The wedding dress poured over her in a bath of cool satin and fine lace. Slipping her arms through the sleeves, Gentry drew the bodice in around her in a close and perfect fit, and then, one by one, she touched each button, nudging each into its corresponding loop. She didn’t look at the mirror, wasn’t even tempted to turn and see if Sonny might be hovering like a shadow waiting to appear in the reflection with her.
“Gen?” Sydney tapped on the dressing-room door. “Need any help?”
“I can manage, thanks. Is he here yet?”
“I don’t know. Heather?” Syd’s voice faded as it was directed away from the door. “Any sign of them yet?”
Heather’s reply was too muffled to distinguish inside the dressing room, but then Sydney’s voice returned, happy and excited. “Not yet, but he should be here any minute now. You sure you don’t want some help getting into that dress? I could get a shoehorn and wedge you into those sequins in nothing flat.”
“I’m already in my dress,” Gentry called. “Be out in a minute.”
There was a quiet rustle of silk as Sydney moved away from the other side of the door and the murmur of voices as she spoke to Heather and was answered. Gentry smiled a little at the thought of how many times she had planned this day.
Her wedding day.
She and Syd and Hil and Heather had gathered in her bedroom dozens of times over the years to plan their weddings, dreaming about what they’d wear, what everyone else would wear, what colors they’d choose, what music would be played, the candles, the flowers—even the vows were subject to change. They had imagined all the little details…except the groom. In their make-believe “at my wedding, I’m going to have…” he was a stick figure in a tux of whatever color they liked at the time. He didn’t get to speak or do anything but wait for her at the end of the aisle. Gentry had always felt he should look like Barbie’s Ken…tall, handsome, smiling and plastic. The perfect man.
She fastened the last button—they were all in order, not a missing one among them—and fluffed the satin skirt. When she turned to check her appearance in the mirror, she didn’t look for misty images or allow herself to remember Jake’s wonderfully roguish grin looking at her, eager to make contact. Her cheeks were a little flushed…either with excitement or the memory of how easily she had accepted the idea that his would be the face she saw…if there was such a thing as a magic wedding gown.
Which, of course, there wasn’t.
“Gentry?” It was her mother’s voice, her mother’s quick tap on the door, and then Frannie entered. “Oh…” The clasp of hands, the instant tightness of lips, the shimmer of tears in green eyes just like Gentry’s own, made the ageless connection between mother and daughter. “You look…lovely.”
With a smile, Gentry invited her mother into the dressing room and got ready for an adjustment. She stood patiently, facing the mirror as Frannie adjusted the fit of the wedding gown, the drape of the veil, an uncooperative strand of hair, a smudge of makeup, a smudge on the mirror, her own dress, hair, hat, shoes. Somewhere there was probably a mother’s handbook in which the rules were laid out so that the ritual of adjustment could be completed. Frannie finished in record time, her anxious energy turning to the arriving guests, locating the photographer, checking on the caterer and the florist, keeping Pop from rearranging the seating, and all the other details that would take her through this ceremonial rite of passage.
Gentry breathed a sigh of relief when her mother left, and with a passing glance at her reflection, she opened the dressing-room door. Her bridesmaids were gathered by the window in a huddle of rose petal pink and curiosity as they watched the arrival of guests and activity going on outside.
“Gentry!” Heather saw her first and her brown eyes widened with pleased surprise. “Oh, I’m so glad you decided to wear that dress.”
Hillary turned, affection shining in her blue eyes. “You look beautiful, Gen,” she said.
Sydney scanned her from head to toe and nodded. “Wise choice. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining why I allowed you to get married in a sequined Slinky.”
“I changed my mind,” Gentry said. “I knew Pop would be happy if I wore this dress, and as Ben pointed out, it isn’t every bride who has a million-dollar wedding gown.”
“You changed your mind.” Sydney shook her head in surprise and repeated, “You changed your mind. We have spent this entire week trying to get you into that wedding gown. We ruined your pearl gray dress—”
“No great loss to the world of fashion,” Hillary commented with a sorry-but-it’s-the-truth shrug.
“We locked you in a room with nothing else to put on. We tried bribes, coercion and finally took poor Sonny hostage—”
“At considerable expense of my time and pocketbook,” Hillary pointed out.
“Promising to return him only when we had a picture of you in the dress. Throughout you were your normal, stubborn self, not willing to bend an inch or cooperate with your devoted friends in any way, shape or form. And today, you just changed your mind.”
