“What?” I ask, my throat suddenly going dry. I realize, from the intensity of his gaze, that we’ve somehow passed from ordinary—or, in my case, anyway, mindless—conversation to something much more serious.
And, incredibly, I feel myself blushing to my hairline, my cheeks flaming hot as the asphalt outside had been before when Chaz had come walking up.
Anything, it seems, might be brought up at such a moment. The fact that for the past six months we’ve barely talked… except politely, and always in the presence of someone else (Luke).
Or the fact that six months ago, we had our tongues down each other’s throats.
Is he going to bring up one of those things? And if so, which one? I’m not sure which I dread him bringing up more—the fact that I’ve been trying so assiduously not to be alone with him so we can’t have a repeat performance of what had happened on New Year’s Eve… or discussing what actually happened on New Year’s Eve…
What if he comes out from behind the pass-through and tries to reenact what happened on New Year’s Eve? Will I try to stop him?
Wait. Of course I will. Won’t I?
Yes! Yes, of course I will! I’m engaged! To his best friend!
Except… his eyes are so blue right now… I feel as if I could go swimming in them…
“I swore I wasn’t going to ask this,” Chaz says.
I gulp. Oh God. Here it is. I try not to remember that loop-de-loop my heart gave when I saw him coming toward me down the street. I swear I don’t even know what that had been about. I am not in love with Chaz. I am not in love with Chaz.
“Are you—”
Then I jump as the buzzer to the front door to Chaz’s building goes off.
My shoulders, which I’d clenched with nervousness, sag. Whatever it was he was going to ask me, he evidently decides to drop the subject, since he says, “Huh, speak of the devil.”
And he goes out into the hallway to buzz Luke in without another word.
I find that I’ve been clutching the sofa cushions. Slowly I release my fingers… as well as the breath I’ve been holding. I’m sweaty, as if I’d just been running a mile.
Not that I’ve ever actually run a mile. But as if I have.
What’s going on? Why am I such a bundle of nerves? This is dinner with my boyfriend and his best friend. And his best friend’s new girlfriend, the woman I’m going to murder. Nothing to worry about. What is happening to me?
And when is this evening going to end, so I can go home and kill myself?
Weddings farther west in postcolonial America were short on ceremony and heavy on the partying. It was around this time that the shivaree, or charivari, became popular, a tradition based on an old French custom that included the wedding guests gathering beneath the bride and groom’s bedroom window on the first night of their honeymoon and banging on pots and singing drunkenly, allegedly to drive away evil spirits… but mainly with the intention of forcing the groom to throw money down to them in order to make them go away. Occasionally the festivities would reach such a fevered pitch the groom would be pulled out the window, and the bride would be forced to pay a ransom if she actually wanted to enjoy her honeymoon in the company of her new husband.
They didn’t call it the Wild, Wild West for nothing.
Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster
Do you need a wedding planner? While they can often save you a bundle by getting you discounts, not every bride needs one. If you’re planning a large wedding, have a demanding job, or don’t have a mom or sister to whom to delegate the many tasks involved in planning your dream nuptials, then hiring a wedding planner might make sense. Look for one who does wedding planning as a full-time job, who has insurance and good references, and be sure to ask how much she charges (hourly, fixed fee, or a percentage of your wedding budget).
Your wedding planner isn’t supposed to be your best friend… but she could just save your sanity—not to mention your life!
LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™
• Chapter 10 •
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
Germaine Greer (b.1939–), Australian-born feminist writer
I’m having a hard time picturing The Office’s Jim Halpert dining at the Spotted Pig, which he allegedly did once on a date with Karen. I know it’s just a TV show and fictional and all, but this place is super-trendy, and part of what makes that show so endearing is that everyone on it is so tragically unhip.
But there are people here with the kind of glasses they wear only in Scandinavian countries and tattoos all up and down their arms and I heard a guy at the bar telling another guy that he just got late admission to Harvard Law School, and saw a girl lifting up her skirt to show her friends her new thong. Plus everybody standing outside smoking in their camouflage cargo pants with their carefully messed up—but really loaded down with product—hair is also checking their e-mail on their BlackBerries.
“Why are we here again?” Chaz keeps asking. We got a table only because someone Luke knows from one of his classes—a girl, Sophie—knows the guy who is seating people tonight.
“It’s supposed to be good,” Luke says cheerfully. “Oh, look. Sweetbreads.”
“That’s guts,” Chaz says. “I had to stand for an hour outside to sit at a bench at a tiny table at a place that’s going to serve me guts. We could have gone to the Polish place in my neighborhood and gotten guts for five dollars and no waiting. And I could be sitting in a chair and not on a bench.”
“But then you wouldn’t have seen that girl’s thong,” Valencia points out cheerfully.
“True,” Chaz agrees.
I shoot Valencia a dirty look. It’s not her fault, of course, that she’s so perfect—tall and tan and thin with perfect straight dark hair that she’s caught up in a classy single silver barrette—a lovely complement to her ruby red sleeveless sheath dress. She can’t help that she’s witty and charming and intelligent too. Even her pedicure is perfect.
I want to reach across the velvet banquette we’re sitting on and grab her by that perfect hair and pull until her face hits the tabletop and then keep pulling until I’ve dragged her across the restaurant and then maybe when we’ve reached the bachelorette party at the table next to ours (when did the city become so full of bachelorette parties that you couldn’t seem to go out without encountering one?) I’ll turn her loose and say to the bachelorettes, “Have at her, girls—oh, and by the way, she’s a tenure-track professor at a major private university.” Then maybe, when they’re done with her, I’ll give her back to Chaz—if he still wants her.
Oh, wait—did I think that?
No, I didn’t. Because I’m way too busy exchanging text messages with Ava Geck to think things like that.
Ava: LIZZIE, WHERE R U?
Me: I’m at the Spotted Pig in the West Village. Why?
Ava: I’M COMING.
Me: What? Ava—Why aren’t you in Greece?
No response. Calls to her cell phone go immediately to voice mail. I’m not sure her “I’M COMING” actually meant that she was coming to the restaurant. Knowing Ava, it could just as easily have meant she was coming… literally, in the throes of passion, and also happened to be texting me.
It’s not something I’d put past her.
“So I’ve been meaning to ask you guys something,” Chaz says as the waitress brings the dozen oysters Luke has ordered. I’m not eating oysters tonight. Not because I don’t like them, but because it’s June and I can’t risk a bout of food sickness. I’ve got twenty gowns to get to twenty nervous brides, or my name will be mud in this town.
I mean, Chez Henri’s name.
“Hit me,” Luke says. He’s in a good mood because his classes are over. He’s not sure he exactly aced his exams—he thinks he might have tanked his bio final, actually—but that doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much. He’s just relieved they’re over, and that he’s going to be getting on a plane for Paris in a couple of days.