I looked at those gloves. They stood for everything I hated. They were prim and proper. White and pure, everything I was not. But I sat and looked at them. The poof under me contoured my curves, my knees together and tight but ankles spread wide in protest. My thumb and forefinger pulled at my bottom lip. Would I go through with it? I thought. It was more than a thought then. I remembered how nothing was right. The dress was too tight, my heels too tall, and those gloves sat in front of me like a final mockery of everything I’d ever wanted to do with my life.
“I can’t do it.” I said crossing my legs. “I just can’t.”
“Mon cher, it’s not the time to have these thoughts.”
“Daniel, you don’t understand.” I picked up the white gloves and held them, fingers caressed each silk hem. “Did you?”
“Not for a second,” Daniel shook his head as his thick Louisiana accent floated from his lips like leaves from a Live Oak drifting on the bayou. “Cheri, it’s normal to be scared but de’s thoughts, they do you no good.”
“There are so many things I won’t get to do.”
“How you know that?”
“I just do Daniel. He’s boring.” I placed the gloves in my lap. “What if I want to go to Paris? He’ll tell me he has to work.”
“True, but Chari, you love him no?” Daniel dipped his head and looked at me with those green eyes, like moss under a shade tree.
“I…” my cheeks flushed pink. I pulled the gloves up to my face letting the cool silk press against my hot skin.
“You cannot fool me mon cheri.”
I closed my eyes and I could see him standing there, the oak trees branches swaying in the breeze as the sun drizzled through the leaves. The table behind the priest filled with white roses and green moss. I could smell the earth as I watched my fiancée smile at me. Greens and browns swirled together bringing only him into focus. I opened my eyes. Daniel stood there and smiled.
“How ‘bout we get you down that isle.”
-End-
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