“Don’t spell shit out this early in the morning, Lina. I can’t deal.”
I purse my lips at her. It’s eleven o’clock. “Pockets, bitch. Pockets.”
“Ooh, ooh,” Jaslene says, waving her hand. “I need that on a dress. With. Pockets.”
Natalia rolls her eyes and spins to face the mirror. Letting out a long-suffering sigh, she cocks her head to the side and studies her reflection. “Marcelo will be crushed, and I’d hate to hurt his feelings. He’s offering this to me for free. Just a slight alteration here and there and we’d be done.”
I stand and rest my chin on her shoulder. “This is your and Paolo’s wedding, not Marcelo’s. Do you love it?”
“No,” Natalia admits, returning my gaze through the mirror. “I actually dislike it very much.”
“And is that how you want to remember your wedding day?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, you’re right. And a jumpsuit would look badass. Totally in keeping with my personality. Plus, this might be the only time when a jumpsuit would be easier than a wedding dress to manage during a bathroom break.” She widens her eyes, and I see the first glimmer of excitement in them. “I’d be able to dance at the reception with no problem. Oh, I could use the Rainha da Bateria outfits at Carnaval as inspiration.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” I tell her. “You cannot have your ass out at the wedding.”
Thanks to the Dominican stylist who presses it each week, Jaslene’s shoulder-length hair swings through the air as she claps excitedly. “Purple assless chaps and a humongous headpiece would be perfect. You’d be channeling Prince and Carnaval.”
“Yes,” Natalia says, pumping her fists. She looks at me. “See? Jaslene gets it. That way, I could pay homage to my dual citizenship.”
“No,” I say. “I’m pretty sure that would violate the wedding venue’s health code.”
Natalia scoffs at me. “Whatever. My ass would get an A grade from any health inspector.”
Lord. If any bride needs to be reined in, it’s this one. Left to her own devices, she’d hire an entire samba school to precede her down the aisle—drummers, dancers, floats, and all. Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t put it past her to plan something like that as a surprise. I need to keep her on task. “Take a look online in the next day or two and see if anything catches your eye. I can make some inquiries at other bridal shops around town. There’s a reason you’re five weeks away from your wedding and you haven’t committed to a dress. It’s time to think outside the box.”
She nods thoughtfully. “Okay, you’ve persuaded me. I’ll look first thing when I get home tonight.” As Jaslene and I gather the accessories Natalia tried on, my cousin deals with the delicate task of removing the dress.
“Need help in there?” I ask.
“I think I got it,” she says through the louvered double door. “The zipper stitched in underneath the row of buttons is genius. I’d stab someone with a stiletto if I had to wrestle with these tiny buttons the morning of my wedding.”
Jaslene and I shake our heads, knowing Natalia’s only slightly exaggerating.
“Natalia, you can’t use your wedding as an excuse for everything,” I say. “Everyone knows you’d stab someone with a stiletto simply for existing.”
“Exactly,” she says from the changing room. “That’s why I’ve always hated the term bridezilla. For one thing, it’s sexist. Women under immense pressure who speak up for what they want? Monsters. But also, it erases part of my identity. My true friends know I’m like this all the time.”
Even though Natalia can’t see her, Jaslene hides her mouth and whispers to me, “It’s true.”
“So, your mom told my mom that you’re interviewing for a major position,” Natalia says. “What’s that about? And why didn’t you tell me?”
To be honest, I didn’t tell Natalia because she’s going to flip and I don’t want her to try to dissuade me. Not until it’s too late to be dissuaded, at least. I’m not sure what she’d do if she ever saw Andrew or Max again, but I suspect at some point the cops would be called.
“You still there?” Natalia asks.
“Yeah, I’m here. So the position could be a stellar opportunity. I’d be the wedding coordinator for the Cartwright Hotel Group.”
“Holy shit, Lina,” she says, opening the door and sticking her head out. “That’s fantastic. Congratulations.”
“I don’t have the job yet,” I say as I stack several shoeboxes on an accent table. “The interview process is involved.”
She pulls an arm through the sleeve of her top and pauses. “How hard could it be, though?”
I make the mistake of letting her question go unanswered a few seconds too long.
She glances at Jaslene’s face, then scans me from head to toe. “What aren’t you telling me, prima? There’s a catch, isn’t there?”
When she retreats inside the dressing room, I exhale and silently thank the Lord for the breather. It’ll be easier to disclose this if she’s not staring me down. My explanation comes out in a rush, Andrew’s and Max’s names dropped into the narrative like tiny breadcrumbs I’m hoping she doesn’t pick up. And when I’m done, the silence that follows surprises me. I look at Jaslene, who shakes out her hand as though I’m in trouble.
Before I can prod Natalia for a reaction, she bursts out of the dressing room like an Old West gunslinger making her presence known in the local saloon. “Tell me you’re going to make their lives a living hell.”
If the way people emoted were reflected on a scale of one to ten, most days, I’d be a three—four, tops. Jaslene’s a solid seven with level ten potential when she’s tipsy, an altered state that’s a thing to behold if you’re lucky enough to catch her in it. Natalia’s a ten—seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. And the easiest way to defuse my cousin’s outbursts is to speak in soft tones. It’s like calming a skittish horse. Just call me the Natalia Whisperer. “I hadn’t planned on exacting any retribution, no. I told Andrew he needs to steer clear of me, and even though Max and I are supposed to work together, I intend to handle the pitch myself. I mean, isn’t that what I already do for my own business?”
Natalia reaches behind her to grab the dress, which is now safely back in its garment bag, and hands it to me. “The universe is giving you the chance to right a few wrongs. Why on earth won’t you take it?”
Because I’m above such pettiness, that’s why. Or, more accurately, because I’m not well-versed in the art of pettiness and would never be able to do the discipline the justice it deserves. Plus, harping on old news suggests it has power over me, and it doesn’t. I don’t like Andrew and Max. I don’t want to work with them, either. But that doesn’t give me license to torture them. “Ladies, don’t think I haven’t imagined ways of luring Andrew into my very own Red Room of Unpleasant Pain, but when all is said and done, I’m a professional facing a threat to her business. Either I get this job or find an alternative location. And I only have five weeks. That must be my priority. Anything else is a distraction I don’t need.”