Free Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) by Yona Zeldis McDonough

dress, Grandma Lenore,” she added.
    “Isn’t it?” Lenore said, turning to gaze at it as well. “And it has a matching coat.” She gestured to a garment that was spread across the bed. “Do you know how long I’ve had that outfit? Thirty-five—no, forty years. I bought it at Loehmann’s, just off Flatbush Avenue. Those were the days…not like now.” The comparison made her frown, but then her expression softened. “Anyway, this dress is quality goods. And quality lasts.” Lenore nodded for emphasis; her head on her delicate neck seemed to wobble even after she had stopped.
    “Sweet,” said Justine. She was definitely good with the idea of wearing old clothes rather than depleting the poor earth’s waning resources by buying new, new, new all the time. She blew a kiss to Lenore and closed the door softly behind her.
    There was no answer at the next door, so Justine very quietly tried the knob. The room was empty. Right away she knew she had found the place she had been seeking. The closet door was flung wide-open, and the few articles of clothing it contained were shoved together on one side. There, encased in an enormous black plastic garment bag, was what could only be Angelica’s wedding dress.
    Score. Because she had found Angelica’s room, and wherever Angelica was, Ohad was sure to follow. Those two couldn’t keep their hands off each other; it was like one of those parties where the parents were out, the lights were low, and a bunch of kids coupled off, sucking face and God knew what else. Not that she, Justine, was against sex—although she hadn’t actually
had
it yet; this was all in theory—but she thought there ought to be some mystery to the whole business, some magic. Not this public groping for anyone and everyone to watch.
    Justine approached the closet; should she unzip the bag and peek? Angelica would be upset if she found out. No one was supposed to see the dress until the wedding. But, then again, if everything went according to plan, there wasn’t actually going to
be
a wedding. Justine stood there, hand on the zipper, for several seconds. Finally she backed away. She didn’t want to violate—there, that was a good word, an SAT-worthy word—Angelica’s wishes. She just wanted to save her from making what was the worst mistake of her life. And she knew just how to do it too.
    She would find Ohad. And she would seduce him. Oh, not for real, of course. There was no way she would have sex with him. She just had to make it
look
like he was coming on to her and that they were about to have sex. She would have to get him to take his shirt off, to kiss her or something. Her shirt would have to be off too. She had gone back and forth about this a hundred times and decided that much as she disliked the idea, she would have to do it anyway. Both of them shirtless would make the evidence—the picture she planned to take with her cell phone—that much more incriminating. All she would need to do was to show that picture to Angelica, and then, shalom, Ohad. The wedding would be off, and he could go back to bombing Palestinian children or whatever it was that he had been doing before he came here. He would deny it, of course. But it would just be his word against hers. Hers and the picture. The picture would tell the whole story.
    Sitting down on the bed, Justine felt a flash of fear. More than two hundred people were coming here today to see Angelica get married. Then there was her family; her great-grandma, Lenore; and Betsy. Her grandfather was coming too; her mom had told her that he was flying in from LA. They would all be hugely, monumentally disappointed. And what about Angelica herself? She was going to be crushed when she found out about Ohad. Her heart would be broken, and Justine would be the cause of her misery.
    Abruptly Justine got up. She wouldn’t look at the dress, but she couldn’t resist what seemed like an innocent bit of snooping. It wasn’t snooping anyway. It was