The Wedding Dress by Lucy Kevin Page B

and I think my mom knew about it. And now his secret daughter wants half of everything, and Gareth didn’t tell me what they were going to do, even though we slept together and he knew the whole time , and the next mediation is tomorrow morning before the wedding to go over the DNA samples, and they died, Rose. They died . ”
    Rose put an arm around her as they lay together on the floor in a messy drunken heap. “I know, honey. I know. But you have to try to be positive.”
    “ Why? ” Anne demanded. “I’m so sick of being positive. My parents die, and I have to be positive, like nothing has happened. Gareth lies to me, and I have to be positive . When has being positive ever made things hurt any less?”
    Not now, that was for sure.
    “It feels…it feels like there wasn’t anything good left now about when I was a kid,” Anne said. She paused to drink more of the champagne. “Like I made all that up. Like the only parts that were real are the parts that hurt.”
    Rose made a fierce—but blurry—face at her. “There were some good parts. Do you remember my mom taking us fishing down in the bay, and we all stood up in the boat and fell into the green, slimy muck?”
    Anne supposed that had been kind of fun.
    “And there was the time you made us dresses for the high school dance,” Rose continued. “Do you remember? I went with Billy Stevens, and you were with…”
    “Nerdy Neil,” Anne said with a small smile this time.
    “Do you remember those glasses he wore? They must have been an inch thick. And as I recall, he was the only guy in school who thought coming over to ‘help with math homework’ actually involved math homework.”
    “We passed math, though,” Anne pointed out.
    “And there was the time you decided that cheerleading was mostly about being bright and positive, so you joined the squad. That lasted, what, a week?”
    “It’s not my fault if they didn’t want me to redesign their team uniform. I thought it was a nice gesture.”
    Rose kept on like that, with more good, fun, happy memories, and slowly, Anne had to admit that her childhood hadn’t been all bad.
    “Did you really destroy your mother’s dress?” Rose asked, the idea obviously having taken a while to sink in through the champagne.
    “Ripped it up into tiny pieces,” Anne confirmed.
    Rose’s eyes suddenly grew big. “Wait a minute, you didn’t cut up Felicity’s dress too, did you?”
    “Of course not. That would have been wrong . Her dress is so beautiful…”
    “Your mom’s dress was beautiful too,” Rose pointed out.
    Anne lay there for a second or two, her eyes half closed to try to keep her tears from falling.
    “Yes,” she said, “it was. And then it wasn’t.”
    “I don’t think I’m drunk enough to understand that one,” Rose said.
    “I don’t know if I can make wedding dresses anymore,” Anne said. “Not when they’re supposed to be about love and happiness and forever.”
    “Well,” Rose said slowly, “you know I hope you’ll change your mind when we sober up. Especially because you’ve got one wedding dress you absolutely have to make.”
    “I already told you,” Anne said, “Felicity’s dress is done.”
    “Not hers,” Rose said. “Mine.”
    Yikes! Apparently, there were some things alcohol could help you forget.
    How had she managed to forget her best friend’s wedding? Especially when it was coming up so soon?
    “It’s just,” Anne said a bit defensively, “that there are all these people who come through here getting married, and you’re getting married, and Julie has Andrew, and Phoebe has Patrick; even Tyce got Whitney. What about me?”
    Rose squeezed her tighter. “It will be your turn eventually.”
    Anne shook her head. “I used to think that one day, the one would show up, I’d get married, and have this perfect life.”
    “I don’t think people get perfect lives,” Rose said, the philosophical one now. “I think that we mostly just get