10th Anniversary

10th Anniversary

This was the day I was getting married.
Our suite at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay was in chaos. My best friends and I had stripped down to our underwear, and our street clothes had been flung over the furniture. Sorbet-colored dresses hung from the moldings and door frames.
The scene looked like a degas painting of ballerinas before the curtain went up, or maybe a romanticized bordello in the wild west. Jokes were cracked. Giddiness reigned —and then the door opened and my sister Catherine stepped in, wearing her brave face: a tight smile, pain visible at the corners of her eyes.
“What’s wrong, Cat?” i asked.
“He’s not here.”
I blinked, tried to ignore the sharp pang of disappointment. I said sarcastically, “Well, there’s a shock.”
Cat was talking about our father, Marty Boxer, who left home when we were kids and failed to show when my mom was dying. I’d seen him only twice in the past ten years and hadn’t missed him, but after he’d told Cat he’d come to my wedding, I’d had an expectation.
“He said he would be here. He promised,” Cat said.
I’m six years older than my sister and a century more jaded. I should have known better. I hugged her.
“Forget it,” I said. “He can’t hurt us. He’s nobody to us.”
Claire, my best bosom buddy, sat up in bed, swung her legs over, and put her bare feet on the floor. She’s a large black woman and funny —acidly so. If she weren’t a pathologist, she could do stand-up comedy.
“I’ll give you away, Lindsay,” she said. “But I want you back.”
Cindy and I cracked up, and Yuki piped up, “I know who can stand in for Marty, that jerk.” She stepped into her pink satin dress, pulled it up over her tiny little bones, and zipped it herself. She said, “Be right back.”
Getting things done was Yuki’s specialty. Don’t get in her way when she’s in gear. Even if she’s in the wrong gear.
“Yuki, wait,” I called as she rushed out the door. I turned to Claire, saw that she was holding up what used to be called a foundation garment. it was boned and forbidding-looking.
“I don’t mind wearing a dress that makes me look like a cupcake, but how in hell am Isupposed to get into this?”
“I love my dress,” said Cindy, fingering the peach-colored silk organza. She was probably the first bridesmaid in the world to express that sentiment, but Cindy was terminally lovesick. She turned her pretty face toward me and said dreamily, “You should get ready.”
Two yards of creamy satin slid out of the garment bag. I wriggled into the strapless Vera Wang confection, then stood with my sister in front of the long freestanding mirror: a pair of tall brown-eyed blondes, looking so much like our dad.
“Grace Kelly never looked so good,” said Cat, her eyes welling up.
 
Excerpted from the book 10th Anniversary by James Patterson. Copyright © 2011 by James Patterson. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. All rights reserved.