Wedding Bell Blues (3 page)

When they entered the Something New bridal shop, Aly couldn't believe her eyes. One side of the shop was filled with hundreds of dresses in hundreds of different colors—more colors than all of the nail polishes in the whole Sparkle Spa—and the other side was lined with the whitest, poofiest dresses she had ever seen.

“Hi, girls,” Joan greeted them. They both gave her a hug. “My appointment is in this room to the right.”

Brooke and Aly followed Joan, and for the second time in two minutes, Aly couldn't believe her eyes. There, sitting on a couch, surrounded by dresses and books filled with fabric samples, were Suzy Davis and her younger sister, Heather, who was sitting on Isaac's lap.

“Suzy?”
Aly said.

Suzy looked up from a bridal magazine. “Hi,” she said.

“Did you know I was going to be here?” Aly asked.

Suzy shrugged. “I guessed it. I knew Uncle Isaac was dating your mom's best friend.”

Aly couldn't believe her ears. “Why didn't you say anything?” she said. Then she turned to Joan and her mom. “Why didn't anyone say anything?”

Suzy and Aly were on speaking terms now, but
that hadn't always been the case. Suzy had been mean to Aly for years and had almost destroyed the Sparkle Spa a couple months ago. After the school carnival last month, the girls decided they didn't hate each other anymore, but still. It wasn't like they hung out all the time. Or ever, really.

“I didn't meet Isaac's brother and his family until last week,” Joan said.

“And I didn't make the connection until I spoke to Joan last night,” Mom said.

Mom had not been a big fan of Suzy Davis either, but the carnival had changed her mind a little.

There was a lull in the conversation. Brooke looked at Aly and sent her a Secret Sister Eye Message:
Can you believe this?

Aly sent her one back:
Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it.

Heather moved off of Isaac's lap. Standing up,
he said, “How about all of you girls gather together over here. Joan and I have something important to ask you.”

Aly felt Brooke grab her hand. They walked over and sat on the couch between Heather and Suzy.

Suzy immediately slid closer to Aly, even though there was plenty of room on her side. Aly sighed.

“So,” Joan said, “we know this is a little out of the ordinary, but we'd love to have all four of you as our flower girls.”

Brooke and Heather squealed.

Joan continued. “We haven't picked the color yet, but I just fell in love with this flower girl dress. We'll order it in each of your sizes in whatever color we choose.”

She lifted up a dress the color of Peaches and Dreams nail polish that had poofy sleeves with ­ruffles and a huge bow at the waist. Aly thought
it was pretty, but she also thought it looked like a little-girl dress. She was not thrilled at the idea of wearing it, but she loved Joan, so . . .

“We're too old,” Suzy said, breaking into Aly's thoughts. “Aly and me, we're too old to be flower girls. And that's a baby dress, no offense. We're both almost eleven, which is too old to wear a baby dress. Right, Aly?” Suzy crossed her arms and looked at Aly.

“Well . . . ,” Aly began. Suzy wasn't wrong, but Aly didn't want to hurt Joan's feelings.

“See?” Suzy said. “Aly agrees. And since we're so good at making people beautiful, we're going to have a different job at the wedding. We're going to be Brooke and Heather's stylists. We'll do their nails and their makeup and their hair. That's a more grown-up job.”

Brooke looked at Aly.

Joan looked at Aly.

Mom looked at Joan.

Joan looked at Isaac.

Isaac looked at Suzy.

“If that's what you want, that's fine with me,” he said.

Suzy smiled and said, “Thanks, Uncle Isaac.”

“Are you sure that's what
you
want?” Mom asked Aly.

Aly froze. She didn't know how to answer, so many thoughts were going through her mind:

1. Suzy was right—the dress was for little kids.

2. A stylist did sound like a more fun, grown-up job.

3. Aly had felt all along that she was too old to be a flower girl.

4. But a flower girl was a real part of the wedding.

5. A stylist was not. A stylist didn't get to walk down the aisle and wear the wedding colors.

6. But that might be better than wearing a baby dress down the aisle for everyone at the wedding to see.

“I—I—I'm . . . ,” Aly stammered.

“She's sure,” Suzy said. “We're
not
babies.”

“Neither are we,” Brooke snapped. “The dress is beautiful.”

Aly nodded her head weakly. “Being a stylist will be fun,” she said.

Joan looked at Aly again. “Okay,” she said, “I'm sure it will.”

“So,” Brooke said, “is there any chance Sparkly can be the flower dog?”

The grown-ups laughed, and Aly felt relieved that there was a new topic of conversation. But she also felt worried that she might have just made a big mistake she wouldn't be able to fix.

T
hat night, after Aly and Brooke had helped Mom make phone calls to local charities in the afternoon, hoping to find one that could make good use of the food that would be left over from the wedding (they did—it was called Rock & Wrap It Up), Aly sat on Brooke's bed, braiding her sister's hair. Her own hair was a little too short for ­braiding.

