Chapter 13 #2
“A salad would be great.” Her smile was genuine and normal, which let me release my breath. When I relaxed, so did she.
And… that was that. Without saying a word about it, we were good. Just like we always were when we hit little bumps like this.
Why can’t relationships be as easy as being friends with you?
After dinner, we met up with my mom to discuss some more wedding details. She had a finalized list of guests she and Dad wanted to invite, and we wanted her to take a peek at the invitation design before we submitted it to the printer.
“We also need to figure out dates for your bridal shower,” Mom said, peering at her calendar. “Maybe something in?—”
“Uh,” I broke in gently, “actually, we… um…”
She turned to me and pulled off her glasses. “Hmm?”
“Um.” I exchanged glances with Tori, who gave me a subtle nod. To Mom, I said, “Well, the thing is, we were thinking—we really don’t want to have a bridal shower.” I braced internally for even the slightest hint of disappointment.
“Oh.” Mom paused as if to process that. Then, to my great relief, she smiled and said, “Well, that’s about fifty fewer thank-you notes you need to write.”
I laughed, hoping my relief wasn’t obvious. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Only because you haven’t had to write them for all your shower and wedding guests yet,” she said dryly. “That, my dear, is the real cost of a big wedding—the stacks and stacks of thank-you cards.” She gestured at me with her coffee cup. “Though at least you can divide the task with your bride.”
“You mean Dad didn’t help write?—”
Mom cut me off with a bark of laughter. “Oh, honey.” She shook her head as she brought up her coffee. “That’s a bride’s task, not a groom’s.”
I stuck out my tongue. “All the more reason to marry a woman, then.”
She grinned. “Well, you always were a smart one.”
I laughed, but when I flicked my gaze toward Tori, her vaguely uncomfortable expression reminded me of the reason we’d wanted to talk to Mom in the first place. Right. That.
I cleared my throat. “So, um, speaking of writing thank-you notes for wedding gifts…” I shifted with some renewed nerves. “We don’t just want to skip the bridal shower. We were also thinking of asking people to skip bringing gifts at all. To the wedding.”
“Oh.” Her spine straightened and her eyebrows rose. “Were you?”
I nodded, wringing my hands in front of me. “We just… We both feel weird, you know? Inviting people to our wedding and basically saying ‘you better show up with a gift’? I know it’s tradition, but it just… doesn’t feel right.”
“I see.” Her eyes lost focus as if she was trying to process that.
“And I mean,” I went on, “Tori and I have pretty much everything we need. The only things we could even think of asking for are things we can buy for ourselves, or things that are way too expensive to ask other people to give us.”
Mom nodded as I spoke. Then she was quiet for a moment, possibly processing everything. I held my breath, sure she was going to tell me this was a crushing disappointment or some unforeseen faux pas. I glanced at Tori, and the creases in her forehead echoed my worries.
Finally, she said, “That’s certainly fair. And we can add some text to the invitations about that.” She paused. “Can I ask for one small exception, though?”
“What exception?”
She studied me, then took a breath. “I know your generation isn’t big on things like fancy dishes, but one of my favorite memories of planning my wedding was picking our china patterns with Grandma.
” She touched my arm. “Will you girls at least let your dad and me buy you a set of china? It’ll be whatever pattern you want, but I’d really love to do that. ”
My throat tightened, though I wasn’t sure why. “You really want to?”
“I do, yes.” She smiled and squeezed my arm. “It can be anything you two like, but my china set was one of the gifts I cherished the most from your grandma.”
I turned to Tori. She shrugged and nodded, so I nodded too. “Okay. Yeah, we that would be fine. I’ve never even looked at china patterns, so I have no idea what I’d like or what Tori likes, but…” Another nod. “We can do that.”
Mom’s face lit up. “Wonderful. I’m sure we’ll find something perfect that you’ll both love!”
I didn’t care one way or another about china or any kind of dishes. But knowing it would make my mom happy—well, what could I say?
Now I was excited about it too.
“They actually expect people to eat off this pattern?” Tori made a hilariously grossed-out face as she peered at some plates on display. “It looks like someone already ate off it and didn’t bother to wash it.”
Mom and I laughed. Tori wasn’t wrong—the plates had a bunch of colorful smears glazed on that, now that she mentioned it, resembled food stains.
“They really do come up with some weird stuff.” I scowled at another pattern that was probably meant to be some kind of abstract modern art aesthetic. Too many colors going in too many directions.
“You should’ve seen it thirty years ago when I was looking,” Mom mused. “There were plenty of lovely, delicate designs, but some were…” She made a face. “And that’s not even getting into the monstrosities people came up with in the Seventies.”
“Can’t we say that about pretty much any aesthetic choice from that era?” Tori asked dryly. “All that… orange. And brown. And avocado .” She wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. “Who hurt those people?”
