Pour 5 ounces of tomato juice into a tall glass. Add a dash of lemon (or lime) juice and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. Sprinkle in 2 or 3 drops Tabasco sauce, then add pepper, salt, and celery salt to taste. If you’re feeling adventurous, add some ground horseradish. Add ice, then garnish with celery stick and lime wedge.
Finish off with 1.5 ounces of vodka.
Enjoy.
LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™
Chapter 27
Rumor travels faster, but it don’t stay put as long as truth.
— Will Rogers (1879–1935), American actor and humorist
I wake to pounding.
At first I think the pounding is just coming from inside my head.
I open my eyes, not recognizing where I am for a few moments. Then my vision clears, and I see what I had originally taken for big pink blurry blobs floating before my eyes are actually roses. And they’re on the walls.
I’m in the bed in my new apartment above the bridal shop.
And, I realize when I turn my head, I’m not alone.
And someone is knocking on the door.
These are far too many realizations to have at once. Any one of them would be confusing enough all on its own. But considering the fact that they all occur to me simultaneously, it takes me a minute to process what’s actually going on.
The first thing I notice is that I’m still in my Jacques Fath evening gown—rumpled now and stained with chocolate cake. But it is very firmlyon… as are my Spanx beneath it.
Which is good.Very good.
I notice furthermore that Chaz is fully dressed as well. That is, his tuxedo pants and jacket are still on, but he appears to have lost his tie, and his shirt is more than halfway unbuttoned, the studs—his grandfather’s onyx and gold studs, I remember him telling me—gone, as are his shoes.
I rack my poor, addled brain, trying to remember what happened. How did Chaz—my best friend’s ex-boyfriend; my ex-boyfriend’s best friend—end up sleeping, even if fully clothed, in my new bed?
And then, as I take in other facts—such as that Jill’s bouquet is sitting on my bedside table, looking wilted but really not worse for wear, and that my shoes appear to have vanished—I begin to recall the chain of events that led to this startling early-morning discovery: Chaz and I sharing a New Year’s kiss that started out as merely a friendly peck… at least, that’s how I’d intended it to be.
But then Chaz was throwing his arms around me and turning it into something more.
I’d pushed him away—laughingly—only to realize he wasn’t laughing. Or at least, not as much as I was.
“Come on, Lizzie,” he said. “You know— ”
But I’d laid a hand over his mouth before he could finish whatever it was he’d been about to say.
“No,” I’d said. “We can’t.”
“Oh, why the hell not?” Chaz had demanded against my fingers. “Just because I met Shari first? Because you know if I’d met you first—”
“NO,”I’d said, pressing my hand down even more firmly. “That’s not why, and you know it. We’re both feeling very vulnerable and alone right now. We’ve both been hurt—”
“Which is all the more reason we should seek solace in each other,” Chaz said, taking my hand in his and moving it away from his mouth—so he could kiss it! “I really think you should take all your frustrations over Luke out with me. Physically. I promise to lie very still while you do it. Unless you want me to move.”
“Stop it,” I’d said, wrenching my hand away. How could he make me laugh so much during what was supposed to be such a serious moment? “You know I love you—as a friend. I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize our relationship… as friends.”
“I do,” Chaz said. “I want to do things that might jeopardize our relationship as friends a lot. Because we’re always going to be friends, Lizzie. No matter what. I really think it’s the whole physical part of our relationship that needs a lot more work.”
“Well,” I’d said, still laughing. “You’re just going to have to be patient then. Because I think we both need time to grieve for what we’ve lost… and to heal.”
Chaz, not unsurprisingly, made a disgusted face at this—both the idea of it as well as the way I’d put it seemed to displease him. But I’d continued, undaunted, “If, after a suitable amount of time, we’re both still interested in taking our friendship to another level, we can reevaluate.”
“How much time are we talking about?” Chaz had wanted to know. “I mean, to grieve and heal? Two hours? Three?”
“I don’t know,” I’d said. It had kind of been hard to concentrate, considering the fact that he still had his arms around me, and I could feel those studs of his grandfather’s pressing through the silk of my dress. That wasn’t all I felt pressing through it, either. “At least a month.”
He had kissed me again after that, as we swayed back and forth to the music.
And I don’t think it was just the champagne that made me feel as if it were raining gold stars all around us, instead of white balloons.
“Well, at least a week,” I’d said, when he’d finally let me up to breathe.
“Deal,” he’d said. Then he’d sighed. “But it’s going to be a long week. What have you got on under there, anyway?” His hands were at the waistband of my panties, which he could feel beneath my dress.
“Oh, those are my control-top Spanx,” I’d said, deciding in that moment that in this and all future relationships, I was going to be ruthlessly, even brutally honest—even to my own disadvantage—such as by admitting to a guy that I wear control-top panties. Not just panties, either, but basically bicycle pants.
“Spanx,” Chaz had murmured against my lips. “Sounds kinky. I can’t wait to see you in them.”
“Well,” I’d said, welcoming yet another opportunity to be brutally honest. “I can tell you right now it’s not going to be as exciting as you might expect.”
“That’s what you think,” Chaz had said. “I just want to let you know that when I look into my future, I see nothing but you.” Then he’d whispered,“And you’re not even wearing Spanx.”
And then he’d dipped me, so that suddenly I was giggling up at the ceiling, from which the last of the balloons were still falling, in fat, lazy arcs.
The rest of the night was a blur of more kissing, and more champagne, and more dancing, then more kissing, until finally, staggering out of the Plaza just as fingers of pink light were beginning to stretch across the sky above the East River, we tumbled into a waiting cab, and then somehow, into my bed.
Only nothing had happened. Obviously nothing had happened because (a) we’re both fully clothed, and (b) I wouldn’t have let anything happen, no matter how much champagne I might have had.
Because this time, I’m going to do everything the right way, instead of the Lizzie way.
And it’s going to work, too. Because I’m cunning.
I’m lying there thinking about how cunning I am—also about how untidy a sleeper Chaz is, considering the fact that his face is all smushed against one of my pillows, and that, even though he isn’t a drooler, like I am, he’s definitely a snorer—when I realize that the pounding sound I’d thought was actually my hangover is coming from the door.
Someone is knocking on the outer door to the building—which actually has an intercom, but it’s broken (Madame Henri swore to me it would be fixed by the end of next week).
Who could be pounding on the door at—oh God—ten in the morning on New Year’s Day?
I roll out of bed, then climb unsteadily to my feet. The room sways… but then I realize it’s only the slanting floors that make me feel as if I’m about to fall. Well, the floors and my severe hangover.
Clinging to the wall, I make my way to the door of my apartment and unlock it. In the narrow—and chilly—stairway to the ground floor, the pounding is louder than ever.