The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [59]
“Puh-leez,” Bean groaned, giving the long skirt a sharp yank to make it fall properly. “Thirty-three is hardly mutton. I swear nobody who’s anybody gets married anymore until they’re at least thirty anyway.”
Rose pouted at herself in the mirror, smoothing back her hair. Cordy picked at her nails. “Fine. I’m not mutton. But I still look foolish.”
“Because you’re insisting on this stupid tradition,” Bean said. One of the saleswomen she had chased away fluttered by, ready to alight and push for a sale, but Bean bared her teeth, and the woman scatted just as quickly as she had come. “Come on, Rose, we can do so much better, I swear, if you’ll just let me do some picking. Somewhere that doesn’t look like a marshmallow factory.”
Rose lifted the layers of skirt and let them float back down along her thighs, like Daisy deflating in Tom Buchanan’s presence. “But I don’t want to look weird,” she groaned. “I want to look like a bride.”
Cordy finally stood from her chair, having successfully torn her nails into ragged shreds. “Nobody’s going to mistake you for anything else at your wedding. But the big white dress just isn’t for you, Rosie. Why don’t you let Bean pick something out? She’s a way better dresser than you or me.”
Rose looked at Cordy, who wore a ragged black tank top and jeans settled low on her hips, leaving a stretch of belly poking out. Back in the dressing room hung Rose’s own clothes, a pair of olive walking shorts that left her legs sticking out like white, stumpy sausages, and a loose white shirt that made her look wide and unkempt. She had worn them for the ease of donning and doffing, but now she regretted it. Bean would have dressed up, and made sure to remain clean and perfect through the experience. The very train of her worst-wearing gown / Was better worth than all my father’s lands.
In the center of the dressing room, in front of the wide span of mirrors that sent Rose’s image spinning back at her, square, heavy, plain, sat a wooden box brides could climb on to admire the spread of a train, the detail of a hem. Rose thumped down on it sadly and buried her face in her hands. A moment passed in silence before we realized she was crying.
“Oh, Rosie,” Cordy said, and climbed toward our sister on her knees. She put her hands on Rose’s knees and shook them gently. “What’s wrong?”
Rose cried.
Bean stood apart, wrapping a veil around her hand, tulle scraping against her fingers.
“Rosie-Posie,” Cordy said again, looking sweetly up at our sister’s face. When Rose pulled her hands away, her eyes were red and streaks of tears mapped across her cheeks.
“I’m supposed to be beautiful,” she said, and sniffed. “For one day, I’m supposed to be beautiful.”
“But you are,” Cordy said. “You’ll be the most beautiful bride we’ve ever seen.” And bless her heart, Cordy really meant it.
Rose turned to look at herself in the mirrors, bare arms swelling out of too-tight sleeves, her face gone red with the effort of sadness. It was, we’ll admit, even Cordy might admit, not her best moment.
“No, no, I am as ugly as a bear; for beasts that meet me run away for fear,” Rose said, and set herself off again. Cordy lifted a hand to Rose’s face, and Rose batted it away. “Don’t patronize me with your hippie crap,” she said sharply, and Cordy pulled away, stung.
Bean shook the veil off her arm and marched over to Rose’s side, hands on her hips. Her heels sank into the soft carpet, and she wobbled slightly. “Rosalind,” she said, and she pulled our sister’s full name out like a warning. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Bean,” Cordy cautioned, but her softness was cut by the sword of Bean’s voice.
“You look like shit because the dresses are shit,” Bean said.