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I’m about to sneak away to give the person some privacy when I hear the noise again. It’s kind of a whimpering noise. Like a little kitten.
Or someone crying.
I duck down to see if I recognize the person’s shoes beneath the stall door. Instantly I realize I’m looking at the feet of Jill Higgins, New York’s current most famous bride-to-be. Because on those feet are a pair of Timberlands.
And nobody wears Timberlands to Pendergast, Loughlin, and Fly
Who is apparently taking a break in the bathroom to cry for a while before her next appointment with Chaz’s dad.
I know, as an employee of the firm, I should quietly leave the ladies’ room, and pretend like I never heard what I’m hearing.
But as a not-yet-certified wedding-gown specialist—and more important, a girl who knows what it’s like to be constantly ragged upon (as my sisters have ragged upon me for my entire existence)—I can’t just turn and walk away. Especially since I know—I just know — I can help her. I really can.
Which would explain why I walk over to the door of her stall and quietly tap on it—although I’ll admit, my heart was thumping. I really need this job, after all.
“Um… Miss Higgins?” I call through the stall door. “It’s me, Lizzie. The receptionist?”
“Oh… ”
I’ve never heard so much emotion piled into a single word. That “oh” is laden with fear—I guess about what I’m going to say or do, having caught John MacDowell’s fiancée weeping in the bathroom. Am I going to call the press? Pass her a box of Kleenex? Run and get Esther? What? — regret, self-loathing, embarrassment, and even what sounds like a healthy dose of mortification.
“It’s okay,” I say through the door. “I mean, I sometimes feel like crying in here myself. In fact, most days.”
This elicits a burble of laughter from the woman in the stall. But it’s a tearful burble.
“Do you want me to get you something?” I ask. “Like tissues? Or a diet Coke?” I don’t know why I thought she might want the latter. It’s just that a nice cold diet Coke always makes me feel better. Except hardly anyone ever offers me one.
“No-oo-oo,” Jill says in a tremulous voice. “I’m okay. I think. It’s just—”
And before I know it, she’s off—really crying this time, in big huge gasping baby sobs.
“Whoa,” I say. Because I know what it’s like to cry like that. I’ve been there. I’ve done that.
And I know there’s only one thing that ever makes me feel better when I’ve got that big a crying jag going on.
“Hang on,” I say to Jill through the stall door. “I’ll be right back.”
I run out of the bathroom. Then, so as to avoid Tiffany (who, after all, is probably wondering what happened to me. Especially since she doesn’t technically start work for half an hour, and I’ve left her sitting in my chair, answering all the calls that I should be picking up), I zip through the locked back door to the office (code to get in: 1-2-3), and hurry into the Pendergast, Loughlin, and Fly
There, I seize an armful of items—under the watchful gaze of an intern on a coffee break—and hurry back to the ladies’ room, where I find Jill still lustily weeping.
“Hang on,” I say, setting my armful of pilfered treats down on the counter by the sinks. “I’m coming.” I survey the assortment before me. I really don’t have time to make a careful selection. I can see that urgent help is needed, and right away. I grab the first plastic-wrapped confection I see, and kneel down beside the stall to hand it through the gap beneath the door.
“Here,” I say. “Drake’s Yodels. Dig in.”
There is stu
Well, maybe not immediately, but eventually.
But maybe Jill’s problems are so huge that it’s going to take more than just a Yodel to make her feel better.
“Th-thank you,” she says. And the snack cake (although, really, if you ask me Yodels are more of a dessert than a snack) disappears from my hand. A second later I hear plastic crinkling.
“Do you want some milk with that?” I ask. “I have both whole and two percent. There was skim, too, but, well, you know. Also, I have a diet Coke. And a regular Coke, if you need the sugar.”
More crinkling. Then I hear a tearful, “Regular Coke would be good.”
I crack the can open for her, then pass it beneath the stall door.
“Th-thanks,” Jill says.
For a moment there’s no sound except soft slurping. Then Jill says, “Do you have any more Yodels?”
“Of course I do,” I say soothingly. “And Devil Dogs, too.”
“Yodels, please,” she says.
I pass another one under the stall door.
“You know,” I say conversationally. “If it’s any consolation, I know what you’re going through. Well, I mean, not exactly, but, you know, I work with a lot of brides. Most of them aren’t under the kind of pressure you are, of course. But, you know. Getting married is always a little stressful.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jill asks with a bitter laugh. “Do all their future mother-in-laws hate them the way mine hates me?”
“Not all of them,” I say. I’ve helped myself to a Devil Dog. Just the creamy filling inside, though. It’s less carbs than the cake part. I think. “What’s up with yours?”
“Oh, you mean besides the part where she thinks I’m a gold digger out to rob her son of his rightful inheritance?” I hear more crinkling plastic. “Where do I start?”
“You know,” I say.Don’t do it, a voice inside my head is saying.Do not do it. It’s not worth it.
But a different voice is telling me that it is my duty, as a woman, to help, and that I ca
“When I said I work with a lot of brides, I didn’t mean here,” I go on. “I mean, not just here. I’m actually a certified wedding-gown specialist. Well,I’m not. I mean, I’m not certified. Yet. But I work with someone who is. Anyway, my specialty is restoring vintage or antique gowns, and refurbishing them to fit modern brides. Just in case that information is at all helpful to you.”
For a second, there is no sound from the stall. Then I hear some more crinkling. Then the toilet flushes. A second later, the stall door opens and Jill, looking red-eyed and pink-faced, her hair a blowsy mess, with Yodel crumbs all over the front of her woolly sweater, comes out, staring at me warily.
“Are you kidding me with this?” she demands, not in what you would call a teasing or even friendly ma
Oops.
“Look,” I say, straightening up from where I’ve been leaning against the bathroom wall. “I’m sorry. I just heard, you know, through the grapevine, that your future mother-in-law was trying to make you wear some dress that’s been handed down in their family for generations or something. And I just wanted to let you know that—you know. I can help.”
Jill is blinking at me, her expression devoid of any emotion whatsoever. She’s not wearing any makeup, I notice. But then she’s one of those healthy, outdoorsy girls who can get away with it.
“Not just me, I mean,” I add hastily. “Lots of people can help, this whole town is filled with people who can help. Just don’t go to this one guy, Maurice? Because he’ll just charge you a lot and he won’t actually fix it. The gown, I mean. Monsieur Henri—that’s where I work—is the place to go. Because, you know, we don’t use chemicals or anything like that. And we care.”
Jill blinks at me some more. “You care?” she repeats, sounding incredulous.
“Well, yeah,” I say, realizing—a little belatedly—how I must sound to her. Because it isn’t as if she isn’t hounded all day by people who want something from her—the press, for a quote or a photo; the public, for what it’s like to be engaged to one of the richest bachelors in New York; even her beloved seals, the ones she’s willing to throw out her back for, are probably always after her for fish. Or whatever it is the seals in the Central Park Zoo eat.