“What’s exciting about waking up at seven a.m. on a Sunday when we didn’t even get to sleep until one in the morning? What, exactly, is exciting about that?” I grumble. At first I had my arms crossed over my chest because of the cold, but now I have them crossed to make myself smaller, to try to pull myself into a tiny ball that can disappear and not have to try on this dress.
“Us spending some quality time together, doing girl things.”
“Girl things?” I ask, glancing down at the untouched caramel macchiato Sam got me from the Starbucks in the lobby of her building.
“Yes. I feel like we haven’t had sister time in forever. And now we can drink our coffee, put on our dresses, and maybe get a manicure after.”
“What if I have things to do today?” I ask, looking at her.
“Do you?”
“That wasn’t my question,” I tell her, annoyed that she would just up and decide that we are spending a day together without asking. Without even fathoming that with school, swim team, math team, and my wild goose chase to find a date to her own freaking wedding, I might have more important things to do than go put on a dress because she wants to play dress-up.
“Why do you have to be like that?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“Negative? Like, always trying to start something.”
“I’m not trying to start anything,” I say defensively. “I was asking a question.”
“A rude question. You and I both know you don’t have anything to do that’s going to take up your entire Sunday. You do homework, swim, stare at the wall and be a boring little twerp, eat, sleep, and repeat.”
“Sometimes I can’t stand you,” I mumble, wishing I hadn’t called her last night.
“Sometimes I can’t believe we’re related.”
“That’s dramatic,” I scoff, turning to look out the window.
“Oh, is it?” Sam asks, whipping her car into a parking space. It happens so fast that I nearly smack my head against the window.
Before she even shifts the car into park, I throw my door open and get out. “Let’s just get this over with,” I say before slamming the door shut and leaving her.
When I step into the store, I feel weird. A wedding dress boutique isn’t usually a place where angry people go. It’s supposed to be a happy place where you can dream.
So when I sit down on the cushiony bench outside the fitting room we’re directed to, I feel more out of place than usual. Sam is chic and sparkly, glossy heels and intricate updos. I’m dark colors and matte finish, hair either in a bun or out and wild. The tailor’s assistant is in the back, ready to help Sam zip up when she gives the say-so. I notice the tailor looking down, and I follow his gaze to realize he’s scrunching up his brow at my old pair of moss-green Vans. I look at his loafers, so shiny that they reflect the white lights around the three-way mirror. He’s very Sex and the City, and I’m Love Jones.
“Why are you sitting?” Sam asks when she emerges in her gown. She carries the front of the dress so that she can step up onto the platform without tripping over her hem. When she lets it go, the skirt nearly falls to the floor, hanging on her frame—predictably—like it did the last time she tried it on. Without waiting for my answer, she instructs the tailor that he should measure for the hemline to be just above her toes because she doesn’t want to trip during the ceremony. She says the sleeves have to be taken in because since she’s been working on wedding planning more than working out, her arms have shrunk ever so slightly in a way that she notices more than any of us do.
When she finishes running down her list, she realizes I’m still sitting.
“Go try on your dress.”
“I don’t even know where you put it.” I purposefully stormed out of the car without it, figuring if it was out of sight, it might fall out of mind as well.
“In your fitting room.”
“I have a fitting room?” I ask, standing up and stretching. It’s still earlier than I would wake up on a Sunday after being out past midnight, so my body comes out of the stretch and begs me to curl back into the fetal position.
“Yes,” she hisses, gathering her dress right out of the tailor’s hands. “Through there.” She points toward where she came from. “Across from mine.” She’s standing in front of me, gritting her teeth, and staring into my eyes the way Mom would look at her when she’d do something wrong, like accidentally put a metal mug in the microwave or forget her keys. It was a look that made her clip her keys to her backpack and shove all the metal travel mugs into their own cabinet.
I stare back for a moment, wondering if she really is that fed up with me or if she thinks this is the only way she can get me into that stupid room. By talking to me like I’m her child or one of her employees. Not her sister. I step around her and the assistant standing off to the side with that awkward I probably wasn’t supposed to see that look on her face.
Sam, true to form, decided to be traditional. Some of her friends from college had weddings where all the bridesmaids could pick their own dress, regardless of style or color. Another friend just said all the dresses had to be the same color. Sam, however, wants all the dresses exactly the same. She likes the uniformity, the consistency. It’s one of those preferences that reminds us we are in fact related.
So, all seven of the bridesmaids, including myself, are wearing deep green dresses. It was Stamica’s idea. Stamica and Sam were in a web design class, and she even helped Sam design the ArchiTech website. So, naturally, she’s been working with Sam on “designing” her wedding. The winter wonderland theme was her idea, along with the dark green dresses that represent evergreens.
The bridesmaids’ dresses are floor length, A-line circle-skirt princess dresses. They’re off the shoulder, with ruffled bands that hang around our upper arms; the body of the dress starts off tight around the waist, then flows out. Even though the dress flows and cups our shoulders, it’s still very plain. There’s no intricate stitching or beading. The fabric does all the work, with a million tides and ripples dangling by our ankles.
