* * *
I smile at my reflection in the bridal salon’s floor-length mirrors. The pale green spaghetti-strap dress I’m wearing is beautiful from all three angles. If I close my eyes and pretend my life were different, it would make a perfect wedding gown. I’m not a big fan of white gowns anyway. White means purity, it means virginal, and it just wouldn’t work for me.
“This is definitely the right choice for my bridesmaid dress,” I say to Eloise.
“You look beautiful, honey,” Ginny concurs from her window seat. “The full length really shows off your figure.”
Eloise helps me take off the dress. I sigh as I step back into my shorts and t-shirt, and Darcy’s bridal shop returns to being just a store and no longer the gorgeous backdrop for a woman’s most important day. A woman who’s not named Macey Henwood. My one and only wedding has come and gone in the blink of a Las Vegas eye—where alcohol and lack of rational thought made for a very bad decision.
“How are you?” Ginny asks me as we step out of the air-conditioned shop, and the bright sun temporarily blinds us. “You’ve been tense since…you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
Yes, ever since I handed over the divorce papers to Logan a week and a half ago, I’ve been a tad on edge. I haven’t seen him because he and Gigi disappeared to New York the next day, and somehow I haven’t run into them since they returned.
In his absence, I’ve overcompensated by getting very little sleep and by multi-tasking. On the plus side, I finished my red raindrop quilt and wrote five chapters in Ghost Love.
On the less positive side, I allowed Jamie to give me back his commitment ring even though it’s far too tight and I’ve barely spent any time alone with him. I’ve managed to avoid kissing him by keeping our dates public and then claiming I’m too tired afterward to hang out.
Despite Logan being engaged, ever since he and I slept together in Vegas—and of course married—the idea of being with another man sexually still makes me ill. But thinking of Logan with Gigi makes me excruciatingly lonely, and I can’t imagine having no one to date all summer.
To fill my need for distraction, I’ve spent several hours a day locked in my office with Mrs. Rattles, doing wedding planning.
I prayed for something to keep me busy, and Ginny’s mother came to the rescue. Claiming exhaustion, she washed her hands of all menial tasks related to her daughter’s wedding and handed them off, rather unceremoniously, to me.
She sat by me and barked out orders while I called the catering company, the photographer, the florist, and the reverend, who begrudgingly agreed to let Ginny and Dave make up their missed marriage class. He made a rude remark about how Logan and Gigi don’t seem to need as much hand-holding as Ginny and Dave do.
I don’t know why everybody’s comparing them. Of course Logan and Gigi have no problems—they don’t know each other well enough yet to see past the very outermost layer.
Ginny cups her belly as we cross the street and head toward The Cowherd. “I’m starting to show more. I’m nearly four months along. Dave wants to find out the sex of the baby as soon as we can, but I don’t.”
“I wonder if the baby will be a closet rock star like its mama,” I tease her. “You always loved to play that pink guitar you had as a kid. Maybe Dave can give you one for a wedding present.”
“Please. He’d pick up like some dumb pair of earrings I’ll never wear. He never did get my taste.”
“He did always pull an F in the gift department.” I pause. “So why don’t you buy a guitar? Like a wedding present to yourself.”
“I’m considering that actually. Dave would hate it, of course. And he’d hate me going out to play after work. He likes me home to cook him dinner.” Ginny sighs loudly. “Oh, whatever. Maybe you’re not supposed to be best friends with your husband. Dave and I are certainly not best…” She trails off suddenly and stares across the street intently.
“What is it?”
She smiles wider than I’ve seen her do in forever and waves her arm in the air. “It’s Nickel! He sees me. Oh gosh, he’s going to come over here. Oh God.”
I stare at her flushed face and bright eyes. “Ginny, who are you?—”
Ginny starts explaining rapidly. “He’s about to cross the street. I met Nickel when Mama and I were tasting cakes. He was our server, and he’s a country singer, so I was going to ask his band to play at our wedding instead of those cousins of ours Mama insisted on hiring. I can’t wait to tell him about the guitars I’ve been looking at. He said his Martin is the best, and he even said if I buy one we could play together sometime.”
“So wait, do you…”
I don’t have time to finish my sentence because a curly-haired blond guy is now standing shyly in front of us. He’s scrawny and could use a shave, but he’s cute. Ginny cute. But not like Dave. More like his distant cousin. Distant in the way monkeys could be distantly related to ants.
Ohh. Ginny’s abrupt good mood, her big smile, her unexpected wedding entertainer switch. This Nickel thing must be one of those situations she made me promise to stop her from—a hormonal-induced crush.
As Ginny and Nickel gaze at each other longingly and I wonder how in the world I’m supposed to tear them apart, she introduces me to him, and he offers to accompany us to The Cowherd.
The three of us walk in silence, for the next three blocks, until Ginny looks down at Jamie’s commitment ring on my finger.
“Macey, are you gonna take Jamie as your date to our wedding?”
