The Fable of Us (15 page)

“I’m stuffed inside a peach condom, Avalee.” I did a not-so-graceful spin in the sausage casing of a dress to remind her. “Kicking me when I’m down is just not cool.”

A laugh burst from her, but she covered her mouth to try to stop it. I pulled her hands away and laughed with her.

“It’s okay. Laugh. This”—I did another spin, almost tipping over—“is funny if there ever was such a thing.”

“I feel terrible for laughing,” she said, though she continued to laugh with me.

“Well, it’s a terrible thing,” I teased before shoving her toward her fiancé. “Now go be a good future Southern wife and make him get you a drink.”

She waved at me over her shoulder before rushing toward Sterling and throwing herself into his arms before he had them open.

This visit was becoming strange and unexpected in some wonderful ways. First my mom apologizing and now Avalee behaving like we were a couple of co-conspirators in cahoots to rise to world domination. Maybe my trip wouldn’t be a total failure after all. Maybe there’d be something positive I could take from it.

With Avalee gone, I was on my own. I’d have to walk past the hostess desk and past the waiting benches and wade through the sea of people alone. I was used to going it alone in plenty of things in life, but not when I was dressed the way I was now.

I mean, what should I do first? Go over to my parents and mingle with them and their friends? Dart to the bar for a stiff drink and chug it before anyone could notice me? Head to the seafood buffet so I could be first in line for the crab claws that were longer than my arms? Or march right up to Charlotte and thank her for picking out, with such great care and concern, the dress I’d be spending the next fourteen to eighteen hours of my life trapped within?

The crab legs were calling my name, and since my mom had her back turned, maybe I could pile a plate up with them without being shamed into eating less. I was just marching toward the buffet line when I noticed one of the nearby restroom doors shove open, and out came a familiar face.

Boone took a few long strides before he noticed me. He froze in the middle of rolling up his sleeve and gave me a head-to-toe inspection.

I pointed at the zipper. “Zipper busted. Clara stuck.”

Just when I couldn’t tell if he was going to laugh or shudder, he raised his palm at me in a “stay there” kind of motion before disappearing back inside the bathroom.

He looked like he’d survived the day of golfing and country clubbing it with the boys, and if he was here now, he hadn’t gotten himself arrested for breaking Ford’s nose—as he nearly had back in high school—nor was he on the run for having murdered Ford as I knew he’d been fantasizing about for years. He was here, present, and accounted for . . . and hadn’t wound up looking like he could play lead sidekick in
James and the Giant Peach
. Good for him. Sucked for me.

I wasn’t waiting longer than a couple of minutes—and starting to get impatient when I saw people circling the crab legs like a bunch of vultures—when the men’s bathroom door exploded open, and out came Boone . . . looking as I’d never seen Boone before.

“What in the hell happened to you?” I asked, shaking my head to see if my vision needed to clear.

“Let’s see . . .” Boone kicked his foot up to show off a pair of knee-high lavender-and-mint-colored argyle socks that were pulled up to his knees, below which were tied a pair of matching golf shoes. “
Ford
happened to me. In case the pastel didn’t give it away.”

“Crap, Boone . . . they didn’t make you wear this all day, did they?”

Boone’s jaw stiffened. “No one makes me do anything. Nobody.” After adjusting his beret-looking golf hat, he pinched at the lavender bow tie. “I
chose
to wear this all day to prove to those elitist bastards that there’s nothing they can do to make me feel inferior. As hard as they damn well might try.”

I shook my head at his outfit, no longer feeling like the only one dressed like they may or may not have been under the impression that Halloween had come four months early. “What are those things?” I poked at the khaki-colored material. “Pantaloons? Britches?”

“If they have a name, I don’t need to know it. I don’t plan on stocking my wardrobe with every shade of them.”

“I’m so sorry.” I felt guilty I’d left Boone alone with my dad and the rest of the “elitist bastards.” Here I thought I’d had it bad with the girls, and it turned out Boone had suffered for eighteen holes looking like a deranged metrosexual had gotten his hands and glue gun on him.

