Page 130 of The Wedding Favor

“That’s not a character flaw. That’s just adorable.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said.

“We’ll figure it out,” I repeated.

FIFTY-FIVE

“My first best friend was the boy next door.

My last best friend was a college student who made questionable fashion choices.

I was very lucky.”

—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,

Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes

When Hallie woke up, I was sitting at the kitchen table and Abe was making pancakes (with chocolate chips). Sleepy-eyed and messy-headed, she gave her father a hug before she even noticed me.

“Iris.” She shuffled over and hugged me. “Are you here because it’s pageant day?”

I groaned. How did I forget what today was? Leave it to Gloria to die on this of all days. I’d like nothing more than to forget the stupid pageant, go home, and cry all day but I couldn’t. I could hear Gloria’s voice telling me, “Don’t be ridiculous, the show must go on.”

“Um.” My gaze met Abe’s over her head in a silent question. He nodded. “Not exactly. I have some sad news.” I took her hands in mine. How exactly do you tell a kid this? When Grammie died, I’d been a teenager. I’d known what was coming. “Gloria passed away last night.”

Hallie’s face fell and she threw herself into my arms again. Her shoulders shook as she cried, hiding her face in my shirt. “I-I didn’t want her to d-die.”

“I know. Me neither,” I said, my voice thick with emotion.

Abe knelt beside us and put a hand on Hallie’s back. “Come here, Hal.”

Hallie turned and launched herself into his arms and cried harder. Abe soothed her with quiet words and soon her sobs turned to whimpers. She sat back and hiccupped. “She told me she was going to die soon.”

“She did?”

Hallie nodded and took the tissue I handed her. “She said I had to be strong for Iris because she’s so delicate.”

I smiled despite the tears. “She would say that.”

She sniffled. “I can’t stop crying.”

Abe put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not weak to miss someone. It’s okay to be sad and cry.”

“I know. Gloria said it was okay to cry but only the pretty crying.” She looked up at her dad, her face solemn. “She said that Iris would probably be an ugly crier though.”

The laugh caught me by surprise and once I started, I couldn’t stop. “I’m really going to miss her.”

“Me, too,” Hallie said. “Are we still going to do the pageant?”

“Oh, we have to. We don’t want to disappoint Gloria, do we?”

The high school football stadium was buzzing by the time Abe dropped Hallie and me off to get ready. There were three divisions in the pageant. The first group, the Tiny Tot Miss Two Harts, were all under two years old. Their event was already in full swing.

Hallie and I stopped to watch the orchestrated chaos of directing babies and toddlers. News flash: it wasn’t going well. But most people didn’t care. In their tiny dresses and spiky ponytails, this group was fun to watch.

The Little Miss division, the one Hallie was part of, was scheduled to start at three and the main event was at seven tonight. It would be a very long (and potentially embarrassing) day. We dragged all our things into the men’s locker room, which had been repurposed as our “dressing room.”

Yessica yelled my name when she saw us. “Over here, you two. I saved you spots.”