The Lucky Dress Read online

  Really? I mouth over him, standing slowly from my chair. I watch as he turns the doorknob slowly, letting the door open without even as much as a click.

  I know it’s wrong to sneak out of our own wedding planning meeting, but I really can’t help at this point and Amelia clearly has it under control. Megan and she haven’t even looked at us or run by an idea in a couple of minutes, so I’m thinking my work here is truly done. I tiptoe over to the open door where Jack is now standing just outside against the wall.

  “Emi?” Amelia suddenly calls my name, causing me to quickly spin her direction.

  “Yes?”

  “No need to look at venues today, I’ve already booked the Hilton Exec Tower for July the fifth,” she grins with a nod.

  “Oh, you chose the date too?” I didn’t even consider her choosing the most important parts like our anniversary date or my wedding dress. I glance at Jack standing just out of sight of his mother. He shrugs his shoulders with a smile.

  “Of course,” Amelia waves a hand at me. “You kids get to your next appointment. I’ll do what needs to be done here and I’ll give you a call later this week for your input.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, feeling more than guilty. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re doing everything.”

  Amelia walks over and wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me in for an awkward side hug. “You’re like a daughter to me, Emi. It’s not a bother! My only son is getting married, and to a woman that I actually like. I’m just so thankful to be a part of it.”

  I nod. I bet she wouldn’t be quite so eager about it if I didn’t offer to let her plan the entire thing.

  “OK then,” I say, glancing over at Megan. She’s staring at Amelia, and to be honest looks both a little star-struck and a little deer in the headlights all at once. Obviously, this is not what she originally signed up for, but if she can succeed in planning a wedding for the great Amelia Cabot then she might earn herself the business of Portland’s richest of rich.

  *

  Jack takes my hand as I get to him in the hallway, leading through the building and onto the sidewalk out front.

  “I told you she’d take over…” he says with a hesitant laugh.

  “What day is July the fifth anyway?” I pull my phone from my bag and scroll six months into the future. “Well, at least it’s a Saturday.”

  “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding, Em.” Jack kisses my cheek.

  “I really don’t need to do anything, do I?”

  “Maybe pick your own dress, I hope, and show up for appointments?”

  “Did I do the wrong thing?” I bite my lip and stop walking, pulling Jack to a stop with me. “Is it going to end up being some stuffy middle aged richey rich party and not us?” The what could go wrongs are swirling through my head.

  Jack pulls me against him, kissing the top of my head. “Not at all. She knows us and she thinks of you as a daughter, she’d never intentionally do anything you wouldn’t like. You know that. Now come on… I’ve got a surprise for you…”

  He leads me a few blocks down the road, my hand in his as we weave through people until we finally stop in front of a place called Uptown Dance Studio.

  “What is this?” I ask, knowing full well what it is, just not having expected Jack to be the one to arrange it.

  “I’ve heard that after weddings, couples sometimes do this first dance in front of their guests. I just thought… that maybe we could actually look like we knew what we were doing? What do you think?”

  I laugh to myself before wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing his lips. “I think you’re perfect.”

  He opens the front door, allowing me to enter ahead of him.

  “Hello! You must be Jack and Emi?” a woman wearing a flattering and very fluid dress sashays across the floor in our direction. She greets Jack with a kiss on each cheek and then the same for me. “I’m Miranda, congratulations on your upcoming wedding. What a gorgeous couple you are! Any ideas on a first dance song? If not, I have a book full of ide—”

  “I know what song,” Jack interrupts her, pulling a CD from his jacket.

  “You already picked the song?”

  Miranda takes it from his hand and pops it into her CD player sitting at the front of the room. The second the sounds of the piano intro start my heart starts to melt.

  “Just beautiful,” Miranda says as I watch Jack lay his suit jacket on a chair near the wall.

  “Hand around her waist, and her free hand in yours, and let’s just try to follow the music…” Miranda gives instructions as I still try to make sense of the song he’s chosen.

  My mom used to sing this song, Someone to Watch Over Me, by Ella Fitzgerald, when I was a kid. She’d dance me around the living room and tell stories of her mother doing the same when she was young. It’s amazing how a single song can induce so many memories even long after the last time you’ve heard it.

  I rest my hand on Jack’s arm with a sigh. Mostly a sigh to attempt to settle the gallop that my heart is on. We are actually getting married and so far, he’s perfect.

  “Too old fashioned?” he asks.

  “No,” I shake my head.

  “Too emotional?”

  I shake my head again, “It’s like she’s right here with us. It’s perfect, thank you.”

