Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
Connor is up early to meet Ben the next morning and sends me on my way with a kiss and stern instructions to be the bigger person. I chant my mantra the whole way home, so giddy with the events of last night I feel like I’m floating.
It’s a quick turnaround. I have just enough time to get back to the apartment and change before I have to meet Shannon, whirling through my bedroom like a hurricane.
Sam is here; I swear I hear her talking to someone, hear her moving around behind her bedroom door, but when I call her name softly there’s no reply, and any noise I thought I heard has stopped.
—
Shannon’s bridal shop of choice is in SoHo, tucked between two other designer stores regularly frequented by celebrities.
It’s the Instagram template of a wedding store, a boutique of quiet, understated luxury.
The floors are distressed wood, and there’s a jewel-toned sofa and an enormous changing room that’s closed off with a heavy velvet curtain.
Shannon is already here, standing in front of a row of gowns with the sales associate, who is holding the hem of a dress out for her inspection. She turns back and looks at me, then resumes her conversation. I grind my molars.
“Morning,” I say, infusing my tone with all the false cheer I can muster. I come to a stop beside her.
“Hi,” she says absently. She shows the sales associate a picture of a dress on her phone, who nods, then asks us to wait here. Shannon returns to flicking through the rack.
There’s a bit of an energy here. I’m mad at her about this weekend. She’s mad at me about the last two years. When she finally turns to look at me, neither of us have much to say.
I recover first. “How was the comedy show last night?”
“We didn’t go,” she says, waving a hand. “We ended up just getting an Uber home.”
Bigger person.
“Oh. How come?”
“Dan didn’t know anyone on the lineup.”
“That’s kind of the point,” I say testily.
“I’ll pay you for them.”
“It doesn’t matter.” And it doesn’t. It definitely doesn’t.
I’m annoyed. But I am being the bigger person, so I will drop it.
Another shop employee materializes, saving us from ourselves. “Can I offer you both a glass of champagne?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “Shannon?”
“Sure.” She shrugs. She could not look less interested.
Actually, now that I think of it, she seems a little unenthused about all of it. Considering a big part of the reason she came to New York was for this particular store, her whole demeanor is kind of…flat.
The woman pours out two flutes of champagne, passes them over, then disappears behind a partition. I wonder how many staff members are back there, quietly lurking.
I take a sip of my champagne, the bubbles pleasantly fizzing on my tongue. Shannon stares into her glass.
“Everything OK?” I ask her tentatively.
“Just hungover.”
I mean—probably true. She and Dan drank a swimming pool’s worth of alcohol last night. But she looks as airbrushed as always. If you put Shannon and me side by side and offered a stranger a thousand bucks to guess which one of us was hungover, they’d choose me every time.
“I can’t wait to see this dress,” I tell her, trying to bring the mood up. “I keep picturing the dress from Cinderella, but I don’t know. Maybe that’s a bit over the top?”
She gives me a tight-lipped smile.
The sales associate returns. “Here it is,” she says to us, holding a gown over her arm.
Shannon nods. “It’s perfect.”
Would we go so far as to call it perfect? I’m not, I admit, an expert in the field, but it just looks like a heap of fabric to me. Maybe we just need to see it on.
My sister hands me her flute then slips off behind the dressing room curtain. I flop down on the sofa, sipping at my champagne. Shannon is giving me nothing here. But I chant my mantra. Be the bigger person. We will have fun at this dress appointment if it kills me.
To that end, I pop back up and start browsing the rack of dresses.
I’ve just identified the most elaborate one when the velvet curtain swishes open and Shannon hobbles up onto a raised platform, clinging to the woman’s hand for balance.
OK, wow. That’s a dress, all right. It’s strapless, with a huge plume of fabric that’s cinched at the waist and shoots up past the neckline, like a big pleated fan.
It’s sleek, and highly structured, fitted tightly over her hips and then kicking out into a wider train.
The entire thing screams high fashion; I can more easily picture it on a catwalk than I can at a wedding reception.
I come to stand beside her. We stare into the mirror. “What do you think of it?”
I won’t tell her I hate it until she asks.
She examines herself, tilting her head from one side to the next.
“It looks different than the picture,” is all she says.
The woman who hoisted her into the dress immediately steps forward to explain why. The dress is a sample; the lighting in the photograph gives it a different sheen. If she cocks her hip to the side, yes, like that, exactly, you get a better sense of the line.
I stare at it skeptically. “Will you even be able to walk in that thing?”
It’s so tight over the hips and legs that she can’t do more than shuffle her feet.
“It’s not about walking. This is the look I’m going for.”
Um, OK. I mean sure, yes, she looks good—Shannon looks good in everything. But it can’t possibly be comfortable. And she’ll be wearing that thing for hours. Honestly, it’s giving expensive flower vase.
“Hey, Shan,” I say, wandering back over to the dress rack. “How about this one?”
The dress I hold up to her is the antithesis of the one she’s wearing. It has a sparkly, corset-style bodice, with a big, flowing skirt made of layers of chiffon. Very suitable for moving, and dancing, and laughing, and all the other things you’re supposed to do at weddings.
She flicks a glance at it from the mirror. “No.”
“Come on,” I wheedle. “You know Mom says it’s always good to try a few different shapes, for comparison. Just to be sure.”
Playing the mom card has its intended effect. She begrudgingly agrees to try on the dress.
A few minutes later and she’s stepping back onto the plinth, gathering a huge handful of skirt as she climbs up.
Now we’re talking!
