Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tori
W hen Ava and I had put on her great-grandmothers’ rings, I’d admittedly felt a little weird.
This whole plan looked good on paper, but now there were precious family heirlooms involved.
Of course I would give the rings back to Ava after her mom passed, but it still felt strange.
Like maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew, and this was going to blow up in my face somehow.
Either people would find out and think we were awful for doing this, or all this bad karma we were racking up would come back to mightily bite us in the butt.
I wanted to believe we weren’t really racking up bad karma.
We were doing this for all the right reasons, weren’t we?
But we’d both grown up being told that lying was bad no matter what.
Even as exceptions had been added to that over the years—like protecting someone’s feelings or hiding a surprise—it was still hard to shake off the worry that we were doing the wrong thing.
The cat was out of the bag, though, and the only thing worse at this point than Gail finding out was us telling her we were canceling the wedding. We’d made the announcement and started making the arrangements—nothing left to do but see it through and hope nobody got hurt.
That meant going through all the motions, which was why, at noon on Saturday, we were meeting with our moms, her aunt, and my sister at Lynnette’s Bridal Boutique. Time to try on dresses.
Wedding dresses.
As Ava drove us into town, I asked, “Is it weird to… Well, to feel weird about this part? Trying on wedding dresses?”
“I think it would be weird if we didn’t feel weird about a lot of it.” She glanced at me, forehead creased. “Do you still want to go through with it?”
“Yeah, of course. I… I think bailing would be a disaster at this point.”
She made an unhappy sound and nodded. “Yeah. It would.”
I chewed my lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see it being this hard to?—”
“It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “I know where your heart was when you suggested it. And once I stopped overreacting to it, I got onboard too. I think… I mean, maybe we just underestimated how much it would affect us, you know?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Ava glanced at me again. “Are you okay with this part? Wearing a wedding dress?”
I thought about it, then shrugged. “I think so? Like I’ve never been one of those girls who fantasizes about being a bride. I don’t feel all that sentimental about this being my one and only chance to wear the dress, you know?” I paused. “What about you?”
She pursed her lips, gaze fixed on the road.
“I did fantasize about it as a kid. But that was just the little girl who wanted to wear pretty dresses, I think.” She tapped her nails on the wheel.
“But it does have some meaning, you know? The white dress at your wedding. The one you’re only supposed to wear once. ”
I studied her for a moment. “So we’re… punching that once-in-a-lifetime ticket for a fake wedding.”
Wrinkling her nose, she nodded. “Exactly.”
My stomach somersaulted. “Are you okay with that?”
“Are you?”
“I asked you first.”
She laughed softly, adjusting her grasp on the wheel. “I think I am? Like I said, I’m not super attached to the idea. I guess it’s just one of those things that I had to stop and think about.” She quirked her lips. “There’s probably going to be a lot of that.”
“Yeah. Probably. And… I agree. I’m not really attached to the white dress thing either.” I paused. “I think it just makes this feel… real? Not real like we’re really getting married, but like we’re really going through with this. If that makes sense.”
She was nodding before I finished. “It makes sense. Definitely.” She paused. “We don’t have to go with the traditional dresses.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there’s nothing that says we have to wear white wedding gowns. We can do something completely different.”
I thought about it. “I mean, we could? I’ve seen some gorgeous dresses and outfits that were non-traditional. I’m just not sure they’re… me?”
Ava seemed to consider that. “Yeah. Same. I just keep gravitating back to the white dress. But… I don’t want you to feel like you’re punching that ticket for something that doesn’t matter.”
“This does matter,” I said.
“You know what I mean.” She looked at me for a second. “I will always appreciate that you were willing to do this for my mom. Always. But if there’s something you want to save for your real wedding, it won’t hurt my feelings. I promise.”
I gave it some real thought, but then shook my head. “Not that I can think of. But if something comes up…”
Ava nodded. “Just say so if there is. It’s our wedding, so nobody gets to decide but us if we want something or don’t want something.”
“Do you think that’ll stop them from commenting?”
“It won’t stop your family.”
I snorted. “No, it definitely won’t.”
“Have they said anything yet?”
“Oh, just the usual. My grandma—on my mom’s side, not the nasty one—keeps asking if I’m really sure I want to marry a woman instead of?—”
Ava burst out laughing. “Oh my God. Still? ”
“Still,” I confirmed, starting to laugh myself. “She’s not mean about it or anything, but she’s just so worried about how I’ll manage without a man in my life.”
“Have you shown her that jar opener we bought last year?”
“I told her about it. So then she started worrying about who will change my oil.”
“Aren’t you on a first-name basis with everyone at Jiffy Lube?”
“Exactly! And we pay the neighbor kid to mow the lawn, the landlord fixes everything around the house, and it isn’t like my imaginary husband could fix my car or any of the appliances anyway.”
Ava groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, right?”
That sent us down a path we’d been on many times: ranting about how manufacturers made it impossible to work on any of their appliances, vehicles, or anything else without voiding the warranty.
And even if the warranties were expired, it all had to be fixed by someone who could access the internal computer systems and all of that nonsense.
I was more computer savvy than Ava, and she was more mechanically inclined than I was; if manufacturers would let us , we could fix our own stuff just fine .
