Read Online Borrow-A-Bridesmaid by Anne Wagener - Free Book Online

window at the small graveyard behind the church and the converted barn beyond, where the reception will take place. My reflection looks back at me—a reflection that’s a bit more makeupped than usual. I wasn’t able to sleep, so I got up with the dawn and cranked up my hair straightener. For the next hour, I battled my hair into submission until it was something resembling sleek. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I struck a pose. “Hey there, cowboy.” Nope, no good. I tried demure instead. “Oh, hi there!” But my eyelash-batting looked more spastic than alluring. I tried again, determined to pull off sex kitten. “Want to go to the Portrait Gallery tonight? The Naked Portrait Gallery?”
    I froze as I heard Lin walk by the bathroom door. “What in the Sam Hill are you doing in there? Are you overtweezing your brows again?”
    After casting a concerned look at my brows in the mirror, I opened the door, and the story from the night before spilled out.
    Lin sighed. “Oh, honey. Charlie sounds like a total hottie. Charlie with the Chucks.”
    â€œCharming Charlie!”
    â€œCheck-out-that-ass Charlie.”
    â€œChipotle-hot-and-spicy Charlie.”
    We went on like this for a whole minute until the alliteration train ran out of steam.
    A soft knock on the dressing room door jars me back to the present. I stand up, relieved to have something to do.
    Leaning my face close to the door, I whisper, “Who is it?”
    â€œBrother of the bride. Is there a secret password to see her?”
    My heart beats faster. “No secret password, but I’m afraid you’re not exactly going to help the waterworks.”
    â€œWe’ll see about that. I have superpowers. Anyway, why are we whispering?”
    â€œDunno.”
    A pause. “Can I come in yet?”
    â€œOh! Sure.” I open the door to find Charlie on the other side, suited up.
    His eyes take me in, too. “You’re looking good enough for a portrait, Mary Alberton,” he says.
    Do NOT, under any circumstances, use the naked-portrait line! Lin explicitly vetoed it, admonishing me to be myself. But right now, “myself” is a bridesmaid-shaped bundle of nerves.
    â€œYou look grice,” I say, as “great” and “nice” trip over themselves on my lips.
    â€œThanks,” he says, graciously ignoring my gaffe. He lingers in the doorway. “Before I attend to the bride, what’s your word?”
    â€œBloviate.”
    He raises his eyebrows.
    â€œTo speak in a boastful or empty way,” I clarify.
    â€œNice one.” He squeezes my hand before striding across the room to crouch by Susan’s feet. “Hey, sis.”
    â€œCharlie!” Her shoulders begin to shake again.
    â€œHey, hey.” He takes the handkerchief from Lisa and presses it under Susan’s right eye, then her left. “I want to tell you something.” Her shoulders shudder again. He grabs her hand. “Remember the time I thought I was going to be a stand-up comic?”
    She sniffles. “Yeah.”
    â€œI went to that open-mike night, my head full of dreams and my pockets full of chicken-scratch on index cards. I thought I was such a champion.” He turns to me. “I go up to the mike, right, so confident, making eye contact with the audience, with tunnel vision to the Comedy Central special.”
    Susan smiles. The tears are momentarily stymied.
    â€œAnyway, I start telling jokes, and I fall completely flat. Seriously, I can see the manager coming up to pull my act when, in a stunning display of vagary, a table of people in the back begins cracking up at my last joke. Then the table next to that. The next jokes are even worse, but my reluctant audience came through for the rest of the act.”
    I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, I’ll bite. What happened?”
    â€œMy sis here.” Charlie puts a hand on her shoulder. “She