Little Gray Dress

by Aimee Brown

  “No way.” I pour wine into the biggest milk glass I can find, all the way to the top, with Lily side-eying me from the opposite side of the table.

  “That’s a lot of wine.”

  “Not yet it isn’t.”

  “Can I give you some advice?” Josh talks in between pizza bites. Putting down a plate of food, no matter how serious the situation may be, has never been Josh’s strong point.

  “Do you have to?” I ask, having no patience for stupid ideas right now.

  “Go talk to him. This isn’t like Jack. I’m sure there’s more to the story.” He bites off the end of a piece of pizza. “I’m not saying go forgive him and take him back, but at least hear him out.”

  I down half the glass of wine and set it on the table. “Fine. But he gets five minutes. Drive me?” I ask Lily who nods and grabs her purse and keys from the chair next to her. I swallow down the rest of my wine as quickly as possible. Hopefully the buzz will hit me before I have to have this chat.

  Jack and I live in a high-rise building on the river downtown. We are on the fifteenth floor and our apartment was originally overlooking the river, but after we moved in they started construction on an apartment building next to ours and now our view is the living room of the elderly couple next door. Thankfully, they keep their curtains closed most of the time and when they don’t they spend a lot of time waving every single time we walk into the room.

  I feel like a girl running from the law as I glance in every direction before swiping my key card after getting in the elevator to get to my floor. When the doors open, I hear it: Jack’s voice.

  “Greta? What are you doing here?”

  I lean out of the elevator trying to see around the corner without getting caught.

  “I heard you’re newly single and thought you might need someone to talk to.” She runs her finger down the front of his t-shirt before standing on her tiptoes and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m a great listener.”

  He doesn’t say anything and instead motions for her to come in as he steps aside before closing the door behind her. What in the holy fuck? He’s screwing Madison and he’s got Greta on the side? The one girl on the planet whom I hate, and he’s let her into our apartment?

  For a split second a scene flashes through my mind that involves an ax, some lighter fluid, and a lot of screaming – but considering there are five hundred people who live in this building I quickly shove it aside. Plus, I know I won’t look great in prison issue jumpsuits or stripes.

  When I get into Lily’s car the tears stream down my face like a waterfall, uncontrollably. “Can I stay with you for a while?”

  “What did he say?” she asks before answering me.

  “He has Greta in there with him.” It comes out of my mouth in-between sobs in a language that even I can hardly understand.

  “Greta? That bitch!” Lily growls it over to me and throws the car in drive. “You can stay with me as long as you need.”

  Chapter Three

  Present Day

  Portland, Oregon

  The Arrival

  “You probably should have stopped at two glasses of wine on the plane.” Lily scolds me as we walk across the ugly green carpet that is famously known as Portland Airport.

  This could possibly be one of the most stressful weeks of my life. If I choose to go into it with a little liquid courage, so kill me. I don’t really want to face Jack for the first time in two years at all. Doing so in front of a room full of people who were also invited to our wedding is making me a little crazy.

  “Don’t listen to her.” Josh winks at me before grabbing Lily’s hand with a sympathetic look on his face.

  “This week might be miserable enough already. I just don’t think she should start it buzzed.” Lily defends herself to Josh and the two of them argue back and forth as we pull our carry-on bags behind us, heading towards the non-ticketed area of the airport where my brother Evan is meeting us.

  “There he is.” Josh nods in the direction of my brother.

  Evan and I look a lot alike. We’re twins, so looking at least a little alike was kind of in the stars. We both have dark ash-brown hair, blue-gray eyes and pasty white skin.

  We are adopted. We’ve known since we were old enough to understand it. Our parents waited so long in life they couldn’t conceive naturally. Back then they didn’t have the technology of today, so while they knew they were getting a baby, boy and girl twins weren’t on their radar. I can’t imagine having one baby, let alone two, and yet my mother was a picture of grace for our entire childhood.

