Queen of Babble Gets Hitched qob-3 Page 9

  “Because I know you. And you sound like someone just told you Lilly Pulitzer died.”

  “Oh,” I say, lowering my voice so Tiffany, who is picking up a call, can’t overhear. “Well, actually, Monsieur Henri stopped by the shop a few minutes ago, and he wasn’t too pleased with some of the changes I’ve made since he’s been out sick. He was acting kind of… strange.”

  “What?” Luke sounds adorably indignant on my behalf. “You’ve worked your tail off for that guy. That place is doing twice as much business now because of you!”

  It’s a lot more than that, really, as Madame Henri herself said. But I don’t correct him. “Well,” I say instead. “Anyway. I’m sure it will all be fine. He’s just still adjusting to life as a recent bypass patient, you know.”

  “Well, he has some nerve,” Luke says. “Anyway, I’m calling with good news. Something that should cheer you up.”

  “Really?” I can’t think what he could be talking about. “I’m all ears!”

  “Today’s my last day of classes—”

  “That is good news,” I say. No more going off by himself to study! No more weekend trips to the library! Not, of course, that this had bothered me too much at the time (except for the whole Is-there-another-woman? thing) because the few weekends Luke wasn’t studying, I’d been busy working on bridal gowns. In fact, I’d been sort of glad he’d been so preoccupied with his schoolwork. What kind of guy wants to hear, Oh, I can’t, honey. I have to finish the neckline on this mermaid gown by Monday every time he asks his fiancée if she can go away for the weekend?

  Fortunately, this was never an issue with Luke and me. Because he never asked me to go away for the weekend. Because he was always busy too.

  “And I thought I’d take you out to dinner to celebrate,” he goes on. “Someplace downtown. We spend so much time eating takeout uptown, I don’t think I can handle it anymore.”

  “That sounds fun,” I say excitedly. “I can take the subway down and meet you.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Luke says. “We can meet at Chaz’s place.”

  My heart sinks immediately. This is so not what I’d had in mind.

  “Chaz?” I say. “Really? You invited Chaz along too?”

  I set my jaw. The truth is, I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Chaz. Not, of course, that there’s ever been a repeat of anything like what happened in the back of that taxi on the way home from Jill Higgins’s wedding. Chaz hasn’t even made any more baited remarks like he did that night so long ago in the sports bar. No, he’s been a perfect gentleman. Gran, Tiffany, and Monique’s theory—that he’s in love with me—turns out to have been completely untrue. Because if Chaz were in love with me, well, he’s had plenty of opportunity to act on that impulse.

  And he never has. Not even once.

  But that doesn’t mean I want him tagging along on one of the last nights I have Luke to myself before he takes off for France for three months.

  But I don’t mention this. Because the last thing I’m going to do is try to wedge myself between my man and his best friend. As I know from every women’s magazine I’ve ever read, that’s a major no-no.

  “Well, it’s one of the last chances I’m going to have to see him,” Luke says, “before I leave for Paris for the summer. I didn’t think you’d mind. You don’t, do you? And I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to meet his new girlfriend.”

  My jaw drops. Quite literally. I sort of have to lever it back in place with my hand before I’m able to speak again.

  “His… his what?”

  “I know,” Luke says with a chuckle. “Can you believe it? And we all thought he’d never learn to love again after Shari.”

  I am totally positive I didn’t hear Luke right. I ask, sticking one finger in my ear, “When… when did this happen?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Apparently they’ve been seeing each other for quite a while, but they’ve been keeping it on the down low because she’s up for tenure in the philosophy department, and he’s just a teaching assistant, and technically a student—even if he’s a grad student—so it’s all sort of clandestine. And you know Chaz was never exactly one to kiss and tell. Her name is Valencia Something. I forget. But I guess she’s a real knockout. And a brainiac. Well, she’d have to be, for Chaz to like her.”

  I hate her. I do. I hate her already.

