Chapter 26
Laine
I knew Michael was taking me to a movie, and that meant jeans and nice shoes, a short leather jacket, and hair thrown up in a nest. Not a big deal. But a short phone conversation with Phoebe shook me from my fog of stupidity.
“Big Girls premieres Tuesday,” she said. “It’s huge.”
I sat on my balcony overlooking the newly gentrified street and threw back my head. I knew that. Nothing premiered in that town without my knowing, and somehow, I’d let that star-studded bit of Oscar bait drop from my radar.
“He would have told me,” I said, bending at the waist until I was in crash position.
“Unless he thought you already knew. I mean, with him starring in it and all.”
“This is going to be very public, Phoebe.”
“What are you wearing?” she asked.
“They’ll all be there.”
“Laine?”
“This is it. It’s all over.”
“Laine?”
“I’m not going,” I said.
“I have a few hours before I leave for Vegas. Meet me at Grandview.”
When I saw Phoebe fingering a lacy thing in the dress department, I knew something was wrong. She was too sharp a woman, too crystal clear and energetic for that faraway dreamy look.
“Phoebe?”
“Would you show me this one?” The height of the rack prevented her from getting the dress off herself, and she’d probably shooed away three salesgirls already.
I pulled the cream, floor-length lace dress off the rack, and she stared not at it but through it.
“What?” I said.
“It’s nice.”
“Not my style.”
“I have to get a wedding dress,” she said.
“You’re not getting off-the-rack at Grandview. Sorry.” I clicked the hanger back in place.
“I have to get it made custom for, you know, the chair. God, I hate this. I’m going to hate every minute of it. I mean, I’d run away and get married if it weren’t for my family and the whole concept of running, which I never got a taste of.”
Phoebe rarely got depressed. She didn’t spend a minute pitying herself. She’d put herself through law school and made a name as a tough negotiator and relationship-builder by using her girlishness not as a handicap but as a weapon. I admired her strength, and because of that, I respected her fragile places.
I sat on a leather chair next to the rack. “Do you want to go get some coffee?”
“No. I want to just do this. Flat out.” She said it as if what was coming was hard, as if it had been eating at her.
“Go on,” I said.
“You can’t be in the bridal party.”
“Why not?” She’d picked me as the maid of honor because she didn’t have any sisters. We’d talked about dresses and responsibilities. I mean, maybe a demotion for whatever reason but to be cut out completely? “What did I do?”
“Nothing. You’re my best friend. Ever since you tripped over me running after Rabine Johnansen. You know why? Because you laughed and helped me up. You’ve never treated me like a cripple, but you’ve never ignored it either. So this is the thing. I am a cripple. And I’m supposed to use different words, but this is the fact. And the happiest day of my life is in six months, and I’m going to be in this chair for it. I want… I want something else. I want it to be different.”
I had the feeling from her run up that she wasn’t cutting me out of the bridal party as much as she was letting me into something else. “What do you want me to do?”
“Wedding pictures are forever, and I don’t want them to be ugly. If it’s just the usual thing, me and Rob under a trellis, except I'm in a chair, I’m going to cry whenever I look at them. All I’ll have of this day for the rest of my life will be the pictures, and I don’t want them to look like an excuse, or half done, or fall short of the norm. Everything about it has to be different. Can you do that for me? Can you… I don’t want a photographer. Can you not be the photographer? Can you be the documenter? I’ll pay you anything.”
“You want me to photograph your wedding?”
“Yes.”
What was I supposed to say? No, Phoebe, I think wedding photographers are failures. Or Sorry, that doesn’t fit in with my vision of myself?
Besides the fact that would be rude and break her heart, besides the fact that our friendship might not recover from such a rejection, I had to be honest with myself.
The idea was kind of exciting.
“I need complete creative freedom,” I said. “You go all bossy lawyer on me, and I’m just going to drink and dance all night.”
She slapped her hands over her mouth. “You’ll do it?” she said from behind her fingers.
“I need full access to every step of this, so get Rob and your brothers on board. They can’t get on my case to make it boring and normal.”
“Yes. Anything.”
“I can’t guarantee you’ll look like a model.”
“No, no, the point is that it’s real. And beautiful but—”
“Beautiful because it’s real. I know. I get it.”
“I’m so happy, I can’t… this is better than… god. You have a date with Michael Greydon! What am I doing?” She wheeled her chair back. “All the stars wear boring black. You need a color.”