“It is certainly ideal to not put animals in costumes at a wedding ceremony, yes.” Debbie continued to talk through her teeth. She looked a lot like Brutus when he didn’t want to give up the toy in his mouth. “You know, Brandy, I’ve dealt with animals in ceremonies before. I can think of only one occasion where it went off without a hitch, but that was a former show dog that did tricks like that for half its life. I usually suggest that we not go with motifs that don’t include any rational human thought. I’m sure Brutus is very clever…”
“I taught him to shake hands in one hour.”
Debbie briefly closed her eyes to compose herself. “Be that as it may, I seriously ask you to reconsider including your dog in the ceremony. I’m sure it would be fine if he’s there to share in your big day with Sunny, but I wouldn’t have him playing a key part. Besides, do you want him detracting from your big wedding gown reveal?”
Brandelyn hated to admit that she had considered that. “My dress definitely wouldn’t look good picking up dog hair off the runner, no.”
`“How about I come up with some ideas on how Brutus can participate, hm?” Debbie’s smile made Brandy want to reach across the table and smack her. Don’t be so condescending to me… I’m the one paying you! “No training involved. Besides maybe a sit and stay, perhaps.” She flipped to another page in her folder. Brandelyn narrowed her eyes, grateful that Debbie couldn’t see the scorn behind a pair of thick sunglasses. Beneath the chair, Brutus continued to growl on behalf of his mother’s honor. “Now, how about we go over the cake details? We still have yet to decide on the perfect cake topper.”
Debbie presented her with two pre-made albums, each one a variant of “lesbian weddings.” Brandy didn’t know what irked her more: that one flip-book was filled with two women in dresses, or the other was a dress and tux… with the figure in the tux only looking vaguely feminine. They might as well have been the male figurines!
“Sunny is wearing a tux, as you know.” Brandelyn didn’t know why she was presented with both options, honestly. Who was the one that referred Sunny to the tux shop? Debbie. Who was the one that ensured the tailors would adhere to the colors of white and pink? Debbie. “Do you have any ‘grooms’ with a pink cummerbund?” Brandy half-expected to get another roll of the eyes. Instead, she was treated to a “groom” with pink wrapped around “his” midsection.
It was totally the wrong shade, but it was a good start. Yet Brandelyn couldn’t stop thinking that it truly highlighted the stark difference between the bride in her porcelain princess gown and the ambiguously-gendered person in a suit and pink cummerbund. Sunny deserves better than this. Whatever cake topper they used should represent both of their personalities, let alone appearances! Her sandy blond hair could not be thoroughly represented by a male figurine with brown hair. Yet the blond ones highlighted the masculine features that did not look like Sunny at all! Her heart-shaped face, soft curves, and kindly brown eyes were nowhere to be seen in these booklets. Brandelyn had no qualms picking the first brunette bride standing proudly on her wedding, but she would be damned if her guests looked at her cake topper and wondered what guy she was marrying!
“No, none of these will do.” Shaking her head, Brandelyn closed the book and opened the one with two brides in wedding gowns. She might as well look. Maybe it would take the bad taste now forming on her tongue. “They don’t look anything like Sunny. I know you haven’t seen her much, but…”
“I know what she looks like,” Debbie said through gritted teeth. “There is one in the book you have there…”
Brandelyn paused on the page Debbie looked at with a little fondness. “Is this the one?” Brandy pointed to the two brides holding hands, both in identical gowns, but their bouquets a lovely degree of red and pink. The bride on the right had her dark hair up in the bun with the kind of ringlets Brandy considered for her matrimonial fashion. The blonde must have had long hair pulled back into a ponytail, but looking at her from the front, it was easy to imagine she kept it close to her skull.
It looked like Sunny. Or as close as porcelain or plastic could come.