When I step out of my dressing room, I can hear Sam wrestling around in hers. Instead of waiting, I just head out to the three-panel mirror. I step up onto the platform and look at myself. I turn my hips and watch as the rest of the dress follows, delayed like a ripple. The neckline dips in the middle, but modestly.
“Wow.”
I startle. I didn’t even hear the tailor come up behind me.
“Sorry.” He blushes. I turn back to the mirror, and we meet each other’s eyes.
“Like I told her, it still fits perfectly fine,” I mumble, ready to step off the platform.
But Sam comes out of her dressing room and stares at me from the doorway in silence. I think of the way Mom looked at her when Sam tried on her dress. I think of how Stamica and Brooke strutted around the fitting room like models at their fittings because they were so pleased with their dresses, how Sam gushed over them and directed the tailor on what touch-ups had to be done. I just stood off to the side and watched.
“It still fits,” I say again, my voice quiet.
She nods in agreement, looking me up and down. “It’s beautiful.” She says it like she’s admitting defeat. I was right, that I haven’t changed. Somehow I feel like this disappoints her. I take her reaction as my cue to go put my clothes back on, and I squeeze past her into the fitting room.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
During the weekdays that I spend not going to the garden after school, Gavin manages to redo the irrigation system inside the greenhouse and set up a few wooden troughs with fresh soil. And on Friday, when Gloria runs up to my mom and says Gavin “needs” me to help him with painting the rest of the wooden beams on the inside, I’m thankful that he won’t let Gloria have me work on something else. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to report back to him about the Halloween party and get his advice about tomorrow night.
“So, everything went well?” he says when I finish a rant-like recap of the nigh
t. He reaches down for the can of paint.
He decided that the inside of the greenhouse will be green, to blend in with the plants. I’m in charge of staining the troughs, so whenever he has to move to a new spot, I have to stop and hand all of his supplies to him on the ladder.
“Everything went great, and we’ve been texting for the past week,” I say, handing him the cloth that fell out of his pocket. “I mean, someone who likes Star Wars and listens to Rainbow Kitten Surprise… That’s, like, impossible to find.”
He shoves the cloth back into his pocket so that half of it is hanging out, for when he gets paint on his fingers. Then he leans against the ladder. He looks down at me, smiling.
“Not impossible because you like both those things. Plus, don’t get me wrong, I don’t get the hype about Star Wars, but I can vibe with some RKS.”
“What?” I gush. “No way. How have we not talked about this? They’re one of my favorite bands.” Finding other people my age who like RKS has proven nearly as difficult as finding a leprechaun.
“Because you never asked,” he says, using a mock accusatory tone.
“You didn’t ask either,” I remind him, laughing.
“Touché,” Gavin says, shrugging and dripping some paint from his brush onto the ground. “But you still don’t know who he is?” he asks, though a smile creeps across his face, and I can tell he’s finding this amusing.
“I know, it’s crazy,” I admit, kneeling down next to my half-finished trough. “But this might be—” I stop myself from saying my one chance, because I don’t want to start putting all my eggs in one basket.
“It’s not that crazy,” he says. In the dead air between us, I can hear the sound of his brushstrokes against the old beams. He didn’t want to sand them down because he likes how it ages the inside, keeps some character in the place.
“Then, what is it?” I ask, noting the leading tone in his voice.
“Honestly, it’s a little romantic.”
I turn around, expecting him to be looking down at me, ready to laugh. But his back is turned and he’s focused, serious.
“Like a masquerade,” he says absentmindedly, his hand trailing high above his head. I watch the way he moves slowly, allowing the paint to make contact so that there aren’t rushed streaks. Then he slowly pulls the brush away so that the stroke fades out evenly. Then he dips the brush into the paint, reaches back up, and traces his stroke backward. The way he moves so carefully is mesmerizing.
“Like a masquerade,” I repeat, seeing how the words feel in my mouth, how the thought feels in my head.
“Chances are, it’s someone you know. I can’t imagine a stranger being that bold,” he says, turning around. “Plus, now he knows who you are.”
“Yeah, but it could still be a stranger who just, like—” I look down, feeling self-conscious.
“Who saw you across the room and thought you were so pretty that he just had to talk to you?” Now he starts teasing.
I grab some dirt from the trough and throw it at him, which only makes him laugh.
“Again, another possibility. Slim, but not impossible,” he says, shrugging his shoulders before turning back to his beams.
“Anyways,” I continue, circling back to the whole point of telling him in the first place. “We’ve been talking all week, and we set a date for tomorrow night.”
I wait until he says “Okay?” to know that he’s listening.
“I forgot that my sister Sam’s bridal shower is tomorrow.”
“Yikes.” He sets the brush down and turns around on the ladder. He leans against it and crosses his arm, shaking his head down at me. “Now, that’s a pickle.”
“I really can’t tell if you’re being serious or sarcastic,” I tell him, wiping my hands on my jeans.
He looks down at the ground for a moment, one hand on his hip and the other rubbing his chin. “What if you reschedule?”
