Meg Cabot - Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

“Luke,” I say into the phone. “I have to go. I… I’ll call you later, all right?”

“Okay,” he says. “Honestly, Lizzie… I don’t want you to worry. About any of this. I’m going to take care of it. Of you. I love you.”

“I… y-you too,” I stammer. And hang up. Then I demand, “What are you doing here?”

“Standing in front of Vera Wang’s flagship store?” Chaz quips. “Oh, I come here most days, actually. I like to try on a few of the mother-of-the-bride gowns. They feel so smooth and slinky against my skin.” He blinks down at me. “Shari called me. What do you think? And then I called the shop when you wouldn’t pick up any of my calls on your cell. Tiffany told me I might find you here. She says you like to come here to clear your head.” He looks at the display window. “I can see why. It’s so… shiny.”

I stare at the shop window too. But what I’m actually looking at is our reflection, him so tall and lanky, with his University of Michigan baseball cap perched on top of his head, and his strong, muscular legs, so tanned, unlike the tourists who occasionally walk past. And me, slightly wilted in my sundress from having run all over town in the heat of high summer, my hair hanging in a bedraggled mess from my barrette, wanting, basically, to die. We make the strangest-looking couple.

If that’s what we are. Which I’m not even sure of.

And of course behind our reflection is the beautiful, perfect Vera Wang wedding gown of the week. In a size two.

“They’re closing the shop,” I say to his reflection. “The Henris. They’re closing it. And moving to Provence.”

“I know. Tiffany told me that too.” He shrugs, looking infuriatingly unconcerned. “So. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I yell at him. “What do you think I’m standing here trying to figure out?”

God! How can I be in love with him? How can he be so different from Luke, whom I thought I loved for so long? I don’t want you to worry. About any of this. I’m going to take care of it. Of you. That’s what Luke had to say.

Whereas all Chaz has to say is: So. What are you going to do?

Then again, I’m the one who was so keen on wanting to stand on my own two feet.

“Well, you’ll figure it out,” Chaz says now, with another shrug. “I’m starving. Have you had lunch?”

Have I had lunch? That’s all he has to say?

“How?” I demand. “How will I figure it out?”

He looks a bit startled by my outburst. So does the Chinese-food deliveryman hurrying by.

“I don’t know,” Chaz says. “You’ll open a new shop.”

“Where? How? With what money?” I demand, my voice breaking. Because that’s what I’m pretty sure my heart is doing.

“Jesus, I don’t know, Lizzie. You’ll figure it out. You always do. That’s what’s so amazing about you.”

I turn my head and look up at him. Him, and not his reflection.

And I realize—as I’ve been realizing over and over all summer… all year, actually—how hard I’ve fallen for him.

This is really it, I realize. There’s no turning back. I think I’ve just gone up a notch on the Bad Girl Scale.

“Luke is dropping out of medical school,” I say. “He’s taking a job with his uncle’s company in Paris. He’s moving to Paris.”

“Gee,” Chaz says tonelessly. “I’m so surprised to hear that.”

I stare at him, appalled. “You knew? He told you already?”

He shrugs yet again. “He’s my best friend. He tells me everything. What do you expect?”

“You told me,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “You told me he’s never been able to stick to anything in his life. And I thought you were nuts. But you were right. You were a hundred percent right.”

“Luke’s not a bad guy,” Chaz says mildly. “He’s just… confused.”

“Well,” I say, slipping my cell phone back into my purse. “Are you going to ask me?”

“Ask you what?”

“If I’m going to move to Paris with him? He wants me to, you know. He says his family will loan me the money to set up a shop there.”

“I’m sure they will,” Chaz says. “And no, I’m not going to ask you.”

I set my jaw. For someone I’m so crazy about, Chaz happens to be the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.

“Why not?” I demand. “Don’t you want me to stay here in New York?”

“Of course I do,” Chaz says. “But, like I said, what happens in the future is already unavoidable. So I’m just going to enjoy what time I have left with you.”

“That,” I say disgustedly, “is such crap.”

“Well,” he says in the same unruffled tone, “that’s probably true too. What do you feel like? I feel like Thai food. Do you feel like Thai food? Isn’t there a good Thai place around the corner from here?”

“How can you think about food at a time like this?” I yell at him. “Do you know—do you have any earthly idea—that every time I think about marrying Luke, I break out in hives?”

