It’s not right, she says, is it? I’ll try the next one.
No, Bren says, and he clears his throat. Leans forward, says it again: no. Come out of the changing room, at least, he says. Walk about in it.
Nora glances back at the mirror, then concedes. No socks as she steps out of the dressing room, towards him, and he isn’t tapping his leg any more and he also isn’t breathing.
She stops a few feet in front of him, shrugs with her palms up. And even though she is not looking at him, she seems to know he can’t stop looking at her, because her strawberry cheeks are back. And he can’t believe he is looking at her in a wedding dress when that was never the plan but at the sametime, he can’t believe that he is not the guy who gets to stand beside her while she wears it for real. He will not get to stand at the end of an aisle with the birds singing and clouds criss-crossing the sun, because they’d get married outside, now that he thinks about it, and she’d walk towards him through the grass, with her bare feet and long hair and her wild heart that should have been his.
She cannot marry Robin.
It is a clear thought that moves through him, as if from elsewhere, like a sudden wind, and he simply accepts it, like all of the choices he’s made, all the reactions he’s had and not thought about over the last twelve years. Something to live with, and not work against. Something to trust, because you can’t trust much in this world, but his gut, his sense of what has to be done;thatis something he can rely on.
Nora is looking in another mirror now. Smoothing her hands down her waist.
Maybe it’s okay, she says to her reflection, and Bren says Nora. It is more than okay.
EIGHT
Jed calls you. He calls you when you are editing at home at the kitchen table, which you promised Nora you wouldn’t do, when weekends aren’t for working, but she’s out shopping for a wedding dress with Bren so what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. You’ll do other things too, before she’s home, things that are still work but of an acceptable Saturday kind: hoover the hallway, wash the bedding, clean the gutters, even, if you have time, after the mulch of winter has you both lamenting how, every time it rains, it ends up flooding the yard.
Robin, it’s Jed, he says when you answer, and you say it’s nice to hear from him and he says you bet it is; we’ve had a cancellation, already.
A light goes on, inside you. Already? you repeat, leaning back in your chair then standing up, instead, going to the window.
For the twenty-second of April, Jed says, if you want it.
We want it, you say. Details, then. This, that, yes, you’ll pay the deposit right now, and course, you’ll firm up theguest list, the bridal party – you’ll be in touch! Wow! And you trust, well, you hope everything’s okay with the other couple.
Jed pauses, says ah, well. Broken engagement, this one. It happens.
Oh, you say. That’s a – a real shame.
Sometimes it’s not meant to be, Jed says, and you nod, feel momentarily terrible that your mood isn’t dimmed by this news, but then again, maybe he’s right; maybe those people, whoever they are, will go on to find what is meant for them, instead; you trust in that, always have.
You thank Jed, promise again to make payment, smiling so much once he ends the call that you feel almost drunk; look it, too, when you catch sight of yourself in the kitchen window. Laughing, then. Scrolling to speed dial. Not for Nora: she’ll be in the dress shop, right about now, and you don’t want to interrupt.
S’up, your brother says, picking up just before his voicemail kicks in.
S’up, bro, you say back: a greeting the pair of you traded in irony, for years, because you were the last two people on earth who’d say such a thing. We’ve got a wedding date! you tell him. Write it down, please, before you forget.
Kay, Goose says, and you say are you doing it?
I’m in the middle of a boss fight, Robman, Goose says. I am literal moments away from beating this dude, after weeks of trying. I am not getting up to get a pen.
And yet you answered the phone?
You never call on Saturdays. I figured there was an emergency.
Oddly touched, you tell him to call back, which he does, ten minutes later; ten minutes of jotting things down in your notebook, ideas bouncing around like ping-pong balls. You are just scribbling something else when Goose appears on your phone, a photo of you and him in a bumper car, and then he’s saying okay, when is it, what do you need.
Did you beat the boss? Obviously he did, what do you take him for. Take advantage of his good mood, he advises you, and so you do; talk logistics immediately, how you’ll get your parents to the venue, your grandma, too, who hates any form of public transport, any food that isn’t packet ham, any outfit that isn’t her tattered lilac cardigan. Leave it with him. He’ll pack the ham. Tempt her out with a sherry, buy her an untattered lilac blazer, perhaps.
He is a good guy, your little brother. Blatantly uninterested in weddings like most men (aside from yourself) and stepping up all the same because he senses it’s important. You spend ten minutes rattling through your ideas, the surprises you want to keep under wraps, and then he says so you’re not going to tell her the biggest surprise of all?
You go quiet, that light in you fading, for the first time since Jed’s call.
I wasn’t planning to, you say. Do you think I should?
I don’t think anything, Goose says. I’m just covering my bases.
