Mom said, handing me a flute of bubbly golden liquid. “I don’t want to get married drunk, Mom!” “Please,” she said with a wave of her hand. “If one glass of champagne gets you drunk, then you’re not your father’s daughter.” Okay, she had a point. I took a long swallow. “Sip it, don’t gulp it,” she chastised me. “Now hold still and let Jeffrey finish your hair.” Jeffrey was cursing under his breath at my thick mass of hair, which he’d spent the past two hours painstakingly curling and arranging into an artful up-do with a mountain of bobby pins. Ten minutes later and he was finally through. “Voilà!” he pronounced with a flourish. “You look amazing!” I surveyed the stranger in the mirror, a way better-looking version of the usual me, in an Oscar de la Renta wedding gown. My eyes caught on the diamond necklace at my throat.
