I looked up. Alex again. “What are you doing here?”
“Going home. I live two blocks that way. What are you doing here?”
“I had to grab something at Bloomingdales. I live in Bethesda.”
“We’re practically neighbors.”
“A Metro stop apart. Us and probably fifty thousand other people in the same radius.”
He smiled. “A cynic in five weddings. How’s that working out?”
I grimaced and gestured toward my bag. “I just spent a hundred bucks on a strapless bra to go bridesmaid dress shopping this weekend. I think that’s a pretty apt metaphor for my life right now.”
“Bras cost a hundred dollars? A pack of boxers costs like ten bucks for three pairs.”
“There’s a tax on being female, didn’t you know that?”
“Is it nice at least?” he asked, trying to peek in the bag.
I swatted his hand away. “You have to at least buy me dinner to get a look at my underwear.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I braced myself for the dinner invitation, but he just laughed. “I’ll catch you around, Lily.”
Saturday afternoon found me strapped into the Nellie Bly straightjacket bra and stuffed into a too-small dress that wouldn’t even zip over my hips, next to Caryn’s sister, Olivia, whose dress fit her perfectly. While wedding dresses tended to be stocked in size ten and up to be accommodating to more brides, bridesmaid dresses were apparently as merciless as Caryn’s bridesmaids.
“It’s gorgeous,” Olivia cooed, turning this way and that and swishing the chiffon of the evening-length skirt. “It’s so flattering.”
She wasn’t lying. On her, it was. Even in the puke-green color that the sample came in.
On me, not so much. It had a padded bust that was detailed with ruched material designed to enhance the wearer’s chest a full cup size. Which on Olivia looked great. On me? Oh dear.
Caryn looked from Olivia to me, her mouth a scowl of disappointment. This was the third one we had tried on, and Caryn’s favorite by far before we put them on.
“We could try different styles for different bridesmaids,” the saleslady murmured to Caryn. “One dress doesn’t fit all in some cases.”
I looked in the mirror and could have cried from the frustration of being made to do this.
“I—Lily, what if you try it without the bra?” Caryn asked.
“It’s not going to stay up without the bra.” I shook my head.
“Perhaps a minimizing bra,” the saleslady suggested.
“Can we try a different dress?”
“I love this one,” Caroline said. “I think you should try the minimizing bra.”
I felt my jaw tightening. Earlier, she had asked why I hadn’t thought to bring Spanx with me, so we could get an accurate feel for how the previous dress could look.
“Why don’t I just get a breast reduction and solve everyone’s problems?” I asked, my voice dripping sarcasm.
“Don’t be silly,” Caryn said. “You’d have swelling and we wouldn’t have an accurate idea of your post-op size in time to order the dresses.”
My eyes widened and I started sputtering that I wasn’t serious, but Caryn didn’t notice. “Do you have any minimizing bras she could try here?”
“No.” The saleslady shook her head, eying me appraisingly. “We could try wrapping her with some fabric though.” I pictured Barbra Streisand binding her chest in Yentl. Caryn had her head tilted and was studying my chest, as if trying to picture how that would work.
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest self-consciously. “I’m not doing that. Caryn, if I don’t fit into the mold of what you want your bridesmaids to look like, I don’t have to be in the wedding.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Caroline asked, hand on hip. “Are you really threatening to drop out of the wedding if you don’t like the dress?”
“No, I—”
“This isn’t about you. It’s Caryn’s day. You’re just being selfish.”
I looked to Caryn, horrified. She hadn’t said anything. “Caryn, I’m not threatening at all. I’m just saying if I can’t look the way you want, my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t have me in the wedding.” Was that true? Of course not. But I would still rather not be in the wedding than have her be miserable over how I looked in it.
“You could get a minimizing bra,” Caroline said. “And maybe try a diet. We can’t do anything about your height, but if you wear flats with a long dress, and we all wear heels, it won’t be so bad.”
I recoiled, stung. I had considered the money I’d spent on the strapless bra to be a major concession to the fact that I didn’t look like Caryn’s other bridesmaids, but this was too much. I opened my mouth, about to tell her to go do something that wasn’t anatomically possible for her to do to herself, when I saw something interesting that made me hesitate. Dana was standing a little behind Caroline, and from that safe vantage point, she was glaring at her with the same unadulterated hatred that was probably mirrored on my face.
Oh thank God, I thought. It’s not just me.
Bolstered by that, I started to turn back to Caroline, ready to tell her where she could shove her minimizing bra, but a quick glance at Caryn stopped me. Caroline was going to be her sister-in-law. And saying what I wanted to say would make it harder for me to stay in Caryn’s life.
I took a deep breath and counted to ten.
“I’ll try to find a different bra,” I finally said, measuredly. “And I’m happy to wear flats. I’ll even get some Spanx if I have to, but I’m not changing how I actually look.”
“That’s—perfect,” Caryn said, clearly not knowing how to fix the situation, but also unwilling—or maybe unable—to stand up to Caroline. “Let’s—let’s try a different dress. Maybe—are there other styles that go with this one? We can mix and match.”
“Mixing and matching is tacky,” Caroline said. “Besides, the rest of us are good in the same dress, so it would just be her in a different one.”
I balled my fists involuntarily. I had never actually been in a fight, but this might be the time to jump in the ring.
Caryn stood and put a hand on my arm, but didn’t say anything.
“Maybe something a little higher cut,” the saleslady suggested, flustered. “I think I have one that might work for everyone.”
Caroline muttered something that sounded like “cheap,” but Caryn shook her head at me and mouthed that she was sorry. My anger evaporated when I saw how sad she looked. She told me when she asked me to be in the wedding that her friends were awful. And how miserable did your life have to be when you didn’t even like your friends?
“No, I am,” I mouthed back. I wasn’t going to say it so Caroline could hear it, however.
I thought the next dress made me look pregnant, but it contained my boobs better, so I no longer looked like I was channeling the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith. The other girls looked willowy and ethereal in it, and while Olivia and Caroline huffed that they liked the earlier ones better, Dana said she was happy in whatever made Caryn happy, and Caryn said it was her favorite of the dresses, which was a lie that even Caroline couldn’t effectively argue against.
As I peeled it off in the dressing room, I looked at the price tag, then did a double take. Five hundred and eighty-five dollars for a dress that made me look like I had chewed Willy Wonka’s gum and was turning into a gigantic blueberry? If you factored in the money I had spent on a strapless bra, then added the cost of Spanx and a minimizing bra, I’d be spending over eight hundred dollars before shoes on clothes for Caryn’s wedding. I sat down, still in my straightjacket bra and underwear, and pulled my planner out of my bag. I could put it on a credit card, but that was significantly higher than the two-hundred-dollar maximum I had planned on for each bridesmaid dress. In fact, that was eighty percent of my dress budget overall. For just one wedding. I threw my clothes back on and poked my head out of the dressing room, gesturing wildly for Caryn to join me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I—” I stopped myself. She looked so defeated. “Nothing. Sorry. I’m good.”