  I also feel an extreme urge to stab myself with something. There is a pair of dressmaker’s shears lying nearby. I think about plunging them into my heart. Then I think about plunging them into Valencia’s heart. Really, I decide, that would be much better for everyone. Me. The world. Valencia. Anyone with a name like Valencia who is up for tenure in the philosophy department of a major private university deserves to have a pair of dressmaker’s shears plunged into her heart. Doesn’t she?

  “So,” Luke goes on. “What do you say? Dinner? Just the four of us?”

  “Great,” I say. “That sounds great.” I don’t mention that I’m going to bring along the dressmaker’s shears. Because I’m not going to. Not really. I also don’t mention that we—Luke and I, I mean—have never, not even once, gone out as a couple with my best friend and her girlfriend. Not that Luke would object, I’m sure. It’s just that Shari has never expressed the slightest interest in doing this. I sort of wish she would. But her invitations are always expressly for me, and me alone. Luke is never included.

  Which isn’t very surprising, considering how many hours I spent on her and Pat’s couch, crying about him.

  Valencia. Isn’t that a type of orange? Seriously. I’m almost sure it is.

  “Great!” Luke says. “So I’ve got reservations for Spotted Pig at eight thirty. I said we’d meet up at Chaz’s place, then take a cab over to the West Village together. Does that sound okay?”

  “Sure,” I say. The Spotted Pig! That’s one of the trendiest restaurants in the Village! I should be excited. I should be wondering what I’m going to wear. Instead, all I’m wondering is what Valencia is going to wear. Is she prettier than me? Why do I even care? I’m not dating Chaz. How can Chaz have started going out with someone and I never even knew it? Is he in love with her? Is he going to marry her? No, of course not. Chaz doesn’t believe in marriage. “I’ll meet you at Chaz’s.”

  Maybe Valencia will make him believe in marriage. To her. Someone with the name Valencia ought to be capable of that.

  A brainiac. Of course. He would date a brainiac.

  “Okay,” Luke says. “Love you.”

  “Love you,” I say and hang up.

  “So.” Tiffany has ended her own phone call and is totally watching me, her eyes slitted like a cat’s. “Going to Chaz’s, huh?”

  I ignore her attempt to bait me. “Who was that you were on the phone with just now?”

  Tiffany smirks. “Who do you think?”

  I widen my own eyes. “Ava? I thought we were done. I thought she loved it. She should be on her way to Greece by now. What could she possibly have wanted?”

  “I don’t know,” Tiffany says. “She wouldn’t tell me. She said she could tell only you. She said she’d call back.”

  “Great,” I say. I mean it sarcastically. I am not looking forward to hearing from Ava Geck. My relationship with the heiress has vastly improved since our first acquaintance, in that she no longer chews gum in my presence and has consistently remembered to wear panties during our last few meetings. And she seems to have benefited from our—meaning the shop’s—tutelage in other ways as well, since she’s abandoned her bleached-blond hair extensions in favor of a flattering pageboy and has started dressing less like a prostitute.

  But there’s still some speculation as to whether or not her wedding to Prince Aleksandros will actually take place. The odds in Vegas are twenty-five to one that the nuptials will be called off.

  I personally think the two of them are going to be fine.

  So the fact that there’s been this last-minute phone call is freaking me out.
Just a little.

  Not more than the fact that Chaz has a girlfriend named Valencia, though. A girlfriend named Valencia who is up for tenure.

  Still, Ava has my personal cell phone number. She’ll call it if she needs to.

  “So,” Tiffany says. “Another night of romance with you, Loverboy, and Loverboy’s best friend? Hey, so what’s going to happen,” Tiffany wants to know, “when Loverboy heads off to France, leaving you and the best friend all alone in the big, lonely city during the long, hot summer?”

  “Nothing,” I say, leaning down to snag two more Diet Cokes from the mini fridge for Sylvia and Marisol. “As you know perfectly well. Chaz and I are just friends.”

  “Right.” Tiffany smirks. “I give you guys three weeks after Luke leaves before you two hit the sheets.”

  “Right,” I say. “Do you have this week’s time sheets? Because I have to do payroll.”

  “Oooh,” Tiffany says, reaching for the phone. “Make that three days. I’m calling Mo. I bet she’ll want to put money on this.”

