She is Not Made of Roses

one: address it to ms. rosie alder-pembrook

ONE: ADDRESS IT TO MS. ROSIE ALDER-PEMBROOK

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ROSEMARY ALDER-PEMBROOK feels that her sister may be overreacting.

Well, just a bit.

Jemima's been droning on for three hours about centerpieces and something called a canapé - whatever that might be - and what Rosie feels may have initially felt like a fun bonding experience between two sisters has emerged as a horrific wedding planning disaster between the entire family and more.

Jemima's only twenty-three, with hair like reddish gold and skin as smooth as any marble surface Rosie's ever seen, and she should be too young to be getting married. She should be in the city, fucking up and making mistakes, sleeping around and buying shoes that are too expensive for her paycheck from some small little boutique in the East Village. She shouldn't be here, back in Gracewood, New York, a pinpoint on a map someone's long disregarded, planning a backyard wedding for fifty with her mothers, sister, and sister's best friend.

And yet, there they are.

"No, mom, not Peach Sorbet. I wanted Amaryllis, remember?" Jemima insists, pointing towards the two color samples, laid out on the table.

Ester furrows her brow, peering harder. She looks so much like Jemima for a moment that it frightens Rosie, and then, it's gone, as soon as she'd seen it appear on her face.

"They look the same, Mimi" - she looks over her shoulder towards the kitchen - "Jessa, tell Mimi that they look the same."

"They look the same, baby!" Her mother shouts in placid agreement from the kitchen, over a boiling pot of spaghetti.

Jemima narrows her eyes, irritated at the two of them. She obviously feels attacked; but she always feels attacked, Rosie thinks. "You can't even see them, though!" She hollers back at Jessa, who's fully engrossed in another project entirely.

"I'm sure they're both lovely, Mimi," she encourages.

Jemima grimaces, crossing her arms in obstinacy. "You two are no help at all," she huffs, leaning forwards on the table, rubbing her temples. Her eyes flicker up momentarily, "Rosie, get me some wine, would you?"

She leans back in her chair, annoyed. It wouldn't be the first thing Jemima's demanded of her. She groans, "You've already had, like, a whole bottle today-"

"-Mimi's gotta get her drink on, Rosie," she interrupts, not even honoring her with so much as a glance, staring back down at the two samples again.

Rosie grimaces - it's not that she was glad to help Jemima out every once and a while, but since her engagement, she'd been taking her bride-to-be status a little bit too seriously.

"I'll do it," a voice volunteers.

"Oh! Aurora," Jemima exclaims, looking up for a moment at Rosie's best friend, sitting alongside her, perky and blonde and beaming. "I forgot you were here for a second - thanks, babe!"

Rosie flashes Aurora a thankful look, because it was only a matter of time before she'd burst, and Aurora had always seemed to have a way of keeping track of Rosie's level of retention of Jemima's incessant commands.

"Would you excuse me?" Rosie murmurs quietly to her mother and sister, both of whom are not listening, after a few moments of bickering about the differences in hues. Still, she departs from her seat to follow Aurora to the kitchen.

Aurora is parked outside of the wine cabinet, leafing through all the different bottles. She cradles a certain vintage in her arms, looking at it with greedy eyes. She doesn't have to look around to greet Rosie, because she already knows when she's entered the room, based on the smell of her vanilla perfume and how she always carries the scent of mint wherever she goes. Aurora makes a note to self to ask her about how she does that later.