“Too bad she’s not wearing a dress,” Debbie said with a sigh. “Unless you think she might be offended by a topper with a dress…”
“You know how she is.” Brandy closed the book. “I haven’t seen her wear a dress in all the years I’ve known her. Hm. Except for that one time. Except it was a long time ago, and she’s said so herself that she doesn’t like skirts.” Sometimes Sunny wore a long, cotton skirt on the hottest days of the year, but she kept them to the Waterlily House and claimed to favor them only because of the ventilation. Brandelyn had never questioned her about it. Why would she? Some women wore skirts. Others didn’t for whatever reason. What was it to her? She reminded both her female and male patients that they should keep certain body parts regularly aired out and free from constricting pants. Honestly, it didn’t matter what they kept in those pants. Proper ventilation was important! The amount of chafing and the number of infections I’ve seen…
“Are you all right?” Debbie asked, as soon as Brandy shuddered in her seat.
“Oh, absolutely peachy.” Just thinking about yeast infections. Don’t mind me. The worst part about being the only doctor in town was walking around the grocery store and thinking, “Your yeast infection was the worst I’ve ever seen! And your rash was totally preventable if you used that after-sex cream I prescribed you. God, have you started proper hygiene routines yet? If half this town knew you didn’t wash your you-know-what…” “I’m sorry I’m so difficult, Debbie. But I recognize that this isn’t only my wedding. Sunny may have put most of it in my hands, but I want to make sure she’s properly represented as well. For God’s sake, she’s the reason we’re having it at Waterlily House.” Compromising on the chapel wedding of her dreams was one of the hardest things Brandy had ever done, but she knew how much the B&B meant to Sunny. Besides, Sunny’s arguments that they weren’t religious and that it would be much cheaper to have both the ceremony and reception in a place they didn’t have to rent were sound. Didn’t mean Brandelyn liked them, but they made sense. Still, I always wanted to be like Princess Di walking down that aisle with church pews full of people… When she watched Kate Middleton walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey, Brandelyn’s eyes were full of tears. It was the most beautiful sight she had seen since she was four!
She would chase another dream for Sunny. Waterlily House was a picturesque location for any wedding, and Brandy came around to the idea of an outdoor ceremony when she double-checked Paradise Valley’s historical records for weather at the end of June. Perfect temperatures – not too hot yet and cool in the evenings – and little rain after the start of June. The morning might be foggy, but that was why they scheduled the ceremony for two in the afternoon. They didn’t need to do earlier when the guests could migrate straight to the reception a few yards away. That reminds me, I need to check in with those Port-a-John rentals. Three hundred people were not about to share the four bathrooms in Waterlily House. The fewer people coming in and out of there, the better.
Besides, Waterlily House was where they shared their first kiss! Their first night together! It was the perfect romantic place for their nuptials. Who cared about some stuffy church they had never been to before? If there were a God, He could as easily come bless their vows outside in his own creation!
“I’ll keep my eye out for a proper cake topper,” Debbie said. “You and Sunny might also consider one that doesn’t depict people at all. Is there a symbol that is important to your relationship? Many couples go with hearts these days. Or a symbol from their cultures. Ooh, have I shown you the photo of this one couple who had an elaborate, beaded sculpture created for their cake? It’s a bit last minute for something like that, but we could search for a pre-made one that…”
“I’d prefer people.” Lest anyone forget who the stars of the wedding were.
Still, it was the first time Brandelyn considered Sunny in a wedding dress
. It might be a pleasant sight, since Sunny had the perfect cheekbones, bust, and hips for a nice dress. But it was so unlike her! The concept of her wearing a wedding dress had never crossed Brandy’s mind before, and she wasn’t about to bring it up. Besides, the image Brandelyn had always envisioned was wedding dress and tuxedo. That’s how it was when one went traditional. Who was to say that lesbians could not be traditional? Wasn’t it a bigger kick in the teeth to the patriarchy and all things oppressive if Sunny showed up in a tux and claimed her bride?
“Brandy?” Debbie sweetly said. “Are you there? Where have you gone? We have a few things to go over still.”
