Page 121 of Devil in Disguise
51
With Your Heart
Dyma gotto Portland the night before her mother’s wedding day. Had she reconciled herself to taking Harlan’s money? Not really, but Owen was right. No choice. Which was why she was trying not to think about all the ways her life wasn’t quite working, and focusing on the good parts instead. Which definitely included the fact that she and Owen were headed to the ranch tomorrow morning. Finally.
Today, though, Jennifer and Harlan were getting married at last, and it had rained all morning. By noon, when she and her mom were dressing in the Mt. Hood Organic Farm’s little guest cottage, it was still dripping. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was supposed to be an outdoor ceremony.
Dyma said, when their makeup was done and she was helping Jennifer zip up the back of her lace mermaid wedding dress, “How come you’re not stressing about the details of this thing? I haven’t seen a single list. You’re not even worrying about therain.Also, this dress is amazing. How can it have long sleeves and be so classy, and still look so bombshell-y? Of course, you’ve got major curves, but still.”
“Very careful design and altering,” Jennifer said. “I don’t even have to wear Spanx. I hate Spanx. I haven’t worn them a single time since I got pregnant, I just realized. Why did I even pack them when we moved? You know what? I should have a Spanx-burning ceremony when we get back from the honeymoon.”
“Burning nylon,” Dyma said. “Toxic.”
Jennifer sighed. “Why are all the most satisfying things bad for you? Somehow, stuffing them in the trash doesn’t make quite the same statement, but I guess it’ll have to do. And the not-worrying is why you keep your wedding small and simple and choose a venue that does everything. If it’s still too rainy, we move the ceremony indoors, that’s all. The tables are all set up for lunch, and people can just sit there. I wanted to do the whole thing at the house, make it even simpler, but …”
“But Harlan said no way. I’ll bet he told you that he wasn’t having his one and only wedding in his back yard, and, yes, you needed a real gown even though you’d only wear it one time, and, no, it couldn’t be on sale or from someplace with ‘Barn’ in the name.”
“If you know,” Jennifer said, “I don’t have to explain. We chose the menu with the caterer, I chose the flowers, and the rest of it is up to the wedding coordinator. I’ve done logistics all my life. I’m not doing them today. No Spanx, and no logistics. I’m dressing up, I’mshowingup, and that’s it.”
Dyma tucked a copper curl carefully under her mom’s silver leaf-and-bead headband. Jennifer’s hair was pulled back into a low chignon, and hardly any of those curls were escaping. She looked polished, and serene, and beautiful. “And then you’re going to Australia, which is incredible. Also probably much less rainy. Has Harlan seen your dress?”
“Nope. Not because I think it’s unlucky. Because I want to wow him. Do you think I will?” Her eyes met Dyma’s in the mirror.
“Mom.” Dyma caught her mother’s hand. “Yes. Are you kidding? You look gorgeous. You look amazing.”
“So do you, baby.” Jennifer sat in front of the dressing table and reached for a black velvet jewel case. “Thank you for dressing up for me. And for being here with me.”
Dyma adjusted the shoulder tie on her knee-length burgundy bustier dress.Withside slit. It was too classic and too sexy, both at the same time, to be any kind of maid-of-honor dress, except that her mom didn’t care about that, and she knew Dyma’s taste. Which was why she’d just gone to Nordstrom and bought the thing instead of making Dyma do a fitting for some shiny floor-length peach horror that she’d have to drop off at Goodwill immediately after the wedding, because it burned her eyeballs. “Not upset that I didn’t grow my hair?” she asked. “And that my tattoo shows?”
“Nope. I love you exactly the way you are. And I wanted to keep this whole thing simple.”
She opened the velvet box, and Dyma looked at what was inside and said, “Notthatsimple.”
“I know. Aren’t they gorgeous? Harlan gave them to me last night.” Jennifer fastened one of the crescent-shaped climber earrings, fashioned from an arrangement of diamonds that looked more like a spray of flowers than you’d have thought possible, into an earlobe, then reached for the other one.
“He left it kinda late,” Dyma said. “What if you’d already bought something?”
“Except he knew I didn’t,” Jennifer said. “I wasn’t going to wear earrings. I wasn’t planning to wear any jewelry at all. I’m alreadywaydecorated, with the dress and the headband. I had to poke really hard to even get these in last night. The holes had closed over. I thought Harlan was going to have to go get a needle and an ice cube and re-pierce me.”
Dyma laughed. “Oddly kinky for the night before your wedding. Youareincredibly fancy, though. How long are we standing around for pictures to capture all this?”
“Zero minutes, that’s how long. I want to enjoy my day. I want toremembermy day. The video guy is doing a thing of the ceremony and our first dance, and that’s it.”
Dyma sat down and asked the thing she’d wanted to know all morning. “Are you really this serene? Seriously, did you visit the weed store last week, or what? You’ve always been so … well, worried.”
Her mom turned on the stool to face her. “You know, you’re right. If there’s one thing I’d have called myself over the past twenty years or so, it’s ‘worried.’ I guess I’m figuring out my real personality. Only took me thirty-five years.”
“So is that the money?”
Jennifer didn’t say any of the things somebody else would have—mainly, a protestation about how, oh, no, it wasn’t themoney. She thought a minute, then said, “Partly. It’s not about the Harlan-things, the earrings and the car and all. It’s having the security. Not having to worry about the rent, or what happens if I lose my job or my daycare or my health insurance. Not having to go back to work two months after Nick was born. Not feeling like I’m out there on the edge.” Her eyes met Dyma’s. “Not having to worry about Grandpa Oscar’s rent, or your education, or Nick’s. That matters. I know that was hard for you, but I can’t tell you how much it helps. But you know, if being worried were really my natural state of mind, I’d just have worried about something else. About whether it would last, probably. Whether Harlan would really love me forever. Whether Nick’s leg would be all right. How you’re doing, up there where I don’t get to see you enough. And Idon’tworry about all that, or not much. Do you know how freeing that is, to know I don’t have to be a worried person anymore? That I can be anadventurousperson?”
“No,” Dyma said. “Maybe because I’ve never really been a worried person. Well, a little bit now.”
Her mom, of course, zeroed right in. “Sweetie. Why?”
“Just … how to do my life and all. Seriously, though. On your wedding day? We’re not talking about me.”
“Of course we are. We have time. Is it Owen? School? Eventual job?”
