Country songs playing on the radio, Dad Joe's old pickup truck, the sunset over the wheat fields behind the farm, drinking around a campfire.
Daniel is back in Silky Oak to celebrate his sister's wedding. There, he left a life he misses more than...
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The entire day was a series of mishaps that forced me to finish my work much later than I had hoped. Life on the farm was like that—you never really knew what to expect. I managed to catch a half-hour nap on the couch and still be ready in time for the start of the evening's programs.
I had requested two Saturday nights off from the Blue Wren (the wedding would be the following Saturday) three months in advance, and as I got ready, I couldn't help but wonder how Tony was handling things in my place behind the bar, with the legendary Wendy Rue serving tables like she hadn't done in years. And whether Tony would survive until next Saturday. I couldn't even remember the last time I had spent a Saturday night not stuck behind the Blue Wren's bar. It was almost disorienting.
The ringing of my phone was the signal that the taxi had arrived to pick me up. Since I was without a car and the others avoided driving whenever possible, especially given our plans for the night, taking a taxi was the safest option for our lives.
Our destination was a nearby village with one of those nightclubs that people went to on weekends after starting their evening at the Blue Wren. Michelle had said she would have been fine with simply getting drunk at Wendy's on the usual stools, but Dedee and I had firmly opposed that idea. We needed one last night to spend as the girls we used to be, before Michelle's wedding officially made us feel the weight of all the years that had passed.
I had been hoping for years that Michelle would finally marry Vins, and I was immensely happy that the day had finally come. What I hadn't anticipated were all the thoughts such a situation would bring—thoughts that I would drown in an excessive number of cocktails that night.
I threw myself onto the back seats of the taxi—a van that Dedee had booked—and found her waiting for me with open arms and a chorus of excited squeals. During the months when Dedee wasn't dating Phillip, we occasionally managed to meet up for a drink or to go dancing, but Michelle hadn't joined us in ages. So even though we had ruled out anything too extravagant for this bachelorette party, the mere prospect of being together like old times, without doing anything special, was more than exciting for both of us.
We didn't want to go overboard. Knowing Michelle, we were fully aware she would complain no matter what we organized. So we kept it simple—a night like many others we had spent, in a place that, honestly, had nothing special about it.
We limited ourselves to one embarrassing detail.
We would be wearing our prom dresses from our senior year.
It was amusing to see Michelle step into the back of the van all dolled up, with a cute white dress hugging her figure. It was even more amusing to pull out yards of fuchsia taffeta from a bag and toss it at her, shouting, <<Put this on.>>
<<No way,>> she tried to protest, eyeing the dress in her hands with almost disgust. <<I'm not wearing this monstrosity.>>
<<We knew it wouldn't be easy to convince you,>> Dedee declared, opening a second bag. <<But after this, you'll definitely be more agreeable.>>