Whoops. Brandelyn always did fall into fantasy when she imagined her fiancée being her usual badass self.
Chapter 6
SUNNY
“Do you need this for next year?” Sunny held up a red and green Christmas streamer made of construction paper. Knowing Anita, the English teacher put it up around Christmastime and never bothered to take it down again before the end of the year. When posters of Shakespeare, Maya Angelou, and Jane Austen already covered the walls, a harried teacher was not wont to consider what might come down after the second semester began. “Because if you don’t, I might steal it for my Christmas decorations this year.”
“It goes in the orange tote!” Anita called from outside her opened classroom door. The windows were likewise open, allowing the cool, late spring air filter through the stuffy classroom. This place sure is quiet without a hundred students running around. Clark High School served the towns of Paradise Valley and Roundabout, but that didn’t mean a large population of students to recruit. The school district was lucky to have a hundred high schoolers at any moment. One hundred and twenty during a good year. When I graduated, we had eighty in the whole school. Her class had been a humble nineteen students. Even now, when wandering the hallways and looking at portraits of classes past, she noted that hers was one of the smallest. Anita’s, meanwhile, boasted a whole twenty-three! Someone’s class had fewer dropouts than mine. Sunny would never forget the scandal when two of her female classmates dropped out because they got pregnant at the same time. It hadn’t been a pact of any kind, but when they discovered their kids had the same father? Anarchy.
The orange tote Anita had referred to currently sat on a desk near the front of the classroom, and was already stuffed with seasonal decorations like Styrofoam jack-o-lanterns and paper snowflakes. Anita apparently had construction paper streamers for every season, but she never bothered to put up the third and fourth semester ones. Shame. That yellow and pink for spring was really pretty.
Anita returned a few seconds later, her long white skirt swishing against the linoleum that had covered the floors of Clark High School since they were teenagers. She hooked a clear bin beneath her arm and pulled the cursive letters off their perches above the whiteboard. That’s a recent addition. Never forget the screech of chalk against a blackboard. Sunny didn’t have a lot of nostalgia for her school years, but she definitely had memories. Like the senior prank that included a mountain of opened Skittles dumped across the main entrance. We made the freshmen pick them up, one by one! They couldn’t get away with that now. Sunny was surprised to walk in a few years ago and see a giant sign by the secretary’s office that said, “How To Be A Good Person. #1) Bullying and Hazing Are Not Tolerated…” Apparently, they had to spell it out now.
Still, being a teacher wasn’t easy. It couldn’t have been, since not only did Sunny remember how she tormented her own teachers – some of them still around – but she heard the horror stories from Ms. Tichenor. When Sunny asked about the giant chunk of whiteboard missing, Anita explained that one of her students went “freakin’ nuts” about his parents’ divorce and ripped it out when her back was turned. That was considered a good day.
“What are we doing with the Holy Trinity?” Sunny asked, referring to the posters.
“Take ‘em down. I have to remove everything.”
“That’s so dumb. Did teachers do that when we were kids?” Sunny hopped up on a stool and undid the pushpin holding Billy Shakes to the wall. He unceremoniously limped forward as gravity took hold.
“No. It’s a more recent policy that we take everything down over the summer. In case they want to shuffle the classrooms around again.”
“How often does that happen?”
“Every other year, at least.”
Sunny rolled her eyes. She also rolled up the poster of Shakespeare and gingerly tucked him into a tube she found in another tote. “Change for change’s sake, it sounds like.”
“They’re ‘revolutionizing’ education with a shoestring budget, okay?”
“I pay taxes,” Sunny muttered. “So why the hell does this school have no budget, and why can’t I drive to Brandy’s house without hitting three potholes?”
“That’s a question for Dave, the history and government teacher.” Anita chuckled. “Thanks again for helping me out today, Sun. I know you’re really busy with your house and the wedding, but I appreciate it. This always takes me twice as long to do by myself.”
