The Fitting Room Dare

Craig Atkinson had covered forty-one bridal expos. He'd counted. Freelance writers count weird things when the work starts to repeat itself.

His beat was weddings, technically. Sponsored content for three wedding blogs and a regional magazine called Vows Midwest. Before that, six years at the Oakton Courier until it folded. That was three years ago now.

He'd seen a lot of ceremonies. Crying mothers, wobbling grooms, a dog ring bearer that ate the rings. He felt nothing at any of it. Not at the vows, not at the toasts, not even at the free bar, which was honestly the best part of every expo and still just vodka in a plastic cup.

His last girlfriend had put a name to it. She'd said he had no feelings, packed her apartment into a Corolla, and left. Two years ago. He wrote a blog post about anniversary gift ideas that same afternoon.

So when the editor assigned him the Riverside Bridal Expo, he didn't expect anything. He never did.

---

Bella Notte Bridal sat in a strip mall between a nail place and a closed-down Sleep Number store. Champagne-colored walls. A rack of sample gowns. The fitting room smelled like vanilla, mostly.

Jenn Sweeney ran the place. Twenty-nine, engaged, the kind of manager who remembered every vendor's name and every editor's email. She wanted a feature in Vows Midwest. Craig knew this because she'd said so four times in five minutes.

And then there was Candice Evans.

They'd met at a vendor mixer two years ago. She did styling for Bella Notte. She'd called his article on budget centerpieces "content-shaped oatmeal" within eight minutes of meeting him. They'd been sniping ever since. Also, they'd hooked up once after last year's expo party, at her apartment, and it had been awkward and neither of them had ever said a word about it since. That was the filing system they used.

"Craig Atkinson." She spotted him by the sample gowns. "They let you in without a breathalyzer?"

"Good to see you too, Candice."

"Is it?" She was thirty-three, five years in the city, and she wore a tape measure around her neck like a sheriff wore a star. "Jenn's trying to get in your magazine. Try not to sneer at anything with tulle on it."

He wasn't going to say it. He said it anyway.

"You know weddings are a scam, right? A four-thousand-dollar dress for one day."

"Here we go."

"I've watched women cry over chair sashes. Chair sashes, Candice."

"You've watched women cry and felt what, exactly?" She crossed her arms. "Because I've read your stuff. You write about weddings like an insurance adjuster."

"Weddings are logistics."

"They're not." She stepped closer. "A woman tries on a dress and sees her whole life in a mirror. You sit in the corner with your laptop and your hotel-lobby face."

"I don't have a hotel-lobby face."

"You have one face. It's the face."

Jenn appeared with two flutes of sparkling wine and the desperate smile of a woman who needed press. "You two know each other?"

"We're colleagues," Candice said.

"We're acquaintances," Craig said.

"Great." Jenn handed them the flutes and fled.

Candice looked at him over the rim of her glass. "Prove it. Sit through one dress fitting. Real bride, real mirror moment. If you can get through it without rolling your eyes, smirking, or yawning, I'll do an interview for your little article."

"And if I react?"

"Then you write about the emotional side of the industry. The part you skip."

"That's a dumb dare."

"You're a dumb coward. Take the bet."

He took the bet. He'd like to tell you it was for the article.

---

The bride was named Sally. Twenty-eight, IT project manager, very normal, very nervous. She came out of the fitting room in a lace gown and her mother made a sound like a kettle.

"Oh," Sally said, looking in the mirror. "Oh, it's..."

She started crying. Actual crying. Her mother grabbed her hand and they both stood there leaking in front of a three-way mirror.

Craig watched. He kept his face neutral. He was crushing this. The gown was fine. The crying was a chemical event. He'd seen worse at the office holiday party.

Somewhere around the forty-second mark of continuous mother-daughter weeping, he felt it building. A yawn. Massive. Full-body. He fought it. He lost. His jaw cracked open and his eyes watered, which honestly looked like emotion from a distance, which was the real tragedy.

"Yawn," Candice said. She was leaning against the wall six feet away, arms crossed, tape measure swinging. "Mid-ceremony of someone else's joy, ladies and gentlemen. Craig Atkinson, everybody."

"I had a late night."

"Writing what, a blog about napkin folds?"

"Envelope liners, actually."

She stared at him. "You're a robot. A robot who yawns."

"A dare's a dare. I didn't roll my eyes."

"You yawned at a bride. That's worse." She pushed off the wall. "Round two."

"There's no round two. We had terms."

