There’s lots of padding, elastic, and wires, and God knows what else. Truly, a wonder garment.
I straighten, adjust, and wriggle. I glance around and then bend over, tugging at the thing with both hands, letting gravity do some of the work. When I’m upright again, Winona grabs the back and together we tug while I hop, both of us grunting slightly.
At last, it’s back in place. I shimmy slightly, double-checking my boob security, but all seems well as long as I don’t have to leap in the air again.
“Ready,” I say, pulling the cape up.
“Gotcha,” she says, and begins buttoning.
After a few, she sighs.
“Can you take the cape off for a sec?” she asks. “These buttons are an absolute bear to do up and I can’t see. I don’t know why Ava picked this dress.”
“She liked the delicate details,” I offer, and Winona just sighs.
“When she and Thad have kids, I’m taking my revenge by giving her really cute baby pajamas with a thousand snaps,” she says. “See how she likes —”
Behind us, a child wails.
“Shit,” Winona hisses, and before I can even turn around, she’s gone, my dress still half-buttoned.
“Winona?” I call, twisting around.
The wail turns into a screech. Another wail joins the first, and I grimace. I know that it’s probably nothing worse than a sibling-induced scrape, but it’s one hell of a sound.
I wait for a few minutes. The wail fades into a cry, and then disappears. I wait another minute or so, watching the shadows get even longer, willing Winona to come back and finish me.
She doesn’t. It’s like Winona never even existed.
In the meantime, I gently toss my cape onto a bush and try to button myself.
It doesn’t work. It doesn’t even almost work.
“Winona!” I shout.
Nothing.
“Winona!”
I sneak to the corner of the building and peek around, hoping that maybe I can flag down some female relative.
I see no one. Not a single soul. I don’t even know how that’s possible, given that there are at least four hundred people around right now, but none of them are here.
Shit.
“WINONA!” I holler. “HELP!”
Silence drifts back to me, as if the rest of humanity has disappeared from the earth.
Now I have a dilemma. Do I stay here and wait? Do I try to dislocate a shoulder in the hopes that I can button this dress myself?
Do I walk back, dress agape, to the group that contains all three of my brothers-in-law and also my dad?
Even though I know it’s just my back and a bra clasp, I really don’t like that last option. The thought of Winona’s or Olivia’s husbands seeing even part of my undergarments just… feels wrong.
Okay, so that’s the last resort, I decide, and walk back to the side of the building. I take a deep breath. I stretch a little, then square my shoulders.
You got this, I tell myself. Finally put all that yoga to use.
It’s slow. It’s unnatural. Twisting my shoulders that way kind of hurts, but at last, I get one.
Then I get two.
I’ve got the third tiny, silky, slippery button almost through the fabric loop when there are footsteps behind me.
“Oh, thank God,” I say. “I think I tore my rotator cuff on this last one.”
Winona doesn’t say anything, which is weird, but whatever. I let the button go and hold the dress together at the top, bending my head forward.
“I don’t know why they didn’t also put a zipper on this thing,” I say, still bitching about the dress. “It’d still have the delicate details, but we wouldn’t need a lady’s maid to get decent.”
More silence, and this time my skin prickles because I’m starting to suspect it’s not Winona behind me but from my position, the only thing I’ve got a view of is my armpit.
“Winona,” I say, turning my head further as they tug on the next button.
I still can’t see, so I straighten, start to lower my arms.
“Are you —”
“Hold still,” says Seth. “These things are impossible.”
Chapter Eleven
Seth
Delilah whirls, jerking away from me so fast that a button comes off between my fingers.
“Seth?” she blurts.
Then: “What the fuck?”
“I heard a damsel in distress, so I came running,” I say, as if it’s something I do all the time.
“From where?” she asks. “You’re… hold on.”
She’s not angry. Not yet. Right now she’s just astonished, lips parted, brow furrowed as she looks me over, processes the fact that I’m standing here wearing my best suit.
Behind me, the sun is settling in the sky, and the fading rays catch her in their light. Delilah glows golden, even as she closes her eyes and shakes her head like I’m an etch-a-sketch she can erase.
“Specifically, I heard you in distress,” I offer, closing my fist around the tiny pink button.
“As if you wouldn’t answer any damsel’s distress call,” she says without moving, eyes still closed.
I squeeze the button a little tighter, breathe, bite back the first three answers that spring to my lips.
“I sure didn’t come out here to fight about it,” I say, after a moment.
“Right,” she breathes, scrunches her face, shakes her head again. Opens her eyes. Clears her throat. “Sorry, that was unfair.”
“Thanks,” I say, and just like that, the fight we nearly had drifts away in the breeze like so much dust.
Then we look at each other. Just look. It’s a strange, unanchored moment, and I can’t help but smile.
“Did we just display surprising maturity?” I ask.
She laughs.
“Surprising for you, maybe,” she says.
“Excuse me, I’m a paragon of maturity.”
“I’m surprised you’re not blowing raspberries and calling me a stupidface,” she teases.
I grin, then stick my tongue out. She laughs again, and I feel like I’m jumping on marshmallows.
Don’t tell me it could have been this easy all along.
“I’d like to reiterate my question, though,” she says, leaning over and grabbing her fur cape off a bench. “Which was: what the fuck?”
“I told you, I heard —”
“I know you know what I mean, Seth.”
I do, because I’m not an idiot, but I don’t want to tell her. This is nice. This is fun. This is just the two of us, unweighted for once, and telling her that I went behind her back and made a deal with Vera will surely ruin that.
“I’m sure I don’t,” I tell her.
Delilah narrows her eyes, then glances around. Over her shoulder. Through the window to the still-empty first floor, her hair catching fire in the low sun as she takes a step toward me.
“Are you crashing?” she asks, voice low, one eyebrow raised.
“Crashing?” I echo, as if astonished. Solemnly, I put a hand over my heart. “I would never.”
“I bet you would.”
“I might crash another wedding, but I’m not brave enough to crash a Vera Radcliffe affair,” I tell her. “That’s God’s honest truth, and you know it.”