“Do not,” Penny said.
“I’m just so?—“
“Do not cry and ruin your makeup, Kelsey Noelle Best. Pull it together.”
“I’m so happy,” I managed.
“So am I, and your parents are going to be here any second, and nobody knows, so suck it up.” She squeezed my hand once and then released it and straightened her robe like nothing had happened.
There was a knock at the door.
“I’ve got this,” I said.
“You’ve got this. Suck it up.”
Penny opened the door and greeted my parents with the serene composure of a woman who had definitely not just detonated the best news in the history of forever on me thirty seconds ago.
“Xavier, Meredith, how are the Parents of the Bride holding up?”
Mom and Dad came in already dressed in their wedding finery, which meant I trusted them considerably more than I trusted myself around a lunch plate. I was a world-famous pop star who could not be put in a white dress within fifty feet of red sauce, and everyone who loved me knew it.
My mom looked beautiful. She’d worn her hair down, which she almost never did, soft waves around her face, and her dress was a silver that made her look like she’d stepped out of one of her own Christmas displays. My dad had his hand at the small ofher back the way he always did, like he was still making sure she was there.
“Oh sweetheart,” my mom said, and held my face in both hands the way she had when I was small. “You look so beautiful.”
“So do you, Mom.” I meant it completely.
Dad kissed my temple. “Best day of my life after the day you were born.”
“You say that now, wait until I trip on my dress walking down the aisle.”
“Impossible,” he said, with the total baseless confidence of a father.
We ate lunch together at the little table Penny had set up by the window, the four of us, and for a little while the whole spectacle of the day fell away and it was just us. Dad asked about the honeymoon plans. Mom wanted to know about the cabin where Declan had proposed. Penny kept the conversation moving with the easy skill of someone who had been navigating my world on my behalf for years.
It was good. It was quiet and good and I didn’t want it to end.
It ended.
“We should let you get ready, honey,” my mom said, and started gathering her things.
“You aren’t going to stay while I put on my dress?”
She kissed my cheek. “You’re in the best hands. We’ll see you down the aisle.” She gave my hand a pat, and then she and my dad were heading for the door, and I stared after her and my dad, loving that they were somehow so perfect for each other and that my father would always take care of my slightly strange, fragile, sweet mother.
“I wish she’d been able to—“ I started to say to Penny, and then stopped.
They’d uncovered the clothes rack.
My dress was right there.
I had seen it at every fitting, but always mid-process, always with chalk marks and pins and Rose’s assistant Jorge hovering nearby with a notepad. This was the first time I was seeing it complete.
Here was the thing about my mother’s wedding dress. It was simple and beautiful and completely perfect, and it had been made for a woman who was five foot three and slight as a bird. I was neither of those things, and I had accepted that some things just weren’t built for bodies like mine and her dress was one of them.
Then I’d met Rose Vond.
Rose had looked at my mother’s dress and seen something I hadn’t. She’d taken the antique cap-sleeved dress and turned it into a new strapless mini. But to make it entirely mine, there was a full skirt for me to step into. It was cut generously for my hips and hemmed for my height. Two dresses in one. The mini for the reception, the full gown for the ceremony, and every bit of it my mother’s and mine at the same time.
