“I have been,” Victoria said, proud of the weight she’d lost so far, and disappointed that Gracie didn’t notice. Her head was totally into the wedding, as she hugged her older sister. She wanted to go downtown right away and start shopping. She had a list of stores she wanted to get to. Victoria had been at school all day and felt like a mess. She’d had to get there early for a department meeting. But she got ready in five minutes, and they left to go downtown. It was hard not to be distracted by the giant rock on her finger. “Aren’t you afraid you might get hit on the head wearing that thing?” She still worried about her. She would always be her baby sister, no different than the day she’d walked her into first grade.

“No one thinks it’s real,” Gracie said nonchalantly as they got out of the cab at Bergdorf’s.

They went upstairs to the wedding department and started looking at gowns. They had a dozen of them hanging on racks and spread out around them as Gracie looked around and shook her head. None of them looked right to her, although Victoria thought they were gorgeous. Gracie shifted gears then and asked to see bridesmaids’ dresses. She had a list of designers and colors that she wanted to check out. And they brought everything they had to her. It was going to be a formal evening wedding. Harry was going to wear white tie, and the groomsmen black tie. And so far she was thinking of peach, pale blue, or champagne for the bridesmaids, all of them colors that Victoria could wear. She was so fair and had such pale skin that there were some colors she just couldn’t get away with, like red, for instance, but Gracie assured her that she would never put her bridesmaids in red. She looked like a little general marshaling her troops as the saleswomen brought her things. Gracie was in full control, and planning what appeared to be a major national event, like a rock concert or a world’s fair or a presidential campaign. This was her finest hour, and she was going to be the star of the show. Victoria couldn’t help wondering how her mother was dealing with it. It was a little overwhelming at close range, and their father was sparing no expense. He wanted the Wilkeses to be impressed, and his favorite daughter to be proud. In the heat of her intense concentration on what she was doing, Gracie still hadn’t noticed the weight Victoria had lost, which hurt her feelings, but she didn’t want to be childish about it, and she paid attention to the gowns that Gracie was picking out. She had three maybes in mind when they left. And there were going to be ten bridesmaids. It occurred to Victoria, when Gracie told her, that if she had been getting married, she didn’t even have ten friends. She would have had Gracie as her only attendant, and that was it. But Gracie had always been a golden child. And now she was the star, and loving every minute of it. She was becoming more like their parents than Victoria wanted to admit. She came from a family of stars, and Victoria felt like a meteor that had fallen to earth in a heap of ash.

They went to Barneys after that, and finally wound up at Saks. And for the following day Gracie had made an appointment with Vera Wang herself. She also wanted to see Oscar de la Renta, but hadn’t had time to set it up. Victoria was beginning to realize just how big an event it was. And the Wilkeses were giving a black-tie rehearsal dinner that was going to be bigger and more elaborate than most weddings. So it was going to be a double header in terms of the dresses that they’d need. Gracie said that their mother had already decided to wear beige to the wedding, and emerald green to the rehearsal dinner the night before. She was all set. She had gone to Neiman Marcus, and the personal shopper had found the perfect dresses for her for both events. So Gracie could concentrate on herself.

She didn’t like the bridal gowns at Saks either, and made it clear that she was looking for something extraordinary for her wedding. Gracie, the baby sister, had come into her own. Suddenly nothing was special enough for her. Victoria was a little shocked at how determined she was. And Gracie wasn’t excited about the bridesmaids’ dresses she saw either, and then she gave a gasp when she saw a gown.

“Oh my God,” she said with a look of amazement, as though she’d found the holy grail. “That’s it! I’d never have thought of that color!” It was without question a spectacular gown, although Victoria couldn’t picture it at a wedding, particularly multiplied by ten. Brown was the color of the season going into the fall. It was softer than black, the saleswoman explained to them, and very “warm.” The dress that had caught Gracie’s attention was a heavy satin strapless gown, with tiny tucks close to the body to just below the hipline, and then it widened into a bell-shaped evening gown to the floor. The workmanship on it was exquisite, and it was a deep chocolate brown. The only trouble with it, from Victoria’s perspective, was that only a tiny, wraithlike flat-chested woman could wear it. The place where it stopped hugging the body and flared at the hips would make Victoria’s bottom look like the broad side of a barn. It was a dress that only a girl with Gracie’s proportions could wear well, and most of her friends looked like her. The sample she was looking at would have been too big for her and was a size four. Victoria didn’t want to imagine what it would look like on her even if she lost weight.