  Just the fact that he remembers I told him this story is enough to make me fall for him all over again.

  Jack knew I wanted to do something to honor my parents at my wedding but I didn’t know what without it seeming too cheesy. I think adding in something that is as personal as a memory through a song, is absolutely the most romantic thing ever.

  “It’s like you two have been dancing together your whole life, I think I just fell in love…” Miranda laughs as she follows us around the room, making tiny suggestions here and there. “You’ll wow the whole room.”

  Five

  The Escape

  Present Day

  Northwest Portland, Oregon

  You know when you visit somewhere you haven’t been in a while and all the memories of when you were there last come racing back? That’s been happening since I got here. All the memories of Jack and my life seem to be just around every corner I find. I’ve tried to avoid it but it seems to just not want to give up in surprising me. And I hate surprises.

  I’ve been hiding out in the den watching Friends re-runs because they can always make me feel better about anything.

  “What’s for lunch?” I make my way into the kitchen where I hear someone tinkering away on something.

  “I invited some friends over for a barbecue this afternoon. Just a casual thing to relax before the wedding.” Evan has at least ten different cuts of meats in different marinade bowls lined up across the counter in front of him. 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 bacon wrapped 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?” I ask, knowing good and well that the one face that’s been haunting me since I got here is in that exact bridal party and I’m just not ready to face him.

  “Yes, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and their families.” Evan stops brushing sauce on a plate of burgers and turns towards me, sauced brush still in hand. “I know you aren’t particularly keen on seeing Jack again after what you guys went through, which I’m not sure I even fully know the details of what that was, but I think if you’re here to prove you’re over him, the weird, jittery, and nervous Emi thing you’ve got going on will have to get lost. Don’t you think?”

  I cock my head with a glare, “You don’t have to make such sense to make your point.”

  “I know you, well.
And I know you don’t just get over things. You’re still mad at me for that time I told Mom and Dad you stayed out all night with Max, your high school boyfriend, and that was thirteen years ago.” Evan laughs as he goes back to swiping sauce on a tray of chicken.

  “There was no reason they needed to know. There was also no reason you needed to give that kid a black eye when you found out why I was out all night…” Max took my virginity, with my consent, and Evan seemed to find out practically before I did and like big brothers do at times, he took matters into his own hands. Needless to say, Max and I broke up the next day. I didn’t blame him one bit.

  “Go do whatever it is you need to do to prove you’re the girl who’s moved on because they’ll be here in thirty.”

  I grab a bacon wrapped appetizer from the tray in the fridge, just barely avoiding Evan trying to whack me with a spatula as I do, and race up the stairs to Lily and Josh’s room.

  “There’s a wedding party, party?” I ask, wondering why she didn’t let me in on the secret when I was vegging out downstairs.

  “So?”

  “Jack will be here?”

  “Probably, I mean he is in the wedding party as your brother’s best friend.”

  “What do I wear?!” I ask as I race back to my room, pulling every clothing option from my suitcases and piling them on my bed.

  “Wait… why are you so worried about impressing the one guy here you are supposedly over?” Lily asks, following me into my room.

  “I am over him, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make him wish I wasn’t. I just want him to be miserable. There’s a difference.”

  “You want him to see you and wish he wasn’t such a fucking moron?”

  “Exactly.”

  Lily rolls her eyes as she sits on the side of my bed going through the clothing I’m tossing at her.

  “I just wish I didn’t have to see him so soon. I’m not ready.”

  “You’ll never be ready…”

  “I can’t say you're wrong about that. But now, I have to force myself to be ready to see him, and this woman he’s seeing. That’s some serious stress.”

  “Just be you!” she grabs a shirt in mid-air “And stop throwing things at me.”

  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. At least not most of the time. These ones involve revenge.

  “I jus—” 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 exactly what I feel towards Jack anymore but, after being brought back to where it all ended, memories are coming at me left and right and making everything much more confusing than it needs to be.

  “Can you just relax, you psycho. Get dressed…” she grabs a pair of jeans, sleeveless top, and flip-flops from the pile and throws them my way. “And come downstairs when you’re ready.”

  I pull on the clothing Lily suggested, pull my hair from its nearly permanent bun and run my fingers through my curls, dab some lip gloss on my lips, and voila! I don’t look like I’ve just spent the last few days a nervous, frazzled mess. Now if only the butterflies racing through my insides would die off.

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

  I do one more mirror check and then force myself to casually make my way down the stairs to the empty foyer. I hear voices on the back patio and peer around the staircase in their 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 as I vegged in front of the TV hidden away from the world?

