I texted Jane and Candace about the stripper casting call.
Jane: BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK. COUNT ME IN!
Candace: Can we go recruiting later tonight?
I had the best friends ever.
AFTER A JAM-PACKED day of meetings with production, legal, PR, and marketing, I had dinner with Candace and Jane to talk about weddings, babies, and strippers.
“Okay, you go first, Candace. What’s going on with you?” I asked with my mouth stuffed full of fried calamari. It was rude, but I had worked through lunch and had enough food in front of me to feed two Melodys.
She squealed and threw her arms up in excitement. “Ahhh! We got a marriage courthouse date! If you can come, we’re getting hitched this week, at 11 A.M. on Friday; I know, it’s a workday. If you can’t make it, don’t worry about it.”
I checked my calendar. “I have that day off because my parents are arriving that morning. I planned to meet them at Sea-Tac and take them straight to brunch. But they can get a taxi or Liftr, it’s not a big deal.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s so last minute on my part. If their plane comes in late, maybe you can come. Other than the wedding news, the baby seems healthy. He or she is the size of a small head of cauliflower now.” I tried to picture what that looked like. I stabbed a fried zucchini stick with my fork and held it up to see how big that baby would be in zucchini stick units. About six, maybe seven.
Jane blurted out, “My wedding planning is going great!” Okay, I guess it was Jane’s turn. “We put a deposit on a gorgeous hotel near Alki Beach, secured a caterer, and because Sean’s friend knows the son of the conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic, they’ll be playing at our wedding, too. And your bridesmaid dresses came in. They are gorgeous!” She scrolled for photos on her phone. “Here, take a look.”
Candace and I peered over Jane’s shoulder to see the couture gowns. I pinched the screen and made the picture bigger, to make sure I had the full visual experience before commenting.
Candace beat me to it. “They look like . . . Grecian togas.”
She nailed it. They looked like motherfucking TOGAS. Like ancient Grecian garb, but what a dude would wear, not a lady. Sure, the designer added some small adornments to make it look slightly more contemporary, like using airy fabric and a feminine sea-green color, which was the hue of Crest toothpaste. A color that I never wore because pastel colors like that looked terrible on me. Any cool palette against my skin made me looked jaundiced.
Jane shrugged. “Togas are Roman, not Grecian.”
She missed the point entirely. Roman, or Grecian, whatever. Togas were hideous.
I asked, “Can we ask the designer to scale back on some of the fabric? It looks like it would be heavy and hot. I definitely couldn’t dance in that.” This might be a good way to get out of dancing with Asher at the wedding. Maybe I found an out!
Jane smirked. “Oh, that’s the beauty of the dress! The over-the-shoulder fabric can be let out in the back. It forms a long flowy train. And that train is also removable. That’s why I love Yun-Hee Lee’s designs. She always has clever, versatile pieces!”
Damn it, this meant I’d need to find another way to propose a best-man-plus-maid-of-honor dance boycott. She showed us pictures of the unraveled toga. Without the over-the-shoulder fabric, the dress looked a million times better than the full-on toga dress. The color was still problematic, but honestly, the fact that Jane settled on dresses that she liked made me want to high-five everyone in the restaurant.
“Do you want us to wear Grecian sandals, too?” I joked. There was no way in hell Jane would want us to wear flat, manly sandals to her wedding.
“No fucking way,” she answered. “Here are pics of the shoes that’ll go with the dress. Yun-Hee also designed them.” Again, I pinched the photo to enlarge it. She picked peep toe heels. Six inches high.
I wasn’t a heel person. My go-to fancy shoes were geriatric, comfy pumps, which weren’t great for adding height. There was no shame in that shoe game. I couldn’t walk in real heels, and I’d surely fall on my face when walking down the aisle, shattering my elbows from a fraught attempt to protect my makeup and hair. And then an ambulance would haul me away