Dial Tones | h.s.

[30]

My mother told me that her best friend's daughter was the best in the business when it came to doing hair. She bragged for weeks that I was going to have the most elegant up-do of all my friends and that my wedding photos would be the most talked about among my family for years.

As I looked in the mirror at the wild tendrils and frizzy curls all sat atop my head, I wanted to ring her neck.

Since I opened my eyes this morning, the 'best day of my life' has been anything but. Flower follies and seating disasters had caused a stirring of doubt to well up in my stomach. What if this is a sign? A sign that Dylan isn't the right guy for me. I tried to push that small seed deep into my mind, but the feeling in my gut could not be wished away.

I loved Dylan. I loved how he remembered things I liked and surprised me with little treats, I loved how he laughed at my stupid jokes and made ones that were ten times stupider, I loved the way his laughter could fill an entire room and that he had the kindest eyes I'd ever seen, but that's it. We never argued, we never saw the dark sides of eachother, the sides we lock up and only bring out when times got tough.

I don't know what he looks like when he's angry, if his nostrils flare or if his teeth grind when he talks. I've never heard him shout so loud his voice cracks from the strain. I've also never got to kiss the anger away, and relish in the heat of his shoulder as he pushes me up against the counter. I've never felt his angry, passionate kissing, the kind that's hard and sloppy and filled with the purest kind of love.

Dylan was warm hugs and soft kisses and pancakes on Sundays. He loved me gently and honestly, playing charades on Thursdays and taking me to baseball games where he would chant and wave his arms around like an excited child. He was everything a girl would want in a husband: compassionate, successful, supportive. Like a flame, he was always there to keep me away from the dark.

Dylan was a flame, and I wanted a fire.

As I sat fighting with the doubt in my stomach, my mother poked her head into my suite. She was prim and proper: hair done up high on her head in a bun, clothes tailored perfectly, and a new problem poised on the edge of her lips.

"There seems to be a .... complication with the cake," she states, a careful smile appearing.

I turn away from the mirror I had spent forever looking at and raised an eyebrow at her, "Complication?"

She rubs her lips together as she works out a way to phrase what she's about to say,"Well it seems they made a small error with the cake's flavor."

I frown, "What do you mean a small error? A cake's flavor is the most important part!"

The doubt in my stomach turns into cold panic at the thought of what the simple vanilla flavor we had settled on could have turned into. We had to work around a lot of food allergies and dietary restrictions of many of our family members, and vanilla seemed the least harmful choice. Now, the flavor could be anything from lemon to pistachio, which would cause a lot of people to go without cake.

"I asked Marla to put my cake in the freezer so that you could pick it up," I sighed in attempt to figure out what went wrong, "Did you maybe pick up the wrong one?"

"No," she shook her head, "it said 'Wedding' right on the box."

If my mother had picked up the right box, that meant Marla must of confused
my order with a customer. Most walk-ins have a simple vanilla or chocolate palette, but if it's a specialty order, that's where the weird orders get thrown in. I have a good chance of the flavor being something acceptable and a good chance of making a room full of people upset.

"Well, what flavor is the cake?" I asked wearily, afraid of the answer.

My mother checked her phone for the text she received with the flavor detail, and with no clue as to what her answer meant, said casually, "Orange Creamsicle."