Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [22]
In an effort to rewrite my mother’s first impressions of Eli, I was a bit too enthusiastic in my praise. Mom assumed I liked him, and immediately credited his visit to Providence: “It’s just like it was for me. If I hadn’t taken the job in Kentucky I’d never have hit your father on that exit ramp. I told you God still has you at that school for a reason. You were meant to meet this Eli.”
This was exactly what she had said the night I met Adam; she had yet to recant that theory. And I hardly considered her meeting Dad a precedent, considering the ultimate outcome of that fateful intersection
“I have had my own providential run-in,” she said coyly.
“Yeah, Brian mentioned something about this.”
“I was in the shopping market, trying to decide whether I wanted Gala apples or Jonathan—the Galas have not been very good lately for some reason, and they’re my favorites, but I finally had to switch to Jonathans—anyway, I had Jonathans in my bag and was just turning around to get more when I bumped right into Richard Moore. He said he was trying to get to the tangerines but had slipped because they’d mopped the floors, then I said I was trying to get apples but they were all so bruised and awful and he said the fruit has gone downhill since the new manager took over the store. You know he told the cashiers they don’t have to wear those little paper hats anymore?”
“Who’s Richard Moore?” I asked.
“The man from that little corner place that does my taxes.”
“Mr. Moore, the financial advisor?”
“He’s shaved his mustache. He’s much less scary-looking now— he’s actually almost handsome. Anyway, he’s taking me to dinner tomorrow night.”
Mom boomeranged back to the wedding colors, describing in detail the impossibility of finding a dress that properly matched the day’s festivities without being a total imitation of the bridesmaid gowns.
“They’re doing this greenish color. Something ‘don.’ Celadon, I think. It really is hideous in the right light. Almost sickly. It’ll never do for my complexion.”
“So buy a pink dress.”
“You’ll never believe what Marie said. I’m trying to help her pick out her makeup for the day, showing her the new Luna boysenberry line, which would look perfect with her complexion—she has that dark Indian skin you know, which is just beautiful—and she says to me, ‘I don’t think I’m going to wear makeup, Pam.’” Mom paused for dramatic effect. “I mean, can you believe that? Who doesn’t wear makeup for their wedding!”
“Remind me to elope,” I said to Zoë when I got off the phone.
She was curled up in her red reading chair, halfway through Birds of America and a Tootsie Roll Pop. Tootsie Pops were her dietary sin of choice. She said, “Do you know how many children you could feed with the money we pour annually into weddings?”
“How many?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, not turning her attention from the book. “A lot.”
Zoë’s parents had married on a beach at sunset, her mom in a blue dress she’d found at a local vendor’s booth that morning. At the reception the in-laws coerced them into a month later, they requested that guests donate money to charity in place of gifts. She raised her Tootsie Pop in the air, gesturing with it to emphasize each word: “What Would Jesus Do, Amy? What Would Jesus Do?”
5
Rinaldi told Roseanne that she looked breathtaking, because she is.
“I want to run my fingers through your hair,” he said. “I’m always taken by the urge.”
Roseanne breathed hard. “I don’t think