Chapter 4: Rainbows

            There could have been no wedding more perfect, more beautiful, more emotionally charged than Callie and Nathan’s.  Rainbows had danced over the faces of all the smiling guests as they waited patiently for the bride’s triumphant entrance.  The rustic wooden floor had creaked under the feet of the bridesmaids and their groomsmen as they had quietly made their way down the aisle to the romantic music.  Nathan couldn’t have looked more handsome in his expertly fitted tux as he anxiously awaited, hands clasped in front of him, for the vestibule doors to open and reveal his bride.  When the doors had finally swung wide open and Callie had caught her first glimpse of the love of her life, she had smiled brilliantly and tears had begun twinkling in her eyes.  The guests had all stood to honor the bride, but Callie had seen none of it.  Her eyes were locked on her future husband and she had only been semi-conscious of her father’s arm around her own as he had slowly guided them down the aisle.

            There had been a glow on Callie’s face that surely was unequaled by anyone in history and the moment her father raised their mother’s veil to kiss the bride on the cheek, Evie had been forced to fight back tears of her own.  Nathan had accepted Callie’s hand from Bill Remington and grinned with pride down at her.  He was tall, thin, blond, and easily the most handsome man in the room and beside him was his beautiful bride: petite, dark headed, and utterly perfect.

            There had been words from the pastor about the love between a man and woman and how the bond could never be broken once God joined them together.  There had been a prayer.  Then, the bride and groom had turned toward each other for their vows.  The sun shining through the windows had intensified casting even more delicate rainbows through the entire sanctuary as if the Lord were blessing the words that were being spoken between the couple.  Nathan had spoken his vows with a certainty and authority that made every woman’s heart flutter.  When it was Callie’s turn, her eyes had glistened with tears as she looked up into her groom’s face and repeated the vows.  The pastor blessed their marriage, they exchanged rings, and once Nathan had lifted the veil that separated them, he had engulfed Callie with his arms, scooped her up, and kissed her with an intensity that made everyone in the room cheer.  Evie had never seen a smile as bright as the one Callie had smeared across her flushed face once Nathan set her back down and the couple turned to face the guests.

            There could have been no wedding more perfect.

            Evie sat in the metal chair sipping on her plastic fluted glass of bubbly orange juice with the other bridesmaids.  Callie and Nathan were out on the dance floor lost in a world all their own while standing in a sea of people.  Some of the guests had already made their exits and left to finish out their Saturday, but many still remained.  Evie’s mother and father were dancing as well.  Evie smiled to herself to see her parents still so much in love after all the years they had been together.  That was a rare things to see nowadays.  Her mother, so petite and impeccably put together, spun around the floor with Bill leading the way.  Her father’s laugh could be heard across the room periodically.  Evie figured it was his happy nature that had made their marriage work so well.  Who wouldn’t want to be married to someone with a great sense of humor and made you laugh all the time?

            Her thoughts were interrupted by a chair being pulled out beside her.  She tore her eyes from the dance floor and glanced over the opposite shoulder where she came face to face with Kyle Nole.

            “It seems a shame for the sister of the bride to be sitting on the sidelines.”

            The bridesmaids’ chatter at the table had momentarily paused as they all pretended not to wait for Evie’s response.  Stunned, she double checked to make sure he was actually addressing her and glanced around the table.  Duh!  You’re the only sister of the bride.  Of course he was talking to you!

            “It happens, I guess, but you’re the brother of the groom.  Isn’t it also a shame for you to be sitting on the sidelines as well?”

            Kyle’s blue eyes locked on her own as he laughed heartily.  “Touché, Ms. Remington!  It is a shame.  Seems like someone should do something about that.”

            “It certainly does.  Well, here is a table full of girls who aren’t being danced with.  It seems the polite thing to do would be for the guys to come over and snatch them up.”

            “Just like that?”

            “Just like that.”  Evie raised her glass and took a sip of the bubbly, orange goodness.

            Kyle scooted his metal chair closer to her own and set an elbow on the table as he lightly cleared his throat.  “Well, what if, theoretically speaking of course, that someone was to come over and ask you to dance.  What would your answer be?”

            Her heart leapt into her throat.  Is he asking me to dance?  “Who is asking?”

            “Does it matter?  This is all hypothetical.”

            “Of course it matters!  What if it is a snively, scrawny guy with gapped teeth and really bad breath?  Or, what if it is a mass murderer?”

            “Do you know enough mass murderers for that one to really be an issue?”

            “This is hypothetical, remember?”  She shrugged, “It could happen.”

            “Okay, well no mass murderers, and no snively guys with bad breath,” he laughed.  “It’s a relatively good looking guy with impeccable hygiene and a great sense of humor.  What would your answer be?”

