Dreaming in Technicolor by Laura Jensen Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

DustBuster to my windowsill and curtains. Dust up, dust down. Dust up, dust down. I felt like the Karate Kid. Only noisier.
    Through the din, I heard a ringing in my ears. I shook my head, but it didn’t stop. I switched off the DustBuster and turned down Irene Cara belting out “What a Feeling.”
    It was a ringing. My phone. I snatched it up. “Alex?”
    â€œSorry to disappoint you. It’s just me, your best friend. Happy New Year!”
    â€œLins!” I looked at the clock. Twelve fifty-eight. “It’s three in the morning back there in Cleveland! What are you still doing up? Don’t tell me the singles bash went this late.”
    â€œNope. Well, actually, I don’t know.” She giggled. “We didn’t go to the party.”
    â€œYou didn’t?” Phil and Lindsey were the consummate partygoers. And party planners. For the past three years running, without fail, they’d organized the annual No More Lone Rangers New Year’s Eve singles party at church. Well, Phil and Lindsey and I had planned it, back before they were a couple. Before Alex.
    Things change so fast . . .
    â€œSo what did you guys do instead?” I asked.
    â€œOh, nothing much. Went out to dinner, dancing, took a moonlit drive along the lake. Got engaged. Ate some ice cream . . .”
    â€œEngaged?!” I screamed across the miles.
    Lins shrieked right back. “I know. Can you believe it? Me and Phil?”
    â€œWhat I can’t believe is that I’m here and you’re there so far away,” I whined. “I need details. Give me the whole 411. And start at the beginning. How’d he propose? And where? Did he give you a ring? When’s the wedding?”
    â€œSlow down, Pheebs.” Lindsey laughed. “We haven’t set a date yet. You know I need at least a year to plan my dream wedding. And I promise I’ll give you all the details, but before I do, let me officially ask you to be my maid of honor. You’d better, or else you’re dead meat.”
    â€œOf course I’ll be your maid of honor. I’d kill you if you asked anyone else.” We blubbed happy-girl tears together for a minute. “Who’s
the best man?”
    â€œScotty, naturally. Even though Phil and Alex have become good friends, he wanted his baby brother to stand up for him,” Lindsey said. “But not to worry, Alex will be a groomsman, so you’ll still get to see him in a tux.”
    â€œMmm. Can’t wait for that.”
    â€œSpeaking of wedding attire, Pheebs . . . I found this great shiny peach taffeta Southern-belle bridesmaid dress, complete with hoop skirt and scalloped white trim at the bottom, that will make you look like a giant Creamsicle.”
    â€œIt’s what I’ve always dreamed of.”
    We snorted together across the miles. “I promise you’ll get a killer dress in a gorgeous color that makes you look absolutely fabulous, dahling,” she said.
    â€œWithout upstaging the bride, of course.”
    â€œGiven.”
    â€œSo what are your colors going to be?” I adjusted the throw pillow beneath my head. “Still pink and cream?”
    â€œNah. After Trista and Ryan’s wedding I got a little pinked out.”
    We’d both sat glued to the TV together when the first reality-show bachelorette married her hunky, poetry-spouting fireman in one of the most lavish weddings we’d ever seen—preceded by a couple of prime-time specials where the spotlight couple taste-tested several cake selections, sampled a variety of menus, and sought the perfect locale for the “celebrity wedding of the year” (or decade, as some ad pundits pro-claimed). We’d drooled over the dresses, the decorations, the masses of pink flowers, and the to-die-for fifty-thousand-dollar diamond-encrusted shoes designed especially for the bride by Stuart Weitzman.
    â€œPink is no longer mah signature color.”