“Well,” I say, slipping my cell phone back into my purse. “Are you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“If I’m going to move to Paris with him? He wants me to, you know. He says his family will loan me the money to set up a shop there.”
“I’m sure they will,” Chaz says. “And no, I’m not going to ask you.”
I set my jaw. For someone I’m so crazy about, Chaz happens to be the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.
“Why not?” I demand. “Don’t you want me to stay here in New York?”
“Of course I do,” Chaz says. “But, like I said, what happens in the future is already unavoidable. So I’m just going to enjoy what time I have left with you.”
“That,” I say disgustedly, “is such crap.”
“Well,” he says in the same unruffled tone, “that’s probably true too. What do you feel like? I feel like Thai food. Do you feel like Thai food? Isn’t there a good Thai place around the corner from here?”
“How can you think about food at a time like this?” I yell at him. “Do you know—do you have any earthly idea—that every time I think about marrying Luke, I break out in hives?”
Chaz raises his eyebrows. “That,” he says, “is not a good sign. I mean, for him. And, I’m guessing, for Paris.”
“It’s a horrible sign,” I say. “What did you mean back in Detroit when you said Luke hasn’t exactly been a Boy Scout the whole time he and I have been going out?”
Chaz rolls his eyes. “Look,” he says. “I don’t really want to talk about this in front of the Vera Wang flagship store, okay? Let’s go home. We can change out of these hot sticky clothes and I can run you a cool bath and order some Thai food and fix us both a couple of gin and tonics and we can sip them while we discuss the vagaries of life and I give you a full body massage—”
“No,” I say, resisting the arm he’s put around me. “Chaz! I’m serious. This is serious. I don’t want to—”
But I never get the chance to tell Chaz what it is I don’t want to do, because at that moment, two women who were passing by stop in front of the window and gaze at the gown I was admiring.
“See, Mom,” the younger woman says. “That’s the kind of dress I want.”
“Well, dream on,” her mother says. “Because a dress like that costs twenty grand. Do you have an extra twenty grand lying around?”
“It’s not fair,” the girl insists, stamping her Steve Madden—clad foot. “Why can’t I have what I want? Just this once?”
“You can,” the older woman says, “if you want to be paying for it for the next thirty years. Is that how you want to start your married life?”
“No,” the bride says, sounding as if she’s pouting a little.
“I didn’t think so. So get over it. We’re going to Kleinfeld’s.”
“God,” the bride says as her mother drags her away. “You’re so cheap. If you had your way, we’d get my wedding gown at Geck’s.”
The mother and daughter drift away, and I find myself staring after them in astonishment. Every single nerve ending in my body is tingling. I feel as if I’ve just caught fire.
A shop that offers beautiful couture for the ordinary girl, at prices she can afford. For brides.
“Oh my God, Chaz,” I say. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” He still has his arm around me. “The part about the full body massage I’m going to give you?”
“Them.” I open my purse and start digging around in it for my cell phone. “Did you hear what they said?”
“About going to Kleinfeld’s? Yeah. Hey, maybe that’s where you should get a job. That’s where everybody goes to get their wedding dresses. That’s where my sister went. Not that it helped. She still looked like me. In a wedding dress. Poor kid. She tried waxing and everything.”
“No,” I say, stabbing at the numbers on the keypad of my phone. “Not that part.”
Be there, I pray. Pick up. Pick up.
A second later, a voice chirps, “Hello?”
“It’s me,” I say. “Please don’t hang up. I know you hate me. But I’ve got a business proposition I’ve got to talk to you about. It’s important. And you won’t regret it. I promise. Where are you?”
“Me?” She sounds slightly confused. “I’m at the dog run. Why?”
“Stay there,” I say. “Do not move. I’ll be right over.”
A HISTORY of WEDDINGS
Carrying the bride over the threshold is a tradition that harkens back to the ancient practice of capturing brides from rival tribes or villages. It was also thought to—say it all together now—trick any evil spirits that might be lurking in the new home.
Today’s modern bride may find the practice sexist or—often more alarming, considering the state of many HMOs—may fear her groom will throw his back out in attempting to lift her.
It is, for these reasons, a tradition that is losing popularity and may safely be skipped in lieu of a kitchen witch.
Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster
There is a rumor flying around that the cost of the gift you give at a wedding as a guest should roughly equal the amount of the cost of the food and wine you are served at the reception. This is ridiculous. Your gift should be tasteful—and does not even have to come from the bridal registry—but does not in any way have to be proportionate to the cost of what you are being served. Any bride who suggests otherwise deserves the wooden spoon you give her applied to her backside.
LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™
• Chapter 21 •
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Aristotle (384 B.C.–322 B.C.), Greek philosopher
“Wedding gowns?” Ava echoes, her carefully plucked eyebrows raised. “At Geck’s?”
“Why not at Geck’s?” I’m perched beside her on a park bench next to the small dog run at Carl Schurz Park. The small dog run is actually a raised, fenced-in stage along the boardwalk by the East River, where pedestrians can stop and watch the tiny dogs as they skitter after tennis balls thrown by their owners. This seems a source of particular delight to toddlers, whose parents lift them to stand along the edge of the stage, and who shriek in delight every time a Pomeranian or miniature pinscher comes dancing in their general direction.
Ava, however, is holding an exhausted Snow White in her lap. The Chihuahua has apparently run after so many tennis balls that she is virtually unconscious on her mistress’s smooth, tanned thighs, a fact of which the reality television crew, filming Ava for the pilot she hopes gets picked up, Slaves of Ava, is taking pointed note. I can’t help staring at the cameras looming over me, even though Ava has told me not to pay any attention to them.
“You don’t even see them after a while,” she says, with a yawn that, I can’t help noticing, is made all the more elfin and charming by the fact that her bee-stung lips are perfectly glossed.
“Ava.” It’s even harder than usual to get her full attention due to the fact that DJ Tippycat is still inside the dog run with his French bulldog puppy, and Ava’s gaze keeps straying toward him every five seconds. “Listen to me. You said you wanted to do something with your life. Remember? After you broke things off with Prince Aleksandros. You have to have meant something more than just another tired old reality show. Well, this is your chance. Not only to prove to the world that you’re more than just an bubbleheaded heiress, but to help out millions of brides who want to have a beautiful gown but can’t afford it.”
Ava doesn’t look remotely interested. She’s gazing through the enormous black lenses of her sunglasses at a tugboat chugging down the river in front of us. I glance over my shoulder at Chaz, who is waiting for me out of camera range. He refused to sign the waivers the film crew demanded in order for me to speak to Ava while she was on camera, so he has to wait out of the shot until I’m done. He doesn’t look too unhappy. He’s found a hot dog vendor and is munching away, enjoying one with everything, along with a cold soda, in the shade.