That Summer

I smiled, fighting the urge to slouch. “Too tall.”

“No such thing.” She tightened her grip on my arm. “You can never be too tall or too thin. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

“It’s too rich or too thin.” Ashley said. Leave it to my short, curvy sister to correct even a misworded compliment.

“Whatever,” Aunt Ree said. “You’re beautiful, anyway. But we’re running late and the bride is a mess. We’ve got to go find you your bouquets.”

Ashley kissed Lewis and clung to him for a few more seconds before following me and Aunt Ree through the masses of perfumed wedding guests to a side door that led into a big room with bookcases covering all four walls. Lorna Queen was sitting at a table in the corner, a makeup mirror facing her, with some woman hovering around picking at her hair with a long comb.

“We’re here!” Aunt Ree said in a singsong voice, presenting us in all of our pink as if she’d created us herself. “And just in time.”

Lorna Queen was a beautiful woman. As she turned in her seat to face us, I realized that again, just as I always did when I watched her doing her forecasts in her short skirts with color-coordinated lipsticks. She was pert and perfect and had the tiniest little ears I’d ever seen on anyone. She kept them covered most of the time, but once at the beach I’d seen her with her hair pulled back, with those ears like seashells molded against her skin. I’d always wondered if she heard like the rest of us or if the world sounded different through such small receptors.

“Hi, girls.” She smiled at us and dabbed her eyes with a neatly folded Kleenex. “Y’all look beautiful.”

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked her.

“I’m fine. I’m just”—she sniffled daintily—“so happy. I’ve waited for this day for so long, and I’m just so happy.”

The woman doing her makeup rolled her eyes. “Lorna, honey, waterproof mascara can only do so much. You’ve got to stop crying.”

“I know.” She sniffled again, reaching out to take my hand and Ashley’s. “I want you girls to know how much I love your father. I’m going to make him just as happy as I can, and I’m so glad we’re all going to be a family.”

“We’re very happy for you,” Ashley said, speaking for both of us, which she often did when Lorna was concerned.

Lorna was tearing up again when a man in a suit came in through another door and whispered, “Ten minutes,” then flashed the thumbs-up sign as if we were about to go out and play the Big Game.

“Ten minutes,” Lorna said, her hand fluttering out of mine and to her face, dabbing her eyes. The makeup woman spun her back around in the chair and moved in with the powder puff. “My God, it’s actually happening.”

Ashley reached into her purse and pulled out a lipstick. “Do like this,” she said to me, pursing her lips. I did, and she put some on me, smoothing it across with a finger. “It’s not really your color, but it’ll do.”

I stood there while she added some more eye shadow and blush to my face, all the while looking at me through half-shut eyes, practicing her craft, her face very close to mine. This was the Ashley I remembered from my childhood, when the five-year gap didn’t seem that large and we set up our Barbie worlds in the driveway every day after school, my Ken fraternizing with her Skipper. This was the Ashley who painted my nails at the kitchen table during long summers, the back door swinging in the breeze and the radio on. This was the Ashley who came into my room late one night after breaking up with Robert Losard and sat on the edge of my bed crying until I wrapped my arms awkwardly around her and smoothed her hair, trying to understand the words she was saying. This was the Ashley who had climbed out on the roof with me all those nights in the first few months of the divorce and told me how much she missed my father. This was the Ashley I loved, away from Lewis’s clinging hands and the wedding plans and the five-year-wide impasse that neither of us could cross.

“There.” She capped the lipstick and dumped all the makeup back in her purse. “Now just don’t cry too much and you’ll be fine.”

“I won’t cry,” I said, and suddenly aware of Lorna looking at us behind her in the mirror, I added, “I never cry at weddings.”

“Oh, I do,” Lorna said. “There’s something about a wedding, something so perfect and so sad, all at the same time. I bawl at weddings.”

“You better not be bawling out there.” The makeup lady dabbed with the powder puff. “If this stuff doesn’t hold up you’ll look a mess.”

The door opened and a woman in a dress the same shade as ours but without the long flowing skirt came in, carrying a big box of flowers. “Helen!” Lorna said, tearing up again. “You look lovely.”

Helen was obviously Lorna’s sister, seeing as how she also had those tiny little seashell ears. I figured it had to be more than coincidence. They hugged and Helen turned towards us, clasping her hands together. “This must be Ashley and Haven. Lorna said you were tall.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek, then Ashley’s. “And I hear congratulations are in order for you. When’s the big day?”

“August nineteenth,” Ashley said. It was the million-dollar question.

“My, that’s soon! Are you getting nervous?”

“No, not really,” Ashley said. “I’m just ready to get it all over with.”