Going to the Chapel Read Online Free Page A

high-heel shoes.
    “You can’t wear those,” Elaine said. “You’ll fall and hurt your insides and not be able to have babies.”
    “I’m going to have babies,” I had told her as I picked up a carton of eggs off the shelf.
    “You’ll probably never get married, either,” Elaine added calmly once she had my attention.
    “I will so.” I started walking to the counter to pay for the eggs. By this time in my life, I had learned to ignore Elaine’s taunts most of the time.
    But then Elaine said something I thought was forbidden. She said my problem was that only the saints and a few special mothers could tolerate my red hair. If my mother didn’t want me or my hair with her in Las Vegas, why would I think any man would want me around when I was grown-up?
    I had bright, unruly carrot hair. Somehow the hair didn’t bother me as much as Elaine always thought it should. I couldn’t believe, though, that Elaine had said anything about my mother not wanting me with her.That was supposed to be one of those things that the family didn’t talk about, at least not in a public place like the grocery store. We might have our problems with all the half sister and half cousin stuff, but we kept them to ourselves.
    Anyway, that’s when I had made my vow.
    “You just watch and see,” I had said. I must have crossed my heart and hoped to die, I was that determined. “I’m not just going to get married—I’m going to marry a doctor. And I’m going to do it before you get married, too!”
    It had been a foolish vow, but I never took it back. Even now I’d rather eat worms than give Elaine the satisfaction of seeing me admit defeat. When she was giving me the eye a minute ago, she looked happier than when her fiancé got up in front of everyone here and announced their engagement.
    Which might be a surprise to someone else, but not to me. Elaine has enjoyed making my life miserable all our lives. And not just because she is beautiful and I am not. Oh, no, it goes far deeper than that. It goes all the way down to clothes.
    When I was growing up, I was always well dressed. That’s because I got all of Elaine’s hand-me-downs. Uncle Howard is a doctor and that has made Aunt Ruth, in her own words, “the richest woman in Blythe.” When my mother refused the job as Aunt Ruth’s housekeeper, my aunt Inga asked to take it instead. One of the job perks was that Aunt Ruth gave all of Elaine’s old clothes to Aunt Inga so she could give them to me to wear.
    You’d think from the way Aunt Ruth gave theclothes to Aunt Inga that they had come off of the back of some royal princess instead of Elaine’s scrawny back. I’d rather have worn Aunt Inga’s old bathrobe to school than Elaine’s charity clothes. But Aunt Inga was so proud when she gave me the clothes that I couldn’t refuse to wear them.
    The creepy thing was that whenever I was walking around in Elaine’s clothes I felt as if I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. As if I was a peasant pretending to be a princess. I think Elaine felt the same way only it was easier for her because she always got to be the princess in the story.
    The whole thing with the clothes never should have been possible in the first place. That’s because I am older than Elaine by five months. Older kids are supposed to be taller. Elaine’s hand-me-downs should be too small for me. It just shouldn’t work.
    Unfortunately, I have always been three inches shorter than Elaine so her old clothes always fit me just when they no longer fit her.
    I hate being shorter than Elaine. I used to think that shortness was one of the old Biblical plagues like pestilence and famine. I know now that my theology was a little misplaced, but back then I figured God’s punishment on me was to keep me short enough for Elaine’s hand-me-downs. I figured He knew I was mad at Him and He was dealing with me in His Own Way. I couldn’t even say much about it without looking like a whiner—if He had sent me boils