Friday, September 7
There's a storm blowing up. Rebecca Moore stared at the
monstrosity with dread. It hung in front of her and seemed
to stare back, laughing, taunting, and challenging her to
action. Evil incarnate, it even had her name on it. Unable to
run away, she clenched her jaw and lunged for it. Her grip
was so tight that she thought, no she wished, it would tear
apart. No such luck.
Rebecca stepped into the changing room to put on the
most hideous bridesmaid dress, ever.
It serves me right. She had been too busy at work to get
involved in dress selection. All the messages and
photographs they had sent her got filed directly without
being read. She had planned to go through it all, but each
new business trip pushed Kay's wedding plans further from
her mind. Now she was stuck.
Gaudy pink, verging on orange, the dress was as subtle
as a baboon's butt. Plus, there was way too much of it-
billowing chiffon down to her calf. Given that there were
two other bridesmaids, both taller than her, Rebecca would
be lost in an endless sea of nauseating pink.
Admittedly, the real problem with the dress was that it
clashed badly with her red hair. Her long locks fell to her
shoulders in great waves that usually looked good. But not
tonight. Not with this dress. Even her freckles were
embarrassed.
At times like this, Rebecca turned to her favorite movie,
a classic from her childhood, The Wizard of Oz. She had a
habit of quoting from the movie, dotting her conversation
with appropriate lines. Her friends tolerated this tendency
and patiently waited for her to outgrow it.
But Rebecca knew. She knew the universal truth of The
Wizard of Oz. Nearly every occurrence in her life had a
parallel somewhere in the movie. She could narrate her
existence with it, and this moment was no exception.
There's a storm blowing up. The warning from Professor
Marvel-the movie's traveling fortune teller-rang out in
her head, accompanied by a dramatic flourish of violins. Of
course, this wasn't a real disaster, merely a minor
annoyance. Still, she imagined a tiny, pink funnel cloud, its
swirling vortex dotted with flashes of red hair. She even
imagined a miniature Miss Gulch-the movie's antagonist
-flying around it on a bicycle.
Wait until Kay sees this. Her best friend had wanted her
bridesmaids to wear these dresses, but she couldn't possibly
want this much garishness. There was only one way to find
out-Rebecca teased up her hair for maximum shock value
and stepped out of the changing room.
When she returned to the main area, the other two