All Dressed Up Read Free Page B

for us,” Sarah had to point out. Emma’s
sense of time and geography had gone haywire. “Mom and Dad and
Billy were going direct from the church.”
    “Does Terri
have her cell phone? I can call her,” Amber said.
    “Okay, yes,
thanks,” Emma agreed, and she and Sarah listened to what Amber said
to Mom. It was brief and horrible.
    “They’re at
the restaurant,” Amber reported. “They’ll tell everyone, and deal
with the cancelation, and meet us back at the house.”
    “That
cancelation,” Emma clarified. “The dinner. Except, no, people
should still eat if they want. Call her back and tell her. I’ll
deal with the other cancelations. The Craigmore. The flowers…”
    The rain had
stopped but the trees still dripped. Sarah glimpsed one patch of
blue sky, big enough to make a sailor’s pants. Someone had said
this once to her years ago in England, some jolly woman the Deans
had met in Cornwall on one of the tourist weekends they’d spent out
of London, during the three years Dad’s pharmaceutical company had
based him there. Enough to make a sailor’s pants. It was a jaunty
little saying, such a wonderfully subjective, illogical measurement
of sky blueness size, Sarah had never forgotten it.
    Emma didn’t
care how many sailors’ pants there was blue sky enough for. Her
face was closed and smooth and it was impossible to know how she
really felt. She would handle it, because she always handled
things. She recognized what was required of her and she did it.
Perfectly. Selfishly. Straight As all the way. Sucking up other
people’s energy the way fire sucked up oxygen.
    But Sarah knew
her sister hadn’t canceled her wedding on a whim. Selfish or not,
she needed other people’s help right now. “Let Amber and me at
least make some of the calls, okay?”
    “No, it needs
to be me,” Emma said. “That’s the right thing to do.”
    Ten minutes
after they reached the summer lake-house, Mom, Dad and Billy
arrived.
    “Sarah, help
Billy find something to do,” Mom said, so Sarah helped Billy find
something to do and then sat down to do it with him, because play
with Billy and take care of Billy and keep Billy company had been
her principal job in the Dean family for ten years, ever since he
was born. She was sixteen at the time, they were in London, the
most miserable year of her life.
    Sarah
entertaining Billy allowed Mom to shoot anxious questions at Emma
and suck out terse, I’m fine type answers from her, while Amber
held Emma’s hand. No, of course not literally. Amber wouldn’t have
had any hand left after an hour or so.
    Why am I such
a bitch about my sister, Sarah thought. I do actually love her. I
know how hard she tries. “Emma, please, please let us make some of
the calls,” she offered again, leaving off playing with Billy’s
remote-control cars.
    Billy didn’t
need her to help with his entertainment. He’d changed out of his
rehearsal dinner clothes into a T-shirt and baggy shorts that
finished just above his knobby knees, and was hovering, listening,
trying to work out whether he fitted anywhere in what was going on.
He zapped aimlessly on his car control, wasting the
non-rechargeables. The miniature machine spurted erratically across
the floor. Bzzt, stop, bzzt, stop, bzzt, bzzt.
    “Could he
possibly be asked to stop with the car? Can he not hear how
horrible it is?” Emma yelled suddenly. “I swear, Mom, I’m going to
– ” She stopped and muttered, “I cannot bear this.”
    “Go down to
the lake for a while, Billy, before it gets dark,” Mom said.
    She took the
remote control. Dad was watching her, on the look out for
something, seeing something. He still had his key-ring clutched in
his hand, as if he expected to be dispatched on a mission at any
moment. He had way too many keys, he didn’t need to keep so many on
there.
    Mom mouthed at
Sarah, about Billy, “Keep him company.”
    “I’m sorry, I
shouldn’t have yelled at him,” Emma apologized to the room.