I folded my lips together to stop myself from laughing. Once we'd wedged Annette through the dressing room door, I kept my gaze on the dress. I didn't dare look at my friend or the stunned saleswoman while I loosened the corset's lacing.
"I'll be right outside," Sandra said. "Shout if you need anything."
When the door closed, I said, "I don't speak German and I went fishing once when I was fifteen. I made Chad Bodger bait the hooks and then get the fish off the hooks because it looked horrible."
"So, you—what? Held the pole?"
"That could be the summary of my life right there," I said, giving the laces a yank. It was a wonder my girl could breathe. "I held the pole."
"But you do know tae kwon do?" she asked.
"No black belt, but I took a few martial arts classes when the guys in my office started raving about Krav Maga. They spent entire days chopping each other in the balls. I wanted to be able to poke them in the neck and have them fall to the ground and piss themselves."
"That's a noble desire." The dress fell away from her body and a breath rattled out of her. "I'm going to need some lunch now."
"Maybe we can talk about this wedding while we eat." I gathered the dress as she picked her way out of it. "You know, spitball some of the basics like colors, theme, venue. If you want to go crazy, maybe we'll even come up with ideas for the date."
Her back turned to me, Annette shrugged into her clothes. "I get it. Going dress shopping wasn't the best idea."
I slipped the dress onto its hanger. "That's not what I'm saying."
She bent at the waist to fluff her hair. "You're saying I can't choose a dress until I know when and where I'm getting married," she said, standing. "And you're not wrong, but dresses felt—I don't know—manageable. I figured we could drive down here and I could try on a dress and it would be perfect and then I'd have all the answers."
"You don't need all the answers," I said. "Let's get out of here before our friend Sandra busts in here and tries to sell you on some more meringue."
She frowned at the dress, brushed her fingers along the delicate fabric. "It is lovely," she said softly. "For someone else."
We left the boutique and headed straight for one of our favorite Portland breweries for lunch. Once we were settled with a flight of beers and three appetizers between us, I revisited the wedding topic. "You've been engaged for a couple of months now—"
"A couple of months is two or three," she interjected. "It's been more than two or three months. It's spring. Seasons have come and gone while I've been engaged."
"And I see we're sensitive about that," I said, laughing.
"A little bit," she conceded. "I just feel like I should have this sorted out by now." She laughed into her raspberry wheat. "If you asked my mother, she'd say I'm inexcusably far behind. She leaves me voicemails reminding me to make appointments with florists and bakeries and priests. But whenever Jackson and I try to decide on anything, we get derailed."
"Let's not call sex on the living room floorgetting derailed." I shook my head. "It's punny, but we're better than that."
"There is that, but we're also trying to build a house and figure out how to live together without fighting over every little thing," she said. "The wedding is low on our list right now."
"And between all that living room floor sex and your mother, you're opting for the sex." I shrugged. "That's fair."
"My mother can't decide how she wants to handle this," Annette continued. "She's somewhere between wanting to make this bigger and better than my sisters' weddings, and being annoyed because I'm nothing like my sisters and won't go along with her daft ideas."
She went on venting about her mother's assortment of misguided wedding initiatives. I listened, nodding and sympathizing as best I could. Her mother wasn't my favorite person. She wasn't kind to my friend and I was waiting for an opportunity to call her on that shit. But beyond my frustrations with Mrs. Cortassi, I found myself wondering about my mother and how she would've reacted to me getting engaged.
I tended to believe my mother would've transformed into a steamroller, knocking me and my fiancé out of the way while she planned a showstopper of a wedding. It would be at home, of course, as she and my father were married there and she loved tradition when it fit her interests. She would've ordered the most opulent tent and bought all the flowers in New England. Every last one of them. The cake would be banana. Fucking banana. I'd wear whatever she told me to and style my hair as she instructed, and I'd do it without complaint or argument because I had to be perfect. Had to be perfect for her, for everyone.
It was macabre to think it, but I'd always known she'd die suddenly. My mother lived for putting on a show. It was always going to be the blink of an eye or a long, epic, slow process where she died but came back to life at least three or four times because everyone loved a good sob story.
"Shit," Annette murmured.
I glanced around the nearly empty restaurant, but couldn't locate a cause for concern. "What?"
"I'm going on about my mother and how I'd rather she go back to ignoring me." She gestured toward me. "And that's really insensitive of me."
"Oh, no, don't worry," I said, waving her off. "I'm fine. It never gets better, but it's okay. I don't think I want to get married anyway."
Annette gaped at me. "What? Since when? We've had no fewer than four thousand conversations about our fantasy weddings. You've already planned your groom's cake and you haven't even met him yet." She leaned forward, peering at me. "Why are you feeling all the feels today?"
