Olivia’s dress.
“New rule, everyone.” Holly went to the cupboard and found napkins inside. “You may only eat one gummi bear at a time. Chew it very, very carefully before swallowing. All right?”
They chorused assent.
Josh calmed Olivia and the other kids by asking them questions like Are any of you married yet? and Who did you have to pay to get the gig of flower girl in this wedding?
With Olivia’s attention diverted, Holly did her best to keep her bile down while using the napkins to scoop the . . . mass from Olivia’s lap. Though she wiped the area as best she could, a stubborn round stain the color of red gummi bears remained.
Holly caught Josh’s eye and gestured toward Olivia’s skirt, asking him with a somewhat wild-eyed expression, What in the world should I do about this?
Mitzi would have her head. She’d been the one pumping the kids full of hard-to-chew gummi bears.
“Any scissors around?” Josh asked.
“I’ll check.” Was he thinking to cut the stain out? How? Inside a bureau drawer, she found a pair of scissors that looked like they were circa 1952. She handed them to him.
“How many layers of fabric do your dresses have, girls?” he asked the group. “A hundred?”
“Mine has forty thirty.”
“I think mine has a million!”
“I’m two,” the youngest flower girl offered.
“I think whoever said a million is probably right,” Josh said. “Your dress has so many layers, Olivia, that I don’t think it’ll miss the top few. What do you think?”
She just blinked.
He escorted her to an empty patch of floor and went to work cutting off the top-most layers of tulle.
When Olivia shot her an uncertain expression, Holly responded with a big smile and a thumbs-up. That dress had probably cost a bundle. If Holly had been the one with the scissors, she’d have hesitated and debated with herself. Josh didn’t.
When he finished, Olivia’s dress looked slightly less puffy and slightly more sheer, but otherwise as good as new. Olivia scampered to one of her friends. Josh hooked the ring bearer (who’d ascended halfway up the face of the bureau again) under his arm and walked over to Holly.
“I suspected that you were a superhero yesterday,” Holly said. “Now your secret identity is definitely busted.”
“And here I’d worked so hard to protect it.”
Mitzi tossed open the door. “Josh! The wedding is starting in two minutes. I need you to take your position at point D.” Mitzi’s method of assigning letters to ceremony positions would have baffled a field general.
“I’m on it.” He met Holly’s gaze, ruffled the ring bearer’s hair, and disappeared.
Mitzi’s huge earrings pulled at her lobes as she aimed her laser-beam focus on Holly. “It’s time for the children to assemble at point B.”
Holly passed the flower girls their petal-filled baskets. She handed the ring bearer his pillow, which didn’t actually cushion any rings since Mitzi would never have trusted a child with something so critical.
Out in the hallway, Holly worked to keep peace among the squabbling sisters. She pulled a gummi bear from where it had been hiding, stuck near the hem of the redhead’s dress. And she kept reminding the girls to keep the petals inside the baskets until the right moment.
Amanda’s mom passed by Holly’s group with an I’m-thoroughly-charmed-by-you “Mmm.” High praise.
Mitzi arranged everyone in the order of the procession, then the enormous group slowly made their way into the church’s foyer. The first piece of music gusted through the organ’s pipes, all but causing the church to vibrate with majesty.
The flower girls and ring bearer gradually edged closer to the front of the queue.
A dash of white caught Holly’s eye and she turned in time to see Amanda and her father enter the foyer. Oh, Holly thought, awe settling over her at the sight of Amanda as a bride. Amanda had always been stunning. But today, in her beaded ivory gown, so full of delight and excitement, she looked prettier than Holly had ever seen her look. The kind of pretty that could put a single girl in a mint green V-neck shirt into a trance of fascination.
Amanda had parted her blonde hair on the side and swept it into an intricate style at the base of her neck. Her veil had been positioned at the top of her updo. Its sheer fabric cascaded downward into a train. Her bouquet burst with fall colors of russet, apple green, pale orange, and trailing vines of autumn berries.
Holly earnestly wished Amanda and Ben the very, very best. She caught Amanda’s eye. “You look beautiful,” she whispered.
Amanda beamed. “Thank you,” she mouthed back.