Little Gray Dress

by Aimee Brown

  “Right. It’ll be great.” I repeat it, just in case my inner self didn’t believe it when he said it.

  I sure hope he’s right.

  Chapter Five

  Present Day

  Northwest Portland, Oregon

  The Discovery

  “I invited some friends over for a barbecue tonight. Just a casual thing to relax before the wedding.” Evan has at least ten different cuts of meat in different marinade bowls lined up across the counter. Platters, tongs, and bottles of sauce surround him.

  “All of this is just for a casual thing?”

  “No.” He opens the fridge to platters of prepared food, beer and what appear to be very fancy appetizers. “All of this,” he motions to the counter in front of him, then nods into the fridge, “is for a casual thing.”

  “How many friends did you invite?”

  “Mostly just the wedding party.”

  “The entire wedding party?”

  “Yes, well, the bridesmaids and groomsmen, and their families.” Evan stops brushing sauce on a plate of burgers and turns towards me, sauced-up brush still in hand. “You will be nice, and you will stop obsessing over Jack. Now is your chance to prove that you’ve moved on.” He wags the brush at me.

  “Right.” I nod at him and dodge out of the living room and up to Lily’s room where she is sprawled across her bed watching a news program.

  “Hey,” she says, never looking away from the TV.

  “Jack is coming here? Did you know this?”

  “Uh, not until about an hour ago. Why do you care, again?” She wrinkles up her face and clicks the remote to turn the TV off.

  “I don’t, I just wish someone had told me so I could have found something else to do.”

  “Jack is your brother’s best friend, which means Jack is in the wedding party. You too are part of the wedding party. This is a wedding party party. Where else would you go? And how did you assume you wouldn’t see much of Jack while you were here?” Her condescending tone reminds me that I’ve forgotten my I’m over Jack story.

  “Right, I ju—” The doorbell interrupts me and I can feel my face doing things I’d rather it didn’t. “Shit.” I can’t help it. I don’t know what I am exactly, but completely over him isn’t it.

  “Relax, psycho. Just be yourself and you’ll be fine.”

  Just be me. Such great advice. If I did that, then Jack would know the exact fantasies I’ve had about him over the last two years. Not the sexual fantasies I’m sure he’d expect either. These ones involve revenge.

  I speed-walk into my room and glance in the full-length mirror by the window. I roll up my jeans mid-calf, slide on my favorite black flip-flops, toss on a sleeveless top that doesn’t look like it’s just spent the last twenty-four hours crushed in a suitcase, and pull my hair out of the ponytail. A few fingers through my curls, a dab of lip gloss on my lips, and voilà! I don’t look like I’ve just spent the last few days a nervous, frazzled mess.

  “Emi! Come down and meet everyone,” Hannah yells up the stairs.

  I do a last-minute mirror check again and then casually head down the stairs to an empty foyer. I hear their voices on the back patio and peer around the staircase in that direction. I thought Evan said he invited just the wedding party and their families? There are a good forty people mingling out there. Hannah has tables set up with decorations and flowers and everything is very put together. How did I miss this earlier? It couldn’t have been a ten-minute setup job by the looks of it.

  “There you are!” Lily comes up behind me carrying a tray of bacon-wrapped food. “Come on.”

  I follow Lily out, almost hiding behind her as she sets the tray on a giant table full of food. “Oh my God, is he here?”

  “Yes. Now stop acting like a weirdo.”

  “Lil… Everyone is a pair.” I glance around not seeing a single person here alone. “Some of these people even have kids!”

  Lily jerks me by the arm behind a curtain separating the patio from the hot tub area. “Stop it,” she hisses at me, her face only two inches from my own. “You will stop acting like a pathetic, heartbroken teenager and you will get your ass out there and act like the amazing Emi we all know and love. Jack does not control you.”

  If ever there was a moment that felt like my mom was still here, this was it. I nod my head in shame and follow her on to the patio. It only takes two seconds to spot the keg and fill a cup with whatever is in it. Now is not the time to worry about not liking beer. I down the glass in thirty seconds, pretending it’s not as bad as it truly is, and fill it again.

