Chapter 3
Eloise
Mom
Make sure you RSVP with the name of your plus-one!
Iignore the latest text from my mother and toss my phone down, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
“I look terrible.” I frown at the hideous bridesmaid dress Lily picked out for me.
It’s like she intentionally chose the most unflattering color and style for me.
I sigh and circle to Clara, who’s studying me with a shrewd gaze, and Sloane, who’s sitting on my bed, folding the mountain of clean laundry I’ve been ignoring for the past three days.
“Yep,” Clara declares, and I laugh, not at all offended. She has a degree in fashion design and owns a lingerie boutique with her wife, and I asked her to come over to help. “It’s not your color.”
Cognac, that’s what Lily called it. But the reddish-brown-gray color isn’t working.
Sloane lifts her gaze and shrugs. “You should tell Lily you don’t like it. That it makes you uncomfortable.”
I pluck at the single shoulder strap of the satin dress, hating how it cuts across my opposite armpit. “You know I can’t do that.”
With Sloane’s gaze back on my clothes, she mumbles, “God forbid you rock the boat.”
“Oh, like you can talk,” I snap, even though there’s no real heat behind my words.
Sloane and I might not look anything alike—her with dark hair, dark wardrobe, and full sleeves of tattoos, and me with blond hair and a style that she lovingly refers to as unicorn puke—but we get each other. We understand each other in ways our respective families never have. Black sheep united.
I glance around my disaster of a bedroom, my closet overflowing and shoes all over the place. “You’re a saint for even attempting to clean this.”
Sloane’s tidy and put together, but she’s never minded my ADHD brain and whirlwind of chaos. She’s never judged me.
“It’s not so bad.” She puts away a pile of my underwear. “If only I could make myself tackle my own kids’ rooms.”
Speak of the devils. Shouts erupt from the living room. Sloane dropped off her two kids, Micah and Livie, this morning so she could run some errands.
“Thanks again for watching them,” she says. “Trevor’s schedule is…” She shakes her head, and I can see the exhaustion in the slope of her shoulders. Her husband is a big pharmaceutical rep and often travels, so running the household and taking care of their kids falls solely on Sloane’s shoulders.
“Anytime. You know I love hanging out with them.”
She brushes her hand over her forehead, pushing her long bangs back away from her face. “Yeah. Aunt Ellie’s their favorite.”
I curtsy and pretend to put on a crown, but Clara stops me from accepting the imaginary prize when she flaps her hand. “Stop moving around and go stand in front of the mirror again so I can pin it.”
She opens a bag she brought with her and begins to pinch and pull, pinning the material so she can tailor it. As she works, I stare at myself in the full-length mirror. Objectively, the satin is a nice color, but it’s simply not mine.
I need bright colors, light ones, and to say nothing of the shape. With the huge bow on the shoulder, it doesn’t fit right across my bust, so my armpit roll hangs over the arm hole. The skirt is straight down to the floor and makes me look like a paper bag.
I’ve always been tall, so I learned long ago how to search for clothes that would fit me well. And after I gained weight, I made sure to buy things that accentuated my figure. I can’t say I’m confident every day, all day, but I’m happy with the way I look.
This dress does not make me happy.
With the wedding taking place in only a few weeks, I should have tried it on a while ago, but I’m great at avoidance. I’ve become what some might call an expert.
And there is nothing else I like to avoid more than my family.
Especially when it comes to Lily and the weird competition our mothers have entered us into. I lose every time.
At thirty years old, I should probably be used to it, but every condescending comment cuts like it’s the first time, and I’d rather ignore any and all of it than have to face it.
I can already imagine my mother’s reaction to how I’ll look in the dress and the underlying glee in my aunt’s face—or the ongoing put-downs about what I’m doing with my life or any mistake I’ve ever previously made. Especially when I show up without a date.
The horror.
Though I’m pulled from the start of an anxiety spiral by Clara’s gossip.
“Did you hear about Roman?”
Sloane stands to place my now-empty laundry basket in the corner of the room. “Roman Stone?”
Clara nods, but I shake my head. “Stone as in Ian, Griffin, and Taryn?”
“Their brother,” Clara says.
“Ian’s talked about him before,” Sloane adds.
The Stone siblings are well-known in town.
Griffin is the fire captain, Taryn manages a popular bed-and-breakfast, and Ian owns the tattoo shop where Sloane works, which is conveniently situated right next door to my bakery.
In our little downtown neighborhood, you can’t throw a stone without literally hitting a Stone or someone related to one.
While I grew up in West Chester, I’m too young to have gone to school with any of the siblings, but I’ve become friends with all of them the last few years. Except Roman. The youngest and most mysterious one. “What’s the story?”
“He’s home,” Clara informs me as she fusses with the bow at my shoulder. “Opened up an auto body shop on Union Street, so I’ve seen him around but haven’t officially met him. Taryn’s been sort of mum about it.”
“I think they’re all super protective of him,” Sloane says idly as she sorts through the jewelry left out on my dresser.
Taryn Stone’s best friend is Marianne, Clara’s wife, and with Sloane working with Ian, this gossip is coming almost straight from the source. While I don’t like to talk about people behind their backs, I am interested in learning more because rumors have always floated around about him.
“So, what’s he like? As mean as they say?”
Sloane moves on to my nightstand, attempting to clear it of the tissues, pill bottles, lotions, 854 hair ties, two empty glasses stacked up, a pencil, and a broken PopSocket. “He doesn’t strike me as mean.”
Clara places another pin at the seam by my armpit. “Grumpy, though.”
I snort a laugh. “All the Stones are grumpy.”
