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she’s the same size as Paris, so the dress wouldn’t need much adjusting. Still, Esme is Not Pleased.
    “And you,” she says, poking my stomach, “what you been eating?”
    “Cupcakes,” I say with a straight face. “Lots and lots of cupcakes.”
    “This is not joke,” she says, wagging her finger in my face. “No more eating until wedding.” Sofia gives me a scandalized look. Esme is lucky my mom is in the other back room with Vicky and Lucille, or she’d be getting the patented Kathy Finnegan eating-disorder talk. Trust me, none of the girls in my family will ever have a problem with eating, if only because none of us wants to hear that lecture ever again.
    “I start with you,” Esme says to Sydney.
    “Dress should fit you perfect. I hope you allbring shoes!” She sweeps my second-oldest sister behind a curtain to strip and measure her.
    Alex sighs and snaps open her briefcase, pulling out some files. Sofia retrieves Pride and Prejudice from her purse, which she is reading for about the tenth time. I know I should be studying Catcher in the Rye for the final in two weeks, but instead I let my gaze wander around the dress store. There are two other brides out in the front room, on the other side of the half-drawn curtain from us, each with a cluster of people around them giving opinions. One of them, with frizzy red hair, is trying on a perfectly hideous ballgown style that makes her look like a marshmallow on steroids. Carolina Trapelo sweeps in the front door.
    “Hello, darling Finnegans,” she says to all of us, dropping air kisses over our heads and patting me on the cheek. “Is the beautiful bride here?”
    “Vicky’s in the back with Mom,” Sofia says, pointing. “They’re trying to pick out a veil.”
    “A veil, tsh!” Carolina says. “It’s perfectlyclear that for Victoria, a flower headdress is the only way to go. Jack, dear, would you please pick out the most flowery tiaras you can find from the front display and bring them back to us? I’ll see how your mother’s doing.”
    She sweeps away, and I obediently get up to go pick out tiaras. I like Carolina, and she has yet to give me anything really annoying to do.
    And then, as I step toward the tiara display, all of a sudden…I see him.
    Yes, him .
    He has no yo-yo today. He’s sitting on a bench in the corner, right beside the tiara display, reading something. As I get closer I can see that it’s a graphic novel, and my heart goes pitter-pat. Not that I’d be turned off if he was reading Ulysses or whatever, but I love comic books. Not in a collect-’em-all, buy-the-figurines, original-packaging-don’t-touch kind of way. I just like reading them.
    He’s also not wearing his sunglasses, so I can see that his eyes are green and even nicer than Clive Owen’s.
    See, now I don’t have a choice. I have to go over there. I have to stand about four feet away from him. It’s my duty as a bridesmaid. And I am a very dutiful bridesmaid.
    The tiaras are arranged on long shelves against the wall. I put on a studious expression, but I’m not really looking at them. I’m trying to figure out if he’s looking at me, and I have a weird feeling that he is.
    Suddenly a horrible thought hits me. What is he doing in a bridal store? What would any guy be doing in a bridal store? Does he have a weird wedding-dress fetish or something? Or…surely he’s not getting married. I sneak a peek at him. He looks no older than eighteen, but looks can be deceiving. Oh, God, I hope he’s not marrying marshmallow girl, I think despairingly. Maybe he’s just her brother or something. Most brides wouldn’t drag their grooms along to look for dresses, right? This girl might, though. She looks pretty crazy.
    “Hey.”
    When he speaks, I’m so startled, I actuallyturn around to see if it’s someone behind me before I realize it’s him talking. He has a very cute smile.
    “Hey,” I say back. He just keeps smiling at me. “Um,” I add, “come here