Gentry smiled. “I’m the bride. I can do that.”
“If we’d known you’d decide to wear this dress, we wouldn’t have had to take the other one to the—Ow!” Heather stopped to rub the arm Hillary had just pinched. “She would have found out what we did, anyway.”
Hillary sighed. “We took the other wedding dress to the cleaners…and it, unfortunately, shrank a little.”
“Just enough to keep me from wearing it?” Gentry asked, loving the idea that her friends would go to such lengths to save her from what they considered a serious fashion mistake. “Lucky for you I decided on this one. Otherwise, you’d be spooning me into the sequined creation with Sydney’s shoehorn.”
“You look just beautiful in that, Gentry. I’ve never seen you in anything else so becoming.” Heather came closer to admire her. “And it fits you like it was made exactly to your measurements.” She glanced at Hillary. “It’s a good thing you didn’t put it on, Hil. It wouldn’t have fit you at all.”
Hillary turned—too quickly—to the window. “Look, there’s Lucy Pendrax. Would you look at the belly on her? She must be having triplets.”
“Let me see!” Heather ran to join Hillary in the window, her rose petal bridesmaid’s dress hitching up in back as she kneeled on the window seat.
Gentry’s gaze cut to Sydney’s, sharing a common concern for Hillary. Ever since the day she’d held the dress against her and looked in the mirror, she had been jumpy, nervous, given to lapses in attention and wistful sadness. Even the two-day kidnapping stunt hadn’t helped. She’d been the designated kidnapper and had, insanely, coerced Sonny into a round-trip to Paris, just to introduce him to the “best cup of cappuccino in the world”—his words, not hers. Gentry still couldn’t believe Sonny had gotten on the Concorde with her, spending the better part of forty-eight hours en route to and from a coffee bar. Sonny had had nothing but good things to say about his time as a hostage. He had nothing but praise for the coffee bar…and Paris. He was thrilled that, finally, her friends liked him.
Sydney lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug, as if to say, Whatever’s wrong with Hil, she knows we’re here. She’ll let us know when she’s ready. Gentry nodded, hoping that was true.
“The bridegroom has arrived. Oh, there’s Mitch!” Heather squealed the words, almost bouncing up and down in her excitement. “Hi, Mitch!” she called, although he couldn’t possibly hear her. “He’s getting out of the limo,” she reported. “The women are swooning because he’s so handsome. They’re crowding around him, screaming for his attention. But he isn’t interested. He’s looking around for his one true love.” She glanced over her shoulder at Gentry and Syd. “That’s me.”
“Oh, look,” Hillary said dryly. “He’s grabbing that blonde. Now he’s tossed her over his shoulder and he’s beating his chest like Tarzan….”
“Shut up, Hillary.” Heather returned to the window with a complacent sigh. “You’re just making that up.”
Gentry laughed and put her hand on the door frame. Looking into the bedroom, she wondered when the four of them would be like this again, if it would ever, really, be like this again, if perhaps it shouldn’t be. Their friendship had changed before. It would change again. She was going to go forward and the first step was through this doorway. Bracing herself for resistance, she stepped forward. No unseen hand pushed her back. No force pulled her from behind. The dress moved with her like a childhood lullaby, softly sweeping the floor in a low rustle of sound.
So whatever had happened to her the other day had been a psychological thing, a resistance to entering the room where Sonny waited, when Jake was there in the room behind her. It wasn’t so strange, she told herself. Jake wasn’t here now to hold her back.
The bedroom door opened and the ever-smiling wedding coordinator looked in. “The photographer is on his way up,” she said. “Everybody ready?”
From that moment on, Gentry was surrounded with wedding traditions. Posing for pictures, receiving wishes from friends and relatives who “couldn’t wait to get a peek at the bride.” Ben and Sara, newly returned from their honeymoon, came in to say hello and offer best wishes, but there was no chance for private conversation, no opportunity to ask them if the dress was really magic, to discover if it had worked that magic on them. As if their obvious joy in each other could be called anything else.
Pop came and went, had his picture taken, left with the photographer, returned some time later, realized the photographer had missed the traditional shot where Pop dropped a penny in her shoe for good luck, and hurried off to find the poor man and drag him and his equipment back upstairs again to get the picture. Frannie popped in twice…to make sure the girls were ready and didn’t need any motherly adjustments.
