Ava smiles. She’s radiant, filled with pure light and joy.
I wonder what it feels like.
“Now act natural!” the photographer calls, and I have no idea how to do that so I just move around some.
“Delilah, it’ll be fine,” Ava tells me, laughing. “I believe in you.”
“Jumping photo is next,” calls the photog. “The key to getting a good one is for everyone to jump at the exact same time, and remember to smile! We’ll need a few takes, so get ready.”
The things I do for my little sister.
The photographer counts down from three. I jump — in heels, on cobblestones, wearing a strapless bra contraption — and I don’t die.
Then we do it again. And again. I remember to smile. We’re advised to really throw our hands up and kick our feet out, and by God, I try. I’m pretty sure that I look completely insane and probably like a baby camel on a trampoline, but I try.
It takes two jumps for my undergarments to start shifting. I try to discreetly adjust them under my cape, but it doesn’t work.
After three jumps, I’m in trouble.
After four, I feel the unmistakable sensation of lace on my left nipple. That can mean only one thing: my nipple has been freed.
After six, my right nipple joins its partner. Thank God for this cape.
After eight jumps, we get to stop. The other bridesmaids are all laughing with each other, still looking perfectly put together, as though they frequently do jumping jacks in strapless bras and simply don’t see the issue.
“All right, can I have the groomsmen over here?” the photographer calls, and I’m free.
Just like my nipples.
I hold my cape tightly closed and make my way to the edge of the group, subtly trying to pull everything back into place, but it’s not really working. I swear this bra has somehow turned itself inside out and upside down.
After a moment, my sister Winona sidles over to me.
“You need some help?” she asks.
I make a face and wriggle. She laughs.
“My boobs made a run for it,” I mutter. “I have time to go to the bathroom, right?”
Winona grimaces and glances over at the photographer. Sunset is minutes away, and according to the Official Photography Plan, we’re doing the big group shots then.
“Here,” she says, and nods at the side of the manor house. “Come on. Callum just peed in a bush over here, you’ll be hidden.”
I let her guide me and don’t point out that Callum is a toddler, I’m a full-grown woman, and we have different expectations of privacy.
Pinehall Manor was built in the 1890s as a mountain getaway for some Yankee industrialist with a serious hard-on for the antebellum South. It’s huge and white, brick walkways extending from every side like it’s the center of a compass rose, a wraparound porch on each of two stories.
Winona leads me onto the lower porch, around a corner, our shoes louder on the wooden surface than on the brick. I glance into one gauzily-curtained window, but the guests’ cocktail hour is on the second floor, not the first, so there’s no one inside.
“Okay,” she says. “Lift up your cape and use it like you’re at the beach changing into your swimsuit. I’m gonna undo you back here.”
There’s a brief rush of cold air as she lifts the back of my cape and gets to work. For reasons I’ll never understand, this dress has a long series of tiny buttons that start at the waist and go all the way to the nape of the neck.
To be honest, there’s a lot about this dress I wouldn’t have chosen. It’s pink, which I don’t love. It’s got a plunging, low-backed strapless bodice with a long-sleeved lace overlay, which made finding a bra feel like the quest for the Holy Grail.
When I finally found The One, I was this close to just duct-taping my boobs and hoping it worked. Now, I kind of wish I had.
The skirt is long, flowy, A-line, and has pockets, making it the best part of my entire outfit. Well, the skirt and the cape, which does make me feel a little like a Russian empress.
“There,” Winona says, and I start wriggling out of the top of the dress, cape still over my shoulders. “You fix yourself, I’ll stand guard.”
“Thanks,” I say, already heaving at the bra, which isn’t just any bra. It’s more like a bra-and-corset combo that goes down to my sternum in the front but, through some miracle of engineering, still holds both boobs in place while also fastening low enough in the back that it’s invisible.
There’s lots of padding, elastic, and wires, and God knows what else. Truly, a wonder garment.
I straighten, adjust, and wriggle. I glance around and then bend over, tugging at the thing with both hands, letting gravity do some of the work. When I’m upright again, Winona grabs the back and together we tug while I hop, both of us grunting slightly.