“She’s great,” Markie says, jumping in to save my ass. “She’s in town to handle some business, so she’s a little overstimulated tonight. Exhausterwhelmulated, if you will. You’ll have to excuse her weirdness.”
I laugh in relief. “It’s true. I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment.”
“Well, I won’t bother you,” Lisa says. “Do you know what you want to eat, or should I get a menu?”
“I could recite that menu from top to bottom,” Markie says, glancing at me. “I think we’ll take a large sausage and mushroom pizza and two Cokes. Does that sound good, Mira?”
“Love it,” I say.
Lisa nods. “Great. I’ll grab your drinks and put in your order.”
Markie waits until Lisa is out of earshot before she restarts our conversation.
“So what do you need from me?” my sister asks again. “How can I help you make this easier?”
I sit back and release a breath, sinking into the booth. I’m usually on my own when stuff goes sideways. Sure, I have friends like Jeff and Clint and always make friends wherever I move. But none of them are like Markie. She knows my darkest secrets and has known me in every stage of life. She’d walk through fire for me, just like I would for her. Having her around while I sort this mess out is really, really nice.
“Honestly, I wish I knew how you could help,” I say. “But I don’t know what I need help with. We were going to go to the courthouse and have Judge Yanders marry us, but Lolly arranged for us to have the church on Thursday and said not to worry about anything.”
“Is Hartley getting a tux?”
I shrug.
“What are you wearing?” Markie asks, not impressed with my last answer.
I shrug again. “Clothes, of some sort.”
“Oh, my gosh.” She throws her head back and sighs as exasperatedly as she can muster. “It’s a wedding in a church, Mira,” she whisper-hisses. “You need a wedding dress. Hartley needs a tux. I think Lolly thought that went without saying.”
Apprehension gnaws away at the confidence I had gathered around the wedding.Have I misunderstood the assignment?When Lolly said not to worry, I figured she meant that she’d take care of getting Pastor Reed and maybe Violet Crowder to show up. I didn’t read through any lines and understand that I needed a wedding dress.
In three days.
“I can’t get a wedding dress before Thursday,” I say, my heartbeat quickening.
“We can go to Nashville and find something.”
I shake my head. Shopping for a wedding dress would put this on another level. It’d make it feel a lot like I was actually getting married. And although I’ve never had the dream wedding lots of little girls conjure up in their minds, if I ever did have a wedding, I’d want to do all those special things with my sister. For real.
“I don’t want to go to Nashville,” I say. “Don’t you have something I can borrow?”
She narrows her eyes, mulling over her words. “I might have an idea.”
“Does it involve spending money I don’t have or traveling out of town?”
“No.”
“Great. I love it.”
She pauses as Lisa places our drinks in front of us and then scurries away to meet someone at the cash register. “You don’t know what it is.”
“I trust you.” I take a sip of my drink. “I really don’t want to make this into a big thing.”
“What if you wore Mom’s wedding dress?” she says carefully.
I pull away from the table and swallow. “Mom’s?”
“Yeah. I have it. It’s in my closet. It had gotten a little musty in Lolly’s attic, so I had it cleaned a couple of years ago and never took it back.” She half smiles. “I think it’d fit. And I think Mom would like that a lot.”
