Keeping Secrets in Seattle - By Brooke Moss Page 0,40
a nice car to drive Alicia around, you know. She likes to travel in style.” Shawn winked at me.
“Well, if she’s so anti public transportation, why doesn’t her rich daddy buy her something to scoot around in? Does she love Gabe at all? Be honest.” My chest tightened.
Shawn nodded. “Yeah, I think she does. But…and if you tell anybody I told you this, I’ll deny it…I think when she saw Gabe, she saw an opportunity.”
“An opportunity?”
“Yeah. Think about it. Hot, young ad exec. One sister is an architect. The other sister and her husband own a successful CPA firm. Dad is a college professor. Mom is a lawyer.” She watched as the wheels in my mind started to turn. “Look at the house they live in. Look at Gabriel’s car and his apartment. She saw an opportunity, and she took it.”
“That little gold digger—”
Shawn sighed sadly. “I used to love my friend. Really, I did. But…over the past few months, I’ve seen her in a different light.”
Anger bubbled in my gut like a cauldron. “Why are you still in the wedding?”
She chuckled bitterly. “Because I’ve already forked out three hundred dollars for her bachelorette party and another seventy-five for her bridal suite. I’m going to get through this wedding, and then I will stay as far away from her as possible.”
I opened my mouth to release an arsenal of swear words to describe my feelings on Alicia but heard the shuffle of Juanita and the lovely bride-to-be returning.
Juanita looked at me over the top of her half-glasses. “Iz zis the one who iz ztanding wiz ze men?”
Alicia glanced her shoulder at me. “Yes. Violet is the one we need fitted for the black dress I picked out.”
“What kind of woman standz on ze manz zide?” Juanita spat.
Alicia’s white cheeks pinked prettily. “She’s my fiancé’s oldest friend. It’s a little…unorthodox. But we’ll make it work.”
I stood and turned so that Juanita could measure my arm span. I wanted to Chuck Norris roundhouse kick Alicia in the face but couldn’t make a scene. Shawn had planted a pumpkin-sized seed of doubt in my mind, and it was growing at a rapid rate. Alicia didn’t deserve Gabe. She didn’t deserve any of the Parkers.
Juanita barked at me from below my armpit, where she was measuring my bustline. “What size are you?”
“A…size eight.” Irritated, I glanced down at her and nodded briskly.
She glanced at Alicia over the lenses of her half-glasses and they exchanged a ‘yeah, right,’ look.
Juanita grunted. “Iz not your size.”
Alicia touched my arm and batted her eyes at me sweetly. “Listen, Violet, it’s important to tell the truth. We don’t want to have to take it out later on. It’s an awful hassle to add fabric.”
I hated her. I wanted to hurtle myself over Juanita’s head, land on Alicia’s skeletal frame, and scratch her eyes out all over the white carpet.
“I said what size are you?” Juanita’s voice echoed, and Shawn looked down at her glass.
Flabbergasted, I hissed down at her. “Twelve, all right?”
I noticed that Alicia’s expression took on a wicked quality as the other girls began emerging from the dressing rooms. Rose looked like she was planning to escape into the plush bathrooms in a few minutes to purge, Kate looked just plain pissed off as she furiously punched buttons on her phone, and Marissa glowered at Juanita as if she were wielding a knife instead of a tape measure.
“Okay, you go to ze drezzing room, and try on ze dress Alizia picked out for you,” Juanita ordered. “Go. Move your big behind.”
I scooted off toward the changing rooms, every set of eyes in the room wearing holes in the back of my head. I wouldn’t be able to hide what I looked like in this dress behind a birdcage hairpiece or hot-pink fingerless gloves in this get up. Nope. It would be me, the dress, and the eyes of five hundred guests scrutinizing the way I looked.
Groaning, I unbuttoned my blouse and peeled my skirt off while the conversation tensely picked back up in the mirrored room. I heard Marissa’s commanding voice first. “Well, when I get married, I’m going to let each girl pick her own dress. We’ll just have them all made in my signature color.”
“Which is?” Rose asked.
Alicia giggled. “Purple.”
All the girls gasped like this was a cardinal sin.
“Shut up, you guys,” Marissa said. “It’s been my signature color since I was thirteen.”