Read A Wedding Invitation for Free Online

in a long time that I couldn’t breathe due to tears. I could have used my new handkerchief, but Carson had forgotten to give it back to me.
    The next day at breakfast, Carson asked about the bruise on my forehead. He also wanted to apologize. “After going to the administration building, I looked around for you, and when I didn’t see you, Brice and I decided to play Ping-Pong.”
    “Oh? Who won?” I feigned interest.
    “I lost.”
    So did I , I thought. The impact of the words from his letter to Mindy still punctured my heart. I wanted to discuss how his words had hurt me, but how could I admit I’d read his letter? So I searched for something else we could talk about—the New People’s Army, the Vietnam War, the horrendous actions of the Vietcong, or, on a lighter note, how my aunt Dovie raised monarch butterflies. But, as I sipped my coffee, I figured it would all be wasted on a man who didn’t find me intelligent anyway.

seven

    A s I drive to Dovie’s after the reception, the sky is bountiful with pastry-puff clouds lit by a shimmering sunset. My feet are sore from dancing and I look forward to taking off my heels. At least in the Philippines the flip-flops we wore didn’t hurt my feet, even after dancing or walking across the camp from one neighborhood to the other.
    At her chalky white two-story I park my car in the gravel driveway. Milkweed, her overfed tabby cat seated on the olive green love seat on the screened-in porch, greets me like a purring Southern hostess.
    I walk up the three brick steps and knock on the front door, which stands heavy against the right side of the porch.
    Within seconds, Dovie appears in a periwinkle cotton dress and fuzzy polka-dotted slippers. “How was the wedding?” she asks after she kisses my cheek, tells me I’ve gotten taller, and ushers me into a kitchen smelling of baked bread.
    Beanie, looking thinner than the last time I visited, stands in a pair of jeans, an oversized flannel shirt, and an apron, stirring a tall pot with a slender spoon. “Long time no see,” she says.
    “Hi, Beanie.” I know not to embrace her; like my mother, Beanie resists affection. She claims it’s the Chinese side of her that causes her to be this way. “Smells good,” I say as I peer into the pot and see chunks of chicken and flat noodles in a velvety broth.
    Beanie grins. If you compliment her on much else, she won’t accept it, but she does believe she can conjure up a tasty meal.
    It’s nearly eight, just about dinner hour for Dovie and her boarders. Dovie collects people like squirrels store food. Young, old, wealthy, or miserly, my aunt takes them in. Beanie’s history is long and dark, although I have never heard all the details in sequence.
    “So, how was the wedding?” Beanie pauses from her stirring like she’s waiting for a good story. “Tell us.”
    “It wasn’t the right one.” I place my clutch bag on a clear spot on the counter.
    “What?”
    “My friend didn’t get married.” Pulling off my heels, I sink into a cushioned kitchen chair. Through my panty hose, I see blisters on both of my big toes and wince.
    “Oh,” says Beanie. “Those kinds of happenings do happen, so I’ve heard. The bride gets cold feet and never makes it to the wedding.”
    “She made it. She just isn’t my friend.” Standing, I put my shoes over to the side of the room near Milkweed’s food dish and begin to remove my stockings.
    “You and her got in a fight?” Beanie’s face lights up like one of the pillar candles I just spent an uncertain hour with. “That can happen. There are times I know I shouldn’t, but something comes over me that I just can’t get ahold of and tame. Did you win? Must have because you still look pretty good.”
    “No.”
    Beanie frowns. “Are you hurt?”
    “Only my toes.”
    “I hate it when someone steps on mine. Makes me all kinds of annoyed.”
    Beanie is like a train out of control. I put an end to all her illusions, something we