“A dress, I think.”
“A fancy one?” she asks hopefully.
“Very fancy,” I say. “I came into some high-end fabrics.”
“If it turns out nicely, you should wear it to Camila’s rehearsal dinner,” she says.
“Maybe I will.”
“Now,” Mom says, settling in. “Do you know what you’re going to say during your maid of honor speech?”
I’m having a hard time putting into words what Camila means to me. Mom says she can write down the ideas since my hands are occupied. We talk on the phone for two hours. When we’re finished, I have half a dress made. The top part, mostly, which is a fitted princess style, in a midnight-blue color that looks almost purple in the window light. I put it onto a mannequin I find in my garage.
“Darling, I have to go. We have dinner tonight with thosefrightfulSpanglers.”
I smile to myself, holding up a bolt of chiffon fabric against the bottom half of the mannequin. “Okay. Thanks for calling.”
After she hangs up, I spend another thirty minutes deciding whether to go for a different fabric with a full, billowing skirt or keep the same material and do something slimmer.
I’ve just decided to go with the fancier skirt when my doorbell rings.
Will.
My heart feeling lighter than it has in days, I sprint to the front door and fling it open.
Only it isn’t him standing on my front porch.
It’s Zoe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
She looks just like the sophisticated woman in Will’s photos. No more round cheeks, no more Kool-Aid streak in her hair. I’ve preserved Zoe Grant in my mind as a seventeen-year-old girl, but she’s an adult now. With fully developed frontal lobes, just like the rest of us.
Zoe’s always been a few inches shorter than me, but the way she stands is full of a confident presence. Her face is clean, her hair still damp from a shower. She’s dressed in sandals and a simple white sundress with small yellow flowers.
“Hi,” she says, her voice sending me all the way back to that study hall when I asked if I could read her short story and she said,Oh my gosh, you’re secretly weird, too!
I gulp. “H-hi,” I manage.
In the next breath, we’re hugging.
Instantly, I feel like an emotionally charged teenager again, clutching my first best friend close as tears prick at my eyes, danceacross my cheeks, and land on her shoulders. She sob-laughs against my collarbone and I choke out a laugh of my own. When I pull back to look at her, she beams a thousand-watt smile at me.
“I missed you,” we say at the exact same moment, and then laugh awkwardly.
Her expression is open and clear. She evaluates me warmly as I evaluate her.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Will’s car peel out of my driveway and take a left. I love him, Ilovehim. I love the way he knows I can want him all the time, but Ineedto see Zoe in this instant more than anyone else.
I hurry out of the entryway and beckon her inside, blushing furiously at the state of myself. I’m in bike shorts and an oversized T-shirt, my feet bare, my messy hair in a bun on top of my head. I don’t think I’ve showered in a while, honestly.
Zoe’s eyes roam over the bolts of fabric, the mannequin, the muffins still on the kitchen counter next to a few of my dirty coffee mugs.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says, offering me a tight-lipped smile while she blushes. “Do you have wine? I think we might need it.”
My laugh is giddy and euphoric and nervous now that the reality of this meeting has settled in. I make my way to the fridge and grab the bottle of white from the door. “Or do you prefer red?”
