Read Sloppy Firsts for Free Online

enough to put up in some elaborate whoop-de ’do.
     
    "But Inever wear my hair up," I protested.
     
    "You will for the wedding," Bethany said.
     
    "But I don’t look good with my hair up."
     
    "Well, that’s too bad because all the bridesmaids are wearing their hair up."
     
    "Why do we all have to wear our hair the same way?"
     
    She sighed heavily. "Because it will look better in the pictures."
     
    "But why do we all have to look the same to look good?"
     
    At this point she did the sigh-and-eye-rolling double whammy.
     
    "Mother?!"
     
    So my mom intervened.
     
    "When it’s your big day you can tell your bridesmaids to wear their hair however you want. But since it’s not, listen to your sister."
     
    I said that considering I couldn’t even get adate to the wedding, I doubted I’d be planning my own any time soon. Bad move on my part.
     
    That’s when my mom and Bethany tag teamed me about Scotty—how I’m so stupid not to invite him to the wedding because he’s good-looking and sweet, and how I’m really going to regret it when he gets another girlfriend. Then they stopped talkingat me and started talkingabout me like I wasn’t even there.
     
    "I don’t understand her, Bethie. Your sister would rather mope away her teenage years than go out with such a catch."
     
    "She likes to wallow, Mother. She needs to lighten up."
     
    "You know what she really needs?"
     
    "What, Mother?"
     
    "She needs a little perspective."
     
    "Yes, she does."
     
    "I mean, when the worst thing in your life is trying to decide whether you should take a cute football player to your sister’s wedding …"
     
    I realized long ago that my mom and Bethany have a blonde bond that I can’t bust into. I’m better off not even bothering to try.
     
    "Jesus Christ! The wedding is four months away," I screeched. "Did you ever think that I might get a real boyfriend before then?"
     
    Their identical icy-blue glares told me that they hadn’t.
     
    The ancient woman doing the alterations kept right on pulling and pinning the fabric around my body. I bet she’s heard far worse in this dressing room: a bride in for her first fitting, tearfully confessing that she’s pregnant with the best man’s baby; bitchy bridesmaids betting how long it will be before the divorce; a mother-of-the-groom who suspects her son may be gay.
     
    Am I the only creature with a vagina who thinks that weddings are ridiculous? I’m going to elope. Just me, my hubby, and a minister on a beach in Jamaica. That’s better than Bethany asking a church full of people to pretend that she’s a virgin and having my father "give her away" like she’s a garbage bag of Goodwill clothes. As the Maid of Dubious Honor, I can’t just be bored in the background. I’m there front and center for the entire spectacle.
     
    Honestly, I don’t get what Bethany and her fiancé, Grant, see in each other. Big whoop: They’re virtually indistinguishable from a Barbie and Ken wedding-cake topper. And he turned new money into even newer money with some Wall Street wheeling-dealing. (Hence his nickname, G-Money.) He’s jetted between Silicon Valley, California, and Silicon Alley, New York, for a few years. After the wedding, the happy couple will follow the Techie gold rush and settle for good in the Bay area, ground zero for venture capitalists.
     
    I guess there are worse reasons to get married. After all, my parents have been together twenty-eight years simply because Dad was "Dar the Star," All-County point guard for the basketball team, and Mom was the captain of the rah-rah squad. Ack.
     
    What Bethany and G-Money really lack isoomph . I see zero passion. I don’t mean that they should have their tongues down each others’ throats 24-7. But as a couple, they don’t add anything when they enter a room. I’ve never heard them have anything other than a mind-numbingly inane conversation.
     
    Bethany:I hope this beautiful weather lasts all day.
     
    G-Money:Me,