  “Emi, come meet everyone.” Hannah pulls me from the bar area, saving me from looking like a raging alcoholic, chugging beer alone. “You need to meet May, Jack’s fiancée. I know it’s weird, but you’ll have to meet her sometime. It might as well be now. I really think you’ll like her. She’s great. She’s active in charity work and really has helped me with the endless wedding planning, plus she’s been so good for Jack since...” As the words come out of her mouth she notices my face and frowns.

  “Hannah, I don’t think—”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right, that was tactless”

  “I’m sure she’s just fabulous,” I try not to roll my eyes, “but it is a little awkward, even if she was the queen of the universe, right?” I ask her, hoping I’m not just making all this crap up in my own little dramatic world in my head.

  “You’re totally right. I’ll try and be more considerate of your feelings.”

  “OK.” I nod at her watching what she just said dissipate into the air like she’d never said it all, which seems to be classic Hannah.

  “Guys!” She pulls me into a group of people, some I know, some I don’t. “This is Evan’s twin sister Emi!” Hannah puts her arm around me and hugs me from the side. “I can’t wait until we’re officially sisters!”

  “Right, yeah. Hi there, nice to meet you all.” I glance around at all the faces who nod excitedly back at me. I only recognize a few of them. I hope they don’t expect me to remember their names. Right now my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool and I can hardly even remember my own name.

  “Now, where is my other sister-in-law to be?” There goes her being more considerate to my feelings.

  “They ran to their car.” Evan appears wearing an apron with a woman’s body in a bikini on the front, and he’s holding a pair of tongs. “They’ll be right back.”

  I turn from Hannah and head back to the cover of their outdoor bar, kitchen area, downing my drink on my way. “What are you doing, Sis?”

  “Nothing… I uh—” I quickly finish topping off drink number three and turn to my brother who is poking at the meat on the grill in front of him. “I just needed a bit of liquid encouragement. Ya know?”

  “I do know, and I just hope you’ll stop after this one. Jack’s not the guy he once was. The sooner you see that the better.”

  “Not the guy he once was? OK, I guess that’s good. What do you mean, though? Like, he’s better than he was? Worse? Is he worse than he was?” Please let him be worse.

  Evan turns towards me and rolls his eyes. “OK he’s the same he was but he’s different, more laid back and quiet. I think it’s because of May, his fiancée.”

  “Do I know this May?” I’ve been racking my brain since Hannah said her name and I can’t think of anyone named May. I wonder who this mystery girl is and how she is so much better for Jack than I ever was?

  “I don’t know… I don’t think so. Just relax.”

  Right. I’ll just relax, why didn’t I think of that before? I force myself to take a deep breath. He’s right, even though I hate admitting that. What am I so worried about? It’s not like I was the one that ruined our relationship. If anyone should be worried about tonight I would think it would be Jack. What if I announce exactly why we broke up? That would totally humiliate him in front of his fabulous, I’ll-just-love-her fiancée. Sounds like a fun time to me.

  “I’ll be fi
—”

  When I turn to leave the kitchen, I run right into none other than Jack. If I hadn’t been daydreaming about getting revenge on him I might have noticed him. My freshly-filled beer sloshes down the front of both of us, leaving each of us looking like we just wet our pants.

  “Holy shit.” I announce it loud enough to see some heads turn our direction.

  “Emi.” Jack holds me out at arm’s length, probably hoping I don’t punch him in the groin. “That was quite a hello.”

  I momentarily stare up at him and immediately wish I hadn’t. He’s not worse than he was. He hasn’t gone bald or gained weight. He’s still as gorgeous as he ever was. His dark hair and eyes, his comforting smile, and his cologne, all sink straight into my feelings. Damn it.

