“The first one we saw. The Lodge at Allison Springs.” I resisted saying, That’s why I showed it to you first. “If it’s still available.”
“You’re right,” she said. “Maybe this is silly but I thought when I walked into the reception room, I would feel like, ‘This is where the most romantic night of your life happens, Franny,’ and I didn’t feel that. The room gave me no feels. All that dark wood.”
“You wanted rustic,” I said.
“But it felt sort of, I don’t know, masculine.”
“It won’t once there are orchids and—”
She interrupted me. “Tulle, I know. Maybe we could drive down there right now so I could have one more look at it? I think I could commit to it today if I could just see it one more time.”
I took a deep breath. “I can’t,” I said. “Trust me. I want nothing more than to put this to bed, but I’ve got to get to Ruby’s school. She locked herself in the bathroom and she won’t come out. And if I don’t get her out before lunch starts, all the kids at her school will know about it, and maybe a small thing becomes a big thing, you know how kids are.” I laughed. “I’m sorry to burden you.”
“It’s no burden,” she said. “We can look at ballrooms some other day.”
“WHY DO YOU think she locked herself in the bathroom?” Franny asked when we were in the car.
“Probably to escape the bullshit kids at her bullshit school.”
“That’s awful,” Franny said.
I hated Ruby’s school, which seemed to be populated by a particularly high percentage of assholes. I loathed the vice principal, who referred to himself as the “bullying czar.” Czar, can you imagine? He had the mean good looks of a porn actor. You knew the only reason he had been named the “bullying czar” was because he probably had done a lot of bullying himself. This man had the rhetoric of anti-bullying down (inclusiveness, safe environment, no tolerance), but on some level, I could tell that he actually thought everything was Ruby’s fault. It would be easier for everyone if Ruby could kindly stop being so darned bullyable.
“I was bullied, too,” Franny said. “But when I went to high school, it stopped.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Oh, well”—she laughed—“I got hot. I don’t want to sound conceited.”
“Lucky you,” I said.
“I mean, I was glad it happened, don’t get me wrong. I was glad not to have to throw up every morning before school. But I knew it was wrong and also, it was not to my credit. I knew those people were still the same terrible people and that I was still the same person they had hated,” Franny said. “Were you bullied?”
I slammed on my brakes. I had almost run a stop sign. I waved at the jogger who’d been crossing and mouthed the word “sorry.” The woman gave me the finger. “I was,” I said.
“It’s hard to believe. You seem so strong,” Franny said. “You seem like a wall, not in a bad way.”
“The good kind of wall. Everyone loves a wall.”
“Untouchable,” she said. “Unflappable.”
I laughed. “Once upon a time, I was easily touched and easily flapped.”
“What happened?” she said.
“I grew up,” I said.
I KNOCKED ON the bathroom door. “Ruby, it’s Mom.”
The door unlatched. I asked her what had happened, and the situation was so stupid I couldn’t believe it. In her gym class, a male classmate of Ruby’s had “hilariously” taken to running his hand up and down the girls’ legs to determine who had shaved and who had not. Ruby had not shaved her legs. Indeed, she had not shaved her legs ever. She said she was the only one, which I found hard to believe. They were eight years old and it was the middle of the winter in Maine. I had not personally shaved my legs for three weeks. Since when were eight-year-olds shaving their legs?
“Why didn’t you tell me I was supposed to shave my legs?” she asked.
I sat down on the bathroom floor. “Once you start shaving, you can’t stop,” I said. “As long as you don’t shave, your hair is silky and downy, but once you start, it gets all spiky and itchy. I thought it would be good to put it off as long as possible. And honestly, what is so bad about leg hair? It grows there. Who cares?”
She looked at me as if she were very old and I were very young. “Mom,” she said in a serious voice, “if I am going to get through this year, you need to keep me informed about the right things to do. I don’t want to call any attention to myself.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” I said.
“I don’t want to do that. But as a strategy . . .” She looked at me to see if I was following.
“Strategy,” I repeated.
“This is how it has to be. I’m a good person, I think. I’m smart. But these girls—they pounce on any little thing about me. There’s no negotiating with them.”
“I understand,” I said.
On the drive home, we stopped at the drugstore to shop for razors.
SEVEN
I called Franny on the phone to apologize if I had come off brusquely.
“Oh, no. It’s not a problem. I don’t know why I was being so irritating about the ballroom,” she said.
“Franny, you’re not irritating. And even if you were, you’re a bride, which means you’re allowed to be irritating.”
“You’ll be glad to know I drove down to the lodge this afternoon, and I walked around. The sun was going down, and you can see the lake through the windows, and by December, it will be frozen over so the view will be even more beautiful! And everything smelled like cedar, and I imagined the lace and the orchids and Wes in his plaid bow tie, if we can convince him to wear plaid, and I thought to myself, ‘Franny, you dope, of course Jane is right.’ I’m so grateful for you, Jane,” Franny said.
“That’s a nice thing to hear,” I said. I felt like all I’d done was screw up that day.
“Actually, I’m glad you called, because I had a thought. Have you ever heard of Steineman’s?”
“Of course,” I said. It was a large bridal dress shop in Manhattan. It was overpriced and a bit hokey. A wedding amusement park for tourists. You could get the equivalent dresses at any local store with a decent bridal department.
“I know it’s probably corny, but I have always wanted to go there,” Franny said, “and I was wondering if you could come with me. You could take Ruby. You should, obviously. She’s your assistant. I’ll pay for everything. I have some money from my mom’s estate.”
This was not normally something I would agree to, but the fact was, Ruby and I were both in need of a change of scenery. “It’s a nice offer,” I said to Franny, “but wouldn’t it make more sense to take your best friend?”
“I don’t have one,” she said, with an apologetic laugh. “Not one I’d want to take. I think I have trouble making close female friendships.”
“Probably because you were bullied,” I said.
“Probably so.” She laughed again.
“Or your bridesmaids?” She had four. “You could take them.”