“Where did you get all this?”
Jonah pointed to a ten-dollar bill. “This one was for not telling Dad I saw you that night at the carnival.” He pointed to a single. “This one was for not telling Dad that you were making out with Will.” He continued to point at various bills. “This one was for the guy with blue hair, and this was from liar’s poker. This one was for that time you snuck out after your curfew-”
“I get it,” she said. But still… She blinked. “You saved it all?”
“What else was I supposed to do with it?” he answered. “Mom and Dad buy me everything I need. All I have to do is beg long enough. It’s pretty easy to get what I want. You just have to know how to work it. Mom needs me to cry, but Dad needs me to explain why I deserve it.”
She smiled. Her brother, the blackmailer slash psychologist. Amazing.
“So I don’t really need it. And I like Will. He makes you happy.”
Yeah, she thought, he does.
“You’re a pretty good little brother, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. And you can have it all, on one condition.”
Here it comes, she thought. “Yes?”
“I’m not going to go dress shopping with you. It’s boring.”
It didn’t take long for her to make a decision. “Deal.”
Ronnie stared at herself, hardly able to recognize the image in the mirror. It was the morning of the wedding, and she had spent the past four days trying on pretty much every appropriate gown in the city, walking back and forth in various pairs of new shoes, and sitting for hours in the hair salon.
It had taken her almost an hour of curling and blowing to do her hair the way the girl at the salon had taught her. As Ronnie sat in the chair, she’d also asked advice about makeup, and the girl had given her some suggestions that Ronnie had followed carefully. The dress-there weren’t all that many good choices despite the number of stores she’d visited-featured a deep V-neck and black sequins, a far cry from anything she’d ever imagined wearing. The night before, she’d filed and painted her nails on her own, taking her time, pleased that she hadn’t smeared any of the polish.
I don’t know you, Ronnie told her reflection, turning this way and that. I’ve never seen you before. She tugged at her dress, adjusting it slightly. She looked pretty good, she had to admit. She smiled. And definitely good enough for the wedding.
She slipped into her shoes on the way out the door and headed down the hallway to the living room. Her dad was reading his Bible again, and Jonah was watching cartoons, as usual. When her dad and brother looked up, they did visible double takes.
“Holy crap,” Jonah said.
Her dad turned to glare at him. “You shouldn’t say that word.”
“What word?” Jonah asked.
“You know the word I’m talking about.”
“Sorry, Dad,” he said, chastised. “I meant jiminy crap,” he tried again.
Ronnie and her dad laughed, and Jonah turned from one to the other. “What?”
“Nothing,” her dad said. Jonah moved nearer to inspect her more closely.
“What happened to the purple in your hair?” he asked. “It’s gone.”
Ronnie bobbed her curls. “Temporarily,” she said. “Is it okay?”
Before her dad could answer, Jonah piped up. “You look normal again. But you don’t look like my sister.”
“You look wonderful,” her dad said quickly.
Surprising herself, Ronnie breathed a sigh of relief. “Is the dress okay?”
“It’s perfect,” her dad answered.
“And my shoes? I’m not sure they go with the dress.”
“They’re just right.”
“I tried to do my makeup and my nails…”
Before she even finished, her dad shook his head. “You’ve never been more beautiful,” he said. “In fact, I don’t know if there’s anyone more beautiful in the entire world.”
He’d said the same thing a hundred times before. “Dad-”
“He means it,” Jonah interrupted. “You look awesome. I’m being honest. I barely recognize you.”
She frowned at him in mock indignation. “So you’re saying you don’t like the way I usually look?”
He shrugged. “No one likes purple hair except weirdos.”
When she laughed, she caught her dad smiling at her.
“Wow” was all he could say.
Half an hour later, she was pulling through the gates of the Blakelee estate, her heart racing. They had just run the gauntlet of Highway Patrol officers stationed along the road to check IDs, and now they were being stopped by men in suits who wanted to park their car. Her dad tried calmly to explain that he was simply dropping her off, but his response made no sense to any of the three valets-they couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that a guest at the wedding didn’t even have her own car.
And the improvements…
Ronnie had to admit the place was as spectacular as a movie set. There were flowers everywhere, the hedge was trimmed to perfection, and even the brick-and-stucco wall that surrounded the property had been freshly painted.
When they were finally able to make their way to the central roundabout, her dad stared at the house, which was growing larger in the foreground. Eventually, he turned to her. She wasn’t used to seeing her father surprised by anything, but she could hear it in his voice.
“This is Will’s house?”
“This is it,” she said. She knew what he’d say: that it was huge, or he didn’t realize how wealthy the family was, or did she feel like she belonged in a place like this? Instead, he smiled at her without a trace of self-consciousness.
“What a lovely place for a wedding.”
He drove carefully, thankfully drawing no extra attention to the old car they were driving. It was actually Pastor Harris’s car, an old Toyota sedan with a boxy style that was out of date as soon as it came off the production line in the 1990s; but it ran, and right now that was good enough. Her feet were already aching. How some women wore pumps every day was beyond her. Even when she was seated, they felt like instruments of torture. She should have wrapped her toes in Band-Aids. And her dress obviously hadn’t been designed to wear while sitting; it was digging into her ribs, making it hard to breathe. Then again, maybe she was just too nervous to breathe.
Her dad made his way around the circle drive, his gaze fixed on the house just as hers had been the first time she’d seen it. Even though she should have been used to it by now, the place still felt overwhelming to her. Add in the guests-she’d never seen so many tuxedos and formal gowns in her life-and she couldn’t help but feel out of place already. She really didn’t belong here.
Up ahead, a dark-suited man was signaling to the cars, and before she knew it, it was her turn to get out. As the man swung open her door and offered his hand to help her out, her father reached out to pat her leg.
“You can do this.” He smiled. “And have fun.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
She peeked in the mirror one last time before emerging from the car. Once she was out, she adjusted her dress, thinking it was easier to breathe now that she was standing. The porch railings were decorated with lilies and tulips, and as she made her way up the steps toward the door, it suddenly swung open.
In his tuxedo, Will looked nothing like the shirtless volleyball player she’d first encountered or the easygoing southern boy who’d taken her fishing; in a way, it was like glimpsing the successful, sophisticated man he would be a few years from now. Somehow, she hadn’t expected him to seem so… refined, and she was about to make a joke about how “he cleaned up pretty good” before she realized he hadn’t even said hello.
For a long time, all he could do was stare at her. In the extended silence, the butterflies in her stomach began to feel like birds, and all she could think was that she’d done something wrong. Maybe she’d arrived too early, or maybe she’d overdone it with her dress and makeup. She wasn’t sure what to think and was beginning to imagine the worst when Will finally began to smile.