"I'm amending the terms. Jenn needs the tux measurement for the groom's corner display, and Larry's got a rack of vests over there. You're going to put one on."

"I'm not a model."

"You're a body. Congratulations." She grabbed a gray vest off the rack. "Arms up."

The thing about Candice Evans is this. She was good at her job. That was the annoying part. When she got professional, she got quiet and precise, and it was worse than the sniping.

The vest was from Spence Formalwear, across the street. Larry Spence himself had dropped off the display stock that morning. Larry was fifty-six, ex-dry-cleaning, and had told Craig he'd never read a single one of his articles but free press was free press.

Craig put the vest on over his shirt. It hung loose.

"Too big." Candice stepped behind him. "Obviously. You dress like a man being chased."

Then she stepped in front of him, and it got complicated.

She adjusted the collar first. Her fingers at the back of his neck, quick and practiced. Then the front, tugging the lapels straight, and she was close now. Close enough that he could smell lavender and mockery, mostly lavender. Her tape measure brushed his chest.

"Hold still."

"I am still."

"You're vibrating. Robots vibrate. It's known."

She measured his chest. Then his waist, and the tape came around him like a lasso, and her knuckles went across his stomach, and he was thirty-five years old and suddenly aware of his own heartbeat in a way he hadn't been since her apartment last year, which they did not talk about, which was the rule.

"There's a button gap." She knelt slightly to fix the front. Her face was about eight inches from his sternum. "You eat?"

"Sometimes."

"Metabolism's wasted on you." She stood back up. Her hand lingered on the lapel one second longer than the job required. Then she looked up at him, and for a second neither of them did the sniping thing.

"So," he said. "The collar. Is that your professional technique or..."

"It's a fitting, Craig."

"Right."

"You're blushing."

"I'm not."

"You are. Interesting. The robot has firmware." She wrote a number on her hand with a pen. "Forty-two regular. You've been lying about your suit size for years, haven't you?"

"I know my suit size."

"Vanity sizing. Everyone lies. Brides lie about their dress size, grooms lie about their chest." She patted the vest flat. "It's the one honest part of my job, the tape measure. It doesn't care about anyone's feelings."

"And you like that."

"I love that." She stepped back, finally, and the lavender went with her. "Forty-two regular. Larry will want that for the groom's corner."

"I'll write it down."

"You'll forget it. You forget everything that isn't a deadline." She took the vest off him, briskly, business again. "Third dare tomorrow. Cake tasting. Larry's got a groom's cake display and Jenn wants photos."

"I didn't agree to a third dare."

"You agreed to lose a series. Nobody does one dare, Craig. That's a person agreeing to be wrong once."

He would like to tell you he argued. He didn't. He wrote forty-two regular on his hand, in his own handwriting, right next to where she'd written it in hers.

The fitting room smelled like vanilla again. Across the street, Spence Formalwear smelled faintly of mildew and the promise of free press.

"Same time tomorrow," Candice said. "Don't be late. And Craig?"

"What."

"Yawn before you get there. Get it out of your system."

Craig crossed the street at nine that morning. Spence Formalwear had a green awning and a window full of tuxedos that all looked slightly sad, like they knew they'd be rented to a hundred more grooms before retirement.

The bell over the door jingled. Larry Spence came out from the back, wiping his hands on a rag.

"Craig Atkinson. Vows Midwest." Craig put his hand out. "Thanks for the display stock."

"Anytime. Anytime." Larry had a handshake like a friendly bear trap. "You're the journalist Jenn's been talking about. Come on back, I got coffee. It's not good coffee, but it's coffee."

The shop smelled like mildew and fabric steam. Racks of tuxedos lined the walls, black and navy and one white one Craig didn't want to ask about. Larry poured two cups from a machine that had seen things.

"So," Craig said, pulling out his notebook. "Groom's corner. Tux rental trends. I can do maybe four hundred words."

"Four hundred words." Larry sat down on a stool like a man sitting on a throne. "You know how long I've been in this business?"

"Six years with the shop, you said."

"Twenty years dry-cleaning before that. I pressed other people's wedding suits for two decades before I ever sold one. You know what I learned?"

Craig did not know and did not care, but he nodded, because that was the job.

"Every suit has a story." Larry leaned forward. "You want a story? Here's a story."

Craig got his pen ready for the kind of story he could turn into two paragraphs of filler.

"Fall before last," Larry said. "Young guy, comes in, rents a tux for his wedding. Big