arrive. Then the photographers—”
“I’ll be there.”
“This isn’t some premiere, Leigh Bailey. It’s your wedding day.” Ah, the patented maternal use of the full name. The big guns were coming out.
“The day I should be in flip-flops and a sundress, in Grandma’s backyard,” Leigh said, frustration making her sound bitter. Making her sound distinctly like her mother. “I wanted a barbecue. I wanted you and Dad and Cody there, and Dan’s family. I didn’t want eight hundred people I barely even know, at some gigantic estate.” Funny how the guests had multiplied, the locale shifted and the budget exploded as Leigh’s day had morphed from a cookout to a circus, in six months flat.
The ringmaster went on. “It doesn’t work that way when you’re a star, honey.”
“I’m not a star, Ma. I’m just some girl who’s always in the magazines. I haven’t been in a movie in two years.”
“That’s not what it’s about these days. What channel are you watching?”
“Fifty-one.”
“Us, too. And who’s the main story?”
“Me.” Glancing again to the bedspread, she wondered idly if it was possible to OD on peanut butter. She imagined a team of burly EMTs crashing through the door to find her slumped with a spoon dangling from her mouth, TV droning, bed and carpet littered with empty jars.
“Following an apparent cry-for-help binge, Leigh Bailey was found unconscious the morning of her wedding from an alleged peanut butter overdose. Doctors administered grape jelly intravenously, and the actress is now listed in stable condition. The wedding has been postponed until further notice.”
Her mother burst through the daydream. “Leigh?”
“Sorry, what?”
“I said you are a star, honey. And I know you wanted to keep things simple, but think about Dan. Dan wants all this.”
“He didn’t before.” A queasy gurgle soured Leigh’s stomach. Dan did want all this, the circus. She sometimes wondered which woman her fiancé saw her as—the one on TV having her clothes and waistline critiqued, or the one in her pj’s. Dan used to be her anchor, keeping her grounded amid the chaos, but small changes over two years had added up. A new apartment, wardrobe, a new collection of opinions about which restaurants they could or couldn’t go to. Just like the mutant wedding, their relationship had changed, its modifications too incremental to spot without hindsight.
Dan used to talk about his music, where the band was going. The band hadn’t practiced in months, and his enthusiasm for songwriting had been replaced with talk of producing, investing in a label, opening a club. More driven by cachet than creativity. Sometimes Leigh worried he’d bought in to the myth of that girl on the screen. Sometimes she bought in to it herself, though not lately. Not since the impending wedding had grown to such epic proportions.
“Do you think he still loves me?” Leigh asked her mother.
“Of course Dan loves you. You two are perfect together.”
As if on cue, footage of her and Dan from early in their coupledom appeared on the TV. She really did look happy. She looked like herself, recognizable, Dan so at ease in his own scruffy skin, back when he’d been a happy and passionate nobody. She hadn’t seen him smile at her that way in months. He smiled through her these days, like a man focused on something beyond his grasp, something behind her.
“Every bride gets wedding-day jitters. If you didn’t feel nervous, we’d have something to worry about.” There was jingling behind her mom’s words, the sound of jewelry being adjusted.
“Right.”
“Now get in that shower, young lady.”
They hung up and Leigh shuffled to her suite’s gorgeous bathroom, all polished marble and glass. After a shampoo and scrub, she slicked lotion on her waxed legs, toweled her hair and brushed her teeth, so freshly bleached they ached. “You, only better,” as her mother said of such enhancements. But weren’t moms supposed to love you exactly the way you were?
Leigh wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at her naked reflection, glad she’d never let herself be talked into changing anything major—bigger boobs would look ridiculous on her frame, and would be a liability if she ever started dancing again. She was already admired for her pale, creamy complexion, so tanning was mercifully off the table. She looked at her nails, shaped and buffed by a manicurist, but fundamentally hers.
Her engagement ring sparkled under the bulbs circling the mirror. So pretty. And she’d fought so hard to keep it, against her mother’s protests that it was too small, too simple, too anybody’s. But like the boobs, Leigh thought small-and-understated suited her fine. She polished the solitaire with a tissue, feeling better as she dressed to face the drama surely swirling in her mother’s suite. The bridal suite, sans bride.
She walked down the long hall to the opposite corner of the hotel’s twenty-first floor and knocked. Her mother answered at once, already styled, as though a wedding were a tornado that might touch down at any moment and must be vigilantly prepared for. She had her cell clamped to her ear, and her tone made Leigh’s chest tighten. It could only be her father on the other end.
“You are kidding me. Jesus, Jim. It’s like you get off on not listening to—No, I never said that. Not only do you not listen, you just make up whatever it is you want me to be saying.” She glanced at Leigh. “Your daughter is here. The one who’s getting married, or will be if you can manage to get your act together. Right. We’ll talk about this later.”
Unseen, Leigh rolled her eyes. No, you won’t. They’d fight later, turning yet another non-issue into a marriage referendum as they’d been doing for as long as Leigh could remember. All those years ago she’d thrown herself into dancing, ballet at first, then modern, any and all kinds, whatever got her out of the house and the endless two-way badgering. When she’d landed her first movie role her parents had magically stopped bickering, united in their new project—Leigh’s career. Of course, the peace hadn’t lasted, but here she was ten years later, still desperate to be the good girl, successful and respectable, her naive inner kid thinking she could somehow fix them, if only she worked hard enough.
Her mom clicked the phone off and shook her head, her frosted bob too shellacked with products to budge. She sighed in exasperation, then changed modes, quick as a flipped switch. She smiled warmly and pulled Leigh into a hug. “Oh, honey. Your big day.” She stepped back to stare at her daughter’s face. “It’s finally here, isn’t it?”
Leigh nodded, returning her mom’s grin as best she could.
“Twenty-seven. When on earth did that happen?”
When, indeed. And twenty-seven was far too old to still be living for parental approval. Leigh pictured the plane ticket in her purse. When she landed back in the States in a couple weeks, she’d put her foot down. Her parents had their own lives to lead, and so did Leigh. If only she knew what she wanted that life to look like…
Her mother turned to the action elsewhere in the room, the wedding planner on his phone, the fitter standing patiently beside the ivory halter gown.
That dress. The battle Leigh had forfeited