Boone swatted away the tassel swinging from his beret when it bounced in his face. “But I’m not the only one standing here like the butt of every joke.” He thrust his hands in my direction—my
dress’s
direction. “What happened to you?”

I was surprised he had to ask. “Charlotte happened.”

Boone’s eyes cut through the crowd of guests, landing on my sister. His eyes narrowed. “Well, aren’t the little princess and prince just made for each other?”

“Perfectly made for each other.”

“Why are you still wearing it if this was all Charlotte’s idea?” Boone leaned into the wall behind him and went to slip his hands into his front pockets. He wasn’t wearing his typical worn-in jeans though, and the “pantaloons” were pocket-free. He muttered a curse.

“For two reasons.” I gave the hem of his sweater vest a tug. “Because I want to prove to that elitist bitch that there’s nothing she can do to make me feel inferior.”

He lifted his chin and urged me on when I paused before giving him my second reason . . . which was more like my first.

I withheld a sigh and lifted my arm as high as it would go before I lowered my gaze to the zipper. “Avalee and I busted the zipper when we were trying to get it off of me, and the bridal store didn’t have a seamstress on staff today—because why in the hell would they have one of those at the ready on a Saturday?—but there will be one available tomorrow to fix the zipper and free me from this thing.”

Boone lifted a brow, gauging to see if I was done. “You don’t need the zipper to get out of The Thing.”

I shoved his arm when he used my designation for the dress, making it sound like the nemesis in some sci-fi flick. It was certainly my nemesis.

“Actually, I do, because in case you missed it, this thing is suctioned tighter to my body than the casing around a bratwurst.” I give the fabric a pinch and pull to show him just how impossible it was to free it from my skin. I felt like someone had super-glued it to me . . . although the copious amounts of sweat I’d shed might have had something to do with that. “No amount of tugging, wiggling, sucking, or sliding will get The Thing off without that zipper functioning. Not even if I lathered my body with butter.”

Boone smiled when I copied his ominous tone when referring to the bridesmaid dress from hell. “Then why didn’t you just cut, rip, or slash it off? That should show her what you think of the dress she picked out for her bridesmaids.”

“Bridesmaid,” I corrected, pointing at myself. “Just lucky me.”

“You’re the one she expected to wear This Thing? The
only
one?” The muscle running down Boone’s jaw popped through his skin.

“Told you I was lucky.”

Boone muttered another curse before grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the bathroom. “Come with me. I’ve got a pocket knife in my jeans. I’ll get you out of This Thing, and when we’re done slicing it into shreds, we’ll go sprinkle the pieces into her lap.”

“Hold up there, Eager Pocket Knife Man.” I pulled against him just as we were breaking through the bathroom door. “Let’s think this through. First, what am I going to wear when you free me from the confines of The Thing?”

Boone’s face flattened with realization right before his mouth pulled into a crooked smile.

“And you can just delete that image from your depraved mind right now.” I flicked his temple, not sure why knowing he was thinking of me in my underwear made me feel that strange stomach phenomenon. The one where it felt like it’d been invaded by a nest of hummingbirds extra high on nectar. I hadn’t felt
that
feeling in a long time. So long I’d forgotten what it felt like. “Not to mention my sister will lose her shit if we sprinkle peach silk confetti into her lap and this is, after all, her special week.”

Boone rolled his eyes but stayed quiet.

“And I’m not just wearing this because I couldn’t take it off by the conventional, non-pocket-knife-required, means. I’m wearing it because, like you, I’m sick of them making me feel like a puppet they can toy with whenever and however they choose.” I was able to just barely shrug. “I’m tired of them sticking it to me—to us—just because they can and I’ve let them. This is my weird way of sticking it back.”

Boone was silent for a moment, watching me like he was reading some sort of manual. He didn’t stop staring until Charlotte’s shrill, staccato laugh broke through the room. He cringed. “So we’re sticking it to them together tonight? Have I got it?”

“You’ve got it.” I pulled at the collar of the dress to let some air in. The restaurant was nice and cool, but it didn’t seem to matter. The material didn’t seem to breathe, and I was swathed in it from neck to ankle. “But quick question first, before we go make spectacles of ourselves in front of Charleston’s finest . . .”