Gradually, music wafted up from below and wellwishers drifted down to take their seats, and the bedroom cleared of everyone except the bridal party. Then, suddenly, the coordinator was there, moving Heather and Hillary into the hall, reminding them to wait for her cue, telling Sydney to be ready, asking Pop to straighten his tie.
“You look beautiful, Gen,” Sydney said as she waited by the door. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Gentry nodded, feeling as though she were being pulled through a looking glass into a place she didn’t want to go. “Are you kidding?” she said. “This is it. The happily-ever-after we all dreamed about.”
Sydney’s gray eyes questioned her, but when she spoke it was only to say, “We didn’t really shrink the other dress. We just took in the seams a little.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Gentry said. “This dress is a better choice. I mean, who am I to argue with magic?”
The wedding coordinator waved Sydney into the hallway. Syd made her usual I-can’t-believe-I’mdoing-this face before she walked from the bedroom in a whisper of rose petal pink. Gentry decided it was true…pink really wasn’t her most flattering color.
POP, UNUSUALLY QUIET, waited for Gentry at the top of the stairs and she slipped her arm into his. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Not you, too,” she said while the wedding march swelled around them and they waited for their cue. “Sydney just asked me the same thing.”
“Smart girl, that Sydney.”
Gentry nodded. “Yes, she knows when to keep her opinions to herself.”
“That’s her job as your friend. I’m your father. My job is to give you my opinion whether you asked for it or not.”
“Okay, Pop,” she said with a sigh. “Give it to me straight.”
“My opinion is, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You’re the very best parts of your mother and me put together, and from the minute you rushed into my world, screaming at the top of your lungs and threatening me with your little balled-up fists, I’ve been your most ardent fan.”
She had to blink back a mist of tears as she leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Thanks, Pop. I love you, too.”
He nodded and cleared his throat. “Now, you want my advice?”
“Sure.”
“When we get to the bottom of these stairs, I’m going to open the door and you run like hell.”
She laughed. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
At the base of the stairs, the wedding coordinator watched Sydney’s measured steps turn onto the satin material that marked the aisle leading through the house to the terrace and the flower-draped arbor where Sonny waited for his bride. Gentry looked down at the guests seated on either side of the aisle and then at the front door. The thought of running like hell was appealing. She could keep on running away, she supposed, every time she doubted her decisions, every time something didn’t feel quite right. She’d run away from her wedding, from her marriage, from the man she really loved. She’d run from the idea that love could hurt, could make her angry, could expect her to compromise, to change.
The music sounded a fanfare and Pop led her down the stairs. He paused when they reached the last step and asked her the question with his eyes. Do you really want to do this? they asked. There’s still time to run away.
The door looked tempting, but it was time she stopped running away and faced herself and her future. Marrying Sonny felt like a mistake, but she wasn’t going to leave him standing at the altar again, leave him to deal with the sympathetic pity of his family and friends, leave him feeling like he’d failed her, when all he’d ever done was try to be the man she wanted him to be. She met her father’s eyes and shook her head.
Then the aisle was before her, stretching through a sea of murky faces and happy expectations, and at the end Sonny waited, handsome, perfect, Barbie’s Ken doll in the flesh. Except he wasn’t smiling. She supposed if she had been the one jilted before, she’d be feeling a little nervous at this point, too.
Her grip on Pop’s arm clenched convulsively. “Pop,” she whispered. “What if I make him miserable?”
He patted her hand and whispered from the side of his mouth, “What do you mean, if?”
She pinched his arm and he winced…but never missed a step.
“Don’t worry, Gentry. There’s a good chance Sonny won’t notice how miserable he is.”
That was really encouraging. Here she was, walking down the aisle to her groom, thinking about his inevitable misery.
“Did you want to run away from your wedding?” she asked Pop.
“Yep. So did your mother.”
Okay, then, so this was normal anxiety. Wedding jitters. Sonny would smile any minute now and she’d be fine.
The aisle was getting shorter, the distance to her happily-ever-after diminishing. There was still no change in Sonny’s expression. Maybe when she got there, she’d find out he was Ken, that he really was made out of plastic.
“There’s still time,” Pop said. “I can have you out of here and on your way to Jake in a snap of my fingers.”
“I already made him miserable,” she said. “And he noticed.”
“Marriage is probably always going to be a roller coaster for you, sweetheart. Whether you’re on the kiddie ride with Sonny or the thrill-seeker with Jake.”
