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“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.
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 ba
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 Ru
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 Pe
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.