She makes a squeaky, joyful noise. “An entire week on the island, Paisley. All our loved ones, days and days of wedding shenanigans.” A dreamy quality envelops her voice. “It’s going to be ah-mazing.”
If I thought I was dreading this wedding, it’s only a fraction of the feelings I have about returning to Bald Head Island. As wonderful as it was to grow up vacationing there, it wasn’t always perfect. Correction: the island remains pristine. The actions of certain individuals tainted a handful of my memories there.
“One more thing, and it’s kind of late notice.” Sienna takes a deep breath, her gusty exhale crackling the connection. Excitement oozes from the phone. “Paisley, will you be my maid of honor?”
CHAPTER 2
Paisley
“You know what your problem is?”Paloma, my best friend and second-in-command at my digital marketing firm, stares at me from four feet away. She raises her eyebrows, one hand on her hip while her other arm extends to hold up her side of the mylar photo backdrop we’re affixing to the hotel room wall.
“No,” I grunt from my side, using a disproportionate amount of strength to push a thumbtack into the wall and wincing at the dull pain it sets off. “But I bet you’re going to tell me.”
She blows a strand of black hair from her face. “You’re the floor.”
I frown as I suck the pad of my thumb between my teeth. “I’m the floor?”
“People walk all over you.”
I hold back my smile. Paloma moved here from Brazil when she was eighteen. She has nearly perfect English, but the idioms and phrases give her trouble.
“I’m a doormat,” I correct. It’s true. When it comes tomy family, I have the damndest time asserting myself. It’s far easier to let them walk all over me than it is to address our issues. I view it as risk versus reward. Do I want to tell my family I have thoughts and feelings and opinions and fight that fight, or do I want to keep living across the country and fake it when I visit? I’m all for doing hard things, but maybe not right now. My focus now is on getting through the wedding.
Paloma waves a hand, her painted-red fingernails twirling. “What-ever. Don’t be a doormat, Paisley. Tell your sister you don’t want to be her maid of honor. Tell her you don’t want to be in her wedding at all.”
That would be ideal. At that rate, I might as well not attend. It would save me from another forced outcome I don’t want: seeing our father. They’ll be no avoiding him at the wedding, unless I decide to make a break for Western Europe by free styling the Atlantic. Our relationship never fully recovered after I declared marketing as my major following my short-lived stint in creative writing. Now I see him when I go back to visit on major holidays, where we share a late dinner at a snooty restaurant after he’s left the office. During appetizers he levels remarks that veer more aggressive than passive, and by the time entrées arrive, I count the minutes until dinner is over.
I promised myself I won’t agree to a dinner like that again, but I know I will. I’m not a weak person, or a masochist, but I fear what will happen if I sever the tenuous string holding us together.
Nodding to appease Paloma, I push the final tack into place. We step back to survey our handiwork.Glimmering strands tumble down the wall to a basket holding photo props and inflatables. In a few hours, my sister and her ‘I do’ crew will be here, posing in front of the mylar while effervescent champagne sparkles in their glassware.
Paloma shoulders me. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
“Not at her bachelorette party.”
Paloma’s eyes narrow. “That you’re throwing her.”
“They wanted to come here,” I argue meekly.
“There aren’t any bars in Raleigh? Or Charlotte? Savannah?Florida?”
A sharp ache begins at my temples. “I’d like you to remember,” I say, dramatically swiping the packaging trash off the coffee table, “that I’ve been rebellious in my own way.”
Paloma grabs the inflatable penis from the photo prop basket, smirking. “Kind of, yes. You could have been far more devilish than this.”
I smile unabashedly, pleased at my act of defiance. A cursory glance around the space confirms the hatching of my devious plan.
Peniseseverywhere.
Sienna is going to lose her mind. She had only one instruction for her bachelorette weekend, and it comprised three words.
Keep it classy.
Here’s what I heard: keep it classywith penises.
Paloma flicks the tip of the phallic inflatable and tosses it into the bin. “What I wouldn’t give to stick around and see your sister’s face when she walks in.”
Paloma doesn’t know my sister well, but she’s heardenough of my stories to know Sienna prides herself on being elegant. What she doesn’t know is that while my sister has a tendency to be vain and egotistical, she can also be sweet and kind.
