Read The Late, Lamented Molly Marx for Free Online Page B

shopping experience, tea and all, I spent one-fifth the cost of a Vera Wang when Brie dragged me to a garment-center hole in the wall. “I’m the last person in the world to ever say no to designer clothes,” she said, standing tall and tailored as I tried on fourteen gowns in thirty minutes. “But don’t throw money at a dress. You could look good in a dry cleaner’s bag, and honestly, strapless is strapless.”
    In the world of fashion, I’m a foot soldier, not a commanding officer, and so I did whatever Brie suggested. She guided me to a slim column of satin with just a spritz of blue-gray crystals. “To pick up the blue of your eyes,” she said, but I suspect she was thinking a sheath made me look thinner. We sewed a pirated Carolina Herrera label into the lining and Kitty not only never knew of the counterfeit, she bragged about the gown to her friends at the engagement party she threw a month later. This is when my parents met Barry. Between his surgery schedule and my bridal dementia, we’d never made it to Chicago.
    At the party, held at the country club Kitty made her second home even as a widow, Barry danced with my mother and Lucy and invited my dad to play golf. I assumed the evening had gone splendidly. “So?” I said in my parents’ rented car on our drive back to the city, the first moment when we were alone together. “What do you think?”
    “He’s handsome, Molly,” my mother said. “His nose isn’t as big as you said. It fits his face.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, waiting for more.
    “Great food tonight, but the mom’s a piece of work,” my father said. He hates when a woman other than my mother tries to make him samba.
    “Yeah, well, what about Barry?”
    He paused. “If you love him, we’ll love him,” he said finally.
    “Great dancer,” my mother added. I could tell she was stretching.
    I turned to my sister.
    “He complimented my tits,” Lucy said.
    “He did not,” I shrieked, while I heard my mother sigh. Lucy is the most cleavage-focused woman I’ve ever met. She thinks every man is staring at her boobs, trying to decide if they’re real. They are.
    “Did.”
    “Did not.”
    “You two …,” my mother said.
    “Molly, give me three reasons why you want to marry this guy, and that headlight of a ring doesn’t count,” Lucy said.
    I stared at Lucy. I couldn’t say “You’re just jealous,” not so much because the remark crossed a line I didn’t want to pass, but because some unplumbed nook of my psyche considered that she might be on to something. I looked out the window, but there were no answers in the passing cars.
    “He’ll make a good father,” I offered.
    “That’s crucial,” my mother quickly responded. She didn’t ask me how I could tell, and I wouldn’t have been able to explain. Just intuition.
    “He worries about me,” I said. “I like a man who doesn’t want me riding the subway alone past ten.” As if I couldn’t make that decision for myself.
    He may love me more than I love him
was something I didn’t think I should list. I still thought it was wildly desirable for that to be the working dynamic in a successful relationship, and in our case, the only reason I believed it to be true was that he’d asked me to marry him with record-shattering speed.
Because I’m attracted to him?
I can tell my mother anything, but talking about sex with my dad? Nope.
I trust Barry?
I wasn’t sure I did.
    “Lame,” Lucy snickered.
    “Do you want me to screw up by marrying Barry?” I asked her.
    “You hardly know the guy.” I noticed that this failed to answer my question.
    “My fiancé has a name—Barry—and we’ve been spending every minute together,” I said, though it was a lie. His work always seemed to get in the way. “Mom and Dad had an even shorter engagement.” After knowing each other for two months, they eloped.
    “Point taken,” Lucy said.
    The four of us remained mute for the rest of the ride.
    August arrived. The day of