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 in favor of winning the war on her ring. The ring she’d wear for the rest of her life, the gown just a day. But it was a lovely dress. More sophisticated than the playful one Leigh had fallen hard for, but compromises had to be made to keep mothers happy… or at least shut them up.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” her mom said.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Glad you let me talk you into it now? It’s just perfect for the venue.”
Leigh nodded, so sick of certain words—venue, entrance, presentation.
She let herself be led to the fitter and dutifully stripped. The dress was slippery and cool as lake water as it slid down her bare skin, and she felt clad in something beyond satin… adulthood, perhaps. Womanhood. Her mother tugged her from the thought.
“Oh, Leigh.” She tapped a finger against Leigh’s belly. And only in L.A. would it count as a belly. “You and that peanut butter.”
Leigh smoothed the satin over her offense. “Girls should know it’s normal to have a stomach.”
“I agree, but it’s not normal for a person to eat half a jar of that stuff by herself. It’s very fattening, and you won’t have that metabolism forever.”
Leigh shrugged. “Tell me you’d prefer I take up smoking, then.”
Her pack-a-day mother smiled grimly and dropped the subject. “Well, you look beautiful, belly and all.”
Leigh turned to the cheval mirror at her side, and she had to admit the girl reflected back was pretty. Though once her hair and makeup were done, her snack digested and belly deflated, would there be anything of Leigh left?
She looked to her mom. “Do you remember what you promised me? My wedding gift? About quitting smoking once all this craziness is over?”
“I remember.”
Leigh grinned hopefully. “So I’ll get back from the island and you’ll be all strung out and snappy?”
“I’ll do better than that, honey, and finish the withdrawal while you’re away.”
Leigh smiled again. Though her mother promised to quit smoking nearly as often as she lit up. “There’s other stuff that needs to change, once I’m back.”
Her mother feigned ignorance, fussing with some invisible imperfection in the satin. “Oh?”
“About you and Dad? Maybe going on a trip of your own, away from all this?”
“I don’t know, Leigh. I’ve got a hundred things going on, all that stuff with the charity ball coming up in June.”
Leigh opened her mouth, then closed it, realizing she didn’t have the stamina for this argument. But once she got back from her honeymoon she’d be putting her own marriage first, instead of acting like a smoke screen in theirs. Once today was behind