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Shauna’s dress was too loose. Mrs. Taylor had told her it would be, in a tone that Shauna had tried to imagine reminded her of Jackie, despite knowing it was far too sharp for that.
The lace was thick and white and stiff, and it had belonged to Jackie’s aunt who’d died in a particularly violent car accident just six months after they’d returned. Her favorite aunt, Mrs. Taylor had sobbed into Shauna’s shoulder, at least they’ll be together now.
Jackie didn’t much care for any of her aunts, at least not that Shauna remembered, and the name of the woman whose dress Shauna wore was lost to her. All she knew was that it was too big. It had a gap at the top that meant when she met Jeff at the altar he would likely be able to see straight down it. The officiant probably would, too—a pastor, because Jeff was vaguely some kind of Christian and, even if Shauna had felt she could ever face a Rabbi again, she thought Jeff probably didn’t even remember that she was Jewish.
That was fine. Shauna didn’t mind. This wedding wasn’t for her, anyway. It was for Jeff, for Jeff’s parents, and, above all else, for the Taylors.
The Taylors liked this church. They’d helped the Sadeckis pick it out. Or maybe Mrs. Taylor had simply told the Sadeckis that this was where the wedding would be, with a stiff smile that did little to hide the despondency permanently fixed in her eyes. She had always been hard to say no to, but now it was a near-impossibility.
She would be upset that Shauna hadn’t allowed the tailor to bring the dress in any more. Shauna had watched Mrs. Taylor’s confusion when she hadn’t reacted positively to the rare compliment that Mrs. Taylor has bestowed upon her: your waist is so tiny and your shoulders are so narrow, you’re drowning in this fabric. Shauna had shaken her head. Gentle, then hard, then harder, when the seamstress had continued operating under Mrs. Taylor’s direction rather than Shauna’s: sticking sharp pins in places that poked at Shauna’s skin, each prick teasing that she was more mannequin than girl. Shauna pretended that she couldn’t place the reason the question (doll or girl or neither or both?) made a sudden, vicious dizziness mix with a deep, clawing guilt inside of her, the combination so reactive and volatile that it bubbled out of her in a shriek feral enough to send both tailor and Taylor back three paces.
The real crux of the dress problem was this: when Shauna looked in the mirror, she usually saw round. Belly round with a baby that she knew didn’t exist. Breasts round with milk that never would have been enough to sustain him even if he’d survived. But today she saw what Mrs. Taylor had in that shop, with its lights too bright and its air too humid-hot. She saw reality rather than distortion, which meant that she knew that the ugly fucking dead girl hand-me-down didn’t fit her.
But, fine. It was fine. That didn’t matter. Nobody could complain. Shauna wasn’t supposed to be alive. She was a miracle, if you liked to read the headlines. And miracles could wear ill-fitting dresses on their wedding day.
But even miracles had to smile.
Mrs. Taylor had taken care of nearly everything, because this wasn’t Shauna’s wedding, this was Jackie’s wedding. And Mrs. Taylor would’ve smiled for Shauna, too, if she could. Would have pinned Shauna’s cheeks up with sharp metal pocketed from the tailor’s shop, would’ve hidden tape in Shauna’s hairline that made her eyes widen with artificial joy.
But, because Mrs. Taylor couldn’t do everything, these were Shauna’s only jobs for the day: smile (like she meant it); say I do (when prompted); dance during the reception (to at least three songs); let Jeff fuck her (as soon as it was over). Shauna could do that. Smile, vow, dance, bed. Smile, vow, dance, bed. Shauna repeated the words to herself, watching her lips move silently in her reflection.
The thing about Jackie, both before and after she died, was that she often didn’t need Shauna to speak aloud in order to hear her.
“You look beautiful,” Jackie said.
She appeared as she spoke, as though breathed into life by her own voice. Shauna ignored her sometimes, decided not to speak back to her during the moments where she was convinced she could finally fake her way to sanity. But, though the room was empty just now, other than the two of them, Shauna knew that soon she would be surrounded, unable to speak back even if she wanted to.
“Don’t lie,” Shauna whispered. “Tell me the eighties called and they want their dress back, or something.”
Jackie laughed, not unkindly. She placed her hands on Shauna’s hips, pressed herself against Shauna’s back, rested her chin on Shauna’s shoulder. Shauna felt her own cheeks draw back in a smile, and tried to memorize the way her muscles moved to recreate it later.
“I said you look beautiful,” Jackie said. “Not the dress.”
“Mmm,” Shauna hummed, too distracted by Jackie and by the overlarge dress and by her inability to fake a smile when it counted to say much else.
