Wedding Bell Blues (4 page)

“Thanks, kiddo,” Joan said. “You girls gave me the idea for this donation because of your policy at the Sparkle Spa. There is always so much extra food at a wedding, and I hated the idea of throwing it out.”

“You're doing it because of us?” Brooke asked. She had flopped on the pillows in the waiting area.

“Well, I thought if you girls could donate all of
your profits to charity, the least I could do was donate my extra wedding food.”

“Maybe the next time our strawberry donation jar is full,” Aly said, thinking out loud, “we could donate the money to Rock & Wrap It Up. What do you think, Brookester?”

“I like it,” Brooke said.

Joan walked over and put her arm around Aly's shoulders. “You're a good kid, Aly,” she said. “I hope you don't let Isaac's niece push you around.”

Aly leaned into Joan. Had she been letting Suzy Davis push her around? That was a definite possibility.

The next day at school Aly was sitting at her usual lunch table, Charlotte next to her and Lily across from them. Just as she bit into a Granny Smith apple, Suzy came by.

“I have so many ideas about Heather and Brooke's makeup and nails,” she said to Aly. “I know the ­Sparkle Spa's not open today, so I was thinking we should get together to talk about it. You can come to my house after school.”

“Even when the Sparkle Spa's not open,” Aly replied, “I usually stop by to help out at True Colors. My mom's expecting me.”

Suzy rolled her eyes. “So call her and tell her you can't. Don't you think Joan and Uncle Isaac's wedding is a little more important that reorganizing a dumb polish wall?”

Aly sighed. “Okay,” she said. “I'll call her.” But as she said those words, Aly wondered if this is what Joan meant about letting Suzy Davis push her around.

“Good,” Suzy said. “Meet me in front of the school after the last bell. My babysitter will be there in a red car.”

“Red car,” Aly repeated. “Got it.” She'd have to find Brooke and make sure she had someone else to walk with her to True Colors. Or maybe Suzy's babysitter could give her a ride. Either way, Brooke wasn't allowed to walk to the salon from school alone, so Aly had to figure out a backup plan. Suzy Davis was complicating everything!

Once Suzy walked away, Charlotte asked, “What was that about?”

“I think it's about me messing up. Big-time,” Aly said. “Joan asked me and Brooke and Suzy and Heather to be flower girls, and then Suzy said the two of us were too old. I agreed.”

“I know,” Lily said. “You told us about it yesterday.”

“Right,” Charlotte said, “and you
are
too old. I was a flower girl when I was four. Suzy may be mean, but she's not dumb. And you said the dress was way too young.”

“Well, Suzy also decided that she and I would be Brooke and Heather's stylists for the wedding. I didn't get a chance to tell you that yesterday.”

“That sounds like fun!” Charlotte said.

Aly took a sip of juice. “It does,” she said. “But . . . but . . . I really wish I were in the wedding instead. Even if it means being the oldest flower girl ever.”

“Maybe you could come up with something else to do,” Lily suggested. “Think of all the jobs there are at the Sparkle Spa—there must be even more for a wedding.”

“Like what?” Aly asked. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and spread her napkin out on the table, ready to make one of her lists.

“Well, there's the bride,” Lily said, “and the groom.”

Charlotte broke off a piece of her vanilla cookie with M&M's on top. “Aly can't be the bride or groom, Lily.”

“I know, I know,” Lily said. “I was just getting warmed up. Um, how about ring bearer?”

“That's for little kids too,” Aly said.

“And usually boys,” Charlotte added through a mouthful of cookie. “Caleb was the ring bearer when I was the flower girl at our aunt's wedding.”

“Bridesmaid?” Lily said.

“For grown-ups,” Charlotte responded.

“Groomsman?” Lily said.

“Also grown-ups,” Aly told her.

“Were there any other jobs at your aunt's wedding?” Lily asked Charlotte.

Charlotte took another bite. “My older cousin ­Stacey gave out programs. Maybe you could do that, Aly.”

Aly was intrigued. “Did she get to walk down the aisle?”

Charlotte shook her head.

“Then I don't want that one either.”

All three friends stared at one another. Then Lily finally said, “Maybe you should just talk to Joan again about being a flower girl.”

“I don't think that's an option anymore,” Aly muttered. “I think I'm going to have to be a stylist and that's that.”

The girls finished eating and started walking back to class. Charlotte put her arm around Aly's shoulders. “Well, at least you'll get a nice dress. Maybe Lily and I can go shopping with you.”

For the first time that day, Aly smiled. That
would
be fun. And the wedding was about Joan and Isaac, after all. She had to start focusing on them—she'd try, anyway.

F
rom the start, the afternoon didn't go smoothly.

Brooke wanted to come to Suzy's house too, so she could offer her own ideas about her flower girl look.

Aly shrugged in response. “Fine with me. You're the one we're styling.”

