Page 164 of Unlock My Heart

“You’ve never been in a thrift store?” Remi asks her.

“No.” Alessandra shakes her head. “You?”

“Growing up, my entire wardrobe was either thrifted or…financed,” Remi says, having self-modulated that last word.

“Financed?” I raise an eyebrow.

“She means stollen,” Alessandra translates.

“Shh, don’t say that out loud, the clerk is already giving us the evil eye,” Remi chastises. “And I’ve never been a shoplifter, thank you very much.”

“That woman’s not looking at us; she’s eyeing the beast on a leash,” Alessandra glances across the shop to the clerk hiding behind the counter.

“Not every day you see the god of the underworld’s dog,” Remi agrees.

“Lacey, don’t listen to them. You are my perfect little princess,” I tell my newly-certified emotional support dog, who is begrudgingly wearing her identification vest.

I flip to the next item on the rack, my hand stilling. Grabbing the hanger with a little laugh, I announce, “I’ve found my something old.”

“Everything is old in here, so it really shouldn’t have been hard,” Alessandra points out.

“Hush, or I’ll make the maid of honor wear this.” I hold up a hideous gown that looks like an Easter egg exploded on polyester.

“You know I can’t pull off pastels with my coloring,” Alessandra cries.

Remi snickers, and I hold up a prairie trad wife monstrosity. “Wedding party.”

“You wouldn’t, only because you’d never ruin your own wedding aesthetic.” Remi calls my bluff.

“Damn, you’re right.”

We check out, with the clerk more than happy for us to leave, and then it’s to the salon for a blowout and nails.

Dark calls to dark; I can’t go all white on my wedding day. As I’m examining my black nails, a man crossing the street nearly breaks his neck to check us out.

Lacey growls long and low, and he pauses mid-crosswalk and turns around before any of our guards need to intercede, although there’s a whole lot of hands disappearing inside jackets.

“You know you’re a baddie when a man risks getting mauled to stop and gawk," Alessandra muses.

“Men,” I chide. “They’re the worst.”

“Reminder that you are marrying a man tomorrow,” Remi says with laughter in her voice.

“Yes, and I run a strict program. That’s why the severed head bowl is prominently displayed in my kitchen,” I inform her.

“In reality, you wouldn’t want to display a severed head in that bowl, unless you soaked it in formaldehyde. Otherwise, the stink of decomposing flesh would be unbearable. But that creates another problem: formalin fumes are extremely dangerous, and you’d need proper PPE for handling,” Alessandra says matter-of-factly, and both Remi and I side-eye her. “What? Not all my knowledge is firsthand. Remember when I was into that serial killer documentary kick?”

“Meaning that some of your knowledge is firsthand?” Remi wonders.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” I laugh, and the realization hits me: I have friends.

“You good?” Remi asks me.

I smile. “Better than good.”

We return to the newly rebranded Hotel Nola’s presidential suite, where the girls are crashing for the evening.

Alessandra proceeds to make us watch her favorite serial killer documentary as I work with needle and thread on my upcycle—turning the cherry print dress into a slinky negligee for the wedding night. “Look at those glasses.” She hits pause. “Every serial killer from the eighties to the early nineties wore this exact frame. Why that is, nobody knows,” she says solemnly. “But if you see an old man wearing these glasses, be safe and pop a cap in his ass; guarantee he has bodies in his freezer.”