“Everyone’s going to love it,” Gracie exclaimed with a delirious expression. “They can wear it afterward to any black-tie event.” The dress was expensive, but it wasn’t a problem for most of her bridesmaids, and her father had promised to cover the difference if she found a dress that some of her bridesmaids couldn’t afford. The price wasn’t the issue for Victoria, since her father was paying for it. The problem was that the dress would look hideous on her. Her breasts and hips were just too large for the style. And to add to her misery as she looked at it, it was the color of bittersweet chocolate, which Victoria just couldn’t wear with her fair skin, blue eyes, and pale blond hair.

“I can’t wear that dress,” she said reasonably to her sister. “I’ll look like a mountain of chocolate mousse, with either spelling. Even if I lost fifty pounds. Or maybe a hundred. My chest is too big. And I can’t wear that color.” Her sister looked at her with imploring eyes.

“It’s exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t know it. It’s a gorgeous gown.”

“Yes, it is,” Victoria readily agreed with her, “but for someone your size. If you wear that, and I wear the wedding gown, it’ll be perfect. That dress will be frightening on me. I’m sure it doesn’t even come in my size.”

“You can order it in any size,” the saleswoman said helpfully. It was an expensive dress, and would have made a handsome sale.

“Can we get ten of them by June?” Gracie asked with a look of panic, totally ignoring her sister’s pleas for mercy.

“I’m sure we can. We can probably have them for you by December, if you get me all the sizes.” Gracie looked relieved and Victoria near tears.

“Gracie, you can’t do that to me. I’ll look horrible in that dress.”

“No, you won’t. You said you want to lose weight anyway.”

“I still couldn’t wear it. I wear a double-D bra. You have to be built like you to wear that dress.” Gracie looked up at her with tears in her eyes, with the same look that had melted her older sister’s heart since she was five.

“I’m only getting married once,” she said imploringly. “I want everything to be perfect for Harry. I want this to be my dream wedding. Everyone has pink and blue and pastel colors. No one ever even thinks of brown for the bridesmaids. It’ll be the most elegant wedding L.A. has ever seen.”

“With a maid of honor who looks like an elephant.”

“You’ll lose weight by then, I know it. You always do when you try.”

“That’s not the point. I’d have to have surgery to pull this one off.” And the tiny tucks of fabric all the way down the long-waisted bodice would only make it worse. Gracie was already planning to have the bridesmaids carry brown orchids to go with the dress. Nothing was going to dissuade her from it, and she placed the order while Victoria stood by wanting to cry. Her sister had just ensured that she would look like a monster at the wedding, while all her tiny anorexic friends would look stylish in the brown strapless gowns. There was no question that the dress was beautiful, but not on Victoria. She gave up trying to dissuade her, and sat silently while Gracie gave the saleswoman the sizes for most of the gowns. They were almost all size fours, except for three size twos. She was going to confirm the rest of the sizes when she got home. She had a look of elation on her face when they left the store. She was almost dancing she was so excited, and Victoria sat in silence in the cab all the way uptown. They stopped at the deli on the way back to the apartment, and without thinking, Victoria put three pints of Häagen-Dazs on the counter. Gracie didn’t even notice. She was used to Victoria buying ice cream. She had no idea that Victoria hadn’t had any in four months. This was like a recovering alcoholic sidling up to the bar and ordering a vodka on the rocks.

They went back to the apartment, and Gracie called their mother while Victoria unpacked the groceries, just as Harlan walked in. He took one look at the ice cream, pointed at it as though it were on fire, and stared at Victoria in horror and disbelief.

“What’s that?”

“She ordered strapless brown gowns for the bridesmaids that I can’t wear.”

“Then tell her you can’t wear it, and to order you something else,” he said, taking the ice cream from Victoria’s hand and dropping it in the trash. “Maybe the dress isn’t as bad as you think.”