Chaz raises his eyebrows. “That,” he says, “is not a good sign. I mean, for him. And, I’m guessing, for Paris.”

“It’s a horrible sign,” I say. “What did you mean back in Detroit when you said Luke hasn’t exactly been a Boy Scout the whole time he and I have been going out?”

Chaz rolls his eyes. “Look,” he says. “I don’t really want to talk about this in front of the Vera Wang flagship store, okay? Let’s go home. We can change out of these hot sticky clothes and I can run you a cool bath and order some Thai food and fix us both a couple of gin and tonics and we can sip them while we discuss the vagaries of life and I give you a full body massage—”

“No,” I say, resisting the arm he’s put around me. “Chaz! I’m serious. This is serious. I don’t want to—”

But I never get the chance to tell Chaz what it is I don’t want to do, because at that moment, two women who were passing by stop in front of the window and gaze at the gown I was admiring.

“See, Mom,” the younger woman says. “That’s the kind of dress I want.”

“Well, dream on,” her mother says. “Because a dress like that costs twenty grand. Do you have an extra twenty grand lying around?”

“It’s not fair,” the girl insists, stamping her Steve Madden—clad foot. “Why can’t I have what I want? Just this once?”

“You can,” the older woman says, “if you want to be paying for it for the next thirty years. Is that how you want to start your married life?”

“No,” the bride says, sounding as if she’s pouting a little.

“I didn’t think so. So get over it. We’re going to Kleinfeld’s.”

“God,” the bride says as her mother drags her away. “You’re so cheap. If you had your way, we’d get my wedding gown at Geck’s.”

The mother and daughter drift away, and I find myself staring after them in astonishment. Every single nerve ending in my body is tingling. I feel as if I’ve just caught fire.

A shop that offers beautiful couture for the ordinary girl, at prices she can afford. For brides.

“Oh my God, Chaz,” I say. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He still has his arm around me. “The part about the full body massage I’m going to give you?”

“Them.” I open my purse and start digging around in it for my cell phone. “Did you hear what they said?”

“About going to Kleinfeld’s? Yeah. Hey, maybe that’s where you should get a job. That’s where everybody goes to get their wedding dresses. That’s where my sister went. Not that it helped. She still looked like me. In a wedding dress. Poor kid. She tried waxing and everything.”

“No,” I say, stabbing at the numbers on the keypad of my phone. “Not that part.”

Be there, I pray. Pick up. Pick up.

A second later, a voice chirps, “Hello?”

“It’s me,” I say. “Please don’t hang up. I know you hate me. But I’ve got a business proposition I’ve got to talk to you about. It’s important. And you won’t regret it. I promise. Where are you?”

“Me?” She sounds slightly confused. “I’m at the dog run. Why?”

“Stay there,” I say. “Do not move. I’ll be right over.”

A HISTORY of WEDDINGS

Carrying the bride over the threshold is a tradition that harkens back to the ancient practice of capturing brides from rival tribes or villages. It was also thought to—say it all together now—trick any evil spirits that might be lurking in the new home.

Today’s modern bride may find the practice sexist or—often more alarming, considering the state of many HMOs—may fear her groom will throw his back out in attempting to lift her.

It is, for these reasons, a tradition that is losing popularity and may safely be skipped in lieu of a kitchen witch.

Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster

There is a rumor flying around that the cost of the gift you give at a wedding as a guest should roughly equal the amount of the cost of the food and wine you are served at the reception. This is ridiculous. Your gift should be tasteful—and does not even have to come from the bridal registry—but does not in any way have to be proportionate to the cost of what you are being served. Any bride who suggests otherwise deserves the wooden spoon you give her applied to her backside.

LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS^™

“Wedding gowns?” Ava echoes, her carefully plucked eyebrows raised. “At Geck’s?”

“Why not at Geck’s?” I’m perched beside her on a park bench next to the small dog run at Carl Schurz Park. The small dog run is actually a raised, fenced-in stage along the boardwalk by the East River, where pedestrians can stop and watch the tiny dogs as they skitter after tennis balls thrown by their owners. This seems a source of particular delight to toddlers, whose parents lift them to stand along the edge of the stage, and who shriek in delight every time a Pomeranian or miniature pinscher comes dancing in their general direction.