Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [60]
“Oh, I guess we didn’t realize that,” Mary said. “We were planning to get back to the city tonight.”
“It’s just that it’s my shower,” Kristi said. She sounded wounded, like she had just told them it was her last day on this earth and they were leaving anyway. Isabella could see Lauren and Mary start to panic.
“I know you two have stuff to get back for, but I could stay,” Isabella said. She hoped the other two appreciated her self-sacrifice. Mary perked up right away.
“We really do wish that we could stay, but it just doesn’t seem like it will work out,” Mary said. Isabella wondered if she was the only person who could hear the joy in Mary’s voice.
“Could you stay over?” Kristi asked Isabella. “I have a fitting tomorrow and you could come along.”
“Sure,” Isabella said. “That would be fun.”
Kristi showed Isabella a tape of the band they had chosen, and then they sorted through some of the shower presents, and discussed whether Kristi should have the band announce the wedding party or not. Finally, they got ready for bed in the room where Kristi had grown up. Isabella lay in one of the twin beds and looked at a picture of Fred Savage that was still taped to the bedside table.
“Iz, are you awake?”
“Uh-huh,” Isabella said.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think Lauren is acting weird to me?”
“Not really. Weird how?”
“It just doesn’t seem like she’s happy for me,” Kristi said.
“She’s happy for you,” Isabella answered.
“I don’t know. She seems a little distant. I guess maybe it’s just hard for her to understand.” Isabella didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to be in this conversation.
“I mean, Abby’s not really into the whole bridesmaid thing, but she has her reasons,” Kristi said. “But what I don’t get is why Lauren’s being a pain.”
“Lauren seems fine to me,” Isabella said.
“It’s just, you know, sometimes I worry about her,” Kristi said.
“Why?”
“I just feel like she’s lonely, you know. Like she’s not meeting any guys and it seems like the way she’s going, she won’t.”
Isabella was quiet for a few moments. She didn’t know how to answer.
“Well, the thing is that you don’t meet someone until you do.” Isabella started off talking slowly. “And the older we get, the harder it is. And maybe not all of us will meet someone.”
“Well, you can’t think like that,” Kristi said. “Look at you and Harrison. You found each other.”
“But who knows what will happen? And what if it ends and I don’t meet anyone else? What if Lauren never meets anyone else? Is that the end of the world? People live, you know.”
In college, Kristi’s boyfriend cheated on her almost every week and Lauren was always the first one to comfort her. One time, she planned a bar crawl just to cheer Kristi up. Isabella could still remember the way they rode their bikes from bar to bar, with Lauren and Kristi leading the way, swerving and laughing. Isabella was always jealous of Kristi and Lauren in college. They were so close that sometimes they seemed like one person instead of two.
“Well, I’m just glad that you have someone,” Kristi said. “It makes me happy when my friends can finally understand how great it is to have someone, you know?”
“Yeah,” Isabella said. “I do.”
When Kristi got married, she and her husband stood under a chuppah. “We’re not having a traditional Jewish wedding,” Kristi told them a million times. “We’ll have a priest do the ceremony. But I don’t want Todd to feel completely left out, so we’re having a rabbi up there too.”
The rabbi explained how the chuppah represented the new home the couple was starting. Then she had the family drape a cloth over their necks. “With this cloth, we are creating a chuppah within a chuppah,” the rabbi said. “This is to symbolize that Kristi and Todd will be bound to each other in a way that is special only to them.” Kristi and Todd stood with their shoulders touching, wrapped in the cloth. It reminded Isabella of the way that Lauren and Kristi used to huddle together, whispering and laughing at jokes that