Boone pulled at his collar and bow tie and rubbed at the skin behind it. Even for formal dances, Boone hadn’t worn a tie or buttoned his collar. He’d claimed back then that he didn’t like anything around his neck and that collars were for dogs, so for him to be suffering through this, he must have been really trying to make a point.

“You came out of the bathroom in your regular clothes. You’d changed for dinner. Why did you change back into this when you’d already spent all day in it, sticking it to them, and are fortunate enough to not be trapped in it like I am in mine?” I tried not to grin when I noticed the argyle socks, but it was impossible. I doubted if Boone had let anything argyle come within a ten-foot radius of him up until today. “You had a choice tonight. Why choose this?”

He stalled for a moment, letting go of the door and letting it close behind us. He glanced at the main part of the restaurant, looking like he’d rather be there than standing in front of me with that question hanging between us.

“You didn’t have a choice,” he said at last, one of his shoulders lifting. “That’s why I made my choice.”

I felt my eyebrows come together. “So because I didn’t have a choice when it came to This Thing, that made you choose to go change back into Your Thing?” They came together tighter. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Boone’s eyes stayed focused over my shoulder. “We’re a team in this, Clara. Like I told you last night, when it comes to you and your family, I’m always on your side. I’ll always have your back, no matter what has or will go down between us.”

I got it. It suddenly made sense . . . but this wasn’t the Boone of present tense I’d gotten to know. This was the Boone of past tense I remembered. The one who seemed selfish to the rest of the world, but I knew was the least selfish one out there. The one who would give anything, and do anything, for the few people he loved.

That realization startled me more than the confines of the dress wanted to allow.

“You’re doing this so I wouldn’t be the only lightning rod for pointing and laughter, aren’t you?” I asked, my voice having grown quiet.

“I just didn’t want you to be the only spectacle and have all the fun tonight.” He started to smile. “That’s all.”

For the first time since passing into the county, I felt so close to exhaling I could feel my lungs starting to contract. However, that was something else the dress wouldn’t allow. Not without ripping the seams at least.

“Well? Should we get this over with?” I turned toward the main dining room.

“No.” Boone shook his head as he came up beside me. “We should get this party started.” Holding out his elbow, he waited for me to weave my arm around it before he led us into the restaurant.

“In case you were wondering, lavender’s a good color on you.” I nudged him as we walked. “It really brings out the feminine in your character.”

He adjusted his bow tie so it was more crooked than straight. “Watch it there, peach cream puff, before I decide to call the debutante society and tell them you stole one of their gowns. From 1982.”

“You weren’t even alive in the eighties.”

“I’ve seen Madonna videos. Close enough,” he said as he climbed a couple of stairs before stepping foot in the lion’s den. Also called the dining room.

I’d been right in my estimation of close to one hundred guests. Some of them were milling about the room with their cocktails in hand, some were staggered around tables and chowing down on the seafood buffet, and some were making their way to the dance floor where a jazz band was playing a Sinatra tune. They were all dressed in varying degrees of semi-formal wear that was fitting given the event.

Boone and I were the only ones not in some version of a suit and tie or cocktail dress.

That might have been the reason why everyone was staring at us like we’d gotten the wrong address. When we continued to move through the room, playing ignorant to the blatant points and stares, guests’ gazes shifted in my dad’s direction, waiting to see what Quincy Abbott would do about the party crashers.

My dad just stood there, continuing to carry on his conversation with the guy who’d been mayor when I’d been in high school and pretending like Boone and his daughter walking arm-in-arm through a roomful of his esteemed guests wasn’t about to send him through the roof. I knew better. I could tell by the way he was clutching his glass of bourbon so tightly it looked like it was about to shatter.

“Looks like you and my dad made some progress in the growing-to-like-each-other department.”

“Oh, tons.” Boone twisted his index and middle finger together. “We’re like this now.”

“You and Ford too apparently.” I nodded at the table where Ford was sitting with a crowd of his friends. Most of them were moving on from gaping at us to getting back to their drinks and bullshitting, but Ford was still staring at us, his mouth looking like he’d just bitten into a wedge of lemon.