Clara and Sloane don’t disagree. You can be guaranteed two things with that family: a constant willingness to help their neighbors and a completely surly attitude about it. I love them. “What’s this Roman guy look like?”
Sloane shrugs. “A lot like Ian.”
“But eighteen feet tall,” Clara mumbles around a pin in her mouth. “You can’t miss him.”
“Tall, you say?” I raise my brows in curiosity. While I don’t discriminate dates according to size, I am not a little girl, and sometimes I want to feel like one. Which is not an easy task when I’m 5’10” and plus-size.
Sloane holds her arms out at her sides, flexing. “He’s huge.”
“You have my attention, ma’am.”
“Long hair, beard, lots of tattoos. Looks like he can do murder with his hands. Now, spin,” Clara directs, circling her finger in the air.
I turn around slowly. “Well, when you’re a literal mountain, I think that probably comes with the territory. Maybe I could take him to the wedding.”
At the familiar spark in Clara’s eyes, I hold my palm up to her. “It’s a joke.”
Kinda.
I do need a date. But I’m not so desperate that I’d go approach a stranger, begging them to go with me like a total weirdo.
At least, not yet.
“All right, my friend.” Clara shuts her bag and steps away from me. “Let me get the dress home, and I’ll have it back to you by next week.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
She tips an imaginary hat, and I shuffle off to the bathroom to change out of the dress and into shorts and a T-shirt.
By the time I finish, my two friends are in the living room with Sloane’s kids, and Clara says a quick goodbye to everyone before taking off with the garment bag, tossing one last offer over her shoulder, “Let me know if you need help finding a date. I’ll find one for you. ”
“Yeah, thanks. See you later!”
Then it’s Sloane’s turn. She checks the time. “Okay, munchkins, start cleaning up. We’ve got to go.”
Her kids are spread out on the floor. Micah has a big book open in front of him, while Livie’s drawing pictures in a notebook with fat crayons.
“Come on,” Sloane prods, poking at both of them with her foot. “We have to get moving, or we’re going to be late.”
“Where’re we going?” Livie asks, rolling to her back, sticking a blue crayon up in the air.
“I told you, you and your brother have swim class tonight.”
Micah ignores that and instead stands, showing Sloane and me his book, open to a page with flamingos. It never ceases to amaze me that this kid can read fluently, way above second-grade level. “Crocodiles, alligators, and flamingos live in the Florida Everglades. Did you know that?”
Sloane takes his book to put in the backpack she dropped off with them earlier. “That’s pretty interesting.”
“And a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance.”
I laugh. “Accurate.”
Micah shadows his mom, continuing to list off his facts as she helps Livie clean up her art supplies. “And flamingos can fly, but they usually only do it at night. They migrate to new places with water. Is water an ecosystem?”
“I have no idea, buddy.” Sloane eventually hauls Livie to her feet. The girl’s a slug.
Micah turns to me as if I’ll know. “Is water an ecosystem?”
“I guess. Isn’t an ecosystem where animals live?”
“Yeah, it’s, like…” He pauses, scratching at his head before he bends over, fists out, visibly frustrated he doesn’t know the answer. Micah needs to know things and gets upset when he doesn’t.
Sloane slings the backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll Google it later, okay?”
“When we’re in the car,” Micah tells her. “You have to Google it when we’re in the car—is water an ecosystem?”
I curl my hand around his head, tugging him close for a tight embrace. He’s like me and enjoys firm hugs, helps him to calm down. We’re both neurodiverse, so I feel for the kid. And for Sloane.
He was only diagnosed with autism and ADHD last year, and it threw her for a loop. No matter how well he’s doing or how much he’s benefiting from the help he’s now receiving, it’s been hard on her.
I bend to kiss the top of Micah’s head. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out the answer. Just not right now.”
He nods and wraps his arms around my waist for a squeeze.
When Livie hooks on to Sloane like a barnacle, she asks her daughter, “Did you tell Aunt Ellie about school?”
Livie shakes her head.
“What happened?”
Micah answers instead. “She didn’t cry yesterday.”
I hold my hand out for a high five from Livie. “Nice job! Proud of you.”
She’s really attached to Sloane and painfully shy around new people, so the start of kindergarten has not gone well. Sloane called me in tears the first day.
And I think I could count the number of times I’ve witnessed her cry on one hand, so I knew she was going through it this last week. It’s why I was happy to give her some alone time today.
“All right, we better get going,” Sloane says, and I hug both kids one last time before Sloane herds them out the door. “Thanks, Ellie.”
“See ya, Sloanie.”
With my apartment empty once again, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, and I zone out for a few moments until I spot the bottle of polish I picked out earlier this morning to paint my toenails.
I sit on the floor, carefully coating them neon pink as I listen to Chappell Roan on repeat and think about the upcoming wedding.
Allowing myself to really sink into the dread.
It’s a no-win situation for me if I go or if I suddenly come down with a Victorian wasting disease.
Because Lily is my only girl cousin, and I’m “supposed” to be in her wedding. That’s what “family does,” and I always try to do what I’m supposed to because being the family fuckup is tiring.
When I finish with my nails, I let them dry while scrolling social media.
Better than dwelling on the fact that I don’t have a date to the most important family event since my grandmother’s funeral.
I didn’t have a date to that, and people told me how sorry they were I didn’t have anyone to help me through the difficult time.
I wonder what they’ll say about me at my funeral when I don’t have a date to that either.
“She died of a wasting disease, surrounded by her cats, enjoying the fruits of her spinsterhood by taking up crocheting and watching Grace and Frankie on repeat.”
I should be so lucky.