Jackie had her hair half-up, like she usually did. And though Shauna couldn’t see it, she knew the honey-brown strands were tied back with a yellow ribbon. She was pretty. Healthy. Whole. She wasn’t mangled by cold, or by fire, or by Shauna’s own hands, and Shauna was grateful to have this version of her today. She rested her hands on top of Jackie’s, tried not to think too hard about what it meant that she could feel them as if they were truly there.
“I wish I could’ve done your makeup.” Jackie frowned. “I was supposed to. And this—” Jackie tried to move her hand but Shauna clutched it tighter, so she jerked her head instead, tapping her temple against Shauna’s, “—is way too heavy for your features.”
Shauna rolled her eyes. “I knew it. I knew you would find something to—”
“Only the prettiest girls need lighter makeup,” Jackie interrupted. “It’s, like, science, Shipman.”
They froze. Shauna’s eyes went wide, her brows knit close. Jackie’s mouth hung slightly open, her tongue still pressed to the roof of her mouth in the shape of Shauna’s maiden name.
Shauna was shocked by her sobs. She’d gotten good at repression, mastered the art of being numb, and she wasn’t sure if her mascara was waterproof.
Jackie didn’t rub it in, like Shauna feared she might. She just gripped Shauna tighter, pulled her closer, her small hands warm and possessive as they moved across Shauna’s stomach, until her arms were circled low around Shauna’s waist. She felt the realest she had since out there, since before Shauna had lost her body. There was no hint of wrongness, no words spoken with a harshness that Shauna knew wasn’t fair, no flicker of sensation that reminded Shauna that she wasn’t physically present.
Jackie turned her head and Shauna mirrored her, until their foreheads were pressed together, until Shauna could inhale Jackie’s raged exhales, could feel Jackie’s tears against her cheeks, mixing with her own.
Jackie was all the way there.
Then there was a knock at the door, and she was gone.
“Shauna?” Tai called, peering around the barely-open door and into the small church office. “Oh, Shauna.”
Tai picked up where Jackie had left off, but when Taissa wrapped her arms around Shauna and pulled her into a hug, one hand between her shoulder blades and the other on the back of her head, she felt less real than Jackie had moments ago. And, for one small, angry moment, Shauna hated her.
“I—I—I can’t—” Shauna choked on her tears, cursed herself for fucking up her makeup, for letting herself lean into Jackie when she knew she wasn’t real, for being pissed at Taissa, the only person who knew exactly who she was and still cared about her, just because she’d interrupted a projection of Shauna’s own mind.
Tai didn’t say anything. She didn’t ask what was wrong. Shauna thought she probably knew exactly what was wrong already, knew that anything she said would simply make Shauna cry harder. Tai just rubbed Shauna’s back, slow and steady, until the tears halted as quick as they’d come.
“We have to fix this,” Shauna said, waving in the general direction of her face.
Tai nodded, rummaged on the small desk until she found a pack of tissues, and began dabbing gently beneath Shauna’s eyes. They worked in silence, Tai wiping away the evidence of the tears, camouflaging any trace of them with concealer and powder. When she was done, Shauna looked much the same as she had before. Her eyes were slightly puffier, but nobody would notice that when there was an ill-fitting dress to stare at.
“You don’t have to do it,” Tai said.
Her dress fit beautifully—that silky bridesmaid material could so easily lay in unflattering ways, but it suited Tai. Even the color, a pinky-red that Mrs. Taylor had pointed at hopefully in a catalog, looked nice on her. She looked warm, alive, and Shauna knew that when she smiled it wouldn’t look robotic.
“You know I do,” Shauna answered.
Taissa swallowed, and Shauna could imagine all the words she pressed down with it. They’d had this conversation: when Shauna had called Tai on her dorm phone to tell her that she was dating Jeff again—or maybe, technically, for the first time, she supposed; when Shauna had met Tai at a dark, dirty, hole-in-the-wall bar the night before she moved in with Jeff; when Shauna had ripped at her nail so aggressively it had torn then asked Tai to be her maid of honor with a wince, as Tai pressed a kitchen rag to her finger to staunch the bleeding. Tai wasn’t going to do it again. Not today.
Shauna turned back to face herself in the mirror. Taissa stood behind her, straightening her necklace—the pearls that Mrs. Taylor had gifted her, the ones on a chain so tight that Shauna felt choked by their weight. Shauna caught Tai’s hand in her own before she could lower it, locking her fingers between Tai’s until they curled into her palm.
“Can you help me figure out how I should smile?”