There were only a few more steps, only a few more yards of white satin aisle. “I failed at one marriage already. This one looks safer.”
“You didn’t fail, Gentry. You just quit trying.” Pop put his hand over hers and squeezed reassuringly.
And then, there was no place to run. The aisle ended with Sonny. She stood beside Pop, waiting for him to speak his lines about giving her away and then offering her hand to her bridegroom. Sonny still hadn’t smiled and Gentry began to feel nervous. The minister began the prepared ceremony. “Dearly beloved…” he began.
This was a bad idea, she thought. She didn’t want to marry Sonny. He was a perfectly nice man. But he didn’t deserve to be miserable. Only Jake deserved that kind of misery. So okay, what did she do? Turn around, tell a joke, say she’d just discovered she had made a terrible mistake. She looked at each of her bridesmaids in turn. They looked awful in pink. If she called this off now, they’d be the first in line to murder her.
So, she’d just say nothing and let the ceremony proceed as planned and then…Then she’d be married.
“If any man has cause why this man and this woman should not be united in Holy Matrimony…” the minister intoned.
Gentry swallowed nervously. She had cause. Good cause. The bride loved another man.
“Let him speak now or forever hold his piece.”
Forever was a hell of a long time. So Gentry opened her mouth to speak.
FROM THE BACK OF THE ROOM and through a rosy wash of color, Jake watched Gentry walk down the stairs with his heart in his throat. The million-dollar wedding dress seemed to be a living thing, full of warmth and life and sudden twinkles of light. Gentry had infused it with her energy and had been touched by its magic, and the resulting combination was enchanting. He had never seen her look so confident, so sure of who she was and where she was going.
He had never been so sure he was a fool for thinking he could stop her from making another mistake.
She passed the row in which he was sitting, incognito, wearing borrowed glasses with tinted lenses, an ill-fitting suit and a hairpiece the wig-shop owner had assured him made his full head of hair appear “magnifico.” He didn’t know what he was doing here, other than he had regretted walking away from her from the very minute he did it. In all the minutes since, he hadn’t been able to think of a single reason why he should have to be noble. He was miserable without her, and, damn it, she was miserable without him. And he knew without question that Sonny Harris was going to be miserable with her.
So here he was, watching her walk down the aisle through rose-colored glasses, desperate to stop her, and scared to death that if he did, she’d never forgive him.
“If any man has cause why this man and this woman should not be united in Holy Matrimony…” the minister intoned.
Jake took a deep breath of courage. He had cause. Good cause. The bride loved another man, who loved her with every beat of his not-so-noble heart.
“Let him speak now or forever hold his piece.”
Forever was a hell of a long time. So Jake stood up to speak.
“WAIT!”
Mouth open, the words ready to spill from her lips, Gentry almost choked as she realized the voice that had stopped the ceremony wasn’t hers. The solemn quiet changed into a low buzz of surprise as the guests shifted in their seats, exchanged puzzled looks with other guests and cast suspicious glances at the oddlooking man who had popped from their dignified midst like a broken spring and now stood in his place as the room settled into a collective hush.
Gentry heard the scrape of a chair and registered the intrusive noise. Her over-the-shoulder glance registered a familiar shape standing in the back of the room…a tall man with a rooster’s comb of dark hair and bad glasses…but she could only deal with one shock at a time.
“What did you say?” she asked Sonny.
“I said I can’t marry you, Gentry.”
“You can’t?” She had the strangest feeling, as if she were light enough to fly. “Or you don’t want to?”
“Would you like to speak to each other in private?” the minister whispered with an eye on the attentive guests.
“Shh,” Pop told him.
Sonny had lost his usual sheepish expression and he didn’t look away from her question. “Does it make any difference?” he said. “I’m sorry, Gentry. I thought it would be best not to make a scene, but as you were walking down that aisle, I knew I couldn’t marry you because…” He looked over at Hillary, standing as still as a statue, then took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Because I’ve fallen in love with somebody else.”
“What do you mean you’ve fallen in love with somebody else?”
Gentry and Sonny and Pop turned in unison to see who was yelling at them from the audience. They stared at the man as he lunged through the seated guests to reach the aisle.
“Who is that?” Sonny muttered
Pop squinted. “Elvis?”
“Jake,” Gentry said and laughed. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t ever ask me that again,” Jake said, walking purposefully toward the arbor. “Why would any man be here with you unless he was so besotted and so much in love with you he wasn’t able to think straight?”