And yet, a few well-meaning family members—especially on my side—were still convinced that car, appliance, and home repairs were a huge reason why we needed husbands.
The conversation hit a comfortable lull, and we drove in silence for a couple of blocks. My mind went back to today’s mission, and another thought crossed my mind.
“Okay, here’s a question.” I shifted around in the passenger seat. “We buy dresses today. We do the wedding. But… then what do we do with them?”
“With the dresses?”
“Yeah. Neither of us is planning to ever have kids, so we won’t have daughters to hand them down to.” I paused. “I mean, we’ve both got nieces, but…”
“But they might want their moms’ dresses,” Ava said. “Or something completely different.”
“Exactly. I’d feel weird spending that much on a dress and then just… putting it away forever.”
“Hmm.” Ava rocked her head from side to side. “We could donate them. I think I saw something on social media about an organization that collects wedding dresses for low-income brides.”
“Oh. Okay, yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”
“Perfect. And…” She made a right turn and gestured up ahead. “Here we are.”
So we were. She had to park about a block away, and after we’d paid the meter, we walked back toward the shop.
Lynnette’s Bridal Boutique was in a bougie part of town. No, really. It was beneath a stack of expensive condos, and it was tucked between one of those ridiculously high-end real estate agencies and an art gallery that sold fifty-thousand-dollar paintings. Bougie .
At the door, I hesitated. “I’m getting sticker shock already, and we haven’t even walked in.”
Ava laughed, put a hand on the small of my back, and gently herded me inside, which I probably liked more than I should have. Before I could give that too much thought, she said, “I looked on their website. They have stuff we can afford.”
“Are you sure?” I swept my gaze around, taking in the sight of dresses that probably cost more than my car. “I don’t think I can even afford their free coffee.”
She smothered a giggle. “Relax. I promise—they have a good range.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Does our end of the price range include nice stuff? Or secondhand flower girl dresses that desperately need to go to the dry cleaner?”
She rolled her eyes. “ Nice stuff. Calm down.”
Before I could say anything more, a tall Black woman in a blue pantsuit approached us. “Good morning! You must be Tori and Ava!”
My brain record-scratched for a second; how the hell did she know?
But about the time Ava was confirming who we were, it occurred to me that we had an appointment in the otherwise empty story and we were a same-sex couple. Probably not difficult to guess.
“Well, I’m Lynnette,” she said. “Welcome to the store. Now, you have a few people joining you, is that correct?”
I nodded. “Our moms, her aunt, and my sister.”
“Perfect.” Lynnette gestured for us to follow her. “Carrie will send them back when they arrive.” She nodded toward the receptionist, who gave us a little wave.
Lynnette took us into her office, and we sat down. “The reason I have my bride—or brides, in this case—come before their entourages is that I want to get a feel for what you want. Before anyone else is here to influence anything.”
I grimaced. “Does that happen a lot? People trying to push the bride into something she doesn’t want?”
“Oh.” Lynnette touched her chest and rolled her eyes.
“So much. I used to work for one of the bridal chains, and the amount of bullying and badgering I saw these poor brides endure?” Making a face, she shook her head.
“That was the first thing I decided when I opened my own boutique—we were nipping that nonsense in the bud.”
“Good idea,” Ava said. “Our moms are pretty chill, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
Lynnette nodded. “Wonderful. Honestly, I think the worst are usually the bride’s mother, the groom’s mother, or a maid of honor.”
“The groom’s mom?” I scowled. “That seems like a lot of audacity, pressuring her daughter-in-law about the wedding dress.”
“Mmhmm. Luckily, some of them see it for the red flag it is. They tell their men, either get your mom straight, or go get a refund on this ring.”
Ava and I both laughed.
“Smart,” Ava said. “I have a coworker whose mother-in-law is the biggest pain in the butt. And her husband has been making excuses for the woman for like thirty years.”
“Couldn’t be me,” Lynnette said with an emphatic shake of her head. “The one time my mother-in-law stepped out of line, I told my husband, either you deal with this or you can both leave.”
“Did he?” I asked, because I was painfully curious.
She held up her left hand and pointed to the immense rock on her ring finger. “I wouldn’t still be wearing this if he didn’t. And don’t get me wrong—his mama’s great most of the time. There was just some… boundary-setting in the beginning.”
“My coworker should do that,” Ava muttered. “Though after this long…”
“Good luck with that,” Lynnette said.
“Right?” Ava waved her hand. “Anyway. Knowing us we’ll get carried away talking about everything but why we’re here.”
“She’s not wrong,” I said.
Lynnette laughed. “Oh, I get that. Okay.” She pulled a couple of tablets out of her desk and handed them to us. “For starters, I want to get a feel for what styles you’re each looking for.”
I turned to Ava. “Do you think we should go for similar styles? Or do like Leslie and Fiona did—where they each just got what they wanted even though they were totally different?”
Ava shrugged, peering down at the tablet in her hand. “I think whatever we each want?” She met my gaze through her long lashes and smiled. “Wear whatever makes you happy.”
Why did that make me warm all over?
I didn’t let myself think about it, and shifted my attention to the tablet.
All right, Tori. What are you wearing for your fake wedding day?