            Evie smiled into Kyle’s shockingly intense blue eyes.  This man in front of her had been the football king in high school.  He had been incredibly popular and here he was, showing an interest in her!  A million thoughts raced through her head and she could feel her cheeks beginning to burn.  How was it possible that she was having this type of a reaction to a guy she had waved off as just another boy she grew up with up until this moment?  “If a relatively good looking guy with impeccable hygiene and a great sense of humor should happen to come over and ask me to dance, I would have to say yes.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

            Kyle drummed his fingers on the table a single time and took a deep breath.  “Excellent answer, Ms. Remington,” and he stood up from the chair and began backing away.

            The bridesmaids were now staring at their exchange with eyes wide and entertaining smiles smeared across their faces.

            “Wait a minute!” Evie yelled over the music and flipped around in her chair toward him.  “Is that it?”  Surely not!  He came all the way over here to talk to me—specifically—and he’s really just going to leave me hanging like that?

            Kyle was stoically standing in front of her now looking as handsome as ever and his eyes locked on her.  “No, that’s not it, but my mother taught me to be a gentleman and I would never dream of asking a girl to dance while sitting down.”  He reached a hand down to her and Evie heard all the bridesmaids giggle quietly at the table.  “Would you like to dance?”

            Taken back by the chivalry of it all, Evie laughed.  Her mouth fell open in shock as she took in the sight of Kyle standing there with his hand outstretched, asking her to dance of all people!  She knew her cheeks must have been flaming ten different shades of red.  She slid her delicate fingers into his palm and his hand closed around hers as he gently lifted her out of the chair and guided her toward the dance floor.  She followed him silently as they wove between the couples until her stopped and turned toward her.  He placed his hand firmly around her waist and pulled her close to him.

            His body was warm and she could feel his heat even though nothing touched but their hands.  He was a good head taller than she was, so as they spun around the floor she stared at the buttons on his shirt.  He smelled so good!  How long had it been since she been this close to someone?  Her body literally ached at the memory of having someone’s arm around her.  Oh, how she had missed this!  Though her heart was fluttering and her palms sweating at the excitement of it all, her mind was filled with an intense sense of calm.  She felt peaceful like this.  She was oblivious to the music playing, to the couples dancing around them, even to the chatter of the wedding guests.  All she heard was her heartbeat thumping wildly in her ears.  She focused on not accidentally sliding her foot under his as she tried to match his sweeping dance steps.  Step left.  Step right.  Stare at his shirt.  Look at the stitch pattern they sewed the buttons on with.  They sewed left to right multiple times and then switched to up and down, but you can’t see where the stitch direction changed.  Man, he smells good!

            Evie was shocked back to reality when they were bumped by another dancing couple.  She glanced to her left to see who it was and met Callie’s humorously surprised face.

            Nathan let go of his new bride for just long enough to slap his older brother on the back.  “It’s about time you got back in the game!” he laughed.

            “Some of us are in less of a rush,” Kyle tossed back.

            Evie and Callie didn’t say anything in that moment when the groom and his brother were dancing with the bride and her sister, but their comments were easily shared wordlessly.  Callie’s single raised eyebrow was asking if this might possibly be the beginning of a spark.  Evie’s smile through tightly rolled lips and a light shrug told Callie not to read too much into things.  Nathan spun Callie under his arm and she laughed as he pulled her back and bent her down into a dipped kiss.  Both her hands flew to either side of his face as she kissed him back.  The surrounding couples all halted their dancing to watch the bride a groom and the hall echoed with applause when Nathan finally pulled a laughing, breathless, teary-eyed Callie back up.  Evie’s cheeks burned from smiling at her sister’s happiness.  She clapped as Nathan bent down and the two of them rubbed noses before quickly kissing again.

            The music changed to a much faster paced song and Kyle guided Evie back toward the table with Callie’s bridesmaids.  Their googley-eyed faces all turned toward Kyle’s leanly muscular form as he ushered Evie back to her chair.  He pulled out the metal chair next to hers and calmly sat down as well.  Evie’s body still burned from the excitement of the dance as she reached for a sip of her sparkling orange juice.

            “Does it feel as weird for you as it does for me that your younger sibling is now married?”

            “Absolutely,” Evie responded.  It was the strangest thing she could have possibly imagined.  Wasn’t there supposed to be a natural order to these things?  She was supposed to get married first, and then her little sister was supposed to follow suit.  Things hadn’t happened that way, though.  “Once you’re over twenty-five, people start assuming something’s wrong with you if you haven’t already found your soul mate.  So what’s your flaw?”

            “I have to be flawed?” Kyle asked, cocking his head to the side.

            “We generally are.  So, what’s yours?”

            Kyle grinned revealing those perfectly aligned teeth.  He stretched back in his chair and sucked in a deep breath.  “I’m the nice guy.”

            “That’s a statement, not a flaw.”

            “No, I mean that I’m the nice guy.  The friend.  I’m the living example of nice guys finishing last.”

            “That’s really sad,” Evie laughed.  “You sound like a lost puppy dog who wants to find his forever home.”

            “It’s the truth!  Anyhow, that’s my story.  What’s yours?”

