2. Joey
”You look like a fairy princess.” My cousin Geneva drew her little hands up under her chin and sighed, staring up at me on the pedestal at the dressmaker”s shop as I forced myself to stand still for last-minute alterations.
”Thank you, honey,” I told her, forcing a smile her way.
She was just a kid. She didn”t know any better.
The truth was that I was about the furthest thing from a fairy princess there was. I was a woman in a ridiculous dress having very dark thoughts.
”Ouch!” A pin lanced the sensitive skin beneath my arm.
”Sorry, Joey. I just don”t understand how you”ve managed to lose so much weight. You”re gonna have to share your secrets.” Maggie, my mother”s seamstress gave me a wink of her false lashes and then jabbed another pin into the fabric, pulling the bodice of my wedding gown tighter across my chest.
I had lost weight.
The pathetic thing was that I wasn”t trying to lose weight at all. Which was annoying, considering how many failed diets lay strewn across the path behind me. It turns out all you need to drop pounds is to agree to a wedding you shouldn”t have and then let your mother push you around like you”re twelve again. Worked for me!
”You look perfect,” my mother said, stepping into the room with her phone still in her hand. ”And don”t worry about a thing. I”ve ensured the catering is all finalized and all you have to do after this afternoon”s rehearsal is show up and put on this dress.” My mother narrowed her gaze at Maggie. ”Which Maggie will absolutely have delivered to the dressing room no later than eight o”clock tomorrow morning.”
”Absolutely!” Maggie answered.
”I tried my dress on again too,” Geneva said earnestly, looking up at me with wide blue eyes set deep in her fair skin. ”Just to be sure.”
”Thanks, sugar,” I said, giving her a grateful smile. ”You”ll be the very best flower girl Peach Blossom Grove has ever seen.” I knew Geneva just needed a little approval, but I wanted to tell her that it wasn”t my acknowledgment that was important. I might be wearing the dress, but this wedding was one hundred percent the purview of my mother, Adelaide Baxter, and I was pretty sure everyone over age ten knew it.
I was merely a mannequin. An automaton going through the programmed motions of Adelaide”s grand design, which was something she”d evidently gotten from the master rulebook of society mothers in the Deep South.
Step one: have a daughter
Step two: force her to learn a bunch of manners and dances before the age of twelve.
Step three: put her in a white dress and introduce her to society like some craft project you”ve been putting the final touches on for the last seventeen years.
Step four: marry her off to someone who”s been through the exact same program, except on the side designed for boys.
Step four-A: extra points if that boy is the son of a wealthy local family.
I”d let myself be pushed around my whole life, following Mama”s plan, and now here we were, on step four, just like that. There was a garish diamond gleaming on my finger, and tomorrow morning, I”d watch the very last shreds of my independence slip away as I agreed to become Mrs. Evan Stratton.
”All done!” Maggie trilled, stepping back to admire her work on the custom gown my mother had commissioned almost a year earlier.
”Wonderful.” Mama gave Maggie her approving smile and then waved a hand at me. ”All right, Josephine, darling. Let”s get you home for a bit of rest. I”m so glad I planned for an early rehearsal dinner. You”ll have plenty of time for a full eight hours before you need to put this dress on again.”
Because beauty sleep was critical.
As were sunscreen, moisturizing one”s feet and cuticles every night before bed, and drinking no less than ten glasses of water daily. Mama”s rules were clear and easy to follow. As long as you didn”t have any silly ideas about thinking for yourself.
The sun shone down as I helped my mother into the passenger side of the huge silver SUV my daddy had bought for me to take to college. Mama hated it, but Daddy had insisted it was the safest thing he could put me in. I loved it. It was huge and sporty and fast, and exactly the opposite of everything my mother approved of. It was my one rebellion.
We made the short trip from downtown Peach Tree Grove to our house, nestled back on a shady tree-lined street and protected by a white fence running the periphery of the yard.
This was where I”d grown up. And at times, it had been idyllic. Now, though, the straight slats in the white fence felt more like prison bars, and the walls of my mother”s perfect home were a cage I”d managed to get locked up in again, despite having escaped once before to college.
I pulled into the driveway, but didn”t shut off the engine. My gaze was fixed straight ahead, down the shady drive, dangerous thoughts in my mind. I couldn”t seem to shut them off.
”Well, let”s go in, Josephine. It”s stifling out here.” Mama opened her car door and slipped out, then turned back to face me. ”Well, honey? Are you coming?”
I shook myself out of the daze, fighting off the thoughts pushing their way through my mind. Thoughts of escape, of freedom, of terror at what was coming at me in a matter of hours.
”I am. I just remembered I need to go pick up some eye cream. I”m all out.”
Mama let out an exasperated noise. ”I don”t know why you didn”t mention that when we were out, darling. You need some time to recharge before tonight.”
I nodded. ”It won”t take long.”
Mama sighed and pushed the door shut, and I watched her make her dainty way up into the back door of the house. She meant well. She loved me, I knew that. I was her only child—who could blame her for doting?
