Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I nod to her and head to the stairs, seeing the loft has a long table against the railing with food on it. Everything from pastries to bagels to a man standing there in front of two hot plates that can do either pancakes or omelets. I smile at him before heading to room five first to see if my dress is in there. I find it in room four, hanging right next to my mother’s. I put my bag that holds my purse and shoes down in front of it before heading toward where the voices are coming from.
I push open the first room and see my mother there with my aunts, all of them in chairs. The room is transformed into a glam room, to say the least, with six hair stylists getting them ready. “Hello,” I say, walking into the room and seeing the eyes all come to me. My mother’s eyes light up. “Happy Christmas Eve,” I greet, walking to her and kissing her cheek and then grabbing the mimosa out of her hand and finishing it for her.
“Happy Christmas Eve, my love,” she replies softly.
I walk over to my aunt Zara, her smile fades and she glares at me. “If you are coming here to finish my drink,” she teases me, “think again.” I bend to kiss her cheek. “How’s my favorite niece?”
I sit in one of the empty seats as a woman comes in with a tray of drinks. She does a quick scan of the room, coming straight to me, and I take one of the flutes from her tray, then look back at my aunt Zara. “I have to ask you a serious question.” Her eyes go big and it feels like everyone in the room stops what they are doing and you can hear a pin drop. “Will you answer me honestly?”
“Of course,” she says and I can see my mother grip the arms of her chair.
“How many times have you said that to your other nieces?” I wink at her and she throws her head back and laughs.
“Elizabeth,” my mother hisses at me, “I thought you were going to ask her something serious.”
I roll my eyes as one of the hairdressers comes over and starts to do my hair. “I have a serious question to ask you.” Zara turns it around on me as I look in the standing mirror that is in front of each chair.
“Oh, I can’t wait for this one,” I quip, taking a sip of my own drink.
“When do you think you’ll move back home?” she asks, and before I answer, she starts, “I know, I know, you have a whole life there and whatnot.”
“And whatnot.” I laugh at that part of the sentence.
“Think about it,” she advises. “If you get married”—I look at her through the mirror—“you can’t get married there.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t.” That’s all she says, as if that’s good enough. “Then what if you have children. What are you going to do, raise them there?”
“Well, I never thought about that,” I answer her honestly, “but I don’t know if you know this or not, but they allow children in Australia. It’s even a happy event when you have them.”
“That’s not what I meant, smart-ass,” she chides. “How can you just raise a child when we all live so far away?”
A lump starts to form in my throat, because I have never not once thought about that. I mean, in all honesty, I wasn’t thinking of the future. A future that felt like it was just a wall of nothing. Now if I close my eyes, I see Nate. “The good news is…” I look at her and to my mother, who looks down at her hands. I see her blinking furiously, knowing she’s probably going to shed a tear. “I’m not close to that at all.”
“But what if you meet someone there?” She asks me another loaded question. For the first time I admit to myself that I wasn’t ever going to meet someone there because the only fucking person I ever wanted was Nate. My heart races and I have a hard time breathing. “Can we not talk about this today?” I try to change the subject. “Let’s talk about how amazing today is going to be instead.” Zara looks at me, not saying anything. “And can we talk about how Lexi is glowing?” Zara’s eyes water as she looks over to my aunt Zoe who just smiles and the tears flow. “Tell me everything.”
Three hours later, I turn around so my mother can zip up my dress. Turning to look in the mirror, I smile at us. “You look beautiful.” She puts her arms around me and hugs me sideways before walking away. I stare at myself, my hair parted in the middle and tucked behind my ears, where pearl drop earrings hang. The one-sleeved, forest-green satin dress is perfectly fit to me. The sleeve is cut down the middle but cuffed at my wrist, showing a hint of my arm. The knot at the side of the dress looks like it’s been twisted from the top to the bottom. It falls right to the floor, where my sky-high nude heels peek out of the long slit that comes up my right leg to the middle of my thigh.