Free Easily Amused by Karen McQuestion

wanted to buy it because of the name, but she didn’t actually like the taste.”
    “Too bad for her,” Jessica said and laughed, her mouth so wide I saw the fillings in her back teeth. “More for us.”
    “How much did you guys drink?” I asked.
    “Oh! My wedding!” Mindy jumped off the couch and grabbed a large plastic bag off the floor. “We absolutely have to show you all the stuff we got at the wedding show.” She slid my stack of magazines off the coffee table and then spread brochures on the newly cleared surface. “Most of this I already have set up for my wedding. Jess and I really just went to get hyped up.”
    I was able to feign interest through the floral and photography sections of the talk, but when she started describing her aisle runner, her voice took on the muted-cornet sound of Charlie Brown’s teacher. Bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah.
    “When are you getting married?” Hubert asked, breaking the tedium.
    Jessica tapped the coffee table with her fingernails. “Are you going to tell them?” She looked from me to Hubert with raised eyebrows.
    “That’s my surprise,” Mindy said.
    Clearly they’d had too much to drink. Mindy and Chad’s chosen wedding day was no surprise; it had been set three years ago. The date was burned into my brain.
    “It’s the third Saturday in August,” I said to Hubert. “Because they met the third weekend in August right before their junior year of high school.” I was sure Hubert had heard this story before. Mindy and Chad were five years younger than us, so we’d already graduated by the time they’d become a couple, but he’d been around my family enough to have heard of their fateful meeting at the local pool that summer.
    “Correction,” Mindy said. “The wedding was scheduled for the third weekend in August, but there’s been a change. The reception hall double-booked, so they offered us an alternate date.”
    “With a big price break too,” Jessica added.
    “Luckily Father Joe had a slot at the church available on the very day, so it worked out perfectly.” My sister grinned like she could barely suppress the news. “You won’t believe it. Wait’ll you hear.”
    The suspense was getting tiresome. “So when is it?”
    “Get this.” Mindy leaned forward. “I’m getting married on May seventh .”
    “May seventh?” I asked.
    “Hey,” Hubert said, “that’s Lola’s birthday.”
    My heart sank. “Oh no, not on my birthday.” To turn thirty on the very day my younger sister got married? How loser-ish was that?
    “Why not? You got something better to do that day?” Mindy asked. “It’s so perfect. You’ll never forget my anniversary, and you’ll always know how many years I’ve been married—just take your age and subtract thirty.”
    “It’s really May seventh?” I could barely get the words out. Oh please, let her be joking. I’d even forgive her for my spike in blood pressure if this whole thing turned out to be a ribbing at my expense.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Mindy said. “How in the world am I going to get this whole thing put together in the next three weeks? I’ve thought of everything. We’ll just have to get the bridesmaid dresses off the rack.” She shrugged as if to say, What are you gonna do? “Luckily I’ve had my dress forever.” She’d been making payments on it for the last two years. “With everything else, we can cut corners or pay extra. Jessica here called all the guests already, and most of them can still make it. We’ve got it all figured out.”
    “We’ve been working like dogs to pull this off,” Jessica said. She rested a hand on the yearbook on Hubert’s lap.
    “How long have you known?” I wondered if I could bow out of the wedding completely. I racked my brain for a legitimate excuse for missing my own sister’s wedding. The block party? No, thanks. Emergency surgery? Impossible to plan. Car crash? Would involve wrecking my car. Sequestered jury duty? If I knew