“Is this the kind of hairstyle you're going to give me for Joan's wedding?” Brooke asked. The braid
crossed her head, starting at her left temple and ending just over her right shoulder.

“I don't think so,” Aly answered. “This isn't fancy enough. Maybe we should look at some flower girl hairdos in magazines or online.”

Aly wrapped an elastic the color of Midnight Blues polish around the bottom of the braid. “Let's check Mom's computer,” Brooke said.

The girls went into the home office. Aly wiggled the mouse to wake up the computer, then did a search for “flower girl hair images.”

Hundreds of pictures came up. Aly and Brooke scanned them all.

“Oooh!”
Brooke cooed. “Look at
that
one!”

A lot of the styles were just half-up hairdos with curls, but the one Brooke was pointing to looked really complicated: A big bun sat on top, with two braids coming in from the sides and curls falling
down the back. Around the bun was a crown of flowers.

“I like it, Brookester,” Aly said. “We'll have to ask Joan about the flower crown, but I think I can figure out how to do the rest of it.”

“That's awesome,” Brooke said. “I'm going to look like a flower princess.”

“You totally are,” Aly agreed.

Brooke was quiet for a moment before she asked, “Are you sure you don't want to be a flower girl? Because I'd rather be a flower girl with you than with Heather Davis. You're my sister, and she's just a first grader. You and I do things better when we're a team.”

Aly hugged her sister. If she had spoken right then, Brooke might have heard the tears in her voice. Sometimes the weirdest things made Aly feel like she was going to cry.

“I like being a team with you too,” she said, “and
if Suzy weren't involved, I probably would be a flower girl. But you know what's most annoying about Suzy Davis? Even when she's mean about things, she's right a lot of the time. Look at all the girls in these photos.” Aly pointed to the screen. “The oldest one looks nine. Almost eleven really does feel too old to be a flower girl.”

Brooke pushed her glasses up on her nose and sighed. “I just wish that you were going to be in the wedding with me and that we could walk down the aisle together wearing fancy dresses.”

Aly wished that too. “I'm sure I'll wear a fancy dress,” she said. “I'm still coming to the wedding, and even regular guests need nice clothes for weddings. I just won't get to walk down the aisle. But Dad won't either, so I guess I'll sit with him.”

“But don't you
want
to walk down the aisle?” Brooke asked.

“I kind of do.”

Aly must've looked sad, because Brooke started stroking her hair. “Don't worry, Al,” she said. “I'll tell you what it's like. And this way, you'll get to make me look extra beautiful for the wedding. That'll be a lot of fun, right?”

“Right,” Aly said, grinning. “Okay, let's head back to our room to see if I can get your hair to look like that.”

But as she unbraided and rebraided Brooke's hair, all Aly could think about was watching her sister from the wedding sidelines.

O
n Sunday, Aly was pretty quiet at the Sparkle Spa. Joan didn't seem her usual self either.

“Don't you think Joanie should be happier, since she's getting married?” Brooke asked Aly. She was giving Daisy Quinn, a sixth grader, a polka-dot mani­cure. “If I were planning a wedding with someone as nice as Isaac, I'd be the happiest person on the whole planet.”

Aly just shrugged. She was giving Daisy's younger sister Violet a stars-and-stripes manicure. She was
finding it hard to concentrate on the stripes, worrying that Joan was sad because Aly wasn't going to be one of her flower girls.

“Maybe the person doesn't really want to get married,” Daisy offered.

Aly shook her head. “I don't think that's it,” she said. But as she painted stripes on Violet's pinkies, she had to wonder.

After the girls finished their appointments for the day, they cleaned up, which included wiping up a giant spill of the new color Green Tease. One of their customers, Uma Prasad, had accidentally knocked over the bottle with her elbow. Nobody had realized until it was too late.

Aly was on her knees, using nail polish remover on the linoleum floor, when Mom and Joan walked in. “Aly,” she said, “do you remember what Rock & Wrap
It Up told us about the donations? I left the paper with all the information at home.”

Aly's list was at home too, but she closed her eyes and tried to recall what was on it. They'd put the phone on speaker when they'd called the various charities, and Aly had taken notes—mostly because having lists helped her make decisions, and she wanted to help Mom make the right one about Joan's wedding. Aly could picture what she'd written in purple glitter pen on a mint-green piece of paper:

Rock & Wrap It Up Donation Information

• Food that has been on anyone's plate cannot be donated.

• All hot food has to stay at a safe temperature between the time of the wedding and pickup time.

• Same with cold food.

• Everything has to be wrapped up in advance by people who know about food safety.

• The donation truck will arrive fifteen minutes after the reception ends.

“Thanks, sweetie,” her mom said after Aly recited each item. “I knew it was good to have you two on the phone with me.”