But I was also a woman with a degree, a woman with dreams. A woman who”d thought there would be time for adventures and exploration, but who”d also dated a boy from her tiny hometown when they’d struck up a friendship in college, and then come back home engaged to him. I was a woman who”d believed Evan knew my heart, who was sure he understood me.
I was a woman who”d been terribly wrong.
As soon as we”d come home engaged, wheels were set in motion that I felt powerless to stop. Instead of interviews, resumes, and a long engagement, I was suddenly faced with pressure on all sides to marry. Immediately. To host my mother”s friends, to meet the executives at the firm Evan was going to inherit from his father, to entertain.
Mama convinced me to move back in with them since I”d just have to move again in a year when Evan and I got married. I should have said no. I should have said no to many things.
I sat in the driveway a moment longer, and the rushing sound inside my head grew louder. Something was coming at me, like a herd of wild horses stampeding in my direction or a freight train loaded with something that would definitely make a mess when it exploded. Like glitter. Or Miracle Whip. And if I didn”t act now—right now—I”d be overcome by whatever it was.
I backed the big car out, glancing around the perfect street where I”d grown up, and guided it slowly away.
When I crossed out of Peach Tree Grove”s town limits and pushed the accelerator down the open highway headed north, I pulled up Evan”s number on my car”s Bluetooth, my heart beating hard. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but he deserved something.
”Hey babe, isn”t it bad luck to talk the day before the wedding?” Evan had been making up all kinds of dumb wedding rules for weeks. It had been sort of cute at first. Now it wasn”t.
”You”re not supposed to see me the day of.” My voice shook a little when I spoke, and I tried not to imagine Evan’s face, or what it would feel like for him to understand I was running away. From us. From him.
”That”s gonna make it hard to say vows, won”t it?” There was a chuckle in Evan”s voice, and I cringed at the knowledge of what I was about to say to him. The knowledge that it would erase any desire to chuckle. I didn’t want to marry Evan. But I wasn’t eager to hurt him, either.
”Ev, I think I”ve made a terrible mistake.”
”That”s all right, babe. We”ll handle it. We”re in this together. What”s up?”
Dammit, he was always such a good guy. That was what had attracted me to him in the first place. That, and our parents basically arranging this engagement when we were ten. It had taken getting away from their influence, meeting him under new circumstances at college, for me to agree that he was actually a great guy.
But I didn”t think he was the right guy. For me.
”No, you don”t understand. Evan, I don”t think we should get married.”
There was a beat of silence, and then another light laugh, less confident. ”Wedding day jitters, I guess, huh?”
”No, I don”t think so.”
”What are you saying, Joey? You can”t be serious.” Evan”s voice got a little higher. ”Where are you? Let”s talk about this.”
”I know the timing is awful, I know it...” My voice rose as tears pressed into my eyes.
”It”s not just the timing.” Evan made a noise that sounded halfway between desperation and disgust. ”Please tell me you”re kidding.”
”I”m not kidding. Evan, but you have to know it”s not you. It”s not about you at all. I just... I just realized I can”t do this. It isn”t what I want.”
”That sounds very much about me. Tell me where you are. We”ll talk.”
”I”m leaving. I”m in the car. I”m halfway to Georgia.” I glanced at the signs on the highway. I wasn”t even close to Georgia yet, but I wasn”t turning around. Every mile that passed made me more sure I was doing the right thing.
”What?” Evan”s voice pitched higher. ”Babe, please don”t do this. Come back.”
”Do you really think getting married is the right thing for you, Evan? Right now? Before you”ve had a chance to do anything? To see anything?”
”I”ve got everything I want right here. Joey, I love you. Don”t you love me?”
I swallowed back the lump in my throat and blinked away the tears spilling down my cheeks. ”I do,” I said honestly. ”But I don”t think I love you in the way people who get married should love each other.”
”Love is love, Joey. Come home.”
Love is love.
I didn”t think that was true.
Didn”t love make you want to see the person you were with achieve their dreams? Didn”t it make you wish for them everything they wished for themselves?
”I think there are lots of kinds of love, Ev. And you deserve the kind that wants to be your wife. You deserve someone who loves you the way you want to be loved.”
”I don”t...” Evan, never at a loss for words, seemed to be at a loss for words. ”Honey, please.”
”I”ll call you in a couple days. Please apologize to your parents for me. I really am sorry.” My stomach twisted.
”Oh god. Please don”t do this.” His voice broke.
”Bye, Evan.” I hung up, and the tears came for real.
But I wasn”t crying over Evan, not really, though I didn”t like the idea of hurting him and I knew I had. I was crying with regret for what I knew my parents would go through, for the embarrassment and wasted money, for the enormous cake and the custom dress...
But I was also crying with relief. Because every bit of road that passed beneath my tires was one more inch of freedom. And by the time I really did reach Georgia, I found that I could finally take a deep breath. I could finally start to be me again.