We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han Page A

wedding, but we can use it for yours, too,” she said.
    All I had was one of my mother’s yellow legal pads. I had written wedding at the top and made a list of things I needed to do. The list looked pretty skimpy, next to Taylor’s binder.
    We were sitting on my bed, papers and bride magazines all around us. Taylor was all business.
    She said, “First things first. We have to find you a dress.
    August is really, really soon.”
    “It doesn’t feel that soon,” I said.
    “Well, it is. Two months to plan a wedding is nothing.
    In weddingspeak that’s, like, tomorrow.”
    “Well, I guess since the wedding is going to be simple, the dress should be too,” I said.
    Taylor frowned. “How simple?”
    “Really simple. As simple as it gets. Nothing poofy or frou frou.”
    She nodded to herself. “I can picture it. It’s very Cindy Crawford wedding-on- the-beach, very Carolyn Bessette.”
    “Yeah, sounds good,” I said. I had no idea what either of their wedding dresses looked like. I didn’t even know who Carolyn Bessette was. After I had the dress, it would feel more real, I would be able to visualize it happening.
    Right now it still felt too abstract.
    “What about shoes?”
    I gave her a look. “Like I’m gonna wear heels on the beach. I can barely walk in heels on level ground.”
    Taylor ignored me. “What about my bridesmaid dress?”
    I pushed some magazines onto the carpet so I could lie down. I stretched my legs as high as I could and put my 122 · jenny han
    feet up on the wall. “I was thinking mustard yellow. Maybe in a satiny kind of material.” Taylor hated mustard yellow.
    “Mustard yellow satin,” Taylor repeated, nodding and trying hard to keep the disgust off her face. I could tell she was torn between her vanity and her credo, which was, the Bride is always right. “That could maybe work with Anika’s skin tone. I’m more of a spring, but if I started tanning now, it could work.”
    I laughed. “I’m kidding. You can wear whatever you want.”
    “Dork!” she said, looking relieved. She slapped my thigh. “You’re so immature! I can’t believe you’re getting married!”
    “Me neither.”
    “But I guess it makes sense, in a Twilight Zone kind of way. You’ve known each other for, like, a grillion years.
    It’s meant to be.”
    “How long is a grillion years?”
    “It’s forever.” In the air she spelled out my initials.
    “B.C. + J.F. forever.”
    “Forever,” I echoed happily. Forever I could do. Me and Jere.
    we’ll always have summer · 123

Chapter Twenty-five
    On my way out to meet Taylor at the mall the next day, I stopped by my mother’s office. “I’m going to look for a dress,” I said, standing in her doorway.
    She stopped typing and looked over at me. “Good luck,” she said.
    “Thanks.” I supposed there were worse things she could have said than “good luck,” but the thought didn’t make me feel any better.
    The formal-wear store at the mall was packed with girls looking for prom dresses with their mothers. I didn’t expect to feel the pang in my chest when I saw them.
    Girls were supposed to go wedding dress shopping with their mothers. They were supposed to step out of the dressing room in just the right dress, and the mother would tear up and say, “That’s the one.” I was pretty sure that was the way it was supposed to be.
    “Isn’t it a little late in the year for prom?” I asked Taylor. “Wasn’t ours in, like, May?”
    “My sister told me they had to push back prom this year because of some scandal with the assistant principal,”
    she explained. “All the prom money went missing or something. So now it’s a grom. Graduation-prom.”
    I laughed. “Grom.”
    “Also, the private schools always have their prom later, remember? Collegiate, St. Joe’s.”
    “I only went to one prom,” I reminded her. One had been more than enough for me.
    I wandered around the store and found one dress I liked—it was strapless, blinding