Page 4 of Last Night Was Fun

“I don’t know, is it hitting right?” Piper said, and swished the billowing skirt once more. The tiered layers of tumbling white fabric elegantly rippled around her toes.

“The hem was cut to the exact specifications,” Natasha assured her with a nod as she grabbed a handful of skirt and fluffed it once more.

“Well, sure. But it’s not like I’ve grown since I was here last. It should skim my toes but not show my feet. I can see my feet.” Piper stuck out her foot from under the cumulus cloud of skirt and wiggled her painted toes. A delicate gold chain with a heart pendant glinted from her ankle.

“Pipes, who cares if anyone can see your feet? We’ll be on the beach. Everyone will see everyone’s feet,” Emmy said, and sipped another mouthful of beautiful, glorious bubbles.

Piper gasped as if she were scandalized. “I certainlyhopepeople aren’t going to show up barefoottomy wedding!”

Emmy frowned at her. “Barefoot to your wedding... on a beach in Mexico?”

Piper clucked her tongue and swiveled to face the other corner of the small suite where their mother sat. The room looked like her princess brain had exploded inside it with antique velvet furniture, beaded chandeliers, gilded mirrors. “Mom, Emmy is being mean!”

Emmy clucked back. “I’m not being mean! I’m only pointing out the obvious. I mean, beach wedding; barefoot. Kind of seems apparent?”

“Girls, relax,” their mother said. Vera Jameson looked more like her eldest daughter than her youngest. Curvy with blond hair, hazel eyes, and creamy smooth skin, she was a picture of middle-aged but understated radiance. Emmy only hoped she was as well-preserved as her mother in later life. She probably needed to spend less time in the sun at baseball games if she wanted to achieve such standards. Piper shared their curves but was brunette and, rudely as a younger sibling, a few inches taller than Emmy. “Everyone at the wedding will have shoes. And, Piper, the hem looks great,” Vera said.

Piper grumbled and pivoted back to the mirror. “I just don’t know...” Her face twisted into the annoyed pinch Emmy knew well. The one that said a tantrum loomed on the horizon. Everyone in the room felt it crackling like electricity. Natasha chewed her lip in worry. Vera spun her champagne flute stem between her fingers.

“At least your boobs look amazing,” Emmy said to diffuse the situation. She was fluent in Piper tantrums, knew the signs like symptoms of a head cold. She knew what words to say to spare everyone another meltdown.

Piper’s face split into an enormous grin. She grabbed her chest and squished her breasts together in glee. “They do, don’t they.”

In fairness, the tailor had done an impeccable job with the bodice. The sweetheart cut (another term Emmy had picked up over the past year) hugged Piper’s body like an elegantly beaded glove. The silhouette showed what Piper had termed aprincess amount of cleavage,which Emmy translated to understand meant contoured enough to show she had curvesbut nothing indulgent or lascivious. A hint and nothing more.

“Yes! The detail here isamazing,” Natasha groveled, relieved to have avoided stepping on another land mine.

Vera caught Emmy’s eye and winked from across the room, silently thanking her for deftly diffusing the situation.

Piper preened in front of the mirror some more, still holding her chest, before she dropped her hands into the fluff at her waist. “Okay, let’s try it with the veil now.”

“Of course!” Natasha chirped, and skipped over to the waterfall of gauzy white mesh hanging from the wall on one of those puffy, silk-bound hangers that only seemed to exist in lingerie shops or bridal salons.

While she fussed with it, Vera stood from her chair to help. “Emmy, sweetheart, what’s the latest on your promotion?” she asked.

Emmy thought for a moment the booze was getting to her head. Her mother hardly ever asked about her job. Not because she didn’tcare about her daughter’s successes in life, but because her chosen profession was a bit of a sore spot for their family.

More like a gaping wound that would never fully heal, and Emmy’s choice to spend day in and day out in the industry that had torn their family apart was baffling to most everyone, to say the least.

“Um, it’s still on the table. I find out tomorrow who the pool has been narrowed to.”

Vera took the veil from Natasha and wedged the comb into Piper’s hair. She jammed it into Piper’s bun hard enough that her head jerked around with the force.

“Ow, Mom,” Piper whispered, and reached up to intervene.

“Sorry,” Vera said, and Emmy couldn’t help wondering if the tiny burst of aggression was due to her. “Well, that’s excellent. Are you in the top choices still?”

“Yes. As far as I know.”

Piper felt for the veil hanging behind her and pulled it forward like a cape. It hung nearly to the bottom of her dress. “You better get it. And if they give it to that d-bag Gabe, I will burn the stadium down.”

Piper may have had her faults as a bride, but she was fiercely, undyingly loyal as a sister. She knew all about Emmy’s workplace nemesis and had partaken in many a Gabe Olson bashing at Emmy’s insistence. They’d even thrown darts at his name on a piece of paper one drunken night at a dive bar in Pacific Beach after he’d been chosen over her to join a players’ luncheon.

Emmy felt her blood begin to boil at the mention of his name. No one could send her into a fit of fury faster than Gabe Olson. The cocky pretty boy obsessed with winning—who often unfairlydidwin at everything because he had a penis and used to play baseball. And sure, he was good at his job, whatever. But so was Emmy! Arguably, she wasbetterat their job, but she was constantly climbing an uphill battle as a woman in the world of men’s professional sports. Every single time—seriously, she could count them all!—something came down to a choice between her or Gabe—even when they wereidenticallyqualified on paper—he got it. The unjustness of it made her want to peel her skin off. But she’d known what she was getting into. When she’d taken a job in data analytics for the local professional baseball team, the San Diego Tide, she knew it’d be a challenge.

“I will buy the lighter fluid,” she half joked and envisioned her and her sister dressed like cat burglars breaking into Tide Field to set it ablaze. She finished off her champagne with a smile.

“Girls, no one is burning anything down,” Vera said, like the threat might have been real. Both of her daughters shared a fiery spirit; Piper was just a bit more transparent about it.