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• Chapter 25 •
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), English poet and playwright
Six months later
“Oh, you make the most beautiful bride ever!”
“No, I don’t,” Tiffany assures me. “I look fat.”
“Tiffany,” I say severely. “You’re four months’ pregnant. You’re supposed to look fat.”
“Is it odd that that still frightens me?” Monique asks no one in particular. “The fact that Tiffany is going to be a mum, I mean? Does it frighten anyone else?”
Shari raises her hand, along with Sylvia and Marisol.
Tiffany glares at them. “I hate all of you,” she says.
“What’s nice about the fact that Tiffany is going to be a mum,” Monique goes on, “is that it’s turned her into such a sweet, caring person.”
“This gown is what’s making me look fat,” Tiffany says to her reflection in the gilt-framed full-length mirror in front of her.
“No, it isn’t,” I say indignantly, offended. “You’re pregnant. That’s what’s making you fat.”
“This is a fat dress,” Tiffany says, pouting. “You designed a fucking fat dress for my fucking wedding.”
“You know what’s awesome,” Shari says, slipping a Milk Dud into her mouth from the box she’s brought into the shop for the show she’s been anticipating for days. “When brides swear. Especially pregnant brides.”
Sylvia and Marisol making tsk-tsking noises and fuss over Tiffany, foofing out the train of the exquisite—and completely nonfat—original gown I’ve designed for her.
“I did not design a fat dress for you, Tiffany,” I say, restraining myself with an effort from strangling her. “And that’s not a very nice thing to say to the person who is responsible for paying you enough so you can work part-time for me and finally quit that job you hated at Pendergast, Loughlin, and Fly
Tiffany just glares at my reflection. “So? I’m just going to quit working for you in five months so I can stay home with Raoul Junior.”
“It’s a boy?” Marisol asks excitedly.
“Who knows?” Tiffany glares at her reflection. “Whatever.”
“Seriously,” Shari says, dropping another Milk Dud into her mouth. “This is better than American Gladiator.”
“You can afford a na
Tiffany eyes Shari’s box of Milk Duds. “Are you going to give me one of those?” she asks. “Or what?”
“No, she’s not,” I snap. “You are not getting chocolate on this dress I’ve slaved over for weeks.”
“We’ve slaved over,” Marisol corrects me. “I stayed up until two last night doing that crystal beading on the train.”
“Right,” I say. “That we’ve slaved over.”
“Whatever,” Tiffany says again, rolling her gorgeously made-up eyes. “Like there’s not going to be a knockoff available off the rack at Geck’s next week for two hundred bucks.”
“There’s not!” I cry. “I told you! It’s a Lizzie Nichols Designs original! There’ll never be anything like it at Geck’s. I mean… there’ll be something similar. But it will retail for three ninety-nine.”
Tiffany tosses her head until her newly coiled ringlets bounce. “I knew it,” she says with another eye roll.
“The cars are here,” Monique says in a bored voice.
“All right, let’s go,” I say quickly. “Or we’re going to be late.”
And we all troop out into the crisp winter air, past the new hot-pink awning with the words “Lizzie Nichols Designs™” emblazoned on it in white curlicue writing, and splitting up into the two waiting black Town Cars that Raoul ordered for us, me carefully folding Tiffany’s train in after her, then climbing into the car behind hers with Shari.
“Thanks for coming,” I say to her gratefully.
“Are you kidding me?” Shari says, pouring more Milk Duds into her mouth. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. So what happened? The guy finally got his green card?”
“And just in time. Five more months, and he’d be a dad before he was a legal.”
“That has to be the quickest divorce in the history of mankind.”
“Well, the former Mrs. Raoul got a pretty hefty settlement for being so accommodating with INS,” I explain. “You know, not mentioning the part about how they hadn’t lived together as man and wife in years.”
“That’s so romantic,” Shari says with a sigh, snuggling down into the leather seats.
When we reach One Centre Street, I jump from the car and hurry to make sure Tiffany emerges from her own without damaging the gown we’ve all worked so hard on. She manages to do so, though she isn’t exactly gracious about it. Thanks to a united effort, we get her up to the hallway where the men—and Pat, who’s rushed over on her lunch break—are waiting.
All of my anxiety turns out to have been worth it, though, when I see the look on Raoul’s face as he gazes upon his bride for the first time in her wedding finery. Tears fill his eyes, and I’m so touched when he takes Tiffany’s hand and whispers, “Baby, you look beautiful,” that I have to look away.
“I know,” Tiffany whispers smugly back. I guess she doesn’t think she looks so fat after all.
An arm slides around my waist, and a second later, a man in a charcoal gray suit is kissing my neck.
“Hey,” Chaz says. “You did good.”
“Thanks.” I giggle. Yes, really. I giggle. That is what Chaz does to me. “Do you like the ribbon work around the neckline? I thought that was a nice touch. I’m going to do that to the new line of flower girl dresses we’re introducing for next year’s resort line.”
“It’ll sell like hotcakes,” he says.
He’s wearing the yellow tie I love, in honor of the occasion. My knees are melting. The sight of Chaz in a suit and particularly that yellow tie still has the power to turn me into butter on a hot stove. I wonder if that will ever change.
I have a feeling it won’t.
A bored clerk has just called Tiffany’s and Raoul’s names, and we’re getting ready to crowd into a tiny chapel with them when there’s a commotion in the hallway as a familiar voice shrieks, “Wait! Wait for me!”
“Oh God,” Shari groans. “Who invited her?”
I bite my lower lip. “Um… I might have mentioned that Tiffany was getting married downtown today… right about now.”
“Oh my God, Lizzie,” Tiffany snaps. “Aren’t you ever going to learn to keep your mouth shut?”
Before I have a chance to answer, however, Ava bursts in, wearing a demure business suit (complete with pillbox hat) and clutching the arm of her husband, Joshua Rubenstein, aka DJ Tippycat, followed, as always, by Little Joey.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Ava says, with all the regality her recently acquired position as president in charge of marketing of Geck Industries has given her. “We got stuck in traffic on the way from the helicopter landing pad.”
Tiffany glares at her, but Raoul says amiably, “So glad you could make it.”
Then the clerk calls their name again, and we all file forward for the mercifully brief—but meaningful—ceremony.
It isn’t until Latrell has uncorked the champagne, and congratulations have been exchanged all around, and we’ve been told to file out again to make room for the next couple, and Raoul’s instructed us to get back into the Town Cars he’s provided to take us back uptown to Tavern on the Green that Chaz snags me by the elbow and pulls me into a corner by a water fountain and a bulletin board listing clerk’s office perso