Cruising Toward Love

Cruising Toward Love Part 2

In need of a serious dose of sympathy and comforting, Zoe headed to her family's salon. Guaranteed to be filled with relatives any hour of the day, it had always been Zoe's refuge from the world. Aunt Thea would pat her cheek, her grandmother would give her a rib cracking hug, and all her troubles would be set right. Filthy and still dripping, Zoe set down her bags by the cactus guarding the entrance against evil spirits.

"Goodness, what happened to you, dear?" Aunt Thea grabbed a towel from the nearest station and rubbed at Zoe's hair.

"I picked up Stella's dry cleaning." She let it fall in a heap on the floor. "You know what they say-no good deed ever goes unpunished."

"You'll catch your death walking around in that condition. Why don't you go on home and change?"

As tempting as a hot shower and clean, dry clothes sounded, she was too worked up. Yelling at Nate hadn't improved her mood. However, she could still try and talk Stella into keeping him out of the wedding. "First things first, Auntie."

Zoe spotted her target and advanced on her sister. "I didn't say anything when you chose a bridesmaid dress which makes me look like a giant blue toadstool. Held my tongue when you decided to add a baby's breath wreath as a headpiece. But Stella, you can't honestly expect me to let Nate Hyatt tuck my hand around his arm and parade me past two hundred of our closest friends and family!" Despite her best efforts to remain calm, Zoe's voice turned into a howler monkey-like screech by the time she finished her rant.

Stella, on the other hand, looked cool as a cucumber in her snazzy white warm- up suit with Bride spelled out in silver sequins across her prodigious chest. Her uncharacteristic calm Pprobably was due to the leather chair massaging her back while two nail specialists rubbed her hands and feet simultaneously. She was getting the queen bee dual treatment because Zoe had given up her own pampering appointment to run last last-minute errands. For her.

Truly, Zoe didn't mind all the extra work. It had to be tough on Stella going through this whole process without a mother. From the moment Stella joyfully shrieked news of the engagement, she'd sworn to herself to go above and beyond to fill that hole. As the bride, Stella deserved to be pampered. And as maid of honor, Zoe had the honor of doing, well, everything.

"Zoe, you're stressing me out. I'm getting married tomorrow. Any stress could cause puffy eyes, and then the wedding photos would be ruined. Honestly, don't you care about my wedding at all?" Stella huffed. Her bottom lip trembled, signaling an imminent barrage of tears and temper.

For the four thousandth time this week, and probably the fourteen millionth time since Stella first flashed her two carat rock, Zoe counted to ten while taking a deep breath. Stella was the baby of the family, and therefore already had a good twenty-six years of being spoiled rotten under her belt. Getting engaged increased her center-of-the-universe mentality to the point where Zoe felt sure any day now Stella would develop her own gravitational field, like a planet. Though she loved her sister dearly, this wedding couldn't come soon enough for her taste.

"You're going to be a picture perfect bride," Zoe said in a soothing tone. One she employed whenever the subject of the wedding arose. Out of ingrained habit developed over the past few months, her anger took a backseat to Stella's happiness. Her daily goal was to prevent a major meltdown. To call Stella a drama queen was akin to calling an elephant pleasingly plump. "And by the time you finish here today, you'll be so relaxed you won't even know the meaning of the word stress."

She passed Stella a plastic champagne flute, hoping the bubbles might coax back a smile. Then like a wrecking ball crashing through a plate glass window, she remembered where she'd left off trying to express the depth and breadth of her outrage. Furious once more, she snatched back the glass, spilling a few drops on Stella's pristine white pants in the process.