  “Don’t bother,” I say. “Chaz has a girlfriend. Her name is Valencia.”

  Tiffany narrows her eyes. “Isn’t that a type of orange?”

  “She has a Ph.D. in philosophy, and she’s up for tenure.”

  Tiffany snorts. “So? Does she make him laugh?”

  “Tiffany!” I am practically screaming. “What does it matter? Are you even listening to me? He has a girlfriend! And I’m engaged! Engaged to his best friend!”

  “Who you don’t even love,” Tiffany says.

  I stalk out of the front room without another word. I have no need to listen to this. I know—even if Tiffany doesn’t—the truth. I love my fiancé, and he loves me. Sure, we may not have set a date yet, and yeah, okay, he’s never even brought it up since New Year’s, when we called our families to tell them.

  And yes, whenever I think about it, I still get a tight feeling in my chest and break out in hives.

  But all brides-to-be are nervous wrecks. Look at Ava Geck, on her way to marry a prince, and calling me, her wedding gown designer, from the private plane on her way to Greece! It’s natural! It doesn’t mean you’re with the wrong guy! It doesn’t mean that at all.

  Especially when the guy everyone’s been saying for months is the right one doesn’t even believe in marriage in the first place. If that’s not Mr. Wrong, I don’t know who is.

  A HISTORY of WEDDINGS

  Weddings in colonial times were replete with customs, none of which included engagement rings. A couple intending to “tie the knot” would do so literally—the man would present his intended with a handkerchief, into which he’d tied several coins. If the woman untied the knot, it was seen as her giving the okay to get hitched. The banns—a petition to marry that was printed up and posted at a church or meetinghouse so that anyone with an objection to the union had time to say something—were posted, and the couple would wed within a few days. Women who waited to wed past the age of fourteen were pretty much considered to be old maids.

  But since most of them lived to be only about thirty-five, this isn’t too surprising.

  Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster

  You want your wedding guests to get up on the dance floor. But they’re just sitting there! Maybe it’s because your DJ isn’t playing what they want to hear. Make sure your DJ has the following songs on his playlist, which have been scientifically proven to be irresistible to even the stodgiest partygoers everywhere:

  Abba—“Dancing Queen”Prince—“1999”Gloria Gaynor—“I Will Survive”Dexy’s Midnight Runners—“Come on Eileen”Madonna—“Holiday”Deee-Lite—“Groove Is in the Heart”Kanye West—“Gold Digger”The Weather Girls—“It’s Raining Men”The B-52’s—“Love Shack”Village People—“YMCA”

  LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™

  • Chapter 9 •

  When you meet someone who can cook and do housework—don’t hesitate a minute: Marry him.

  Unknown

  Chaz is late. So, for that matter, is Luke. I’ve buzzed Chaz’s apartment, but no one has answered. I’m sitting on the front stoop of his building, having carefully spread a handkerchief from inside my purse out on the step so as not to mess up my skirt. And yes, I do carry handkerchiefs. This city is filthy and you never know when you’re going to need one.

  And I’m waiting.

  It’s a gorgeous evening, so waiting on a stoop in the East Village isn’t that bad. There are a lot of people out—some still hurrying home from work, some strolling around after an early supper, some just wandering with no apparent purpose. Some of them acknowledge me with a nod or smile, but many walk on by without making eye contact, like most New Yorkers, afraid that if they look you in the face, you’ll ask them for money. (Though do I look like a homeless person? This is a genuine Alfred Shaheen 1950s Hawaiian sundress with a halter-style top and a full skirt with a crinoline. Would a homeless woman really be wearing that? I’m carrying a vintage Halston bag and sporting platform espadrilles too. No offense, but I look too good to be homeless.)

  A group of kids have started up a rowdy game of stickball, right in the middle of the street, calling, “Car,” every time a taxi turns the corner. From a window a few floors above, I hear opera being blasted.

  And I can’t help thinking to myself, in spite of Valencia Whatever Her Name Is… I love New York.

  I do.

  I didn’t always. It was grim for a while. I didn’t think I’d make it here, that, like Kathy Pennebaker from my hometown, I’d have to go slinking back to Ann Arbor and end up married to my high school sweetheart (except that he’s gay) and shopping at the Kroger Sav-On with a couple of runny-nosed toddlers.