            What can I say to that?  Can I honestly say that I had the right guy, that he stole my heart, but that he left me wondering how it had all gone wrong?  She quickly gathered the explosion of emotions and buried them back in the recesses of her heart.  That was ancient history and had no place in her life anymore.  She wrapped the memories of Josh back into a tiny little package and willed him to disappear just as he had done so long ago.  She sucked in a breath and bravely smiled at the handsome man who was sitting beside her and certainly seemed interested in what she had to say.  She shrugged, half to herself, “I just haven’t found the right guy yet.”

            “Not for a lack of interested guys, I’m sure.”

            She felt her cheeks flush again as she giggled girlishly.  “There have been a few.”  She reached for her plastic glass and drained the remaining orange juice.  There was an awkward silence at the table even though the room was filled with music and the rumble of voices.  One of the bridesmaids excused herself to the bathroom and all the other girls decided to join her, leaving Evie and Kyle alone at the table.

            The DJ’s voice came over the speakers announcing that the bouquet and garter toss would be happening out on the dance floor momentarily.  Callie was already seated in a chair in the center of the floor.  The talking in the room lowered to almost a hush when Nathan kneeled and gingerly reached under the skirt of her dress for the garter.  The crowd all laughed when Callie threw her hands to her scarlet red face to hide her embarrassment.  Nathan slipped the garter from her thigh and delicately slid it down her leg before removing it around her foot.  He flipped his head back and kissed Callie as she fanned her face with her hands to cool her burning cheeks.  He pulled her to her feet and held the garter triumphantly in the air.  The men in the room all cheered noisily.

            Callie was the first to toss her bouquet.  The bridesmaids dove wildly for the flying bunch of flowers, but Evie stood patiently at the back of the group.  She had no belief in the silliness of superstition, but she wanted to humor her sister nonetheless.  Callie flipped around after hearing the commotion behind her and laughed along with everyone else as the girls scrambled for the flowers.  She stepped toward her sister and grabbed her in a hug as one of the girls sprung up from the cluster of women waving the bouquet in the air.  “I tried to toss it toward you,” she said in Evie’s ear.

            The garter toss was no less impressive.  Nathan’s throw had been so strong that the lacey garter flew right over the heads of all the men and landed at the feet of his mother, Regina Nole.  Mr. Nole leaned down and grabbed it up off the floor and tossed it back into the sea of single men who tried to rip it out of the air.  Mathew, the youngest of the Nole boys and barely nineteen years old, wound up with the garter.  He stretched the garter around his head like a headband and wore it proudly as he strutted around the room.

            Evie and Kyle were pulled away by Donna Remington and arranged along with the rest of the bridal party along the path the bride and groom would walk down to their car.  She was handed a small bottle of bubbles and waited for all the other guests to exit the hall as well.  The sun shone warmly on her shoulders.  Could this weather have been any more perfect!?

            She glanced across the path to where Kyle was laughing with one of Callie’s bridesmaids and best friends.  He locked eyes with Evie and gave her a brilliant smile.  The pit of her stomach warmed and gave a little flip.  How much of a cliché was this?  Groomsmen and bridesmaids were supposed to be attracted to each other, weren’t they?  Wasn’t it some unwritten rule that romances always struck up at weddings?  There was so much love radiating off Callie and Nathan, it was difficult to not feel infected by it.  She tried to busy herself with opening her bubbles, but the lid popped off instantly and there was nothing left to do but glance around her, wishing there was something to attract everyone’s attention.  She could feel those piercingly blue eyes studying her, and when she dared look up momentarily from her hands, there was Kyle, his eyes still burning into her own.  He grinned.  Is he amused by my sudden awkwardness?

            The doors suddenly sprung open and Callie and Nathan joyfully walked through the cloud of raining bubbles, down the path, and to their car.  Donna Remington reached an arm around her youngest daughter and hugged her dearly.  When she finally released her, she said something to Callie who was tearing up again.  Evie couldn’t make out the words over the cheers of the crowd, but Callie nodded and hugged their mother again.  Their dad was next to hug Callie.  Evie slid in to hug her sister as well before she left for her new life with Nathan who was shaking hands with his own father on the other side of the car.

            “I love you so much,” Evie whispered in her sister’s ear.  “You made such a beautiful bride.”

            Callie pulled back and nodded in response.  “I love you too.  Are you going to visit after we are moved into the house?”

            “Of course.  Next time I’m in town, I promise.”

            The bride and groom slipped into their car, waved good-bye, and drove off.  There was a strange sense of quiet once they were gone.  That was it.  Callie’s new life had started and Evie was left behind.

            Bill came over and placed an arm around Evie’s shoulders.  He kissed his oldest daughter on the cheek before wrapping her in a hug.  She hugged her father back, grateful for his silent support.  It felt so strange knowing that her little sister was venturing into an area of her life that Evie couldn’t follow, at least not right now.  She was unbelievably happy for her sister.  She would never wish her anything but the best.  She just needed some time to herself to sort out her feelings.  This had been a very confusing day.