Free Slim Chance by Jackie Rose

white hippopotamus, with sausage links for arms and shiny balloons for breasts. In the mirror, I could see Greta’s pointy face light up in a twisted yellow smile. She clasped her hands together and sucked in her breath.
    “You see? I told you! I do have a knack for this!” she shrieked. “Mrs. Mays, Mrs. Mays! Come in and see!”
    Mom pushed the door open and froze. Now she would see how wrong she was to make me do this, how evil Greta was, how horrid I looked, how ashamed I was.
    “Oh, Evelyn, ” she breathed, her bottom lip trembling. Tears welled up in her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”
    At that moment, I made three very serious vows—to never go wedding dress shopping with my mother again, to lose more than forty pounds, and to go home and smack Bruce for making me go through all of this. If he hadn’t proposed, I wouldnever have been publicly humiliated in so many different ways in so little time.
     
    A few days after her little tantrum, Bertie finally got over her selfishness and came through with the wedding plans. Through a grand concession of my own—agreeing to give up my dream of a June wedding—we were booked in for August 18 at the posh Fairfield Inn on the Connecticut shore. It was absolutely perfect—a grand, white, colonial-style mansion with an elegant ballroom and a newly renovated Bridal Suite ( Bridal Guide, Winter: “Finding the Perfect Venue: Five Features You Can’t Live Without”). Bertie’s friend Cookie had two of her daughters’ weddings there, so it passed the snob test, too. It had been reserved, of course, but by a brilliant stroke of luck, Bertie popped in on the very day when one Mrs. Pimbleton-Smythe called to cancel her daughter Sukey’s wedding, due to the unfortunate suicide of the groom-to-be.
    Even Bruce liked the place when we popped in for a look, and whistled when he saw the four-poster bed.
    “So this is where it’s all gonna happen,” he whispered into my ear while Bertie discussed the merits of veal versus roast beef with the event manager. “After all these years, you’ll finally be unable to resist my charms.”
    “Yeah right,” I snorted. “I don’t know how we’ve waited so long. Oh, wait—weren’t those your charms I succumbed to on our first date?”
    He snickered, and Bertie shot me a mean look. “Yes, Brucie dear,” I said loudly. “This is where we’ll spend the most romantic night of our lives. The only thing that could possibly make it any more perfect would be knowing that our guests had thoroughly enjoyed the milk-fed veal in the mushroom-cream sauce.”
    The event manager raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement.
     
    Despite a few minor glitches, Bertie and I were getting on remarkably well. Thanks to her years on the Palm Beach charity ball circuit, she’s the type of person you really want on your side if you’re planning something big—she acts fast, she has good taste and she won’t take no for an answer (unlike Mom, whom I was very happy to leave out of the entire process). Bruce, on the other hand, wasn’t dealing well with his mother at all—and we’d barely been engaged three weeks. He almost lost it when he heard she wanted to have 150 people at the engagement party (tentatively scheduled for January 20), and threatened not to show if she invited more than ninety.
    Mercifully, Bruce and I were to be spared most of the remaining meetings with florists and photographers, although we felt it was important to step in and approve any final decision, in case we wanted to veto something. But I have to hand it to Bertie; she knows how to get things done. She indiscreetly prodded the event manager at the inn into telling her exactly who else Mrs. Pimbleton-Smythe had hired for her daughter’s ill-fated nuptials, and then booked them immediately.
    Although it was shaping up to be the event of the season, I have a feeling poor Sukey Pimbleton-Smythe would not have wanted to be a guest at our wedding. By all rights, it should