  Evan is standing in front of the schedule boards with a homemade sign that says Esmeralda the Great like I’m some sort of gypsy palm-reader coming to read him his fortune. I’m not sure why my mother chose a name straight from a circus side show act, but she did.

  I’m the 2-minute younger twin sister of my brother Evan. Actually, that’s not even his full name, and my name isn’t really Emi. Our mother was older when we came along and she insisted we have unique old school names. She succeeded in naming us after Romanian gypsies, even though she wasn’t Romanian. I know nothing about our birth parents, so maybe she knew they were Romanian; who knows? My full name is Esmeralda Erin Harrison, and my brother is Evangelo Eron Harrison. The different versions of Erin are because we are twins and our mom thought we needed twinning names. We insisted on being called Emi and Evan but our parents never would cave in and use them.

  “You know I hate it when you call me that,” I say as I approach him.

  He wraps his arms around me and lifts me off the floor in a giant bear hug. “Exactly why I do it. It’s what brothers do.”

  “Fine then, Evangelo.” I say it in the most annoying sisterly tone available, and watch his face scrunch up and his eyebrows rise.

  “Whoa now, OK, I won’t call you Esmeralda anymore if you’re gonna use Evangelo.”

  “Good. Let’s go grab my bags.” I point over at the baggage claim sign and watch Evan give me a disapproving look.

  “You checked bags and brought this?” He pretends he can hardly lift my super-sized pink luggage off the floor.

  “It’s a wedding. I had to get the dress here and it takes a lot to maintain and dress this figure up.” I point to myself in case he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

  “High maintenance, huh?” Evan directs his comment towards Josh and Lily, who both nod their heads.

  “I am not high maintenance. This is just—”

  What is it?

  It’s a wedding that my ex will be at. That’s what it is. If I didn’t come prepared for anything even I would wonder what was wrong with me.

  “Got it.” Evan nods with an unspoken understanding as if he’s just read my mind. Sometimes having a twin is a good thing. Like those times where you need them to spontaneously read your mind, or call when you're having a bad day and you don’t want to call first. We do those weird things.

  He jogs over to the baggage carousel that is on the point of sending my two extra-large hot-pink luggage bags and dress bag back through the hole in the wall to wherever it goes if no one claims it. I was kind of hoping the dress bag would end up on its way to Brazil, or anywhere else for that matter. But there it is, taunting me by being draped over both my other bags, impossible to not see and accidentally leave behind.

  “Is he there?” I ask Evan, following him to the parking garage, Lily and Josh lagging behind us.

  “Who?” He gives a joking smile over his shoulder at me. “No, he’s not there. He doesn’t live with us, Em.”

  “I know that.” Thank God. If he did I’d be heading to a hotel right now, instead of to my brother’s mini-mansion.

  “I doubt you’ll see much of him anyway, besides at the wedding. He’s… uh… preoccupied.”

  “With work, right?” Lily suddenly appears at my side leaving her luggage with Josh to pull to the car. “He’s a lawyer,” she narrows her eyes at Evan, “so I’m sure he’s busy on a case, or whatever.�
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  “Right. He’s working.” Evan is obviously following her lead on something.

  “What’s going on?” I stop when Evan’s car beeps at us approaching and the back door automatically opens for our bags.

  “Nothing is going on, Em.” He grabs my bags and stacks them in the back, arranging them like a Jenga game so that Josh and Lily can maybe fit theirs in as well. “Let’s head home.”

  We all pile into Evan’s SUV quietly. Too quietly. Like someone-is-hiding-a-secret quietly.

  “Seriously guys, what is up? What do you all know that I don’t?”

  Evan backs out of our spot silently, avoiding even looking in my direction, obviously ignoring my question. I glance at the backseat, where Josh and Lily are exchanging a look I know all too well.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  “It’s nothing, Ems.” Lily is a horrible liar. Even though her mouth says nothing, her face is saying please forgive me.

  “What did ‘nothing’ do?”

  “He got engaged.” Evan blurts it out, never looking at me.