  “There you are!” Lily comes up behind me carrying the tray of bacon wrapped appetizers that could have called me in by scent from Mars. “Come on.”

  I follow her out, almost hiding behind her as she sets the tray on a table full of food. “Is he here?”

  “Yes,” she turns to me. “Now stop acting like a weirdo. Do you really want him to think we had to request leave from the lunatic asylum for you to join us this week?”

  I shake my head, grabbing another bacon wrapped piece of heaven, shoving it in my mouth before I can give an appropriately witty answer.

  Looking around the patio I can see there aren’t a lot of singles here. In fact, I might be the only one. “Lil… Everyone here is in pairs.” A kid maybe six years old skids past me on the heels of his tennis shoes. “Some of these people even have kids!”

  Lily jerks me by the arm behind a curtain separating the patio from the hot tub area. This is where I should be hiding out, in the hot tub.

  “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, confident, 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 back out on to the patio. Evan walks towards the outdoor kitchen, to which is attached a bar complete with a keg and all. I make my way to it and fill a glass. Now is not the time to not like beer. All I need is a distraction, and a few more of those bacon wrapped appetizers.

  “Emi, come meet everyone.” Hannah grabs my arm before I can make it back to the food table. “You know quite a few people but there are some that you might not. And don’t be nervous about May, she and Jack haven’t been together long and if I didn’t know any better I’d bet she’s as nervous to meet you as you are her.”

  “How much does she know?” I ask, wondering if I should fill her in on how much of a big turd Jack is.

  “About what? About you and Jack? Oh, I’m sure she knows what we all know.”

  My heart sinks a bit because, besides Jack, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows what truly happened that horrible day and thereafter. So, if what Hannah says is true, some unwanted truths may end up revealed this week. And I promise they won’t come directly from me.

  “I just don’t know if I’m ready to meet—”

  “Oh stop! She’s just fabulous, I’m sure you’ll love her like the rest of us do” Hannah glances over at me and frowns. “I’m sorry, you’re right, this is an awkward situation and I’ll do my best to not push you two together. You can’t avoid Jack, though. I hope you know that?”

  “I’ve done OK at it so far…” I say with a sly smile. Not that it’s been easy. Jack still emails every couple of weeks and once I figured out how to block his number it was easier to avoid his phone calls so thankfully, technology has made things easier in that perspective.

  “Guys!” Hannah pulls me into a group of people, some faces 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, which is a nice change to my face being shoved up against her girls. “I can’t wait until we’re officially sisters, finally!”

  “Yeah, finally…” I nod, hoping no one will ask exactly what the addition of the word actually means. “Nice to meet you all.” I glance around at all the faces who nod excitedly back at me. I only recognize a few but still don’t see the one I’m the most anxious for. Hopefully, these people don’t expect me to remember the names that Hannah is now rattling out because my head feels so stuffed with cotton wool that I can hardly even remember my own name right now.

  “Where are Jack and May?” Hannah asks Evan, who points towards the edge of the house.

  “They ran to their car.” Evan walks past now wearing an apron with a woman’s body in a bikini on the front. “They’ll be right back.”

  I follow Evan, stopping momentarily at the appetizer table, grabbing a handful of meatballs and shoving one in my mouth as I walk.

  “What are you doing?” Evan asks as I wash the meatball down with the now war
m beer.

  “Nothing… I uh” I shove the next meatball in and wash it down quickly.

  “Please tell me you’re leaving some appetizers for the actual guests?”

  “Of course, I am. I’m not a total glutton. I’m just nervous.”

  “This might sound weird to say out loud but I’m honestly a little nervous for you. It’s a weird situation you’re in, for sure. I promise it won’t be that bad though. Their whole relationship is pretty new.”

  “What does that even mean? New like, she’s here to make me jealous, or new like, he’s just not yet taken the next step?”

  “Jack’s different since you left. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Is he worse?” Please let him be worse.

  “He’s not standing over here shoveling in the appetizers alone if that’s what you mean.”

  “Ha, ha… that’s not what I mean,” I turn to the appetizer table again only I don’t quite make it and run right into none other than Jack himself. “Shit, Jack!”

  Jack lets out a small laugh, both his hands now resting on both my shoulders. “That was quite a hello…” he says, an awkward smile on his face, staring down at his now soaking wet pants that very much match my own.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” I momentarily look 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 just as gorgeous as he ever was. His dark hair and eyes, his comforting smile, and his intoxicating cologne, they 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 him at all if possible. 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 make my way into the kitchen where I can only hope is where Lily disappeared to.