For the Love of Friends(4)

“Bring it on. Just tell me I don’t have to wear anything floral.”

“In the wedding?” Caryn asked, horrified. “Oh no. Solids only for bridesmaid dresses!”

“What was I thinking?” I smiled. “I’m honored, really.”

“Thank you.” She hugged me. “I’m going to need you for this.”



The next to fall was my college roommate, Sharon. Her engagement was no big surprise—in fact, she probably would have freaked out and not given him an answer if Josh had surprised her. Sharon didn’t like being put on the spot. She and Josh had been living together for two years already and she knew he had the ring before he asked. “We’re just going to do city hall,” she confided when she called me. “I’ve never wanted a real wedding. I mean, you can come and all, but I don’t want to do a bridal party or anything like that. You don’t mind, do you?”

I assured her, quite honestly, that I did not. I would go anywhere for her, but at my age, I was past feeling that being a bridesmaid was a necessity. I was happy to do it, but would my feelings be hurt if I didn’t have to wear a puffy dress and bride-selected shoes? No.

City hall was also not much of a surprise. Through the dozen-plus years of our friendship, she had been adamant that if she ever got married, her dream wedding was Rabbi Elvis in Vegas, with random witnesses off the street. Which made sense, if you knew Sharon. Not that she was the Vegas type at all, but her mother was so domineering and overbearing that if she knew a wedding was happening, Sharon would have zero input into any part of it.

But once there was a ring on her finger, Sharon couldn’t not tell her mom, who apparently had strong opinions other than city hall.

Sharon called me in hysterics three days after the engagement phone call. “She said she’ll disown me if I don’t have a real wedding,” she wailed. “She said I’ll be dead to her. She’s going to sit shiva.”

“She wouldn’t do that. She’s bluffing.”

“Have you met my mother? She’s serious.”

I sighed, having lived through many soap-operatic dramas between Sharon and her mother. Would she go through with sitting shiva? Possibly. Would she also recant as soon as the first grandchild was born? Of course. But it was a moot point because if Mrs. Meyer pushed hard enough, Sharon always caved.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“She already booked her rabbi to marry us.”

“Will he wear an Elvis costume for you at least?”

Sharon laughed and then hiccupped. “Probably not. He’s like a hundred and fifty years old.” She paused. “I hate to ask. I know I said you wouldn’t have to be in it—”

“I’m happy to, Shar.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” she sighed in relief. “I don’t know how I could get through this if you said no.”



When I met my best friend, Megan, for happy hour a few weeks later, she kept her left hand deliberately hidden when I showed up.

“I love you,” I declared, sinking into the seat opposite her where a martini sat waiting for me, dirty, with extra olives, just the way I liked it. I took a long swig, needing it after the phone call I had just had with the astrophysicist who didn’t think that I had accurately explained the significance of the gamma-ray burst he had been researching. “Seriously. Marry me.”

“Funny you should say that.” Megan’s eyes twinkled as she raised her hand. “I already told Tim I would marry him.”

Despite my two prior commitments, I swear that I felt nothing but joy for the girl who had been my best friend since second grade, when Amber Donovan announced the name of my crush to an entire busload of kids and Megan “accidentally” clocked her with her Snoopy lunch box. Nothing cements a friendship like hitting another kid in the face with a Charles Shultz–approved hunk of plastic complete with matching thermos.

I squealed over the ring and demanded all of the appropriate details, grinning broadly at the happiness radiating from her pores.

“I have a question for you,” she said when she finished the story, pulling an exquisitely wrapped package out of a bag on the floor next to her.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.”

I tore into the wrapping paper and Megan laughed again, calling me vicious. Under the paper was a wooden box painted Tiffany blue with a white ribbon stripe affixed to it. I can’t say ‘I do’ without you, it said in calligraphy on a card in the corner. I opened the latch and lifted the lid of the box. It contained a ring pop, a tiny bottle of champagne, Hershey’s Kisses, and a pack of Essie bridal nail polishes in pale pinks. Will you be my maid of honor? was written in the same calligraphy inside the box’s lid.

My eyes welled up. “Of course I will! How long did this take you?”

“I saw it on Pinterest forever ago—don’t you ever look at my wedding board?”

What on earth is a wedding board? I asked myself, shaking my head. I was going to have to figure that out.



It wasn’t until I was back at home that night, showing my maid of honor box to Becca, that I realized I might be a bit overextended.

“Have any of them set dates yet?” she asked.