She poked me on purpose with a pin. “Very funny. I suppose like everyone else in your country, you speak just the one language? And for record, ‘nyet’ doesn’t mean nine in Russian.”
“…it sounds like it should.”
“I know.” She patted down the fabric distractedly. “I know.”
“How’s everything going in here?” Amanda bounced into the room with a delighted smile on her face. Instead of remaining by my side—a loyal, disinterested friend—she’d completely turned and hopped on my mom’s bandwagon. Suddenly, this wedding was the most exciting thing in the world to her.
“It goes,” Tatiana murmured, keeping her dilated eyes fixed on a misbehaving hemline. “It might go a lot faster if I was allowed to sew your friend’s mouth shut—just until the big day, of course.”
Amanda nodded seriously. “A lot of people have had that idea. Bex tends to evade them.”
“What have you been up to?” I asked, deflecting the potentially dangerous conversation.
“Just got fitted next door for my dress for the rehearsal party.” She held up a picture on her phone with a bubbling smile. “Look!”
In the sudden rush to get to the altar, we’d decided to save time by combining our engagement party with my bridal shower with our rehearsal dinner. Of course, Billings wanted to keep all three parties separate to capitalize on as much public revelry as possible, but on this point, both Marcus and I had put our foot down. We understood that to a certain extent, this wedding was going to be a social event—the size of the guest list reflected that—but we weren’t going to put on a spectacle just for the sake of it. The wedding was in four days; there would be just one party in between. And while the party was piggybacking onto what would traditionally be the rehearsal dinner, we’d also been able to ensure that the rehearsal itself would be just friends and family—the wedding party. The huge soiree would commence afterward.
And on that note…I still had some preparations to take care of myself.
“Actually.” I stepped off the fitting platform with a small frown. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Amanda’s face fell as she followed me out to the Champagne room, and she clutched her phone tightly against her chest. When I turned around to speak, she was ready for me.
“Okay, you hate it. Bex, I know it’s white—but it’s just the rehearsal dinner. I’m allowed to wear white just to the rehearsal dinner!”
It took me a minute to understand she thought this was about the dress she’d just shown me. “Oh…Mandi, no—”
“And I wasn’t planning on white to begin with, but did you see the thing?!” She stuck the picture in my face again. “How the hell is Barry going to be able to resist me in that ridiculous neckline? More like a naval line when you think about it.”
I fought back a smile. “Mandi, take a breath.”
“What!” Her face flushed in distress. “Do you never want me to have sex again?! Is that what this is about? Fine—forget the dress. I’ll just wear the fluffy purple one.”
“Will you be my maid of honor?” I asked.
She stopped mid-sentence and slowly lowered down off her toes. For a second, her eyes went wide and she just stared at me.
I bit my lip, nervous that she was angry with me for putting it off so long. It certainly hadn’t been my intention. Like I said—weddings were not my thing. And between trying to get “the wedding of the century” planned with four separate coordinators, Billings, and my mother, a few obvious things had somehow slipped through the cracks. I’d just assumed that Amanda would be standing up there with me. But when I woke up this morning, I realized I’d never officially asked her.
When a full minute passed, and she still hadn’t said anything, I tried again. “Are you okay? Look, don’t be mad, all right? I thought it was so obvious that I didn’t even think to make it official. But this morning, after I chased away that Ukrainian lady trying measure Marcus’s inseam, I realized that—”
“Yeeeeeeep!”
I blinked. It wasn’t a human sound. To be honest, I didn’t understand how it physically came from my friend.
“Maybe I should get you some more Champagne.” I turned to find a waiter—or at the least, a witness—but her hands shot out and stopped me.
“You’re asking me to be your maid of honor?”
She over-stressed the words in a really gooey way, and I rolled my eyes. “Amanda, of course you’d be my maid of honor. Who else would it possibly be?”
“Ah!” She jumped up and down, clapping her hands. “Wait—no! Ask me again!”
I shook my head with a smile. “Will you be my—”
“Wait—hold my purse.” She thrust it into my hands and straightened out her hair like she was getting ready for an Olympic dive or something. “Okay…I’m ready.”
“…are you serious?”