She considered that possibility. “Well, Sonny’s here and he’s not in love with me.”
“I heard,” Jake said, a note of annoyance in his voice. “If it wasn’t to my advantage for you to be jilting my wife, Harris, I’d punch you in the nose right here and now.”
“Why are you wearing a wig?” Sonny asked.
“I was afraid if you found out I was here, you’d make a scene. So I wore a disguise.”
“Very clever, Jake.” Sydney gave him the A-OK sign with her thumb and forefinger. “Can I borrow the glasses?”
He pulled them off and tossed them to her. She dropped her maid-of-honor bouquet to catch them. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now, I’d like to make a suggestion, if no one objects.”
“I object,” said the minister.
“Save it for later,” Pop told him.
“I suggest that we take a thirty-minute break and then begin this wedding over again. Only this time I’ll be the bridegroom.”
“This is really very irregular,” the minister began.
“Shh!” the bridesmaids hissed.
“Gentry…” Jake turned to her and took her hands in his. “I made a big mistake the other night. I tried to be noble, to insist you make a choice instead of running away from your commitments.” His smile was confident, but wary, as if he weren’t at all sure of her response. “I really thought you’d come after me,” he said with a shrug, “and that we’d be able to stop this wedding before it reached this highly public arena. But once again, I underestimated your stubbornness. It won’t happen again.”
She could fly. She just knew it. “It will, too,” she said, putting her hand to his cheek and absorbing the miracle that had brought him here, the wonderful knowledge that he had come after her. Two years late, but he had finally come. “But probably not today.”
“Wait a minute,” Sonny said. “You’re not angry, Gentry, because I ruined the wedding? I figured you’d chew the scenery. Even though I knew deep down you’d be relieved.”
She smiled into Jake’s wonderful eyes. “I’m so glad you spoke when you did, Sonny. I was getting ready to say something when you said it first. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“As it turns out, my heart’s still beating.” His gaze slipped past Gentry and she followed it to see Hillary—perfect, proper Hillary—crooking her finger at Sonny like a vamp intent on his seduction.
“I’ve known this was a mistake almost from the day I persuaded you to take my engagement ring back. Not long after the day I intercepted a rather smelly package from Arkansas and substituted a good riddance card.”
“You swiped my trout?” Jake said incredulously. “If I wasn’t such a forgiving guy, I’d have your fishing license revoked.”
“I can’t believe you did that, Sonny.” Gentry wondered if she had ever really known him well at all. “Whatever possessed you to open a package addressed to me? And how could you have known it was from Jake, anyway?”
“I figured any communication from the Two-Penny Lodge was bad news for me.” His gaze tracked its way back to Hillary. “And since all’s fair in love and war, I did what seemed right at the time. I thought if we could do it again, plan the wedding again, get everything perfect…” He couldn’t quite pull his gaze back to Gentry, though he kept talking to her, even as he edged his way toward Hillary. “I guess perfect isn’t always possible.”
“Sometimes imperfect is a much better fit.” Uncaring of the watchful eyes of the audience, her family and friends, Sonny’s family and friends and cousins, Gentry went into Jake’s arms, pulled off the wig and tossed it in the air. Then she grabbed the back of his head and pulled his lips down to hers.
“Excuse me,” the minister said hesitantly. “The kissing is supposed to come after the ceremony.”
“Shh,” the audience said in a collective whisper.
Jake managed to pull free long enough to ask, “I take it, Liz, that you’re agreeable to my suggestion?”
“Not necessarily,” she said, eager to reclaim his lips. “I’m not sure I like the idea of a thirty-minute break.”
“I’m willing to compromise. We’ll make it fifteen.”
“Ten,” she corrected him against his lips.
“Okay, five.”
Pop turned around. “I think you should keep your seats for the moment. When the negotiations are over here, we’ll let you know what time this wedding will resume. In the meantime, enjoy the music….” He glanced behind him at the rather passionate clench involving his daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law again and shrugged. “Hell, you may as well enjoy the show, too.” He took the seat next to Frannie and slipped his arm around her shoulders.
A ray of sunlight caught on a button of Gentry’s dress and splintered into a dozen tiny sparks that scattered over the room like fairies on the loose, sprinkling their magic dust on Gentry and Jake…. Sonny and Hillary…Heather and Mitch…colliding at last to shower down on Sydney and her new, rose-colored glasses. A twinkle here. A twinkle there. Magic, magic, everywhere.