Mrs. Duvall gives me a lingering look and says, “Well, I’m sure there’ll be another one. A lot of people would kill to be in your spot, Lara Jean, but I’m sure you already know that.”
“I do,” I assure her, and then I scuttle off to meet Peter.
The estate sale turns out to be a bust—for me, anyway. Peter picks up the end tables, but I don’t see anything appropriate for an ethereal backyard wedding. There’s one chest of drawers that is a possibility, if I painted it, maybe, or stenciled some rosebuds on it, but it costs three hundred dollars, and I have a feeling Daddy and Trina would balk at the price. I take a picture of it just in case.
Peter and I go to a place I read about on the Internet called Croaker’s Spot, where we get fried fish and buttery cornbread dripping in sweet sauce. “Richmond’s cool,” he says, wiping sauce off his chin. “Too bad William and Mary isn’t in Richmond. It’s closer to UVA, too.”
“Just by thirty minutes,” I say. “Anyway I was thinking about it, and it won’t even be a full year until I’m at UVA.” I start counting the months off my fingers. “It’s really like nine months. And I’ll be home for winter break, and then we have spring break.”
“Exactly,” he says.
* * *
When I get home, it’s dark out, and Daddy, Trina, and Kitty are at the kitchen table finishing up dinner. Daddy starts to get up when I walk in. “Sit down, I’ll fix you a plate,” he says. With a wink he says, “Trina made her lemon chicken.”
Trina’s lemon chicken is just chicken breasts with lemon seasoning cooked in Pam, but it’s her specialty and it’s pretty good. Sliding into a seat, I say, “No thanks, I just ate a ton of food.”
“Did they serve dinner at the mixer?” Daddy asks, sitting back down. “How was it?”
“How did you know about the mixer?” I ask him, leaning down to pet Trina’s dog Simone, who followed me into the kitchen and is now sitting at my feet, hoping for a crumb.
“They sent an invitation in the mail. I put it on the fridge!”
“Oh, whoops. I didn’t go. I went to Richmond with Peter to look for a cake table for the wedding.”
Daddy frowns. “You went all the way to Richmond on a school night? For a cake table?”
Uh-oh. I quickly pull out my phone to show them. “It’s a little expensive, but we could have the drawers kind of half-open, bursting with roses. Even if we didn’t get this exact one, if you like it, I’m sure I could find something similar to it.”
Daddy leans in to look. “Drawers of roses bursting out? That sounds very expensive and not exactly ecologically responsible.”
“Well I suppose we could do daisies, but it doesn’t really have the same effect.” I cast a look over at Kitty before continuing. “I want to circle back on the bridesmaid dresses.”
“Wait a minute, I want to circle back on you skipping out on your college mixer to go to Richmond,” Daddy interjects.
“Don’t worry, Daddy, I’m sure there will be a million of them before fall,” I tell him. “Kitty, about the bridesmaid dresses—”
Without even looking up, Kitty says, “You just wear the nightgown outfit on your own.”
I choose to ignore the fact that she called it a nightgown outfit and say, “It won’t look right if it’s just me. The beauty of it is the set. All of us matching, very ethereal, like angels. Then it becomes a look, a moment. If I wear it on my own it won’t work. It needs to be all three of us.” I don’t know how many more times I have to say the word “ethereal” to make people understand what the vibe of this wedding is.
Kitty says, “If you want to be a set, you’re welcome to wear a tux too. I would be fine with that.”
I take a deep breath to keep from screaming at her. “Well, let’s just see what Margot says about all this.”
“Margot won’t care either way.”
Kitty gets up to put her plate in the sink, and when her back is turned, I raise my hands like I’m going to strangle her. “Saw that,” she says. I swear, she has eyes in the back of her head.
“Trina, what do you think?” I ask.
“Honestly, I could care less what you guys wear, but you’re going to have to run it by Margot and Kristen. They might have their own ideas.”
Delicately I say, “Just FYI, it’s ‘I couldn’t care less,’ not ‘I could care less.’ Because if you could, then you are technically caring.”
Trina rolls her eyes, and Kitty slides back into her chair and says, “Why are you like this, Lara Jean?”
I shove her in the side. To Trina I say, “Kristen is a grown woman, so I’m sure she’ll be fine with whatever us kids do. She’s an adult.”
Trina doesn’t look so sure. “She won’t want anything that shows her arms. She’ll try to convince you to put a matching cardigan on top.”
“Um, no.”
Trina puts her hands up. “You have to take it up with Kristen. Like I said, I could care less.” She crosses her eyes at me, and I laugh and so does Kitty.
“Wait a minute, can we talk more about this mixer you didn’t go to?” Daddy asks, his brow furrowed. “That sounded like a really nice event.”
“I’ll go to the next one,” I promise him. Of course, I don’t mean it.
There’s no point in me going to mixers and getting attached to people when I’m only going to be there nine months.
* * *
After I make myself a bowl of ice cream, I go upstairs and text Margot to see if she is awake. She is, so I immediately call her to shore up support on the dress situation, and Kitty’s right—Margot doesn’t care either way.
“I’ll do whatever you guys want to do,” she says.
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for people who maintain neutrality in times of crisis,” I say, licking my spoon.
She laughs. “I thought the hottest places in hell were reserved for women who don’t help other women.”
“Well, I suppose hell has a lot of rooms. Honestly, don’t you think Kitty will look silly in a tuxedo? It’s a backyard wedding. The feel is supposed to be ethereal!”
“I don’t think she’ll look any sillier than you’ll look in a flower crown all by yourself. Just let her wear it, and you wear your flower crown, and I’ll be neutral. Honestly, I don’t even see the point in me being a bridesmaid when Ms. Rothschild and I barely know each other. I mean, I know she’s doing it to be nice, but it’s so not necessary. It’s all a bit much.”
Now I’m regretting stirring the waters and pushing the whole tuxedo-versus-flower-crown issue. The last thing I want is for Margot to get any ideas about dropping out of the wedding. She’s lukewarm on Trina at best. Hastily I say, “Well, we don’t have to wear flower crowns. You and I could wear plain dresses and Kitty could wear her tux, and that would look fine.”
“How was that William and Mary mixer today? Did you meet any cool people?”
“How does everybody but me know about the mixer!”
“It was on the fridge.”
“Oh. I didn’t go.”