Ava gave her friend an exasperated look. “But you picked it out.”
Beth shrugged and took a sip of her champagne. “You know how some of those brides claim they don’t care about their gorgeous maid of honor upstaging them on their wedding day? Yeah, I’m so not one of them. Just be thankful I let your size two, shiny-haired ass stand next to me at all.”
Ava sighed and held out her glass for a refill. “It’s the least you can do.”
Beth waggled a finger. “Pour it yourself. Spilling champagne on my wedding gown at my wedding is acceptable. Charming, even. Spilling it on my dress a week before the ceremony? Trashy.”
“How does everything feel?” the tailor asked, coming over to where she’d been arguing with Beth’s cousin over how low the neckline of the dress could go without risking a wardrobe malfunction.
“It feels like I won’t be able to eat for a week,” Beth said, resting her hand lightly against the bodice of the gown.
The severe-faced tailor nodded. “Excellent.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Wonderful.”
“And you?” the tailor asked Ava.
“I’m good,” she said with a smile.
It might have been the biggest lie she’d ever told in her life. Ava was so far from good it wasn’t even funny. She hadn’t been good in…twelve days.
Beth’s face lost some of its glow as she took in Ava’s forced smile. “He still hasn’t called, huh?”
Ava shook her head and she refilled her champagne flute. “No call. No text. No courier pigeon. No Twitter, no Facebook.”
Beth made an angry noise. “It’s his loss.”
“Is it?” Ava murmured. “He’s right not to trust me.”
“Bullshit. You’re unemployed because of him.”
“No,” Ava snapped, using a sharper tone than she ever had with Beth. “That’s not what this is.”
Beth didn’t back down; her hands went to her hips, emphasizing the hourglass outline of her mermaid-style dress. “So you didn’t turn down your dream job as a show of faith for your non-boyfriend.”
“I turned it down because it wasn’t what I wanted.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open.
Ava understood the sentiment. Half the time her mouth still dropped open when she had the thought. But it was true. She’d been chasing the dream for so long that she’d lost sight of why she wanted the dream. And now that it was in sight…
“I don’t want to be a talking head, B,” she said.
“Well okay…I can’t say I’m going to argue. But why the change? It’d better not be because of a guy. We are so not those girls.”
“It’s not because of Luc,” Ava said softly, watching the bubbles sneak up the side of her champagne flute. “He was the catalyst, perhaps, but not the reason.”
“Not now,” Beth snapped at one of her other bridesmaids before pulling Ava farther toward the corner of the room. “Candice! I said not now!”
“You’re such a delicate bride,” Ava murmured.
“I’m a hungry bride,” Beth grumbled. “I had carrot juice for breakfast. I didn’t even know that was a thing. But don’t try to distract me. What changed?”
Ava shrugged. “The anchorwoman job just sounds…awful. The early morning, the constant need to look perfect. The high heels, all the sitting.”
“Okay, I’m with you there,” Beth agreed. “I’ve always thought it sounded like a wretched gig. I mean thousands, no millions, of people actually get to watch individual wrinkles develop in high definition. But that’s not what I’m asking. Last month you were all about it. This month, you’re not?”
Ava took a sip of her drink. Wasn’t that just the question of the day?
Year.
Decade.
“I don’t know,” Ava said finally. “I think I realized that I wanted the prestige of it all.”
Beth nodded. “I get it. And you wanted to show your Grade-A asshole of a father that you could do it without all of his string-pulling and mighty influence.”