Page 13 of For Pleasure Or Worse

The bell on top of the entry door jingled to life as it opened and another tall, perfectly put-together brunette walked in silhouetted by a beam of mid-afternoon sunlight. Like the angels had held her by her arms and flown her directly from the pediatric ICU to the bridal salon on a cloud.

“So sorry I’m late.” Camilla rounded the couch and kissed my mom in that la bise way. “I got stuck in a surgery and then caught up with some of my kids on the recovery floor. Next thing you know I’m reading one book to them, and then another—it’s impossible to pry myself away.” She glanced up and noticed Anna for the first time stuffed into the corner beside Isabella.“Hi. You guys wouldn’t happen to have any tea here, would you? Or water with lemon will do, but sparkling, if possible.”

“Cami, this is Anna, Mateo’s mother.” I cleared my throat loudly. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it. It’s not every day your sister gets married for the first time.” She walked over, pinched the material of my dress between her fingers, and circled me assessingly.

“It takes a special occasion nowadays to get all my girls in the same room,” Mom added. “I can’t even remember the last?—”

“That random day last June,” I fired back. “Dad hired the private chef and we took the boat off the coast for a few hours, but he got so belligerently drunk he threw the cold, dead swordfish that we were meant to eat back into the ocean to ‘be with its family.’ Then we watched a shiver of sharks enjoy our thousand-dollar dinner.”

“Sounds special to me.” Mia popped an almond from the bowl on the coffee table into her mouth.

Cami finished her silent judgment of the dress and stepped back. “The train is atrocious. It will be a nightmare in the sand, the neckline does nothing for your boobs, and the embellishments look like I won them out of a claw machine.”

“I was going to say the same thing,” Mom agreed.

My skin bristled. “But you just said?—”

I stopped myself and sucked in a long, deep breath. A mounting ire idled in that dark space behind my eyes at the center of my forehead, willing all the intrusive thoughts I was having—like sending the side table with the tissues on it careening into the mirror—to the recesses of my mind. Because if the side table went, the potted plant beside it was next. And then there was no stopping me from filling my hands with dirt and running down the length of the salon tainting every hanging dress in sight. While I was at it, I would probably end up hootinglike a gorilla and tearing my own dress off my body until all that was left was me standing there sweating and gyrating in my tightest pair of Spanx with my nipples out.

“That’s settled then,” I breathed out instead. “Be right back.”

The next several trips in and out of the dressing room were as productive as the first. I tried organza and tulle, chiffon, lace, high neckline, long sleeve, cap sleeve, and strapless, with a combo of every single one of those things in A-line, empire, and sheath. All met with resounding, underwhelming reactions from everyone but Anna, who was happy enough to simply be there.

My expectations leading into the day had been too high. The minute that all of my sisters decided to come together for this I should have known it would have nothing to do with celebrating me and more with sticking their fingers into the process. Making sure that even though I was getting married and settling down, I was still just Natalia. I wasn’t the doctor, the lawyer, or the real estate mogul. They reminded me without having to say a word.

Ophelia would know exactly what to say but she was thousands of miles away in Colorado. Probably still lying in bed with Frankie on a lazy Saturday morning, spooning each other and giggling and saying “I love you” over and over again in a borderline baby voice, because that’s the shit you do when you first fall in love with someone.

My fingers hovered over her contact in my phone. She would answer, she always did. No matter what time of the day, even if it was during her work week or on a holiday. Hell, she even picked up the phone once in the middle of a pap smear. She had shifted her whole schedule to make it to all of our upcoming wedding events, and stayed up late after grading papers to research places for a bachelorette party on the Las Vegas Strip. Ophelia had compiled lists of florists and caterers and local graphic designers that I should consider for invitations, and made spreadsheetswith all of this information neatly accessible in a joint document titled “THE BEST DAY OF OUR LIVES” that she updated daily.

All of this and she wasn’t even officially my maid of honor. I hadn’t chosen one between my sisters and Ophelia and the expectations lingering there. The right thing to do was to choose a Russo and interchange who got the maid of honor spot at each of our weddings. I could pick Mia, and then Mia could choose Bella, Bella could have Cami, and then Cami could reluctantly ask me like it was the sisterhood of the traveling bridesmaid. Or, I could have all three of them and they could split the responsibility, split the speech, split the torture of having to say and do nice things for me for the next six months.

I could also have nothing and no one. Mateo and I could elope at the courthouse and cancel the entire thing right here and now and I would getnocomplaint from him, that’s for damn sure. As excited as he was to get married, he was not expecting the amount of work that went into making a wedding a reality.

The option tickled me momentarily. How freeing that lack of planning would be. No appointments, fittings, or tastings. No decision making, or inevitably pissing people off. God, it was an appetizing thought. But I couldn’t live with myself if I regretted it.

Bothering Phee didn’t feel right, and I knew she was already beating herself up for not being here for this. I shoved my phone back in my bag as May returned with an armful of new and heinous dresses for me to try on.

“Actually,” I stopped her. “I did have one dress in mind that I had shipped to this store to try on. I’d like to see that one.”

It was my dream gown. Delicate and trimmed with lace, with enough shimmer that it attracted your attention but had nothing close to a jewel sewn into the chest. The fishtail accentuated every last well-earned curve on my body, hugged my hips, cinched my waist, and put the girls on their pedestal with themost perfect sweetheart neckline. There was a flare at the knee so I could still dance, and spaghetti straps so I didn’t have to worry about adjusting it all night. To top it all off, like fate, the bite of the zipper clasping together as I looked on in the mirror confirmed that it fit like a goddamn glove. No extensive alterations necessary.

All of the emotions came whirring in at once, choking me up and catching my breath. I’d tried on twenty other dresses and felt nothing but stress for the moment I’d been looking forward to since I was a little girl. But now I was that little girl again. I was so overwhelmed I started to cry.

May took on a misty sheen of her own. “I think we’ve found the winner.”

I stepped out of the dressing room with a bundle of bunched tissues clutched in my fist and a full, genuine smile lifting my cheeks, expecting that every single eye in the bridal salon would be dancing toward me.

That wasn’t what I found.

The couch was empty save for Anna, who, in her defense, lit up like a firework as soon as she saw me standing there. My eyebrows pinched together and a gutting disappointment that I couldn’t hide stabbed at the center of my chest. My heart went from a frantic thump to an uneven stutter.

“Absolutely breathtaking, Natalia,” Anna beamed. “Mateo will lose his mind if he sees you in that.”

“Where is everyone?”

A pang of guilt washed across her face and her eyes cut toward her shoulder. My mom and the twins were behind her, occupied by none other than Camilla staring at herself in another mirror,wearing a wedding dress.

---