  Evan hands us each a towel from a cupboard near the grill. I pat myself dry, trying to avoid any more eye contact with Jack at all. While he and Evan laugh at my lack of grace, I slip past him and through the doors of the house.

  “Oh my God,” I mumble to myself and try disappearing into the kitchen, hoping that’s where Lily vanished to.

  “What happened to you?” She looks at my sodden clothing and laughs.

  “I spilled my beer.”

  “How?”

  “By running into Jack.” I glare at her, whilst trying to squeeze beer out of my top into the sink.

  “Oh no, did you get him too?”

  “Yup…” I sigh as I lean against the counter. “I can’t do this right now. I wasn’t ready to see him tonight.”

  “You never would have been ready. So, go change and get ready.” Lily glares at me with her motherly charm. “Now.”

  It takes me only ten minutes to change, and the only reason I come back down to the party is because I’m starving and I smell food. When I walk out everyone is in a line at the outdoor bar counter, filling their plates.

  “There she is! Finally,” Evan smiles over at me. “Come grab a plate, Em.”

  When I walk towards the bar everyone stares over at me and one face grabs my attention.

  “Greta?”

  She nods at me. “Emi. Long time no see.” Her perfectly-made-up face glares at me.

  “Why are you here? You’re not in the bridal party, are you?” I glance at Hannah, who looks between Greta and me as if I’ve just asked her if I could take her spaceship for a drive.

  “How do you two know each other?” Hannah asks us both.

  “I… uh—”

  “Oh, we go way back, don’t we Emi?” That’s when I watch her link her arm through Jack’s and give me the biggest fake smile I’ve ever seen. “Looks like we’re gonna share a sister.” She smiles sincerely over at Hannah.

  “You are—” I swallow hard trying not to choke on my own saliva. “You and Jack?” This can’t be happening. “You’re Jack’s—”

  She holds out her left hand, showing off the 3-carat diamond ring that once sat on my own finger. Why would he reuse the same ring? “That’s right, in just eight months I’ll be Mrs Jack Cabot.”

  “But you said Jack’s fiancée was a girl named May?” I look at both Hannah and Lily, whose faces are even more shocked than my own. Both of them have every right to be just as confused as I am. There aren’t a lot of Gretas in the world; if they’d known her real name I’m sure they’d be rather less on board with this recent engagement. Obviously, Jack is a bigger liar than I thought. How did he keep her real name from surfacing? The biggest question I have now, though, is how the fuck did she weasel her way into my spot?

  “I go by May now because Greta is just so… yuk, old-fashioned.”

  “Why May?” I ask, wondering if she did this on purpose to slide into the spot of Jack’s fiancée with no questions from my friends and family. But no matter how she got there, Jack should have known better.

  “From my last name, Mayfair…” She talks down to me, like she’s explaining a math problem to a first-grader.

  “Oh my God…” I set my plate back on the bar. “I have to go.”

  “What?” Evan asks, heading in my direction.

  “Emi, don’t...” Jack starts towards me too, his voice hesitant.

  “No. I’m fine. I just need some air.”

  “She’s always been so over-dramatic.” Greta rolls her eyes and goes back to filling up her plate while everyone else watches me try to escape the situation.

  “I think—” I need to stop trying to figure out what exactly it is that I think because I obviously don’t know. “I just need to go for a walk or something.”

  “Do you want me to come?” Lily asks still looking as shocked as I am.

  “Nope. No, I’ll be fine. It was nice to meet you all.” I glance around at everyone except Jack and Greta and beeline it to the front door.

  I’m just going to walk. Walking can clear your head. I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere. Not that I have any idea where I’m walking to, but I’m sure I’ll come across something. It’s not like I can clear this entire situation out of my own head quickly. With my luck I’ll walk long enough to get all the way back to Texas before I figure out exactly what it is that I truly think about all this.

  I wish this beer would settle in a little quicker than it is. Maybe what I need is just another drink? Sounds like a perfectly bad idea to me. On our way here I know I saw a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar; maybe I’ll go there. It’s not exactly as far as Texas but it’ll have to do as a last-minute hideout for now. I doubt anyone is going to come looking for me after the weirdness that just happened. In fact, I don’t really want them to come looking for me at all.

