All Dressed Up Read Free Page A

experienced it for themselves. You don’t choose jealousy.
Jealousy chooses you.
    Charlie and
Emma’s wedding canceled!
    Meanwhile,
Brooke’s own wedding plans were proceeding without a hitch. The
disappointment of it hit Angie again, harder to bear in some ways
because she was so determined never to let it show, never to let it
spoil her closeness to her daughter. No-one was going to guess from
the way she behaved and talked that Scott wasn’t a joy to her heart
and a better son-in-law-to-be than she’d ever dared to dream.
    And yet her
heart cried out that her kind, pretty, wonderful daughter could do
so much better. Ashlyn’s father was a deadbeat, out of the picture.
Scott was a big improvement but nowhere near enough. All Angie
wanted for Brooke was a really good man. She had spent months
praying that something would drag Brooke back from the altar in
time, that something would stall her until someone better came her
way.
    Angie had
practically gone on her bended knees to get Lainie to ask Charlie
to persuade well-heeled, well-raised Emma Dean to have Brooke as
one of her bridesmaids purely in order to throw some better men in
her daughter’s path and give her some higher goals. Wouldn’t most
girls kill for a perfect wedding like Emma’s?
    But no.
    Brooke had her
down-market catering hall reserved, her bargain basement
invitations sent out, her tacky dress hanging in the closet and her
no-prospects groom telling her, “Do it however you want, honey.”
Their tawdry little wedding day was bearing down upon them and
couldn’t be derailed.
    And I
shouldn’t be feeling this way. Does it matter so much if it’s
tawdry? Scott’s not a bad man. But I don’t know how to stop.
    Jealousy
chooses you, and it chooses the person you’re jealous of. You have
no control. You can’t reason it away.
    Angie parked
in front of her new listing and walked briskly up to the front
door, leaving her private life locked in the back seat of the car
like two screaming toddlers with all the windows shut. She measured
the rooms, suggested painting a Patriot Blue feature wall in the
dining room and took some photos from the curb. She was capable and
pleasant the whole entire time. She was nice. Back in the car, the
contrasting weddings, Charlie’s and Brooke’s, greeted her still
screaming from the back seat as she slid behind the wheel.
    She laughed
out loud, bitter at herself and the world. Once again, Lainie Keogh
had what Angie Lang wanted – on this occasion, a canceled wedding –
with the infuriating twist that Charlie’s and Emma’s was the
wedding that should go ahead. Lainie should be devastated at its
cancelation, at such a perfect marriage failing to get off the
ground, but no doubt she wouldn’t be, she would just mouth out some
platitude about listening to their hearts.
    She had no
sense of proportion, Lainie, and no practical aspirations, and she
was one of Angie’s three favorite people in the world, along with
Ashlyn and Brooke, but sometimes God forgive me I just can’t feel
it.
    Back home,
Angie found her little blonde grand-daughter sitting waiting for
her on the front steps. “We’re hungry, Grammalang.” Grandma Lang.
Ash always said it as if it was one word. So cute.
    “You didn’t
have to wait for me, honey.” But she was glad that they had. She
gave Ashlyn a fierce squeeze and took her inside, hugged Brooke
also, and kept the horrible eagerness out of her voice as she said,
“So tell me how it all happened with Emma and Charlie. Is there any
chance it’ll still go ahead? Was it awful?”
    Please,
Brooke, God forgive me, tell me that it was awful!
     
    “Tell me
what's going on in your head, Em,” Sarah begged. “Are you okay to
drive?”
    “I’m fine to
drive. I’m fine.” Emma took the turn-off up Grays Hill Road faster
than usual. Her car protested. “We need to get home before everyone
else leaves for the restaurant, so we can call them.”
    “They’ll
already be there, waiting