Borrow-A-Bridesmaid by Anne Wagener Page A

tentatively put my hand on her shoulder.
    â€œWe’re having problems,” she says.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œGreg and I.” Oops, duh. “He’s really stressed out with work and doesn’t care about any of this. I tried asking his opinion on a few things, and he said, ‘That’s your thing.’ Obviously, I can handle it, but it’s a slap in the face that he doesn’t even pretend to care about our wedding.” She shakes her head, wiping tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “Get it together, Alex!”
    â€œI’m sure Greg will understand if you tell him how much the wedding means to you.” I’m fumbling. Awkward, silly me. My voice sounds like my bookstore voice, a farce of me being calm and together.
    â€œIt’s not just that.” She sighs, tears dripping on the floor, making dark brown spots on beige carpet. “I miss Mom.” She begins to sob. “I can’t do this without her.”
    I bite my lip and then venture, “So your mom’s—”
    â€œPassed,” she whispers.
    Tears well up in my own eyes. I rub my hand over her back in large, slow circles. “You can do this, and I’m going to help you through it. You’re not doing it alone, okay?”
    She looks up at me, mascara trails leaking from brown eyes that look so much softer and more vulnerable than before. “I miss her so much.”
    I nod. A lightning bolt of guilt: When’s the last time I visited my mom?
    We embrace in the tiny dressing room, amid the crinoline and plastic and discarded clothes. I close my eyes, feeling again the girl attraction I’d felt as we pressed together outside the store. Empathy rises up and spills out of my eyes as I hold her. We sit like this for a long time, and I think of how it must look to women walking by looking for a dressing room. When they crouch down to check if the room is occupied, they’ll see the bottom half of a crumpled bride and a tear-spotted carpet.
    When I get home, I’m going to take out the blue notebook and try to capture this strange mix of existential thought and emotion:
    In this moment, I love everyone in the entire store, even the Bustle Bitches. Because underneath the determination and the unadulterated aggression, I imagine that every one of us wonders what the hell we’re doing. Here in Filene’s Basement. Here on earth. The pursuit of the perfect dress is perhaps a perfect distraction from the pursuit of larger, scarier questions.
    If I’m honest with myself, maybe that’s why I’m here, too. Not because I have a wicked jones for organza and tulle (though the fact that I even know those words now scares me a bit). But because working jobs where I’m waiting in the wings of other people’s lives means I don’t have to stand in the spotlight of my own.

Ten

    A ll day long I’ve been falling apart. First my brain was eaten by bride zombies. Then work gnawed on my soul as if it were a rawhide bone. My shoes were the last thing to go. When I hear a thump and a soft curse outside my door, I realize I must have left them in the middle of the hallway before I collapsed facedown on my bed.
    I lift my head off the pillow as Lin appears in my doorway, holding a Corona in one hand and my errant shoe in the other. “How was your date?” I ask.
    â€œNot just a date. A meet-the-parents thing.”
    I push myself up, batting at strands of hair that seem to be everywhere. “Right! And?”
    He smiles. “Steve made impeccable banh xeo , which, much to Mom’s chagrin, impressed her. She still wants me to marry a nice Vietnamese girl, but I think she’s warming to the idea of a hot sous chef. Methinks I even saw her check out his bum.”
    â€œDid not!” I’m sitting upright now. “Damn. So, meet the parents. This is serious.”
    Lin nods, perches on the edge of the bed. “I have whiplash,