Page 2 of Little Gray Dress

“What’s with the shiny gray material anyway?” Lily asks the question I’ve wondered about myself. Gray I can see, it’s one of my favorite colors. But the muted sheen of the fabric is not helping with the imperfections I’d like to hide.

“Her official wedding colors are black, gray and pink.”

“It’s so depressing, Emi, it just makes me sad looking at it.” Lily is sad yet her camera clicks with a touch of a finger. She’s telling me I look the worst I ever have, and here she is taking pictures so we can remember it forever. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She may as well have wrapped you in foil. I mean seriously, you look like a foil-wrapped burrito.”

Great. “Thanks.” Only a best friend could be as blunt as Lily and add to my list of clothing styles not to wear. I already do a fine job of that myself. When you’re a short girl and wear a size 12 you might as well just have a seamstress on call for alterations of anything you purchase. For some reason clothing designers seem to think that if you’re fat, you’re also unreasonably tall. My boobs are big, my legs are short, my hips are wide and my thighs shudder at the phrase thigh gap.

“Can you let it out at all?” Lily is talking to the seamstress who’s still at my feet.

“No, you don’t let a dress like this out. You take it in,” she says, in a sharp, irritated voice. “Did she order you two sizes above your actual size? Formal dresses always run small. Someone should have told her to order up.” She doesn’t stop pinning while talking, and can somehow speak with a mouth full of pins. If it was me, I’d be on my way to the emergency room, because I’d have swallowed at least one.

“That’s likely the problem. She didn’t order it from a store. She designed it and was supposed to make it to fit.” I glance down at Alteration Lady, who rolls her eyes without speaking and goes back to pinning. She must have dealt with designers before.

“News flash, yours doesn’t fit. Maybe you gained some weight since you sent her your measurements?” Lily suggests.

“Lily, I’ve gained thirty pounds in two years. I threw out my scale a while ago, so I have no doubt that my ass has only got bigger since measurement day six months ago.” It’s not completely my fault I’ve gained some weight. It happens when you own a coffee shop and you love everything you serve. It wouldn’t be right to set out pastries that I hadn’t tested. I mean, what if they were bad? When I test one I know they are the quality that I want to serve. Plus, who doesn’t drink five lattes a day? Opening a business on your own is stressful.

Why didn’t I think of faking my measurements and add an inch, maybe three, to all of them? Probably because I had planned to start going to the gym I bought a membership for so I could lose thirty pounds before having to go face a room full of people I never thought I’d see again. I should have known better, especially knowing this would likely be a custom fashion masterpiece of a dress by the one and only Hannah.

Hannah. That’s her clothing label. No last name, no cutesy Miss Me title, just Hannah. She said she wanted simple, classy, and elegant. I can see almost all of that in this dress, except for the fact that I’m the one wearing it. I guess I’ll never be a fashion model. This is her first real design, besides her own wedding dress. After seeing the bridesmaid dress, I’m wondering just how sexy the wedding gown will be?

“I think you should call her and show her every flawed inch of this thing, without the underwear assistance.” Lily says. “If she plans to run a business doing custom designs, she needs to pay more attention to her clients’ body types.” Her lips are pinched and her eyebrows are raised. “I know if I ordered this from her and it fit the way this one does, I’d refuse to pay her and go somewhere else.”

Lily may or may not be the bitchier one in our relationship. She doesn’t hold back. If you don’t want to know what she thinks, don’t ask. I have an unspoken appreciation for it. Her bitchiness is handy in a variety of situations and she’s somehow become successful because of it. She is head English Professor at a small private college here in Dallas. Let’s just say, she’s the professor about whom students use the phrase “Oh… you got McConnell? Sucky.” She knows it and she loves it. The fear of the kids as they walk into her class is better than a cup of coffee for Lily.

“Grab my phone and Facetime her,” I say. “Let’s see what she thinks. Maybe I’ll get lucky and look so terrible that she’ll decide I don’t even need to go.”

“You know that won’t happen.” Lily taps at my phone before turning it to me making sure it’s a full body shot.

“Ohhhhh! Emi!” Hannah’s face fills the screen without me even hearing the phone ring. “Wow! What do you think?”

“Um… I think I can barely breathe. I definitely can’t sit. I’m pretty sure it’s too small?” I ask it as a question, hoping to God I’m right and she’ll offer to whip up a new one in the next three days.

“No, it’s not. It’s supposed to be very Marilyn Monroe vintage. I think you look gorgeous! It’s exactly how I pictured it!”

Lily’s eyebrows rise again behind the phone and a smirk creeps up on her face. She’s probably glad Hannah can’t see her face because it would give away her disapproval. Obviously, Hannah and I have different ideas of ‘gorgeous’.

“Um, it’s exactly as you pictured because underneath it all I’m tied in as tight as possible! Without the helpfulness of the torturous underwear I definitely would not look this… curvy,” I whine, opting for a word that is code for fat. I run my hands down my sides, enjoying the feeling of fake perfection while I can. “I can’t wear this for more than a few hours, I’ll crush my insides!”

“Shut up. No one thinks you’re fat!” She cracked my code. “You look totally hot. And I, for one, know for a fact that even Jack will be smitten.”

“I don’t want him to be smitten, Hannah,” I snap at her into the phone. She knows as well as I do that any conversation topic that starts with the words Jack, or My brother, are off limits. “I want him to be miserable.” He deserves at least that.

I don’t know why I’m still worried about what he might think about me. Especially since I’ve had every chance to take him back if I’d wanted to. I couldn’t, though. Jack cheated on me, two days before our wedding. Now, I have to face him and hope that this corset doesn’t fail mid-way through the wedding to reveal just how much I’ve let myself go since I left.

Chapter Two

Two Years Ago

Downtown Portland, Oregon

The Break-Up

“I’m doing a last-minute alteration because I lost another five pounds, Lil. Want to come with me?” I ask her before she can even say hello into the phone.

“Sure. My classes today were canceled due to some flooding issue at the school, so if you promise to let me drink the champagne this time I’ll come.”

“You might have a problem, ya know?” If only she could hear my eye-roll through the phone. “It’s a fitting. I don’t think they serve champagne at fittings. We’re not in Beverly Hills. They likely save champagne for the initial dress consultation when you need a little buttering up to spend thousands of dollars on a dress you’ll only wear for one day.”

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