  The bar is just far enough away for the beer to blur my vision right about the time I push opened the giant, heavy front door with a porthole window in it.

  The room is semi-dark with small lights hanging over each table. TVs on the wall play CNN News, and the patrons are few and far between. Mostly older men, a few with a friend, a man behind the bar and another one sitting at the counter.

  “Can I get a shot of vodka?” I try and catch my breath from the quarter-mile walk that my poor size 12 body isn’t used to. Vodka is the last thing I need right now. I really don’t need to add a puking-in-public element to this future family story. Maybe food and water would be a much wiser order than just vodka. “Do you guys have a menu?”

  “A menu?” the bartender asks me with a tilt of his head.

  “Like, for food?”

  “Nope. There’s a vending machine in the back.”

  It’s not exactly the burgers and gourmet appetizers Evan had made, but it’ll have to do. Most of the time vending machines have all my favorite foods anyway. Salty and sweet. Perfect for my pending hangover.

  “Can I get a water too?” Vodka isn’t exactly thirst-quenching, and considering I feel like I’ve just run a 5k marathon I probably should help myself to not have a stroke in a strange place.

  The bartender nods his head, unenthusiastically, sitting both drinks on the bar in front of me. “Eight bucks.”

  Oh no. I reach into all my pockets, hoping I accidentally shoved some cash into them the last time I wore them. No such luck.

  “I… uh…” I stumble over my words. “I’m so sorry, I just had the worst afternoon of my life and I stormed out of my brother’s house without my purse, or cash, or anything. Is it possible to bring it by later?”

  Bartender stares at me, no emotion on his face. His head is bald, he has a tattoo showing out of the neck of his shirt, and he’s more than a bit intimidating in this environment. “You have no money?”

  “No.” I try and say it apologetically. “I mean… I do, just not on me. Like I said I’m here staying with my brother, who’s getting married this weekend and he decided to have a party for the entire wedding party tonight without even so much as warning me and he invited my ex who brought his new fiancée, who is a girl I know… knew… and, well…I just needed to get away quickly to clear my head and think straight before I go—”

  “I got it,” the man sitting a couple of stools fro
m me says to the bartender, who nods before walking away from me without further questioning

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m good for it, I swear.”

  “It’s no problem,” he says, looking at me with a side-eye.

  “Are you sure? Because I promise I can bring it in to you later.”

  He laughs before turning directly to me.

  When I catch the full view of him my jaw drops opened in surprise. I just assumed from the atmosphere of this place that all the men in here were old alcoholics who use this place as a second home away from nagging wives and irritating children. But this guy is not old. His sandy blond hair is a bit unruly, and the five o’clock shadow across his jaw looks almost intentional.

  “Don’t worry about it. We all have bad days, and yours sounds…” He stops speaking and looks me over. “Sounds brutal.” His southern accent could make any normal woman’s heart swoon, but all it does for me is remind me of home and how I wish I was there right now.

  “It was brutal, that’s a good word for it. Thank you.” I smile at him before turning to the drinks in front of me, downing the vodka and taking a sip of water while trying to keep my face from showing just how bad the shot was, since cute barfly next to me is watching. “You have an accent, where are you from?”

  “Does clearing your head always consist of this much talking?” he asks.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll let you get back to your… uh…” I glance around him looking for whatever I’m interrupting, but all he has sitting on the bar in front of him is a bottle of water, in a bar, during happy hour. “Water-drinking.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He laughs to himself with a shake of his head. When he stands from the barstool he was sitting on, I can clearly see that he really should be an underwear model on the side of a giant billboard. Which immediately makes my heart jump into my throat.

  He sits on the stool at my side.

  “I’m Liam Jaxson. I own the bar. And I didn’t mean that to sound as rude as it did. I apologize.”