I sit at the vanity in our bedroom, staring at myself in the mirror. Half a dozen people have been scampering around me for hours. Massaging my face with oils. Soaking my feet in warm water. Filing my heels and soles. Painting my nails the subtlest of nudes. My hair has been washed and dried and straightened and curled and pinned up and let down. My face has been peeled and ice rolled and moisturized and masked and unmasked.
I’ve stood in the center of the room on a life-sized lazy Susan pedestal, completely naked while a petite blonde slipped my dress onto my body, spinning me in circles as she sewed the final seams and buttoned the last buttons.
And now I’m sitting here, looking at myself, finally alone.
I’m different now than I used to be—I’ve gotten older and have begun covering up the first sign of worry wrinkles, just like every other twenty-nine-year-old. I am tanned and I have fake lashes and makeup made to look like I’m not wearing any, merely just glowing in the light of the sun. I’m a different person. I’m not really a person at all.
I’m a doll. I’ve spent the last five years embedded into a plan that forced me to change everything about myself—my name, the way I look, the clothes I wear, the words I choose to use. And now that it’s almost over—now that I can be free—I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I am without this. I hardly feel like my real name.
“Eliza?” There’s a knock on the door and I call them to come in.
Sarah Keens’s head pops through the gap, smiling at me like a child successfully walking in on her mother getting ready for something special. “Can I come in?” she asks, as if half her body hadn’t already entered.
“Of course.” I wave her farther into the room, and she shuts the door silently behind her. “Here, take a seat.”
She lowers onto the edge of the bed, and I spin in my vanity chair to face her.
“You look incredible,” she says, an obligatory compliment I’ve heard so many times this weekend it had started voiding itself.
“There’s been a slight change of plans I wanted to make you and your photographer aware of,” I begin. “We’re doing a slideshow for our guests as they arrive—just a couple photos of us throughout the years... I’m sure you’ve seen this before, I don’t have to tell you.” She nods pleasantly. “It might be nice to get a few photos of that for your article—of Vermont’s elite blushing over how cute we are.” I add a laugh at the end, like I was in on the joke of how silly that sounded. “That will happen just before the first look. I’m actually seeing Graham’s brother before Graham, to make sure that’s all sorted out. It’s always risky to put brothers-in-law in charge.”
We laugh together like lifelong girlfriends.
“We’ve also added a slightly modified first look. Instead of just Graham and me, we’re going to include his whole family and my maid of honor, Lena.”
“Oh, interesting. What made you decide that?”
I shook my head. “You know, we just figured there are so many people here—so many friends of Mr. Walker and the family, that we really wanted a more intimate, private moment. Everyone else can see me for the first time when I’m walking down that long aisle,” I said, knowing—and grateful—that we’d never get that far.
“This is all so great to know. I promise we’ll make ourselves scarce. You’ll never know there’s anyone but family there.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “I think there’s a good chance you’ll get your cover shot then.”
A very good chance.