  “Engage—”

  “Yes,” Lily interrupts me. “I was gonna tell you, but I didn’t want to chance you refusing to get on the plane. Jack is engaged, OK?” She says the last sentence slowly, exaggerating the pronunciation of each of the words as if she’s talking to someone just learning the English language.

  The words hang in the air like a storm cloud. I hear them, but I can’t wrap my head around it.

  How can he be engaged? Engaged implies that he’s happily moved on, and I don’t want that. I want him to be miserable and broken like I am. I want him to look terrible, to have gained fifty pounds, to be balding and to eat dinner every night alone. That would make me happy: his misery. He deserves at least that.

  “I’m fine with it,” I lie, and stare out of the window. “It’s not like I haven’t moved on too.” Another lie. Why am I lying to the people who know me the best?

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I mean, come on, I refused to talk to him for three months even though he begged daily, and then I moved over two thousand miles away when you guys got transferred. So yes, obviously, I’ve moved on.”

  Behind me, Lily clears her throat. “Moving on physically isn’t the same as letting go, Ems. We’ve talked about this.”

  “It’s true, though. In this case, it means exactly that. I am over Jack. I’m just a little surprised to hear that he’s engaged, that’s all.”

  “Good, because this week is not about Jack and Emi for once. It’s about Hannah.”

  “And you.” I say to Evan.

  “Yes, exactly. So, we’re going to have fun, and things will go smoothly.”

  When we pull up to Evan’s house I’m reminded immediately of our parents. He has our dad’s old vintage 1952 Corvette in the driveway. He’s completely redone it and it looks like it just came off the showroom floor of the car dealership. Dad bought the car when Evan was 18 so they could rebuild it together. It turned out gorgeous, and the last time I saw Dad he was driving it to the country club for his weekly game of tennis. That was his last game. He died of a major heart attack right there on the court. For a second my heart hurts as I stare at the car from my seat.

  “Kind of sad they can’t be here for the wedding, isn’t it?”

  When he says it I realize we are the only two still in the car.

  “Yeah. It is. Do you think they knew they’d never see either of us get married when they brought us home?”

  Our parents not being here nearly breaks my own heart. How sad to spend your whole life raising these kids and then never getting to celebrate the big moments with them, like weddings and babies.

  “Nah, they never felt their age as it was, so I doubt it even crossed their minds. I’m sure they’re around us somewhere. Dad’s probably super-impressed with my more responsible venture into adulthood, and Mom’s probably still wondering when her sweet dizzy Emi will finally grow up.” He laughs until I make a swing for his arm, then jumps out of the car before I can make contact.

  “Not even funny,” I say loudly as I get out, heading to the back to grab my bags.

  “EMI!” Hannah comes squealing out of the house and engulfs me in a huge hug. Which is a little more than awkward, considering she’s a good nine inches taller than me.

  I can’t say that Hannah and I are the best of friends in life, but I think we are just about as close as we’ll ever be. There may always be some lingering jealousy on Hannah’s side that Lily is my best friend and not her. But what can I do about that? Her marrying my brother won’t change the fact that I’ve known Lily since I was six years old. There is also the fact that I’ve always had that feeling that Hannah can change her opinion of someone in a split second over goodness knows what or why.

  “Hi, Hannah!” I hug her back, and pretend my cheek isn’t smashed up against her perfect plastic boobs.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” She sets me free and hugs Lily and Josh. “Come in, come in! I’ll show you to your rooms. I’m so excited to show you everything for the wedding in person!”

  Evan gives a raised-eyebrow smirk. He’s finally escaped the world of weddings that Hannah has become. She’s now got a new audience in Lily and me. The upcoming wedding is all she talks about. My wedding this and my wedding that is the topic of every phone call we’ve had for the last year. I honestly don’t know what she’ll talk about when this is over, but I imagine her post-wedding depression will be best for me when I’m two thousand miles away and can ignore the call.

