There was a long silence as Anton and his mother headed back into the garden. Lacy started sniffling next to me.
“Come on,” I whispered, still bent forward at the waist so we wouldn’t be spotted. A tear ran down Lacy’s cheek as I said, “Let’sgo inside. We’ll swing by the restroom and get you sorted out. I may even be able to swipe one of those travel-sized bottles of liquor from the maid’s cart.”
Lacy was more than willing to let me take the lead, and together we wound through the halls, past the Solarium and the doors to the Primrose Ballroom, through the Color Gallery, and into the large guest restrooms near the vestibule.
I considered taking her back upstairs, but she was supposed to make an appearance in the Carriage House to meet the girls for the bachelorette party in a few minutes. If I let her go back to the suite, she might not come back down, and I was hoping that seeing the handful of other women who were there to celebrate and support her this weekend might remind her why she’d decided to get married in Aubergine after all. I would just have to deal carefully with Bella Rivera’s presence.
When we were inside the restroom, I handed her a Kleenex box before grabbing a wad of paper towels from the counter, wetting it lightly, and gesturing to a wingback chair in the entryway for her to sit. I dabbed at the edges of her eyes, where only a very small bit of her makeup had run.
“This waterproof mascara holds up well,” I said, assessing her before beginning my ministrations: the primary skill I’d taken away from winning the Rose Palace Pageant six months earlier.
While Lacy sat staring at her hands in bewilderment, I took her purse and rummaged through it to find her emergency powder and lipstick. As I dabbed it on her lips, I tried not to let my own anger show, and reminded myself that there was something soothing about tending to another’s beauty needs.
Lacy blew her nose and examined herself in the bathroom mirror. “Does Anton want me to move to Texas?” She hardly noticed her reflection though, as she spun around and tried to reason with me or herself—or the universe. “I have a business here, and he’s never said a word about wanting to live there, much less work on a ranch.”
“It didn’t sound like they wanted him on theranch,” I replied, before quickly realizing that Anton’s family’s vague business prospects weren’t the primary concern here. “Either way, it sounds like his mother is the one who wants him home.” I dabbed a brush into her shadow, a shimmery nude, and motioned for her to close her eyes. “Anton wants you to be happy.”
“But what if moving back home would make him happy?”
“So he can run a business with his obviously dysfunctional family?”
The question was genuine. I was still getting to know Anton. Him arriving on the scene after my mother’s death hadn’t exactly been great timing for me to become chummy with anyone, but I’d been coming out of the worst of the grief fog in the past few months and I’d found that I genuinely liked the guy. When he looked at Lacy, there was admiration and protectiveness—and laughter. I couldn’t wish for more for my friend.
I bit my lip, wondering if I dared ask the next question. “Did you know about Bella?”
Lacy’s eyes went to the ground as she thought back. “I think he mentioned her name, but you know how I am. I don’t ask a lot of questions about the past. My motto, ever since Brett, has been to let the past lie, to focus on the future.”
It was true. Brett’s jealousy had made Lacy totally uninterested in being possessive of, or being possessed by, any man. Until now.
A stricken look crossed Lacy’s face and her bottom lip trembled as she added, “I didn’t know that they’d been bathing together as toddlers. Or that she was the chosen one for him to marry. He failed to mention those details.”
“Because she doesn’t mean anything to him,” I suggested, though this didn’t feel quite right. After all the drama with Lacy’s high school sweetheart being murdered at our class reunion in October, I would’ve thought that the subject of former flames would’ve been on their minds.
Lacy started sniffling again, and tried to open her eyes wide to avoid undoing the work I’d just finished on them. The expression made her appear manic, and when both of us caught herreflection in the mirror, she laughed and groaned at the same time.
“Weddings are supposed to be happy,” she breathed.
“No, they’re not.” I scoffed. “Please recall every bridal show we’ve ever watched on TLC.”
Lacy chuckled softly. “Butmineis supposed to be happy.”
I lifted her chin. “Hey, you’re marrying the man you love. Nothing can take that happiness away. And besides, The Countdown has begun.”
Just like we referred to The Worst, as in the worst-case scenarios, to put things in perspective, we also used The Countdown, a shorthand way to remind ourselves that for better or worse, an impending event would pass. Over the years we’d used it to reference unwanted things like the SATs, Pap smears, and competitions. Using The Countdown to talk about Lacy’s wedding ceremony wasn’t ideal, but if the weekend was destined to be filled with family drama, then perhaps it was more than appropriate.
“Listen.” I checked my watch. It was almost 8 p.m. “In about twenty-four hours, your rehearsal dinner begins, and in”—I calculated—“forty-three hours and twelve minutes you’ll be walking down the aisle.”
“We want a short ceremony,” Lacy reminded me. “Twenty minutes tops. That’s what we emailed the priest.”
The mention of the priest made both of us pause.
“I didn’t expect him to be quite so…” I wasn’t sure how to finish the description of Reverend Todd Anderson.
“Dick-ish?” Lacy finished, one eyebrow lifted.
“That seems appropriate.”
“Me either.” Lacy blinked. “And to think that he and Anton’s mother are… sleeping together? Without being married? Is that even allowed?”
