Free The Life You've Imagined by Kristina Riggle Page A

dress alone is hard. Too big to step into, too heavy to pull comfortably over the top of you. So I hang it on a hook and wriggle into it from underneath, reach up, dislodge the hanger, and then let it fall down on me. I perfected this after trying on a dozen or more dresses, with Kristi, Sarah, and Nikki tittering outside the doors.
    I poke my head out and let Agatha in so she can do up the buttons at the back. The model dress is too big—such bliss! For something to be too big!—and she pulls on it and bunches it up in her hands behind me so it hugs my body.
    Only then do I look in the mirror.
    We head out into the store like that, me holding up the hem so I don’t step on it in my bare feet and Agatha like a caboose hanging onto the back.
    Mom puts her hands over her face. She looks horrified, only I know she’s not. Her tears are running over her fingertips and sliding down her cheeks, but she makes no sound.
    “Well?”
    It’s an off-the-shoulder white gown, with seed pearls and lace, and lace swooping down the skirt, and a crinoline.
    “I know it’s a bit lacy and princessy for a woman my age,” I say.
    “Nonsense,” breaks in Agatha. “Every bride can be as princessy as she likes, I don’t care if you’re eighty.”
    “So beautiful,” my mom says. “Just . . . I always said you were such a beauty.”
    “Well, now, Maryann,” Agatha says to my mother, who also happens to be her niece. “What do you say we look at some gowns for you?”
    At this she flushes deep. “I don’t know, Aunt Agatha, I’m not sure I’m up to that today. I’d like to drop a little weight first, you know . . .”
    “Mom,” I say as gently as I can. “The wedding is in August.”
    “I know, sweetheart, I just . . .” She looks up at Agatha.
    Agatha blows a piece of her gray hair off her forehead. “Maryann, I can always take it in for you when you lose those pounds. It wouldn’t hurt to start looking. I’d hate for you to be stressed and rushing, last minute. How about I just find you a few candidates, for starters?”
    Without waiting for a response, Agatha disappears toward the mother-of-the-bride dresses.
    The gown is loose now that Agatha has let go of the back. I feel like I’m lording over my mother, so I crouch down next to her, sitting cross-legged under the billow of my dress. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, though I already know.
    Her voices comes out raspy. “I’m a disgrace to you.”
    “No, you’re not at all! You’re beautiful.” I almost choke on it because I heard her say that to me hundreds of times when I was fat and I knew it was a lie every time.
    She sniffs hard. “Don’t kid a kidder.”
    “Do you want me to help you lose some weight?”
    “Oh, I can’t do it like you did it, honey. I’m too old to go running around town in some Nikes or something.”
    “You don’t have to run. What about swimming? You could join the Y, and . . .”
    “I can’t swim and you know it.”
    “They do those water aerobics, right in the shallow end.”
    My mom shakes her head, loose pieces of red hair flopping over her eyes. I would love to talk her out of that dye job. It’s fire-engine red and tacky to the extreme, but her appearance is a touchy subject.
    I can’t stop thinking about how it will look in the wedding pictures. How she will look.
    The hair, though, isn’t the real problem.
    “Mom, you’ve got to do something.”
    “Something like what? Like you said, the wedding is in August. This”—she sweeps her hand through the air over her lap—“is a lost cause.”
    “I wasn’t talking about the wedding,” I rush to say, but I can feel a flush creep up my neck as soon as I get the words out. “I’m worried about your health.”
    “Don’t start on me with the health thing. It’s not like I don’t know it. I have lousy metabolism. So do you. You had to run yourself to death and eat like a rabbit while your girlfriends ate whatever they wanted.”
    “But you