Page 38 of Sister of the Bride

“So?” She’s still behind me, so I can’t see her face, but it’s clear from her tone that she’s only half paying attention to me. Her sole focus is the fashion.

“I don’t wear red,” I reply.

“Why not? You look amazing in it.”

“Red makes people look at you. I don’t…” I say, eyeing my reflection. “I just want to blend in.”

Polly sighs and reappears in front of me, grabbing me by the shoulders and giving me a little shake. “Come on, Pippin. Please? Just this once, let yourself shine. You look fucking amazing in this dress.”

I do a half turn in the mirror, looking at the way the dress hugs my butt and makes me look like a pin-up girl. I definitely don’t look a thing likemeright now. But maybe that’s a good thing. Frankly, I could use a little vacation from being me.

“Look, you’re going out with a friend who didn’t pay for the tickets, and both of you are just in it for the free food. You won’t know a single other soul there except him,” Polly says. She steps back and shrugs. “The stakes couldn’t be lower. For once, wear the damn dress.”

I turn and square my shoulders in the mirror, taking it all in. Polly’s right. I should wear the damn dress. It’s absolutely not me, but maybe that’s the point. “Me” is the person who spent the last two hours in the kitchen putting out fires before dinner service. “Me” is the person who has given nearly every waking moment to the restaurant for the last eight years only tostillhave it pulled out from under her. “Me” is the person who’s confused and scared and stressed. I need a break from that person. And this red dress and an open bar might just be the perfect opportunity.

My smile must give me away, because Polly grins, letting out a squeal.

“Toby is going to swallow his tongue.” She claps and jumps up and down a little. I give her a look to remind her that I’ve told her ten thousand times that Toby and I are just friends and don’t look at each other like that, and while she doesn’t stop grinning like the cat that ate the canary, shedoesat least stop jumping up and down.

“At least we’ll be in a room full of doctors who can help him retrieve it,” I say finally.

“Interesting…” Polly cocks an eyebrow at me, which is one expression that, though we are identical, I’ve never been able to master. Which is annoying, because it would be souseful.

“What?” I snap.

“It’s just that usually when I make comments like that about you and Toby being attracted to each other, you shut me down so fast I nearly bite my cheek. But tonight you just let that one sail right by. Maybe Toby’s finally starting to look a little more like a steak?” She grins and shrugs like she knows something I do not. But the joke’s on her, because I know exactly how much I’ve been picturing Toby naked lately, and it is 100 percent more than I want to be picturing Toby naked.

“The dress is so tight it’s constricting the blood flow to my brain,” I reply. But the truth is there is a little part of me that wonders if maybe the dress will give Toby thoughts about me that are even a fraction as intense as the ones I’ve been having about him lately. Not that Iwanthim to want me. Because I don’t. But it would be nice to know that the whole thing is no big deal. He goes running shirtless, I temporarily swoon. I step out in a sex dress, he swoons. Fair’s fair, right? That would only confirm that the feelings are unimportant and normal and we’re still just friends.

“Okay, we’ve got to figure out how to cover that wound on your forehead,” Polly says, reminding me that, oh yeah, I still bear the mark of having run headfirst into a lamppost.

“Can’t I just wear a bandage over it?” I ask. The swelling has gone down, and the cut is actually pretty small, but just as I feared, my forehead is an abstract painting of purple, blue, and even a little yellow bruising.

“I can definitely cover up a lot of it with makeup,” Polly replies. “And then we’ll do shoes!”

From the way her grin grows to double its normal size, I know I’m in for some real trouble.

* * *

I didn’t want this to seem like a date, so I told Toby I’d just meet him at his house. Him picking me up felt too weird. But now that I’m wearing this dress and strutting through Beacon Hill in the strappy heels my sister loaned me, my hair sprayed within an inch of its life, my makeup subtle but smokey (all courtesy of Polly, who took one look at the compact of Clinique powder foundation that’s been sitting on my dresser for going on five years and legitimately looked like she was going to hurl), I kind of wish I’d told Toby I’d meet him at the hotel. I know as soon as we walk into the event, the lights will be low, the music will be loud, and the crowd will be dense, which will make it easy to focus on why we’re there: lobster tails and an open bar. But if we’re crammed into the back of an Uber together, I fear I’m going to lose my nerve and do a tuck and roll out the door somewhere on Boylston Street. Assuming this dress will allow for such moves. After two blocks of walking, I suspect I won’t be going anywhere fast.

My fear only grows tenfold when the door of Toby’s apartment swings open to reveal my best friend, all six foot something of him, clad in the best-fitting black suit I’ve ever seen outside a David Beckham ad. His hair looks freshly cut and is styled in a way I’ve never seen him wear it before. It looks like it’s ready for an Instagram photo from the barber who did it. The sides are smooth, the curls on top mostly pushed back, though they still flop slightly over his left eye. I have to swallow theunfghthat starts to exit my mouth at the sight of him and his brown eyes that seem to smolder—when did Toby learn tosmolder?

I catch the exact moment when he registers the sight of me—all of me, especially the parts in the dress, because his eyes go wide as dinner plates and his jaw drops so low I can see the filling in his back molar. Suddenly that smolder is replaced with something else entirely.

“Holy shit, you look amazing,” he says, his eyes roving all over me as a deep red blush blooms on his cheeks. “I mean, well…wow.” He drags his eyes back up to meet mine in an effort not to ogle me like some roadside construction worker.

“It’s Polly’s,” I say, shifting on my borrowed heels. “I don’t usually wear red.”

Toby makes a sort of understatedhmmmsound whose meaning I can’t decipher, then pivots quickly on his heel and marches toward the stone steps up to the front door of the main house, beckoning for me to follow.

“Hey, before we go, my mom needs help with a light bulb. Come in?”

I follow him past the stairs, down the hall, and into the kitchen, where Dr. Sullivan is standing at the counter, a slice of pizza in her hand, her laptop open on the counter. There’s an open box of light bulbs on the island in front of her.

“It’s the third one,” she says, pointing at the pendant lights over the island but not even looking up from her screen. Not even when she adds, “Oh, hello, Pippin.”

“Good to see you, Dr. Sullivan,” I reply, because she’s never been anoh, just call me Erinkind of mom. Toby’s parents have always been incredibly formal. I’m surprised his dad has never made me call him Judge Sullivan. But he’s always been Mr. Sullivan, never John. They’re kind, good people who have always been welcoming to me, but I’d never for one second call them warm.

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