Mom giggled. “It didn’t get much better in the Eighties. There’s a reason I grew up with an aversion to floral prints.”
“Oh God.” I chafed my arms and shuddered. “Grandma’s couch…”
Tori cocked a brow. “That bad?”
“Uh-huh. It was one of those stereotypical flowery things. And they were like, dark red flowers—it looked like a crime scene.”
Mom laughed. “Oh it did not!”
“It did too!” I protested. “If the cops had ever come looking for a body in there, they’d have been trying to take blood samples from the couch cushions. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Uh.” A voice behind us turned us all around, and a very puzzled salesman peered at us. “Can… Can I help you ladies?” His expression begged us not to need his help and to let him run screaming away from whatever this was.
I had to fight a laugh as I said, “We’re good. Just, um… reminiscing about 1980s upholstery.”
Instantly, his horror vanished in favor of understanding, and he nodded slowly. “Oh Lord, those couches!” He touched his chest and rolled his eyes. “My grandma’s was one of the yellow flowered ones, and she smoked for sixty years, so it was yellow .”
“Oh my God, eww!” Tori made an adorably disgusted face. “That’s so gross!”
“Tell me about it.” He grimaced. “I swear the smell of that couch haunts my dreams.”
All of us shuddered in solidarity. My parents had told me stories about the smoky furniture and tobacco-stained walls of years gone by, and I was just glad I’d missed that whole era. Yuck.
“Anyway,” the salesman said. “Are you ladies looking for anything in particular?” He gestured at the display plates. “A new set of china? A replacement dish?”
“A new set,” Tori said.
“Okay, okay. Perfect.” He cautiously came closer. “Is there a particular look you’re going for? We have a whole catalogue if you don’t see what you like here.”
Tori and I exchanged glances, and we both shrugged.
“We have pretty simple taste,” I said. “Like nothing really complicated or flashy, you know? And not so nice that we’re afraid to eat off it.”
He was nodding as I spoke. “Any particular color palette?”
“I’m not a big fan of warm colors on dishes,” Tori said. “I don’t really know why.”
“Doesn’t matter why.” The salesman waved his hand. “If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Now, are we thinking more blues? Purples? Greens? Or black, white, silver, gold?”
“Any of those,” I said.”
Tori nodded.
“Let me grab a tablet so we can look at the online catalogue.” He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
When all was said and done, our salesman—his named turned out to be Aaron—helped us land on a pattern.
After we all swiped through pages and pages on his tablet, all three of us fell in love with an understated silver and black pattern with subtle purple accents.
It was a little more flowery than I thought we’d get, but it was beautiful…
as was the way Tori’s face had lit up the moment that pattern appeared on the screen.
I’d been sold in that instant. Anything that she liked that much was a winner. Period. Even if it had been one of the weird abstract designs that looked like it had permanent food stains.
Aaron told us the whole set wasn’t in stock, but they did have a few of the dishes so we could see them in person.
“They’re even prettier like this,” Tori murmured, cradling a plate in her hand like it was the Holy Grail. “Wow…”
“You like them?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“I love them.” She met my gaze, her pleading expression reminding me a little of when Tucker noticed me eating sushi. “These have my vote.”
How could I say no? I loved the pattern too, but more than the design on the plate, I loved the way they made Tori smile. If she liked them this much, then there was nothing to discuss.
I turned to my mom. “I think we have a winner.”
“I think we do.” Mom was absolutely beaming. “I’m so glad you two found one you like. And it’s gorgeous!”
“It really is,” I said, and no one in the room needed to know that I wasn’t talking about the china pattern.
Tori and I left Mom to handle ordering the set with Aaron. We stepped away to the showroom where we’d been looking at hideous patterns earlier.
“That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” I said.
“Right?” Tori smiled. “And I… kind of never thought I would get that excited over… dishes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Oh God, am I adulting? Am I getting old? ”
I snorted. “You’re six months younger than me, so you’d better not be getting old.”
She met me with a wicked grin. “Well, maybe I am, and you’re just?—”
“Oh shut up,” I said with a laugh. “You’re such a brat.”
“Yeah?” She gave an unrepentant shrug. “And?”
I rolled my eyes and elbowed her, which got a giggle out of her.
As her humor faded, she glanced in the direction of the office where Mom and Aaron were ironing out details. “I didn’t think it would mean that much to her—the whole china thing.”
“I didn’t either. But I’m glad we did it.” I turned to her. “Thanks for playing along.”
“Of course,” she whispered. “We’re doing this for her. Whatever she wants, I’m game.”
My heart fluttered. “Thank you. For everything, but even the small stuff like this.”
Tori’s smile made me warmer than it had any right to. The temptation to step in and steal a quick kiss—all I dared out in public—was stronger than it should’ve been.
I held back, though. This wasn’t the time or place, and it wasn’t who Tori and I were.
No matter how perfectly natural it felt to think it was.