“Lou, do you—”
“Agree to all previous statements, yes,” Riley nods, but Adriana is unrelenting.
“...take Gabrielle to be your lawfully wedded wife? Do you promise to love and cherish her, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better and for worse, for so long as you both shall live?”
“Sure,” Riley blurts out once the last word has finally been spoken.
Adriana peeks over her notes and says with a smirk: “Fantastic! You may kiss your wife.”
Riley’s jaw drops slightly, as if any and all intelligence has just seeped out through her ears. Charlotte isn’t doing much better, staring dumbly at the woman in front of her, waiting to see if she will move.
Just when she thinks Riley might be leaning forward, Adriana claps her hands.
“How silly! Let’s leave that part up to the actual brides, okay?” Her laugh is high-pitched; it vaguely reminds Charlotte of a hyena.
“Well, I think I got enough to work with. Have you two got any more fun plans for the rest of the day?” Charlotte shakes her head and Riley makes some weak comment about enjoying the weather as they escort Adriana back to her bag. “Get some rest before the big day,” is her cheery advice as she slips her notes intoher bag. “And let me know if anything changes before tomorrow!”
Adriana walks off, leaving Charlotte and Riley behind, rooted to the ground.
“Nice vow, Lou,” Charlotte says, keeping her eyes on a retreating Adriana. “I’m sure Gabi would’ve sobbed herself sick.”
“That’s the goal, isn’t it?” Riley replies dully. “To reach people with your words. To make sure they know you mean them.”
“They’re just words,” Charlotte huffs. “People lie, all the time.”
“Not everyone,” Riley says, her voice barely above a whisper. Charlotte can sense she is trying to approach her, but after the day she’s had so far, there is nothing she wants less.
Instead of creating the opening Riley is clearly asking for, Charlotte faces her and says: “There are liars, and then there are hypocrites. Except for a special few.”
Riley’s expression drops in relief for half a second before Charlotte delivers the final blow.
“A special few are both.”
15
To avoid further interaction with Riley, Charlotte busies herself the rest of the day and evening by hovering around Gabi, passing on information about the rehearsal, tending to her every need and somewhat patiently listening to her freaking out about the wedding. From dinner on, it is a more than full time job to keep her away from Lou. Charlotte tries a number of distraction techniques, and unfortunately, the most successful suggestion ends up being the most expensive one. The hotel’s spa has two openings for impromptu facials, allowing Charlotte to fulfill her maid of honor duties while also giving herself some peace of mind.
On the morning of the wedding, she still isn’t too keen on running into Riley, so she’s grateful to act as Gabi’s personal assistant-turned-lightning rod. Being bossed around keeps her thoughts from going haywire, and when Gabi happens to prosper as a full bridezilla, she is perfectly happy to calm her down and bring her to reason.
She does quite literally run into Riley once; both speeding through the hallway running errands for theirfriends. Charlotte has the presence of mind to stammer that it’s“...uhm, bad luck for the maids of honor to see each other before the wedding,”and so she leaves a dumbstruck Riley behind as she powerwalks down the hallway to fetch an eyeshadow color from Gabi’s room that she’s 99% sure she isn’t going to use anyway.
For the remainder of the morning, she attempts to lighten the mood in Gabi’s bridal suite by putting on music and hyping the other bridesmaids up in a very un-Charlotte-ish cheerful way. When she receives anI know what you’re doing-look from Gabi, she pretends to lock her mouth with a key, pulling the waistband of her shorts out and dropping the non-existing key into her underwear. Gabi responds to her act with an unimpressed grimace, so Charlotte feigns to retrieve the key, only to pull out her middle finger, and proceeds to turn the volume up some more.
Right before the ceremony, Charlotte finishes up her own look. Her hair is down, the messiness somewhat tamed after she’s taken a straightener and then a curling iron to it. She’s wearing a silky lilac dress with a high slit and see-through mesh in the front and around her waist. Gabi had picked the dress to match the other bridesmaids’ dresses, Charlotte's being a shade darker than the others.
She hugs Gabi tightly and murmurs something in her ear that probably has the wordsIandloveandyousomewhere in there, and excuses herself to check on the ceremony preparations.
As she makes her way to the hotel exit, she rubs her temples to soothe her returning headache. Everything is going smoothly so far; she only has to keep this up for a few more hours. As long as she can pretend that Riley doesn’t exist, everything will be fine.
Only when she arrives at the location of the ceremony, she notices a person aligning the last row of white folding chairs, and she doesn’t need to walk closer to see who it is.
She frantically looks around to find something to do. Careful not to let her gaze land on Riley, she decides to start rearranging the already perfectly lined up chairs until they’re in a worse state than before.
She takes her own work in from a distance, swears under her breath, and drags the chairs back to their initial spot. If Riley happens to see her fumble, she can always blame wedding nerves.
When Adriana arrives, she lets out a relieved huff and starts marching in her direction, but Riley gets there first and hugs the officiant excitedly.
In an almost practiced professional fake-out, Charlotte’s determined stride changes course and she pretends to iron out an incredibly stubborn crease from the white carpet leading all the way to the gazebo.