  Not that this is the worst fate that can befall a girl. It’s a perfectly fine fate, actually.

  Except that the last time I saw Kathy she was buying way more cold medicine than I think anybody would need for normal, everyday use.

  But I did make it in the big city. At least mostly. Oh, sure, I can’t afford to eat out every night, and I had to take the 6 train to get down here, not a taxi.

  And I haven’t exactly got a summer share in the Hamptons like so many New York singletons my age, and I don’t own a single item made by Prada.

  But someday I will (well, not the Hamptons thing, because I saw what they do there on MTV, and throwing up copious amounts of Bacardi and Coke and sleeping with a different guy every weekend is not for me. And who needs Prada when you can have vintage Lilly Pulitzer?). But I mean about the taxi and eating-out thing. I’ll have moo shu chicken every night! And take cabs everywhere!

  But until then, I’m doing fine. And I love it here. I really do. I never, ever want to leave.

  And then suddenly three of the boys from the stickball game get into an argument, and a much smaller boy tries to intervene, and one of the bigger boys says, “Suck it, Shorty,” and pushes the smaller boy, making him fall down, and I cry indignantly, jumping to my feet, “Hey!”

  “Stay out of it, lady,” Shorty says, springing back up, like a top. “I can handle this.”

  And he bursts back into the argument his friends are having, only to be knocked down again.

  “Hey,” I say, coming down off the stoop. “If you kids can’t play nicely together, I’m going to get your mothers!”

  “And they’ll knife you,” a man’s voice informs me. “Not the kids. The mothers.”

  I turn around, and my heart gives a swoop inside my chest.

  But it’s not Luke. It’s not my fiancé, standing there in the last golden rays of the setting sun, looking impossibly handsome in a charcoal suit and yellow power tie.

  It’s his best friend.

  Chaz is the one who’s just made my heart do a loop-de-loop. I’m not even going to try to figure what that was all about.

  I’m so flustered, I say the first thing that pops into my head.

  “Why are you so dressed up?” I ask him, my voice gruff. I don’t know why I sound so unfriendly. It’s not his
fault my heart reacted that way on seeing him without a baseball cap.

  But I’m so shocked at my physical reaction to the way he looks, I can’t help sounding like a twelve-year-old boy suddenly going through puberty.

  “Departmental cocktail party,” he says as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his keys. His dark hair—in need of a trim, as always—falls over his eyes as he does so. I take advantage of the fact that he can’t see me to take in other details about him… the fact that he’s wearing dress shoes—Italian leather, from the looks of it, in the five-hundred-dollar range, at least—and that the suit is exquisitely and expensively cut, perfectly framing his broad shoulders. He looks totally out of place on his street, which includes a run-down offtrack-betting place on the corner, a Japanese noodle shop one building in, and a dive bar next door to that. Him standing there in a suit like that? It’s as if James Bond suddenly pulled into a suburban cul-de-sac.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he says, looking up. I glance away the second his gaze meets mine and feel my cheeks begin to burn. I hope he won’t notice. “You weren’t waiting long, were you?”

  “No,” I lie hastily. “Not at all.”

  Oh God. What’s wrong with me?

  “Well, at least it’s not raining,” Chaz says. “Come on in and let me get you a drink.”

  He unlocks the outer door to his building’s vestibule, and I follow him as he stops to open his mailbox and pick up his mail. It’s weird, but I’m feeling strangely shy. I’m not sure if it’s the loop-de-loop incident, the fact that I know about Valencia, or that Chaz is looking so unlike his usual self, but I feel almost as if I’m with a stranger, and not a guy I’ve known since my first day of freshman year of college, who used to make me laugh so hard over my Cap’n Crunch in the McCracken Hall cafeteria that milk would come out of my nose.

  “So what’s going on with you?” Chaz wants to know as he climbs the stairs to the walk-up he used to share with Shari, and now lives in solo. “Seems like this is the first time I’ve seen you in ages without the old ball and chain in tow.”