Johnny jogged away, pulling his beanie off and fluffing up his curls as he went. Ashley watched him go, then said, “That reminds me,” and offered something to Scott.
It was a hair tie. Scott shot her a wry smile, set his guitar down and took it. “I’m in violation?” he said, sweeping his hair back from his face so he could put it into a small bun.
“No, no, it just looks neater. I mean, you already went to all the trouble of putting on a tux, you might as well shore up the details, right?”
“How much of your job is shit like this?”
Ashley laughed. “Honey, it’s the whole thing. So, you know the staircase you passed when you came through the front hall? We have two bridal suites set up upstairs, and Letty’s in the one to the east. She requested that you come see her when you arrived.”
Scott was amused by this sentence construction, which made Letty sound like the queen of England. “Alright, got it, thanks.” He made one last tweak to his little man bun. “How am I looking?”
“Very handsome,” Ashley said, in the practiced tone of someone who paid compliments to people all day, “and like you’re doing your absolute best to look corporate.”
“Without actually looking corporate.”
“Well, the beard is a stretch, for one.”
Scott laughed and walked away, calling “Thanks,” over his shoulder.
Letty’s bridal suite was a dizzying white everywhere you looked. A dozen or so stout vases containing lilies and peonies had been placed on every hard surface; photographers and makeup artists orbited bridesmaids in garnet dresses who were perched on the plush poufs and couches. Scott felt out of place the second he walked in the room, and Letty herself was nowhere to be seen.
“Ooh, a tux,” Priscilla said with a wink when she spotted him. A few of the others waved or offered hellos, including Josie.
“Hi,” Scott said. “Where’s your sister?”
Priscilla pointed to a door at the end of the room. Scott awkwardly navigated his way through the crowd to knock on it.
“Come in,” Letty called.
Scott slipped inside what looked like a narrow little dressing room — clothes rack on one end, lit vanity mirror on the other.Letty was sitting at the vanity, facing away from it, looking at her phone. Her hair was elegantly done and frozen in place, but she didn’t have any makeup on yet, and she was wearing an Adidas tracksuit. A white garment bag hung from the clothes rack.
She looked up and smiled at him. “Hey hey.”
“Hey. What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding,” Letty mouthed.
Scott laughed. “That bad?”
“It’s just a lot. And I can’t even see Sana until the first look. I’m just trapped in here with my sister and my best friends, God forbid.”
“Hey… best female friends.”
“Well, yeah,” Letty said, flapping a hand. “And you are here, at the moment.”
“I am. Did you need me for something?”
“I wanted to say hi, and I’m kind of curious about how your conversation went last night,” Letty said.
Scott felt a jolt in his gut like someone trying to yank it out of him from below.
“I’d love to hear some good news before I go get my face slathered for an hour,” she added.
He inhaled, breaking eye contact and looking at a small seascape on the wall.
“Was it that bad?” Letty said. “Shit.”
“Uh,” he said. “I wouldn’t say bad.”
