Chapter 5 - The Final Dress Fitting
Friday afternoon. Twenty-four hours before the wedding.
The final bridal dress fitting took place at the flagship salon of Maison de Soie downtown. The salon had been rented out exclusively for our family. Champagne stood in crystal buckets, silver trays were piled with fresh macaroons, and three French seamstresses hovered around the pedestal where Rachel and I stood.
I was wearing my bespoke wedding gown—a breathtaking floor-length creation of ivory lace, silk tulle, and thousands of hand-sewn pearl beads. My dark sunglasses were firmly on my face.
Rachel stood on the adjacent pedestal in her champagne maid-of-honor dress. She held a glass of pink champagne in one hand, looking at my reflection in the massive tri-fold mirrors with a mix of gloating satisfaction and subtle irritation.
My mother sat on the velvet lounge sofa, sipping wine, chatting animatedly with the salon owner about the front-page coverage promised by Society Weekly.
"Emily, stand still!" Rachel snapped suddenly, her voice laced with sharp annoyance as a seamstress adjusted my hemline. "You keep leaning slightly to the left. You're making the silk drape unevenly!"
"I'm sorry, Rachel," I said softly, tilting my head blindly toward her voice. "Without my cane, it's hard to tell if I'm standing perfectly straight on this raised platform."
Rachel let out a loud, mocking scoff, taking a large gulp of her champagne. "Oh, please. It's not that hard to stand still. Honestly, Emily, sometimes I think you use your blindness as an excuse to get extra attention from everyone."
The seamstresses froze, looking at Rachel in awkward, stunned silence.
My mother didn't correct her. She simply chuckled into her champagne glass. "Rachel, darling, be nice. Emily is just nervous about tomorrow."
Rachel stepped off her pedestal, walking around to stand directly in front of me on my platform. She leaned close, her breath heavy with alcohol, whispering so only I could hear.
"You know, Emily," Rachel hissed, her voice dripping with venomous pleasure. "Ethan spent two hours in my apartment last night after he finished his golf game. He told me that when you two are standing at the altar tomorrow, he's going to imagine it's me under that veil."
I felt a surge of volcanic fury rise in my throat, but I forced my expression to remain utterly blank, passive, and glassily unbothered.
"Ethan is a good man, Rachel," I replied in a soft, dreamy whisper that reached her ears alone. "He loves me. He's taking care of me for the rest of my life."
Rachel let out a malicious sneer, leaning even closer, her eyes gleaming with cruel delight.
"You poor, stupid, blind bitch," Rachel whispered into my ear. "You really think he loves you? He despises you. Every time he touches you, he comes straight to my bed to wash the taste of you off his skin. You're not his wife, Emily. You're just his lifelong insurance policy against my prison sentence."
I looked straight ahead at the mirror wall beyond her shoulder. Through the dark tint of my sunglasses, I watched Rachel’s gloating face, capturing every subtle twist of her ugly, arrogant expression in my memory.
Enjoy this moment, Rachel, I thought silently. Enjoy it with every breath you have left. Because in twenty-four hours, you will never smile again.
"Rachel," I said softly, reaching out with a trembling hand, pretending to feel for her arm. "Can you help me check the veil alignment? I want to make sure it looks perfect for Ethan."
Rachel rolled her eyes with extreme disgust, grabbing my hand and shoving it away roughly. "Fine. Let's get this over with. I have better things to do than play nursemaid to a blind girl all afternoon."
She turned toward the seamstresses, yelling at them to hurry up, entirely unaware that as she had shoved my hand away, my fingers had deftly slipped into the open side pocket of her designer handbag hanging from the salon chair.
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When my hand came back out, I had successfully retrieved her personal smartphone—the phone containing her private text threads with Ethan, her offshore account transfer notifications, and three years of encrypted messages detailing their illicit affair.
I slid her phone smoothly into the deep pocket of my white silk dressing robe, my face remaining a portrait of serene, helpless innocence.
