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That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hop on a plane to A
“If you see Rose today, Gran,” I say, “can you give her a swift kick in the pants for me?”
“Don’t worry,” Gran assures me, relishing, as usual, being in the middle of a cat fight between me and one of my sisters. “I’ll remind her of how fat her arms looked in that slutty dress she wore for her senior prom. That always makes her cry. Like goddamned Niagara Falls.”
“Thanks,” I say, and hang up feeling only slightly better. Really, could things get any worse?
And yet they do when, a half hour later, Ava emerges from my bathroom looking perfectly coiffed in a purple animal-print catsuit with bright orange stilettos, and finds Little Joey and me waiting for her on the couch.
“Ready?” she asks him, not even glancing at me.
“Ava,” I say, leaping up. “I’m sorry. It was me. I mean, I told my grandma. But it wasn’t her fault. My sister—”
“It’s okay,” Ava cuts me off. But I can tell from her pinched expression it’s not. It’s not okay. It’s far from okay. “We’re going now. Right, Joey?”
Joey heaves his three-hundred-pound girth up from the sofa. “You got it, Miss Geck. I already took down the suitcases.”
“Ava,” I say, trying again.
“It’s okay, Lizzie,” Ava insists.
But I know it isn’t. Nothing is okay.
Nothing is ever going to be okay—at least between me and Ava—again.
I watch them leave through the living room windows. The paparazzi throw down their cigarettes and coffee cups—I’m going to have to sweep them all up before the shop opens—and surges forward to virtually attack Ava the minute she walks through the front door of my building. Little Joey shields her the best that he can, using his elbows and sizable belly to forge a path for her to the waiting limo. Ava climbs inside, Little Joey follows, and they speed off, the photographers in hot pursuit.
And then my street is quiet again. If it weren’t for all the litter on the sidewalk—and the wad of blond hair in my drain—it would almost seem as if they hadn’t been there at all.
But I know I’ve just messed up an important client relationship. Worse, I’ve messed up a budding friendship.
And honestly, I have no one to blame for it but myself. Just like all the other messes in my life at the moment. Great.
Just great.
I had never been up to Shari and Pat’s roof before, but it turns out they’ve built a little garden oasis there. On a redwood deck, surrounded by overflowing flower boxes bursting with geraniums and delphiniums, you can stand and look out at the skyline of Manhattan, rising in all its glory out of the East River. It’s an amazing view. And it’s all theirs.
Well, along with all the other tenants in their building. And all the other neighboring rooftops along their street. All of whom are having Fourth of July parties at the same time as theirs.
But they aren’t about to let all the dueling stereo speakers bring them down. Shari, at least, has a lot of other issues to worry about.
“I can’t believe he brought her,” Shari keeps saying, casting dark looks in Chaz’s direction.
“I told you he would.” I’m downing ice cream like there’s nothing else being served, which isn’t true, because there are also burgers, hot dogs, chips, about ten different kinds of pasta salad, and, of course, the two pies Chaz brought.
But somehow, the only thing that is making me feel better is ice cream. It’s been a long week. A loooooooong week.
And the sight of Chaz sitting over there with Valencia—who is looking cool and serene, in spite of the ninety-degree heat, in white linen gauchos and a black tank top that shows off her perfectly toned arms—isn’t doing much to make me feel better.
“So, is that the girl?” I ask between gulps of rocky road.
“What are you talking about?” Shari wants to know.
“The girl you’re trying to fix Chaz up with. Is that her?” I point to a pretty girl who has joined Chaz and Valencia over by the beer cooler they’re both sitting beside.
“Yeah,” Shari says, looking a
I take an enormous bite of my ice cream. “I don’t know,” I say, my mouth too full to say more. Fortunately.
I don’t mention that Tiffany, in the car service her fiancé, Raoul, insisted we share on the way over, had sworn to me that she was going to keep Chaz from making a love co
I didn’t bother reminding her for the millionth time that it doesn’t matter to me who Chaz dates because I’m actually engaged to someone else, because she’d just have brought up, as she usually does, that I’m “on a break,” and people who are happily engaged don’t tend to ask for one of those.
“Hey, so what’s up with Ave Geck?” Shari asks, distracting me from my gloomy thoughts. “Is she still mad at you for outing her to the press?”
I wince. The fallout from the Ava situation turned out to be worse than even I could have imagined. The Henris had not been too happy to see the front of their shop in photos plastered all over the press the morning after it was a
In retrospect, maybe they were right. But then, Ava had pretty much invited herself.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s not speaking to me. Which I can understand.”
“Well, she’s the only person I know who doesn’t want to be a member of Lizzie Nichols’s entourage these days.” Shari points at the small cluster of people gathered around Chaz’s pies—he’d brought both a strawberry rhubarb and a blueberry—ru
“Okay,” I say sheepishly. “I realize four people is a lot. But they all really wanted to come.” I don’t mention that Shari’s fantastic view of the fireworks—and the fact that the Fourth of July happened to fall on a Wednesday this year, making it hard to go out of town—had something to do with it.
“I’m not complaining,” Shari says. “It’s just that if you get any more popular, I may have to move to someplace bigger in order to accommodate all your fans every time I have you over.”
“I’m not popular,” I say, abashed. “I’m just… ”
“Admit it,” Shari says with a smile. “They’re the misfit toys, and you’re the island. How are things going with Luke, anyway?”
I shrug. “Fine,” I say, speaking around the red plastic spoon hanging from my mouth. “I mean, as well as can be expected, seeing as how he’s in Paris and I’m here and we’re on a break.”
Shari points at the ring finger of my left hand. “You’re still wearing it.”
“Well,” I say, neurotically shoveling more ice cream into my face, “we’re still engaged. He’s acting like everything is fine.”
“Ooooh!” shrieks Tiffany suddenly, jumping to her four-inch stilettos and pointing into the twilit sky. “They’re starting!”
We hear a muffled boom, and the next thing I know, a huge carnation of light is exploding in the sky.
“Zee One Hundred,” Shari screams. “Switch it to Zee One Hundred! We’re missing the musical accompaniment!” She dives for the radio while two dozen people look at her as if she’s lost her mind.