She looks like she could be on the cover of a bridal magazine.
Everything about this dress is softer: the fabric, the shape, the color.
The skirt gently swishes when she moves, and the bodice makes her seem like a princess.
It’s romantic, and dreamy, and very Shannon—or at least, the Shannon she used to be.
Even the sales assistant is bowled over, telling her how gorgeous she looks. I snap dozens of pictures from every angle.
“I love it too,” I tell her earnestly. “And not because I picked it.”
“Liar,” Shannon says, her mouth tilting up.
I laugh. “Well. Not just because I picked it.”
The sales assistant reappears, carrying a scrap of fabric that turns out to be a detachable sleeve. She puts it on Shannon, demonstrating how she can wear this for the ceremony, and then remove it later when the dancing begins.
I hand her glass up to her. “You look like a princess.”
“I feel like one, a bit,” she admits.
She takes a sip and passes it back to me, her focus returning to the mirror in front of her. She moves left and then right. For a brief moment it could almost be said that we’re having fun.
“OK, that’s enough of that,” she says briskly. “I’ll take the other one.”
I splutter. “What?”
She’s already stepped down toward the changing room, beckoning the sales assistant to follow her.
“I did what you wanted. I tried your dress on,” she says. “But I’m getting the other one.”
“But—but—we still have more than an hour left,” I say, my anxiety rising. “Shouldn’t we try on more dresses?”
“No need,” she says, disappearing behind the curtain. The sales associate follows her through with a clipboard and a measuring tape, ready to take Shannon’s measurements.
I feel confused—and a little bit panicked. Did Shannon even like the first dress?
“Are you sure, Shannon?” I call from behind the curtain. “Why don’t we come back later? You can think about it.”
Her tone is clipped. “I don’t need to come back later. I’ve decided.”
Who cares what you’ve decided! I want to scream. How do you feel?
Shannon is dressed and back on the other side of the curtain, sitting down while the sales assistant runs her through the particulars of the purchase. I hover nearby, forgotten.
“Shannon,” I say, trying to catch her eye.
“We’ll take the full payment now,” the woman is saying to her.
“Wait.”
The spiel continues. “Alterations are done in-house but priced separately.”
“Shannon.”
“That’s fine,” Shannon says, nodding.
“WAIT,” I screech, my voice ringing out in the quiet room, freezing both women in place.
Shannon is annoyed. “Annie, can you please—”
I look to the saleswoman, my eyes boring into hers. “Can you give us a minute?”
She looks from me, to Shannon, to me again, and then stands, saying she’ll confirm the atelier’s lead times, and be right back.
“Do you fucking mind,” Shannon hisses when she’s out of earshot.
“Shannon,” I plead with her. “Just slow down for a minute. Are you sure about all this?”
“I told you I decided,” she says, her jaw set.
“Decided what?” I say, exasperated. “What’s the big rush all of a sudden?”
“It’s time to get this done. And if the dress is going to be ready in time for December—”
“You said you didn’t want a winter wedding!”
“Well, now I do! Why are you being so annoying about this? It’s a wedding dress. Stop trying to get in the way.”
“I’m not trying to get in the way! I’m trying to make sure you’re happy!”
She laughs grimly. “OK, Annie. Whatever you say.”
I reach for my mantra, but it is gone—blown away on a puff of air. I am not the bigger person. I am the littler person! The little sister. And I have had enough. “Oh my god can you just cut it out with all the passive-aggression?” I practically spit at her. “What is your problem?”
“My problem?”
“Yes! Your problem,” I say, poking her in the chest, a move guaranteed to make her incandescent. “It’s like you came all the way out here to show me you’re still mad at me.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Oh? Then why’d you bring Dan?”
She goes gimlet-eyed. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because he’s about to be your brother-in-law and I thought you’d want to make up with him?”
“Why would I want to make up with Dan?” I screech back at her. “I hate Dan! I will never, ever forgive him for doing that to you and I will never understand why you did.”
“Well, here’s a newsflash,” my sister rages. “You don’t need to understand it. It’s none of your fucking business! I’m finally getting my life back on track after all the humiliation you caused me.”
“ME? Dan cheated on you with Councilwoman Howard!”
“Three years ago! People make mistakes, Annie. Everything was moving so fast with the house and the wedding, and he freaked out.”
“Oh come on.”
“No, you come on. You think you’re so smart, but what the fuck do you know about relationships? Or about anything? You brought your boss to dinner!”
I’m thrown off balance. “He’s not just my boss,” I say lamely.
She throws her hands out.
“How wonderful for you! What a fairy tale. So when you fuck it up—and you will,” she emphasizes, “all it means is that when you get dumped, you’ll also get fired. And you’re sitting here judging me about my life? That’s really fucking priceless.”
“What life, Shannon? Who are you, besides Councilman Dan’s First Lady? Do you even want to marry him? Or is it easier to be his trophy wife than to face the truth that without this relationship you’re nothing but a huge blank?”
She takes a sharp inhale, shocked at what I’ve said.
“Do you know what?” Shannon is so mad she is shaking. “I really fucking hate you.”
A cold dread crawls up and over me. I feel how deeply she means it in the pit of my soul.
I’m distantly aware of a bell chiming. I feel, rather than hear, Shannon leave.
I turn to look at the sales assistant, who is nearby, wide-eyed and speechless.
“Sorry,” I whisper, clearing the catch in my throat. “I think we’re just going to leave the dress for now.”
I pick my coat up off the sofa, walk slowly to the door, and then flee.