“The dress is new,” Jean said. “You’re old, so you don’t have to worry about that one.”
“Watch it,” I warned her, but I was smiling, so it wasn’t much of a deterrent. “I need a borrowed and an old. Come on, you two. You don’t want to have me start my wedding on the wrong foot.”
“Oh!” Jean said, “I brought a candy bar I found in the bottom of my purse. That’s probably old.”
“Myra?” I pleaded.
She walked over to a bag she’d left on Bertie’s desk, rummaged around in it, and pulled out a small box.
“No tears,” she warned.
“Promise.”
She handed me the box. I opened the lid. There was a very small ruby heart on a thin gold chain.
“That was Mom’s,” Myra said. “It can be the old.”
She didn’t have to say any more. I nodded and took a couple breaths so I wouldn’t tear up. “Thank you. Thank you for finding this. For bringing this.”
“Wait,” Jean said. “I have a borrowed thing for you! Here.” She crutched over to where she’d left her purse on an empty chair and dug around. “I knew this was going to come in handy.”
She thrust something out at me.
It was a gnome.
Or more to the point, it was a gnome head.
Headless Abner, who sometimes came alive and did a lot of talking.
“That’s…um…”
“You don’t want to start your marriage unlucky, do you Delaney?”
“No, but. Say, Myra, can I borrow—”
“Nope. I’m all out of stuff,” she lied, like a Liar McLie Face. “You’ll just have to take the head.”
“Where am I even going to put it?”
“That’s why your dress is so great,” Jean said cheerily. “It’s got pockets!”
She shoved the gnome head into my pocket. “Borrowed!” she crowed.
“Neat,” I said.
Myra handed me the baby blue lace handkerchief. “Blue. There, now you’re all set. All the luck.”
“All the luck,” Jean repeated.
I stared at the woman in the mirror who had two grinning sisters behind her. “All the luck.”
I floated.
There was a knock on the door. It was Bertie telling us it was time. That’s when the floating started.
I walked down the hallway with Myra and Jean. The hall had always been empty and echoing, but now flowers flowed in green boughs from the ceiling, woven with fairy lights to the floor, where the light strands pooled, then spooled off, like burbling creeks, toward the big double doorway to the gymnasium.
I floated.
