“I’m just flummoxed. This is so random and extra.”
“Let’s get this party started!” Ida yelled, throwing open the doors and coming into the café. She was towing a wagon filled with wrapped presents I recognized from the bridal shower. A boom box was blaring hip-hop music from the top of the pile.
“Everyone, Avery had a mishap with a dildo at last week’s party,” Ida announced.
“Your nose doesn’t look bad at all,” Dottie interjected.
“So we saved all the presents for you.”
“Ida,” Hazel said, hurrying over. “This is supposed to be a classy party!”
“You have statues of squirrels fornicating on the pasta table,” Ida said stubbornly. “It’s not that classy. Besides, people paid good money for these gifts. She needs to open them.”
“We really don’t need anything,” I said.
“Nonsense,” my grandmother said, pulling two chairs out to the middle of the floor. “You have to start your marriage out on the right foot.”
I sat gingerly in the chair, Blade next to me, and reached for the first package.Please don’t be sex toys! Please don’t be sex toys, I prayed as I unwrapped it. It was sex toys.
“I feel like you all have very little confidence in me,” Blade said to the crowd.
I blushed, and everyone laughed. There were a few wolf whistles.
The rest of the bridal shower presents were more of the same—skimpy lingerie, edible body paint, a book on how to have sex in public places—and I was ready to sink into the floor by the time I’d unwrapped all of the gifts.
“That was all very thoughtful,” I said, trying to force a facsimile of a happy expression. “Thankfully, this will be my one and only wedding, because I never want to go through that again. I almost wish I had suffered through the bruised nose last weekend just so I wouldn’t have to open these in front of Blade.”
“Now he knows which outfit he wants to see you in first!” Ida yelled.
“I think the couples shower presents are going to be a bit more tasteful,” Hazel assured me as Edward stuffed all the sex-themed gifts into a box.
My grandmother proudly handed me a box neatly wrapped in silver paper.
“Don’t shake it,” she warned.
I carefully opened it as she watched gleefully.
“Oh!” I exclaimed as I removed the lid.
In the box were two hand-painted porcelain figurines that had sat on my grandmother’s mantel for as long as I could remember. They were a prince and princess dancing, the expressions on their faces pure love. The figurines had been made in Harrogate more than a hundred years ago. Whenever I had visited my grandmother’s house as a little girl, I had liked to imagine I was the princess who had found her Prince Charming.
“I can’t accept this,” I said automatically.
Blade looked at me in concern.
“It’s too precious,” I said to my grandmother, feeling a wave of guilt. “These belonged to your great-grandmother; they’re family heirlooms.”
“My grandmother gave them to me on my wedding day, and now I’m giving them to you. I think you should have them! You’ve always loved Harrogate.” She hugged me. “You and I are similar people—you’re wearing my wedding dress, after all. It’s meant to be.”
“But she has an appointment tomorrow to go wedding dress shopping,” Cassie piped up.
My grandmother looked crushed, and I glared at Cassie.
“It’s just for the reception dress,” I assured Dottie. “You know I want to be able to dance.”
“But you’ll take all the official pictures in my dress?” she asked hopefully. “And it will be in the photo you send out with your Christmas card?”
Shirley shook her head slightly. Well, there went the plan of just using it for the ceremony. Maybe Blade and I could sneak a few photos in the reception dress.
