Girls in White Dresses

“Why?”

“I just feel like she’s lonely, you know. Like she’s not meeting any guys and it seems like the way she’s going, she won’t.”

Isabel a was quiet for a few moments. She didn’t know how to answer.

“Wel , the thing is that you don’t meet someone until you do.” Isabel a started off talking slowly. “And the older we get, the harder it is. And maybe not al of us wil meet someone.”

“Wel , you can’t think like that,” Kristi said. “Look at you and Harrison. You found each other.”

“But who knows what wil happen? And what if it ends and I don’t meet anyone else? What if Lauren never meets anyone else? Is that the end of the world? People live, you know.”

In col ege, Kristi’s boyfriend cheated on her almost every week and Lauren was always the first one to comfort her. One time, she planned a bar crawl just to cheer Kristi up. Isabel a could stil remember the way they rode their bikes from bar to bar, with Lauren and Kristi leading the way, swerving and laughing. Isabel a was always jealous of Kristi and Lauren in col ege. They were so close that sometimes they seemed like one person instead of two.

“Wel , I’m just glad that you have someone,” Kristi said. “It makes me happy when my friends can final y understand how great it is to have someone, you know?”

“Yeah,” Isabel a said. “I do.”

When Kristi got married, she and her husband stood under a chuppah. “We’re not having a traditional Jewish wedding,” Kristi told them a mil ion times. “We’l have a priest do the ceremony. But I don’t want Todd to feel completely left out, so we’re having a rabbi up there too.”

The rabbi explained how the chuppah represented the new home the couple was starting. Then she had the family drape a cloth over their necks.

“With this cloth, we are creating a chuppah within a chuppah,” the rabbi said. “This is to symbolize that Kristi and Todd wil be bound to each other in a way that is special only to them.” Kristi and Todd stood with their shoulders touching, wrapped in the cloth. It reminded Isabel a of the way that Lauren and Kristi used to huddle together, whispering and laughing at jokes that only they understood. “A chuppah within a chuppah,” the rabbi said again. Lauren sighed and rol ed her eyes at Isabel a. Isabel a tried to smile, but for the first time that day she felt like crying. She watched Lauren fidget in her bridesmaid dress, and watched Kristi and Todd smiling together, their faces almost touching. “A chuppah within a chuppah,” she thought. Isabel a felt tears come to her eyes, but just as she was about to cry, Todd smashed the glass with his foot and everyone yel ed, “Mazel tov!”

S hannon knew the first time she saw him. His voice was soft and smooth and luling, his build was fit and strong. As he spoke, her eyes went in and out of focus and she couldn’t make herself look away. He was on TV, but it seemed like he was in the room, talking only to her.

Dan sat next to her on the couch, staring at the TV screen, his eyes stil and his mouth open. He shushed her when she started to say something.

“Do you know who that is?” he asked her. His voice sounded hushed, like he was speaking in a church. “That’s our next president.”

“Do you real y think?” Shannon asked. She rubbed the back of Dan’s neck. “It would take a lot for him to win.”

Dan final y turned away from the TV. He looked disappointed as he shook his head. “You’l see, Shannon,” he said. “Believe me, you’l see.”

Later, Shannon would tel everyone this story. She would explain the way Dan’s voice changed when he spoke, the way it made a little hop of worry enter her chest. Her friends would humor her. “I’m sure on some level you did know,” they would say. “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” they would add. It didn’t matter. Only Shannon knew how she felt that day when she first saw the Candidate. Only she knew that his voice made her start sweating, made her heart beat fast, the way an animal reacts right before it’s attacked.

Dan had always loved politics. He was a cable news junkie who yel ed along with the left-leaning political pundits as they got enraged about the state of the government, the failings of the current administration. He talked policy at parties and argued laws at bars. Shannon met him watching the 2004 presidential debates at a dive bar on the Lower East Side. Over Mil er Lite drafts, he explained the details of the Swift-boating. Shannon nodded drunkenly and thought, “This guy is smart.” They stood outside and smoked cigarettes and talked about the ridiculousness of the last election. “It turned this country’s electoral system into a joke,” Dan said. And then Shannon kissed him.

Her friends approved. “I get it,” Lauren said. “He’s hot, in a nerdy, political way.”

“He’s nice,” Isabel a said. “A little intense, maybe. But nice.”

Shannon didn’t care that he was intense. He was hers. Right after they met at the debates, they started dating and volunteering, urging people to get out and vote. For days before the election, they sat in the volunteer center and made phone cal s until Shannon’s fingers felt numb from dialing. “I think we can do this,” Dan said. Shannon had never found someone so attractive in her life. They made out in a closet in the back of the volunteer center for ten minutes and then went back to their cal s.

That night, they drank and watched as the Democratic candidate lost. “Four more years of this,” Dan said. “I don’t know if I can take it.” Shannon took his hand and held it in her lap. She wasn’t as upset as he was, but she tried to look like she was. “I’m so glad that I’m with someone who understands,” Dan said. Shannon just nodded.

Shannon and Dan moved in together and hosted dinner parties for their friends where political talk ruled the conversation and lively debate was encouraged. Dan sat at the head of the table and quoted articles he’d read, pul ed out old New Yorker s to back up his point. He talked and lectured, raising his glass of wine when he made important points, as though he were their leader. Sometimes Dan almost