NoHo Noir Short Fiction: 'Wedding Bell Blues'

Erika looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. She’d put off buying her wedding gown until the last minute because the baby seemed to be doubling in size every few days. She knew there were such things as maternity wedding gowns but she really hadn’t wanted to go that route.

Now, though, the wedding was only a few weeks away and she was having trouble finding anything she liked even a little.

This dress was the closest she’d come to what she wanted, but while the color worked for her, the sleeves on the jacket were extremely frumpy.

And the dress was uncomfortably hot.

But then, she’d have been hot in just her knickers. Being pregnant was like having a blast furnace surgically implanted just above your bladder. You were constantly sweating and you had to pee all the time. It’s a wonder she didn’t get dehydrated just standing up.

Evening Elegance Boutique

Riverside Drive

Toluca Lake, CA 91602

2:39 p.m.

“That color is very becoming on you,” the middle-aged sales associate said warmly. “It’s really lovely against your skin.”

preened just a little bit. It was a nice color. She did a bit of a twirl to see how the fabric draped and caught the edge of a frown on the other woman’s face.

“What?” she asked.

The woman cleared her throat diplomatically. “Perhaps you’d like to see that in a 14?”

Fourteen? Do I look like I wear a size 14?

The woman gestured awkwardly at the line of ruffles at the hem of the first layer. Erika’s belly bump was causing it to fall in a U-shape instead of a nice straight line.

Hell, Erika thought. She thought about leaving the shop and going somewhere else but she was tired and hungry and getting kind of cranky.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see the 14.”

 ***

The larger size really did fit a lot better and Erika liked the way the layers flowed. She still wasn’t happy with the sleeves but figured she could hire a seamstress off Craigslist to fix them for her.

If she and her sister were still talking, she’d have asked Elena to do it for her. They’d been close as girls and she’d been Erika’s maid of honor when she married James. Elena had been a bourgy bitch her whole life, which had been annoying, but after marrying Samuel X. Greene, she’d suddenly turned into Betty Shabazz. Erika’s nieces were named Efuru and Yobachi. And after mocking their grandmother mercilessly for wearing a do-rag, Elena had suddenly started rocking head-wraps like some exiled Yoruban princess.

Elena was not happy about her sister being with a white guy and really wasn’t happy about the pregnancy.

“Bearing your master’s bastard,” was how she put it. When she was being nice. There were meaner things she said when she thought Erika wasn’t listening.

“What’s the occasion?” the saleswoman asked.

Hmm?

“What’s the occasion for the dress?”

“A wedding,” Erika answered absently.

“Are you the matron of honor?” the woman asked.

“I’m the bride.”

The woman’s smile switched off as she eyed Erika’s belly. “Ah,” she said.

Ah? What’s that supposed to mean?

“Will you need any accessories today? Purse? Shoes?” The woman was going into contortions to avoid looking Erika in the face. “A headpiece perhaps?”

“No, it’ll just be the dress, thank you,” Erika said while thinking, Yeah, I’m pregnant. Deal with it, bitch.

She went into the dressing room and peeled off the jacket, appalled to see there were sweat stains under the arm. Outside the dressing room she could hear the saleswoman whispering to another woman.

“It’s just disgraceful,” she said. “Women getting pregnant outside marriage.”

“I know,” said the other woman. “Like Natalie Portman at the Oscars.”

“Well, you know,” said the saleswoman, “she’s a Jew. Her real name is Natalie Hershlag.”

“I did not know that.”

“Well, you know how they are. And this one,” the saleswoman continued, lowering her voice only slightly, “well, what can you expect?”

Erika whipped open the door to the dressing room so fast the two women flinched. She stepped toward them, so angry they looked scared.

Riiiiip.

Erika looked down. The two women looked down.

She’d caught the hem of the dress beneath her shoes and ripped the lowest ruffle right off.

The saleswoman met Erika’s eyes and asked sweetly, “Will that be cash or charge?”