Twenty-Five Germaine
Twenty-Five
Germaine
2028
Germaine peers out the window of the hotel’s vestibule. Out on the veranda, everything looks beautiful—the arbor of roses, the view of the ocean, the sachets of lavender tied to the back of every polished cane chair that bloom a light perfume over the guests as they find their seats. She is still a stickler for detail, even if she’s no longer in the business of annoying hotel staff and acting the picky princess.
Exactly seventy-two minutes before this, Susan and Marie—the intrepid Marie, whom Germaine had poached from her parents the moment she’d made enough money back to pay the stylist a handsome salary—strong-armed their way into the room to find the three women crying and arguing, and demanded that they get their act together this instant lest this entire event run off track.
So Germaine, Miranda, and Sicily put their feelings aside as Marie and her army of stylists swept in with the rest of the bridal party and got to work. Marie distributed cold compresses for their puffy eyes, and her assistant applied color-correcting primer and concealer where needed.
Germaine’s look, though painstakingly done, is effortless; the makeup is like a natural second skin, and her eyes are bright and ever-so-subtly lined to create a lifted look so unlike the thick kohl the 3AM Girls used to be famous for.
Germaine’s headdress is interwoven with feathers that crown either side of her head, sewn to a gossamer fingertip veil that’s so thin it’s nearly invisible. Her gown is Dior, handmade in the Paris atelier; its fitted bodice gives way to yards of lightweight satin that ripple in the wind, overlayed with lucent gossamer that matches the veil. It isn’t the dress of a princess, because she is no longer that, but of a queen—like Justin calls her.
She’d swept Marie into a big hug, even as the woman laughed and tried to push her off.
“Arrêt! You’ll crease your dress!”
But as Germaine looks out over the sea of guests, she feels a tightness in her chest. She thought she’d moved past needing her parents’ approval, but she’s replaced them with everyone else. She’s still trying too hard to keep up appearances. And she tried to learn her lesson about seeking forgiveness over revenge, she did, but she’s overstepped Sicily’s and Miranda’s boundaries yet again. They didn’t need Germaine to do the work for them. She should have told them about the Kidz Klub invites—or not invited that group at all.
For a brief moment, a part of her wishes that this was a wedding for thirty rather than three hundred, not about showing anyone up or proving anything. Just about happiness and love—for Justin, for her oldest friends, for her husband’s lovely parents, and ... well, yes. For her family as well.
She sighs and leans against the window casement. You can still love people, she thinks, even if they’ve let you down. Miranda is right: nothing can be settled, and nothing can be changed. Germaine’s childhood is a crash that she can’t walk back. God knows her parents can’t change who they are; or, at least, she isn’t the one who can change them. The only thing she can control is the way she reacts to their moods and internalizes their criticism. She can’t change her mother or father, or even Gregoire or Giles, and it follows that she shouldn’t try to punish them. She shouldn’t try to punish Eddie, either. He was a stupid kid, and so was she, and maybe he has regrets now about how he acted ten years ago, when he should have known better—or maybe not. He’s another person she can’t change, and being spiteful will only hurt her—it’s already hurt Miranda and Sicily.
All of that was then. This is now.
“Don’t start,” Marie hisses as Germaine’s eyes begin to well again. “You’ll make a mess of me, too.” The stylist uses a Q-tip to dab the moisture away as Germaine fans herself and reapplies powder to Germaine as well as Sicily and Miranda, who stand nearby similarly trying to hold it together. Germaine glances at them, knowing they all look like the stunning women they are: Survivors. Victors. Girls who worked too hard and saw too much, too young, growing up in the public eye. They don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
They catch her eye. She gives both a small smile, which they return.
She peers back out into the crowd. Her parents are about to take their seats in the front row. They both look unhappy, but Germaine knows by now that this is their default expression. They’ve been unhappy about one thing or another for as long as she can remember, and it’s not her fault or responsibility.
“Susan,” she whispers to the wedding coordinator. “Would you be able to bring my parents back here?”
Susan raises her eyebrows, surprised by the last-minute change in what has otherwise been an airtight itinerary that could only be crafted by a St. Germaine-Chang, but she nods and hurries off. Germaine peeks through the window to watch as she approaches Terence and Céline and speaks low to them, pointing backward. They look confused and slightly suspicious, but follow her back to the entrance of the hotel.
Germaine takes a deep, steadying breath before they walk in. Then she greets them with a big smile.
“Hi,” she says to their questioning looks. “Would you two walk me down the aisle?”
They glance at each other. Then her father nods and says, “Of course.”
To Germaine’s surprise, he seems relieved. Her mother stops frowning, the skin between her eyebrows relaxing and her chin lifting, and straightens up. Céline always did love a catwalk, Germaine thinks.
Susan gives the signal that it’s time. A string quartet next to the arbor begins to play Handel’s “Air” from Water Music , and the bridal party heads up the aisle, beginning with Germaine’s cousins and friends from New York and ending with Sicily and Miranda, who both squeeze Germaine’s hand and give her a wave.
With a surreal, warm feeling in her chest and her heart racing, Germaine links arms with both her parents and moves into position. Her father coughs; are those tears in his eyes?
Her mother glances down at her dress.
“Couture Dior,” she murmurs, and Germaine feels herself instinctively bracing for criticism. But Céline gives the smallest of smiles and says, “I would expect nothing less.”
Then they step out, toward a beaming Justin and the next glittering chapter in Germaine’s life.