look out into the trees,
and takes a bite of his sandwich.

I climb into his lap, wrapping my legs
around his back.

“
Hi there,” he says with a
grin, once I’m sitting face to face with him.

“
Oscar,” I say. “You just
said something really serious.”

“
Hmm,” he says, nodding and
licking the mustard from his lip. “I did, didn’t I?”

“
You did,” I say.

His eyes graze over how our bodies are
smashed together. “It looks like you have something you want to say
about it?”

“
Yes,” I say, looking over
his shoulder. “I don’t want to say ‘I love you’ for any of the
wrong reasons.”

“
Well,” he says, “I think
any reason I give you is a pretty good one.”

“
Not if it’s based on your
looks, or your money, or because some guy died at a bar, where our
dads were having a drink.”

He thinks for a moment, and
then his eyes are on mine, the intensity a little startling. “Is
that
all
the
reasons I’ve given you?”

“
No, but,” I squirm, uneasy
with the words, but Oscar holds me to him.

“
Go on,” he says, even
though his tone is curious, instead of angry.

“
I just don’t want to start
throwing those words around. It means something, you
know?”

“
It means everything,” he
says softly, and then his hands are in my hair. “That’s why I said
it.”

He pulls me into a kiss, but when our lips
part, I breathe, “I love you.”

“
No, no,” he murmurs. “Not
for this. Say it when you mean
all of
it
. I already know you love me for
this.”

And he lies back on the hard wood porch,
pulling me down with him, in the very last light of evening that
filters through the trees.

#

I wake to the sound of machinery. Not coffee
pots or washing machines, but real machinery, the massive kind that
earns the name. Oscar is not beside me in bed, so I get up, pull on
my clothes, and look out the window. It sounds like there is a
forklift coming at the house, but there is nothing to see out the
bedroom window. I cross the foyer and go into the living room,
which is lined with windows, and immediately see what woke me.

A guy on a Hi-Lo is moving stacks of tables
onto the main lawn. I rub my eyes. The Hi-Lo is still there,
carefully shoveling the pile of tables off the machine’s front
prongs.

“
Oscar?” I call, and turn as
he emerges from the kitchen with a mug of coffee.

“
Right here,” he says. He
crosses the carpet to stand beside me, sipping his coffee and
watching the workers that are flooding the lawn with chairs and
flowers, as an enormous tent rises up off the lawn to the far
left.

“
What is all this?” I
ask.

“
Our wedding,” he
says.

“
All of this? It’s a Sunday
wedding! This looks like a circus is coming!”

Oscar chuckles. “A
circus
is
coming,”
he says. “There are about five hundred guests invited.”

“
Five...” I cough.
“Five
hundred?
Who? How do you even know five hundred people?”

“
Success with Fortune 500
companies, Hale. They get you known.”

“
Oh my God,” I say, smashing
a hand to my forehead. “I thought it was going to be like ten
people, twenty tops. Not five hundred. Oh my God.”

“
Come on and sit down,”
Oscar says, putting his coffee on a table. “That’s just the
reception. There are only about a hundred invited to the actual
wedding.”

“
Only?” I say. Oscar takes
my hands in his and kisses my knuckles. The warmth of his mouth
centers me again, and I can breathe.

“
Don’t think of it,” he
says. “It’s just going to be a wonderful party, that’s all. You get
to wear a beautiful dress, and Sher and your father will be here.
We’ll dance and eat great food, and people will be tripping over
themselves to meet you. You won’t remember any of their names, and
when it’s all over, we’ll just be Mr. and Mrs. Maree. House
hunters. Honeymooners. Arguers of
how-many-children-we’re-not-having-yet. Just that, Hale. Nothing
more.”

“
It seems like everything.”
I say.

“
Well, it is everything,” he
says, kissing my knuckles again. “But it’s nothing to be afraid
of.”

“
And you’ll be there,” I
say, with a weak smile.

“
Of course. I’ll always be
there,” he says.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I WISH I COULD REMEMBER everything, but it
goes by in a blur. Sher and I spend most of the day at a spa. It
sounds lovely, except that the closer we get to the actual wedding
time, at five in the evening, the more nervous I get. I can’t enjoy
the massage, or the pedicure, or the manicure, or the hairstyling,
or the incredibly appealing way a man named Marco does my make-up.
I don’t look like myself, or feel like myself, and by the time that
I’m standing in my dress, at the mansion French doors that lead to
the rose-scattered runner, I’m beyond terrified. I’m not sure I’ll
make it to Oscar, who is waiting at the other end.

It’s not that I don’t want to marry him.

It’s not that I won’t keep the secret.

It’s not that I’m angry with my father, or
worried that I won’t be able to be everything I wanted to.

It’s none of that.

It’s just that my legs feel like string, and
my body feels like lead, and that makes it tough to get where I
need to go.

My father takes my arm as the music starts,
and Sher squeals the last squeal I’ll hear as a single woman,
before she disappears out the French doors. My father smells
faintly of booze. He apologizes. He promises he’ll get his act
together. He says he is proud of me.

We walk.

The runner dips under my shoes a little. A
hundred faces turn from their decorated chairs on either side of
the lawn, to smile at me. I am afraid of throwing up. I am scared
of wiping out in front of these hundred smiling faces. I am
terrified that someone will take a picture, if I do.

Oscar comes into view. He’s beyond
incredible, in his black tux with a silver and black embossed vest.
He’s got a dark purple flower in his lapel. Any girl would feel
blessed to be on her way to marry him, and I’d like to say that the
sight of him makes it all better, but he looks worried when he
spots me too. I wobble once on my heels, and although my father
manages to hold me steady, I see Oscar lurch forward a little,
hands up, as if he would be able to reach me, and catch me, if I
fell.

It’s the first time in my life I wish I were
drunk. My hands are sweating, as I hold my gorgeous bouquet of
purple and yellow flowers. I don’t even know what they’re called.
The wedding planner woman told me to keep the bouquet at my waist,
but with every step forward, the flowers seem to get a little
higher, as if I’ll end up peeking out of them, once I reach
Oscar.

“
Dad,” I whisper, “I don’t
think I’m going to make it.”

“
I don’t think I can either,
Hale, but we’re going to have to. Almost there. Hang on,
okay?”

I think he’s being metaphorical. I don’t
know. All I can really concentrate on is not throwing up in my
purple and yellow flowers.

We reach the end, and the Pastor asks who’s
giving me away, twice, without any answer from my father. My dad’s
just standing beside me, looking pale. The Pastor finally asks my
dad directly, “Mr. Simmons, will you give your daughter to be
wed?”

My father looks like he’s going to lose it.
I lean over and instead of kissing his cheek, I whisper hotly in
his ear, “Say yes, Dad! You’re not even the one who needs to be
drunk—I am! Just hold it together so I don’t come totally unglued,
for God’s sake!”

My father straightens up, clears his throat,
and tells the Pastor, “I do”, as he hands me over to Oscar. Oscar’s
strong hand on my arm snaps something into place. Not completely,
but almost. His fingertips are soft, and his smile is genuine as he
leans over and whispers in my ear, “You’re gorgeous, Hale. We’re
going to get through this together, okay?”

“
Okay,” I say, a little too
loudly. There are some titters from the decorated chairs. The
Pastor begins, and I rock on my heels. Oscar keeps a hand on my
elbow, although I don’t think we’re supposed to be touching yet.
The Pastor looks over the top of his Bible, and asks the crowd if
anyone objects to us being married, but his eyes fall back on me,
as if he thinks I’ve got something to say.

I don’t, but there is a disturbance behind
us, and I hear the words, clear as bells, “I object.”