Read an Excerpt
The Girls' Almanac
By Emily Franklin
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006
Emily FranklinAll right reserved.
ISBN: 006087340X
Chapter One
Early Girls
At the gym, Lucy uses a yoga ball to stretch. Large and blue, the rubber globe has teats to hang on to, and Lucy does, all the while envisioning the bright--hued cow who might have the ball as an udder. In the locker room, she doesn't bother to shower but notices the skin all around her in various stages of sagging and figures herself somewhere in the middle. All of the imperfections--moles and hip--flanking stretch marks, the puckered folds of back skin--all seem wonderful to Lucy. After Matt had proposed, they'd lain still in their swimsuits on the lakeshore with his hand like a map's x on her belly.
"I love this part of you," he'd said, touching the pigmented splotch below her ribs. Like something melted, the spot spread each time she breathed out. "I wonder if it will get bigger when you get pregnant."
They'd speculated, tried to guess which state outline the birthmark might resemble as her body changed. Propped up on her elbows then, Lucy had looked at the smooth plane of water, watching for fish ripples and feeling her newly ringed finger. Matt had kept his hand on her as they stayed there, paperweighting her as if she might become airborne at any moment.
When she thought about that day, she could make any of the objects huge in her mind--the birthmark splotch could seem to take over her belly, or thestriped beach towel they were on could enlarge to blanket size, but usually the water took over, breaking out of its lake--hold and seeping onto them. The ring never grew, though. Once, in a dream, the diamond band had actually become minute, baby--earring size and then the size of a small--fonted o. When Lucy woke up, she went to the box on her dresser where she kept the engagement ring and checked to see if it still fit.
On the back deck are the flats of pansies and new strawberry plants Lucy will earth later in the day. She walks past the small bobbed flower heads and tangled stems to the back door, going inside to change into nonathletic clothing, something her mother would call "an outfit."
"It's hard to say," she says into the phone to Kyla. "I feel like it should feel weird, but it doesn't."
"Maybe you're just blocking it out," Kyla says, the slur of highway noise and radio coming through.
"I hope you're using your earpiece." Lucy picks at dirt under her thumbnail and then, unable to flick it out, uses her teeth, feeling the sand grit on her tongue.
"It's called an earbud, Luce," Kyla says.
"I know. It just sounds gross--like an earwig or something that's going to bite you or something. Anyway, I think I'm just going with the black pants, white top."
"Good," Kyla says. "You'll look like a very stylish waiter."
At Unveiled, the bridal boutique in downtown Boston, Lucy steps in the door, only to have the sensors go off.
"I'm not even holding anything," she says, trying to make light of the loud buzzers and the tomato--shaped and colored lights flaring atop the electronic gate. One of the saleswomen comes with a key to unlock and restart the device.
When Ginny, Lucy's mother, arrives with her black binder full of bridal ideas, Lucy tells her about the sensor incident, saying, "It's like even they know I'm not supposed to be in here."
"Don't be ridiculous," Ginny says and splays her bridal book onto the counter. "Now, let's figure out some options."
Two saleswomen, "bridal assistants" they call themselves, peck and hem at Ginny's book, fondle the fabric samples she's pinned inside, and remark about the work that went into the collection of torn magazine pages, clipped tapestry samples, articles about shoe dyeing.
One of the assistants turns to Lucy and says, "Can I just do one quick thing?" Without a response, the assistant sticks her hands into Lucy's hair and fluffs out the matted locks. Lucy is so grateful for the touch that she doesn't react.
Ginny nods as if there's been some conversation that Lucy's missed. "I know, her hair has always been baby fine. No body--wouldn't even hold a perm. Granted, this saved her from those giant mistakes some of the girls made." Ginny holds her hands several inches from her own head as if she's trying on an invisible helmet. Then she turns back to Lucy. "She looks so nice when it's just been cut, though. A blunt cut to frame the face."
Lucy rolls her eyes; she's heard the hair speech many times before. She suspects the pale--skin talk will follow, but before Ginny can tell of the way a tan suits her daughter's coloring, the assistant says to Lucy, "Now, tell me--will you wear your hair up or down for the ceremony?"
"Actually, my mom's the one getting married," Lucy says, which prompts instant fussing from the assistants, who cover up their assumptions by fawning over the bridal binder again.
They self--correct and distract by saying to Ginny, "Well, this makes much more sense. The designs you've picked out are far more suitable for a more mature bride, the closed sleeve for --example."
Lucy wanders to the garment racks by the bay windows. Unveiled prided itself on being less a store than an elegant town house that just happened to house hundreds of bridal gowns, tiaras, and corsets. Sifting through the hangered dresses, Lucy wonders if her mother will wear white or settle on something more common for the déjà vu bride.
"How about celadon?" Ginny shouts across the room, holding up a wrap the color of treacle.
Lucy nods and then, to make sure she seemed enthusiastic enough, nods again, emphatic as a seizure. The gowns are set on the puffy silk hangers that make Lucy think of ballet slippers, trickling ribbons, the old poster she had in her room of a ballerina with torn tights . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from The Girls' Almanac
by Emily Franklin
Copyright © 2006 by Emily Franklin.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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