But then Suzy said no. “Your sister is
not
the stylist.
We
are the stylists.”

Aly thought once more about what Joan had said. She put her hands on her hips and spoke firmly.
“She's my sister, and if she wants to come, she gets to come. Besides, she always has good ideas. We make a good team.”

“But it's
my
house,” Suzy said, her own hands on her hips. “And you and I are the team here.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes and watched the exchange, moving her head from Aly to Suzy and back.

“We should actually meet in the Sparkle Spa,” Aly said. “That's where the nail polish is.”

“The meeting's at
my
house,” Suzy insisted. “That was the plan. I have makeup and hair accessories there. Plus, you know how I feel about the Sparkle Spa. Small and smelly.”

Brooke took a big step to stand right in front of Suzy. “For the very last time,” she said, “the Sparkle Spa
does not smell 
! And if you're going to insult our salon, I don't want you to style me.”

Suzy huffed. “It's my
job,
” she argued.

Aly tucked her hair behind her ear. It fell back into her eye as she quietly told Suzy, “You know, you're the one who gave us that job. And it's not even a real wedding job. But if we're going to take it seriously, then we should probably test makeup colors and hairdos on Brooke and Heather.”

Suzy played with the straps on her backpack. “Fine,” she answered. “I guess you can come to my house, Brooke. And we can all talk about how a flower girl should look.”

At that, the girls got into Suzy's babysitter's car. They stopped off at the Sparkle Spa so Aly could tell her mother about the change in plans and make arrangements to have Mom pick the girls up on her way home.

At Suzy's house things went from bad to worse. Suzy's babysitter gave the girls granola bars, and Brooke
didn't like them because they had pistachios inside. Then the sitter gave them milk with ice cubes, and Aly thought that was too weird to drink. After that the girls went to Suzy's room to start making plans.

Suzy sat down on her bed, which was big and ruffle-y and had a lace canopy the color of ­Yellow, Sunshine! nail polish. Heather plopped into a ­watermelon-colored beanbag chair. Aly and Brooke took a seat on the thick rug with a yellow and pink zigzag pattern, the softest rug Aly had ever touched.

“Aly and I already picked how I want to wear my hair,” Brooke said, leaning against Suzy's bookshelf. “Want to show them, Aly?”

Aly started loosely braiding and twisting Brooke's hair, holding it in place to show the girls how it would look.

Suzy scrunched her nose. “I don't know if I like it,” she said. “It's very . . . up. Besides, you shouldn't
have picked anything without me. I should have had a say.”

Aly wasn't sure what the problem was with “up.” In the pictures online, lots of flower girls wore their hair up. But she did see Suzy's other point. “We weren't planning on choosing a style without you . . . it just happened when we were looking online.”

Then Heather, who had been sitting quietly, playing with the seams of the beanbag chair, piped up. “I want to wear my hair loose for Uncle Isaac's wedding. With a headband. Headbands are my favorite.”

Now it was Brooke's turn to scrunch her nose. “Headbands are hard for me because of my glasses,” she said. “See?” She turned to show Heather how the earpieces of her glasses tucked right behind her ears. “That's where a headband would go too. So the backs of my ears get sore when I try to wear one for long.”

Aly tried to think of a compromise. “How about if
we make a braid that
looks
like a headband, and then the hair hangs loose in the back?”

Suzy crossed her arms. “The whole point of a headband is that it's sparkly and pretty on top of your head. A braid isn't sparkly or pretty.”

“We can weave beads or ribbons into the braid?” Aly suggested.

Brooke was glaring at Aly, trying to send her a Secret Sister Eye Message, but Aly was looking at Suzy instead. Finally, Brooke blurted out, “But I want my hair up!”

Now Heather glared at Brooke. “And I want my hair down.”

“
You
don't get to choose,” Suzy said to her sister—and to Brooke, too. “Aly and I choose because we're the stylists.”

Aly didn't like where this was going. She was pretty sure that part of being a stylist was making your clients happy with how they looked.

“You know,” Aly began, “maybe Brooke and Heather can each have their own hairdo. They don't necessarily have to match.”

Brooke's eyes lit up. “It's true!” she said. “We're just flower girls together. Not identical twins. Heather doesn't wear glasses, so we wouldn't look exactly the same anyway.”

“Right, you won't look exactly the same, so you don't have to have the exact same hairstyle,” Aly continued. “Wearing the same dress will be enough.”

“I want to wear my gold sandals from the gala,” Brooke told Aly. “Mom said I could, no matter what my dress looked like.”

“And I have sparkly sandals that I wore when I was Cinderella for a fancy Halloween party,” Heather said. “Remember, Suzy? I want to wear those.”

Suzy was sitting on her bed quietly. Aly thought that could only mean trouble.

Brooke stood up. “Okay. No matching hair. No matching shoes. Time to talk about makeup.”

Aly loved how her sister could go from upset to excited in seconds.