Okay, Caryn didn’t. Wow. Caryn got Botox? She was two years younger than me! Had I missed something? Was this a thing people our age did?
I forwarded the email to Megan, then texted her and told her to read it.
My phone rang a couple of minutes later.
“She’s out of her mind,” Megan said instead of a greeting.
I got up and shut my office door. “I mean—that’s crazy, right?”
“Mad as a hatter. Punch me in the face if I ever get that bad.”
“Gladly.” I paused. “Do you get Botox?” She didn’t reply. “Megs!”
“I haven’t yet. But I’m going with Kelly next week.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy mixed with my surprise. Kelly lived in Columbia, right near where Megan and Tim had moved, and based on what I had seen on social media, they had become inseparable over the last couple of months. Was she taking my place?
“Do you want to come? I can call the doctor’s office and see if we can do one more.”
I lifted my eyebrows experimentally, annoyed that I was an afterthought. “Do you think I need it?”
“God no, what’s the matter with you? I’m just doing it for the wedding pictures. It’ll be half worn off by then anyway.”
“And eyelash extensions?”
“I mean, they look good. But they’re so much maintenance. We can just wear fake ones for the wedding. The makeup artist will put them on. But if you’re going to get them for hers, you can totally keep them for mine and it’ll be fine.”
Just like the minimizing bra, I thought, unkindly.
“Gotcha,” I said.
“That’s also so rude, telling you when the shower and bachelorette have to be. You’re in four other weddings. What if the dates don’t work for you?”
That hadn’t occurred to me. In my relief that none of the weddings conflicted, it hadn’t dawned on me that I had ten other parties in the weeks leading up to the weddings, which I would be expected to help plan. Some of those were going to overlap. It was just inevitable. “In that case, I doubt any of the other bridesmaids would miss me.”
“But like, ask, don’t tell. We don’t own you.”
“Megs, what am I doing in this wedding? Like seriously. I don’t want to put poison in my face.”
“I mean, she didn’t tell you that you had to. She was just saying to plan it out if you were going to.”
“Yeah, but am I going to look like an old crone next to everyone else in the pictures now?”
“No. You’re going to look like a normal human being who doesn’t get work done and is happy with how she looks. I’m jealous, honestly. I wish I didn’t care how old I looked.”
I didn’t respond. There was no way she meant that as an insult. Megan just sometimes had foot-in-mouth disease. And I didn’t think she realized how beaten down I still was about my looks by the attack of the horror-show mothers. “Thanks, I think,” I said eventually. Another phone rang in the background on Megan’s end.
“Ugh, I’ve got to go actually work. Don’t change a thing—you’re perfect and I love you!”
I slumped over my desk. Wahhhhh, I thought. I was so sick of weddings and brides and bridesmaids.
After all of the dresses had been found, my official bridesmaid duties had hit a bit of a lull, which I thought would be a well-deserved reprieve.
It wasn’t.
I may have gotten a two-month break from people harping on how I looked, but my friends had all suddenly disappeared.
Oh, they were still there, physically at least. But who were these people? I literally hadn’t had a single conversation with Megan, Caryn, or Sharon that didn’t immediately revert back to weddings. None of them ever had time to hang out, unless I wanted to be a third wheel with their fiancés, which I really didn’t, or unless I wanted to join them at bridal expos, which I was willing to do once, but had no desire to do repeatedly.
I was also getting the distinct feeling that every time I spoke, they were just waiting to transition the conversation back to their impending nuptials. There were suddenly too many “oh, speaking of [insert literally anything I said that had nothing to do with weddings here]” segues back into bridal talk for me to feel like they were actually listening.
Even Becca, who had always been ready to drop everything to grab a drink, get a pedicure, or binge-watch the latest show with me, had moved on. That date with Will had quickly been followed by second, third, and thirty-seventh dates. At the speed they were going, they were likely to have kids any day now.