  “I have seriously shopped myself out this week getting your rooms ready, but since I knew you’d all be here a full week I wanted to make sure you had everything you’d have back home.” I find it hard to believe she is ever seriously done with shopping as I gawk at her fancy house while we follow her up the grandest staircase since Gone with the Wind and into a bedroom more luxurious than I’ve always imagined a room at The Plaza.

  “Josh and Lily, this is your room. There are robes for each of you in the bathroom, toiletries that I know you all use and a snack basket on the dresser. If I left anything out just let me know and I’ll send Evan to grab it.”

  “Wow, Hannah, you’ve really done too much. The room is beautiful.” Lily beams over at her. “And I thought this wedding wouldn’t be a vacation.”

  “Exactly why I did this! I know you two work so hard and I wanted this to be like a vacation.”

  Hannah and Lily always get along in a ‘we have to for Emi’s sake’ kind of way. Not that they don’t like each other; they do, mostly. But right now, it’s a little over the top. I’d guess by tomorrow night they’ll be slyly at each other’s throats like a scene from The Real Housewives.

  “Now to Emi’s room.”

  I follow Hannah out, grabbing my bags I left in the hallway, and into the next room on the right. “Same for you, but I also left a bridesmaid survival kit in here. Everything you might need for your bridesmaid duties or emergencies are in there. It’s so exciting, in a few days we’ll be sisters!” She’s talking much quieter in here, like she’s keeping what we’re saying away from Lily’s ears.

  When Hannah first asked me to be a bridesmaid I was afraid to tell Lily. Not because she’d be mad, but because Hannah didn’t ask her to be one too. She had some other friends she’s closer to and thought it would be weird to ask my best friend, who doesn’t always love her, to be in the bridal party. But of course, she invited Lily and Josh as guests and moral support for me.

  “Thank you, Hannah. You truly have thought of everything.”

  “Grab your dress bag; we’ll put that in here with the rest of the wedding stuff.” She motions to the room across the hall from us. When she opens the door my jaw drops. The room is piled high full of boxes, gift bags, linens, decorations, and dress bags.

  “Whoa. This is like a bridal shop. Why is it all here? I thought you hired a wedding planner?”

  “I did, but I needed a place to store ev
erything and we have plenty of room. Isn’t it amazing?” She glances around before hanging my dress on the dress rack full of gown bags.

  “How many bridesmaids are there?” I count the bags quickly, worried that this wedding might end up like the last scene of 27 Dresses.

  “There are six bridesmaids, two flower girls, and two ring bearers.”

  “Why the twelve dress bags then?” I can’t help but wonder.

  “Did I not tell you?” She pulls a bag out and hangs it on a hook at the end of the rack. “I designed two wedding dresses; a ceremony dress and a reception dress.”

  “Two? Wow. That’s uh—” What do you say to the girl who probably spent twenty thousand dollars on material for these dresses? You want to say that you hope they never run into financial hard times and drop down to middle income. But you don’t dare say anything.

  “It’s amazing. Here look, this one is my ceremony dress.” Hannah slowly unzips the first bag which is probably the biggest dress bag I’ve ever seen. Inside is a dress with so much tulle and sparkles it’s hard to see anything else. “I know you can’t tell in the bag but it’s so beautiful. The bodice stops at my waist and it has a full-out ball-gown skirt but it’s in layers draped offset in a hankerchief cut. Look at this lace!” She pulls out a layer of the skirt with an intricate lace detail along the hem. “I designed this lace.” I can tell she’s proud of it too, as she should be; it’s gorgeous. “There is also a layer of tulle in the middle of the skirt that is hot pink so there is a hint of pink showing through in the full skirt. The beading on the bodice took me two months to complete. Can you imagine? I thought my fingers were going to fall off.” She laughs as she gently touches the intricate beading sparkling in the light.

  Hannah truly has always reminded me of Barbie, with her perfect blonde hair, her always-perfect makeup, and her obsession with all things pink, ever since the day I met her.

  “It sparkles, that’s for sure. I’m sure you’ll look beautiful in it.” I’m picturing this pink tinted ball gown resembling the Barbie birthday cake I had when I turned eight years old.