It’s the least I could do after you helped me with my gardening. “I had to get out of town for a while,” she said, referring to how Clark High stood right between Paradise Valley and Roundabout. As a child, she never thought about how weird it was to see a high school out in the middle of nowhere. Now, though, she realized that many aspects of her childhood were “different.” Not even Brandelyn totally understood how a school could be outside of city limits. I’m honestly surprised a big city childhood like that led her to being comfortable in rural Oregon. Brandy claimed to have grown accustomed to a quieter life when going to school in OHSU. Still, how did a big city woman become a small town doctor? It was one of those bits about Brandelyn that Sunny would continue to discover for the rest of her life.
“Is the Bridezilla still on the prowl?” Anita dropped her smile. “Sorry. I shouldn’t call her that. Oh, and make sure Maya goes on top, would you? She gets the spot of honor.”
“Two women on top of the most celebrated male writer in history. Got it.”
“Always thought that was Rumi,” Anita said.
“Who?”
“Never mind. Come sit in on one of my classes sometime, huh? I should get a Rumi poster…”
Sunny made sure that the poster of Maya Angelou was on top. “It’s okay to call Brandy a Bridezilla. She kinda acts like one. Then again, it’s her dream we’re enacting. She can have almost anything she wants.”
“Lord, is that what you’re telling yourself? I thought some of the things I overheard teenagers saying was bad.”
Sunny jerked upright. “How is it bad?” she asked. “You know I’ve never had big marriage or wedding aspirations. Hell, remember when you asked me to be your +1 at your sister’s wedding? I almost bailed, because I honestly hate other people’s weddings.”
“I thought you bailed because you couldn’t decide between a suit or a dress?”
“That’s why I ended up going with a blouse and slacks.” It had come in handy many times since. Sunny needed to dress up for something semi-formal? Slacks and blouse! It was the perfect blend of sticking with what she found comfortable while also avoiding strange comments. Not everyone in Paradise Valley or the general area was used to women wearing suits and tuxedos. They thought that kind of thing only happened at lesbian weddings. Never forget Anita’s uncle, who asked us if two women getting married always meant two suits… because we’re obviously trying to be men, or something. Sunny was really getting tired of the gender politics over a simple outfit. Why couldn’t she wear something that was comfortable, while still looking nice? Comfort didn’t always mean physical.
Anita’s silence spoke volumes. She had clearly heard her friend’s response. Her choice to not say anything was basically screaming, “You keep telling yourself that.”
“Besides,” Sunny continued, “we’re getting married at Waterlily House, which was the most important thing to me. You hav
e no idea how much Brandy had to concede her desires for that chapel vision. She watched way too many religious weddings growing up.”
“So did we,” Anita said. “Yet somehow we’re not ragin’ to get married in churches.”
“People are different, yeah? To her, the chapel wasn’t about being Christian or getting married in front of God. It was all about the aesthetic ingrained into her since she first realized she really, really loves weddings.”
“If you say so.”
“You’re the one calling her Bridezilla.”
“Because I’ve heard so many stories about her and that wedding planner of yours. I heard she was asking about that dog of hers being the ring bearer?”
“Who did you hear that from?” Sunny asked. “Because it’s not that true.”
“If you say so!”
“Would you stop saying that?”
Sunny hadn’t meant to snap at her friend, especially since she came all this way to help Anita pack up her classroom at the end of the year, but she was getting tired of people acting like Brandelyn stomped all over her. Did people think Brandy was the Queen Bee of the relationship? Hardly. We have complementary personality types. They got along because Brandy was a go-getter and Sunny knew how to slow down and take in the flowers. She loved to think that they were beautiful opposites like that. The kind who, on the surface, didn’t get along. But when one dug deeper and made things work, it was a balanced relationship to last a lifetime.
“Sorry,” Anita finally said. “I know things are stressful right now. Just don’t let your fiancée walk all over you and make every single decision up to the last minute. Don’t want you showing up to your own wedding and having no idea what’s going on.”
June Bride (A Year in Paradse Book 7) Page 4
