| |
TURNING FROM LIZ, I faced the stairs looming before me. Part of me could see Elizabeth as the dragon protecting the stairs, but another part made me wonder if maybe she wasn’t the knight of the story. Or knightress. She didn’t want me to go upstairs because, once I was up there, I would be chained forever to a life of...
I shook my head. Enough with the fatalistic commentary. I couldn’t blame anyone else for the decisions in my life. I made them. Just like I had to climb those stairs to get ready to come down again.
Gripping the railing, I forced my leaden feet to carry me up and up. The stairs climbed up in a circle, lining the wall of the tower. When I was little, I had never understood why they made the brides go upstairs, until I saw a bride walking down. As her dress had slowly come into view, one step at a time, the photographer had snapped pictures like crazy. I had wanted to take those pictures - to catch the light as it drifted through the stained-glass, splashing a myriad of colors across the white fabric.
But today, it would be me, and I didn’t want any colors splashed on the white dress. Maybe clouds would pass, and I wouldn’t have to face those hope-inspiring pictures for something I knew that was doomed for failure.
My parents waited in the foyer. My father’s balding head nodded in agreement to something Mrs. Burton said. The sight of my mother’s curls pushed me up the stairs. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to see any of them. Hopefully, the veil they’d picked out for me would hide me from the world and protect me from view.
I pushed into the room at the top of the tower. Mirrors covered one side and my dress, covered in plastic, hung from a fabric hanger on a hook above the mirror. There was a stool set up so I could do my makeup, but I couldn’t take my eyes off that dress. I slowly sank onto the stool, lifting my feet to shove onto the lowest rung.
Even the dress was wrong. Everything about it was wrong. I had asked for an A-line skirt and she’d given me a baby doll style dress with an empire waist and a long flowing skirt.
One thing I loved about myself was my hips. I had the shape of a woman, and I didn’t hide it. My mother constantly tried to push me into this waifish figure that I would never be. Something she would never be either. I got my curves from her side, and she liked to eat. Not saying she was fat, just neither of us was never going to fit into those dresses that she wanted us to look good in.
Yet there the dress was, staring at me. I was not a Jane Austen fan, and yet my mother wanted me to be a figure from one of her books. A paper with a picture of hair pulled back with ringlets had been taped to the mirror beside the curling iron and hairspray.
I liked my hair long and flowing. My mother preferred it up. There she was, always restraining me. Suffocation would probably be the way I would die.
Fatigue slumped my shoulders. I didn’t want to get dressed. I didn’t want to get married. I wanted to go back to bed. A life with Larry would be a life full of expectation that I’d never be able to match. It would be a life of sadness.
The phone buzzed again at my hip. I pulled it out, my jaw clenched. If it was my mother, so help her...
But it was Elizabeth. She spoke in a hurried whisper. “There’s a package under the bed. You have fifteen minutes to change your mind. The taxi will leave then. Take a chance on something else. I promise you’ll be happier.”
I shook my head softly. She was my best friend, and it was her goal in life to fix everything. I guess as a handy woman it was part of the job, but her clients paid her to fix cabinets and remodel breakfast nooks.
She couldn’t fix my life.
To stay away from that dress, even if it was only for a few more minutes, I went to the bed to check for the box. Plus, I’ll admit curiosity was definitely something in my corner.
The box was unobtrusive and didn’t stand out very much. It was just a white dress box that was easy to lift and put on top of the bed. I’m not sure why there was a bed clear up in that tower, but I envied any brides that had the opportunity to sleep on their wedding day.
I lifted the lid and stared, confusion twisting my lips.
White tissue paper neatly lined the box. On top of the tissue paper to the left was a dry erase board with a red arrow that pointed towards the door. I glanced in the direction it pointed and noticed my honeymoon luggage. But there were two extra bags with the ones I had packed – my camera bag with my tripod attached to it, and a bag that looked like it held a bunch of shoes.
A brand-new tablet with a yellow Post-it stuck to the front sat in the middle of the box. The post-it read, “Turn on and swipe.”
One thing I could do was follow directions. A site had been left open called ClickandWed.com. It wasn’t open to the home screen, though. It was open to a man’s profile. Bright green numbers next to his picture read ninety-eight percent with small letters underneath which said compatible.
The man’s name was Jeremy Akers and his smile could make a cloud lose its water.
In very easy to read black font, the site told me to click I do, if I wanted to continue.
Was it some kind of a dating site? I was getting married. That wasn’t funny. Plus, Liz knew I had a horrible fear of rejection. Something like an online dating site took my fear in a small town with a population of about two-thousand and put it on a global scale with a population of about seven-billion.
There was a slight difference.
The Post-it read, “Click I do. Do something your parents didn’t tell you to.”
My phone buzzed in my hand, and I jumped.
A text from my mother. “Hurry up.”
What did it mean, though, if I clicked I do? Would I go on a date and still be stuck there? The site was indicative of a wedding site. I would be marrying him. That’s what it looked like. How would that help to go from marrying one man to another?
A huge plus would be it wasn’t Larry. An even bigger plus would be that I wasn’t doing what my parents wanted me to do.
His profile said he lived in Washington. I wouldn’t be in Arkansas for when the crap hit the fan.
My phone buzzed again in my hand and I glanced at it. “Five minutes left. What are you going to do?” Elizabeth had a way of pointing out the obvious.