“I don’t want to reschedule” shoots out of my mouth before I can think. Gavin stares at me, surprised. “I just, I am not going to reschedule this. I need it to happen tomorrow.” Now that it’s November, the clock feels like it’s ticking a lot faster. There won’t be any more parties like the Halloween one until the New Year. I’d have to go back to the drawing board of setting up meet-cutes instead of following Gloria’s sound advice to just let it happen.
“Then… bring him?” Gavin replies.
“What?”
“Bring him to the bridal shower?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. I didn’t know his voice could rise to such a high pitch, but both of us stare at each other, thinking about it.
“No,” I decide. “Sam will just get on me about it. She already shared her thoughts about Darth Vader being a symbol of evil, and me being stupid for feeling attracted to him.”
“Why not talk to Sam about it?”
“Just no,” I say, sighing.
“Why not just ask the guy for a rain check and see what happens? He might be understanding, go to the shower, and then you guys can still reschedule your date.”
“Well, wouldn’t that just be perfect,” I hiss. “Thank you for figuring everything out for me.”
“Hey,” Gavin says, his brows coming together. “I’m just trying to help.”
“Well, you’re not doing a very good job.”
“Fine. Then mess everything up.” He turns around, kicking up some dust with his foot, and climbs back up the ladder.
The tension charges the air between us and makes it hard to concentrate. I know I shouldn’t have snapped at him, but he doesn’t understand.
We work in silence for a little bit. I can tell my mind is racing when I snap out of my thoughts and look down to see uneven streaks in my wood stain.
“Gavin,” I say. It comes out quietly, but I see his head turn slightly toward me. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just stressed. I don’t know how to please everyone, and I don’t know what to do to help myself.”
“What do you want to do? Throw morals and what you think is right to the wind and ask yourself, if there was nothing riding on anything, what would you want to do? The date, or your sister’s bridal shower?”
I want to say both, but I know I can’t. I know the right answer is Sam’s shower because she’s my sister and she’s only getting married once. But this date would be for the sake of her wedding anyways. So, I feel like if I miss her shower, she might be mad at first, but she’d be fine with it in the end because I will have gotten a date to balance out her precious photos.
“The date,” I say. “I think the date is the best option.”
Even as I make the decision, I still feel conflicted.
* * *
I don’t officially decide anything until I’m in the shower Saturday night. What am I getting ready for? Am I showering before my date or showering before my sister’s party? How would Darth react if I back out now? Do I really want to risk losing him altogether, not just for tonight? After I dry off, I look in the bathroom mirror and will myself to decide. I will myself to choose between what I should do and what I want to do.
“Mia, you’re taking forever. You’d better not use all the hot water,” Sam shouts on the other side of the door. I know that with the fan on in the bathroom, it’s hard to tell if I’m still in the shower or not, so I don’t say anything. I just stare at my foggy reflection.
“Mia, I have to get ready. Come on,” she says, trying the doorknob.
“You could’ve been ready if you were at your own apartment, getting ready in your own bathroom!” I shout back. Even though I grew up with her in the house, it feels extra crowded and unfamiliar whenever she spends the night now. She’s been crowding me ever since Halloween.
“No,” she says, knocking on the door. “Because then I would have had to drive all the way over here, which is a waste of precious time. It’s faster to just get ready here and then go downstairs.”
She jumps when I throw the door open. “Or you could’ve gotten ready at home in your own
bathroom without having to wait for me, and you could dedicate more of that precious time to helping Mom with decorations,” I say, tightening my towel around my chest. I move past her and head down the hallway to my room.
If I’m slowing her down that much, then maybe I have a chance at going on my date and making it back before the end of the bridal shower. I mean, she still has to wash up, do her hair, and press her outfit. Mom and I haven’t finished putting up all the decorations, and I know Sam was supposed to bring supplies to make goodie bags for the guests. If I leave, maybe I can eat really fast during the date, make a good impression, and then come back home before Sam starts opening gifts.
I sit on the edge of my bed and take my phone off the charger. My heart flutters when I see a text from Darth.
DARTH VADER: Looking forward to tonight
ME: Me too :)
DARTH VADER: We still on for 6:30?
I check the time and see I have about twenty minutes to get ready before I’d have to leave to make it to the diner on time.
ME: I’m still getting ready. Should get there maybe 5 minutes late
DARTH VADER: Can’t wait ;)
With my thumbs hovering over the keyboard, I hear Gavin’s voice in my head telling me to just ask. From texting, I can’t really tell a whole lot about the kind of person Darth is. He’s nice, definitely more on the sweet side, as opposed to the dark side. And I saw that he’s a gentleman when he waited for me to get a ride home. Over the course of the week, I found out he likes plants, so we’ve been talking about the greenhouse and the community garden a lot. He says he’s never been but that maybe we could go together. He hasn’t given me any hints as to who he is, but he did tell me that he’s not a complete stranger. That made me feel a little better. I’m more excited to finally see him, to put a face to our conversations about history class being boring and biology being confusing and his grandma burning the green beans on Wednesday and my mom not realizing she left a trail of hot cocoa from the kitchen to the stairs last night. I remember when he lifted his mask to take a drink and I was able to confirm that he is Black. His skin is darker than mine but not very dark. It’s more like a coffee color with one cream instead of two.
The Meet-Cute Project Page 15
