Now Mags, who is the most petite, steps out of the dressing room. She has it the worst, Ginger thinks. She looks a bit like a Weebles toy. Or a character who rolls out with a prophetic message in a Tim Burton movie.
The bell dings on the front door, and Suzette, the bride, comes in with her old Louis Vuitton bag over her shoulder, her hair light with beach waves, a car key dangling from her hand. She glances from girl to girl, and her eyes sparkle. “My crew.” Ginger is always amazed how Suzette has this way of instantly disarming everyone she meets. Once you get past her nonnegotiable level of beauty—her sturdy cheekbones, her smooth, blemish-free skin with perfectly placed freckles, she is warm and sincere, with eyes that laugh and a powerful hug.
Suzette looks at you and makes you feel as beautiful as she is. Ginger has never heard her say a bad thing about another person. She remembers how quiet Suzette got when her older sister Lisa died, and as a counselor how many forgotten teenagers in the foster care system Suzette had given her own jackets and scarves to, stuffed twenties and fifties into their hands, told them to call her day or night. Ginger adores Suzette, regardless of these dresses. “Well?” Suzette says now.
There is a moment of stillness, five girls in green paisley stand before the trifold mirror, and the seamstress looks up at them and lifts her eyebrows. Ginger is the first to speak. “They are so elegant,” she says. “I feel like a winter queen.” The other girls quickly chime in with, “Love them!” and, “So original,” and Suzette touches her heart and smiles.
“You all dazzle.” Suzette stands behind Carrie, her younger sister, who came in with her and quickly got her dress on. “Wow. The pearl necklaces are going to be amazing, and the white pine branch bouquets…” She shakes her head and smiles. “It’s all coming together.”
Ginger glances down. She can’t look at the other girls. Seven weeks to go. “She’ll be in Vera Wang,” Cameron said earlier, “and we’ll be waddling in like my grandmother’s curtains come to life.”
Later, the seamstress at Mrs. Crowley’s shop helps her out of the dress. Ginger stares at her own arms and quickly covers herself up. It feels glorious to get the itchy dress off her body. Couldn’t they request a softer lining at least?
“Okay,” the seamstress says, and slides the dress onto a hanger, holding the faux fur shawl over one arm. She jots down a few notes. “You’re all gorgeous girls… don’t worry.” She pats Ginger’s back before closing the curtain. Ginger is not worried, she wants to say to the departing seamstress. She was shocked initially, but she’ll get over it. She’s worn worse. Most days at work, she can’t keep a shirt clean: cat vomit, bird blood, you name it. The wedding and dress and all this will come and go. She’ll be back on a plane the next day. Just like tomorrow. After the bridal shower, she’ll board her flight, making her way past the older couple holding hands or the fearful young parents with a baby on the seat between them, or the college-age couples who always seem like they’re going to a beach somewhere, who lean in every so often to kiss.
Ginger pulls her hair back into a sloppy bun and slips her clothes back on. She hears Mags whispering loudly to Cecilia about the dress. Even the girls who didn’t know each other have bonded over their hatred of paisley, but Ginger doesn’t care. She cares that she will come to the wedding alone, without Johnny. That she will leave the wedding and sleep in her brass bed with the ruffled comforter at her parents’ house and then fly home alone, her paisley dress still on the hanger in her old bedroom.
She is disappointed not to have seen Mrs. Crowley, Luke’s mother, here, but of course right now she’s at that birthday party probably holding a garbage bag to pick up stray napkins, maybe having a quick taste of cake. “My figure!” she always said when Luke tried to get her to eat pizza or have a scoop of rocky road.
Ginger wonders what she would have said to her. When Ginger first heard the fitting was here at Crowley’s, she imagined coming in the front door, and Mrs. Crowley looking up from the register. “Heavens, Ginger! Is that you?” She imagined hugging her, that smell of Mary Kay moisturizer and hairspray from a fresh wash and set at the hairdresser’s. Though Luke’s mother put him down—she really did, hardly ever coming to see him sing, always telling him not to slouch or asking what dumpster he got his shirt from—Ginger felt nothing but love from the woman. “Darcy Crowley’s so clenched,” her mother said once, “she could make tree bark into paper.”