Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

• Chapter 18 •

I’m late for work Monday morning.

There is only one explanation for how I can be late to work in a place that is precisely two floors below where I live: Chaz.

It turns out there is a disadvantage to living two floors up from where you work… if you don’t want the people you’re working with to know you’re sleeping around behind your fiancé’s back, anyway.

I told Chaz that if he wanted to spend the night at my place he had to get out before anyone else showed up at the shop in the morning. I couldn’t have Tiffany and the other ladies seeing him leaving. Which meant he had to be out of there before nine… preferably before eight thirty.

He would have made it too, if it hadn’t been for my own insufferable weakness when it comes to men who bring girls breakfast in bed. It isn’t a weakness I ever knew I had before. Because no guy has ever brought me breakfast in bed before.

And it wasn’t just that he brought me breakfast in bed, either, but that he got up way before I did and must have crept around super-quietly so as not to wake me, and gone to the store—since there was seriously nothing in my refrigerator—and then made scrambled eggs and bacon and toast and brought it all in on a tray with a single red rose in a bud vase next to an icy cold Diet Coke still in the can… just the way I like it.

What girl wouldn’t have melted? And then jumped his bones (as soon as she was done with her eggs… I didn’t want them to get cold, after all)?

So I’m a little bit… frazzled… when I finally get downstairs to work. Frazzled in a good way. A highly relaxed, but still slightly disoriented and dazed way. It’s how I’ve been feeling since I first kissed Chaz… good, but almost as if I had gone ahead and started taking those pills Shari’s dad had given me, instead of flushing them down the toilet back at the Knight’s Inn, like I actually did. The world seems… different. Not better, not worse, just… different. Suddenly, things that used to bother me—men who wear baseball caps indoors, for instance—don’t bother me at all anymore. Fears that used to consume me—that I might end up shopping for vast amounts of cold medicine at my hometown grocery store on weekends like Kathy Pennebaker—no longer seem likely… in fact, they seem improbable. Instead of obsessively eating in one sitting the entire bag of cheese popcorn that I bought at the airport, I ate only a handful.

And I didn’t even think about buying a Cinnabon.

Something is happening to me. I’ve even stopped wearing Spanx. I just don’t care if my bulges show. Maybe because Chaz actually likes my bulges?

I never have to worry about being on top with him, or making sure I walk backward out of the room when I’m naked so my butt doesn’t show. In fact, I’m pretty sure if I did this, Chaz would ask me what the hell I was doing, something Luke never seemed to notice. Or wonder about.

Maybe this is what comes from being a loose woman. When you give up your morals, they all just go, inhibitions too.

Anyway, I’m not the first person into the shop. Sylvia and Marisol are already there, working on the lace-and-tulle I. Magnin & Co. 1950s cocktail-style number we’d gotten from a punky bride whose mother had worn it and who wanted to squeeze into it as well… only she was a size 12 and her mother had been a size 8. We’d assured her we could handle it.

But from the way Sylvia and Marisol start staring, their mouths hanging open, when I walk in, I’m not sure we can handle much of anything, let alone retrofitting a size 12 I. Magnin cocktail dress to an 8.

“What?” I demand, staring right back at them.

They know. I don’t know how they know, but it’s obvious they do. I might as well be wearing a big scarlet letter A on my chest.

Great. The boss is a slut. In an hour, when Tiffany gets here, everyone in Manhattan (and parts of North Dakota, where Tiffany is from) will know it.

How do I handle this? There was never an article about this in Fortune Small Business. What to do when all your employees know that you’re sleeping with your fiancé’s best friend. At least I don’t think so. Damn, I knew I should have paid more attention to that magazine and less to Us Weekly.

“This is looking good,” I say about the dress the two women are working on. They’ve ripped all the stitching from the waist and bodice and will be inserting stretchy lace panels—the big girl’s friend—in discreet locations. Yeah, that’s it. Maybe I can distract them by complimenting their work!

The two women exchange glances.

“I was sorry to hear about your grandmother, Lizzie,” Marisol says.

“Yes,” Sylvia says. “I’m very sorry too.”

I blink at them for a moment, then realize… they don’t think I’m a slut at all! They weren’t being weird before. They just didn’t know what to say because I’ve just come back from my grandmother’s funeral.

God! I’m such an idiot!

“Oh,” I say, smiling. “Thank you so much. She… she had a good, long life.”

I’m feeling much better about things—less disoriented, and actually caught up on the things I’ve missed, including phone messages, of which there weren’t too many, due to the holiday weekend—an hour later when Tiffany walks through the front door, takes one look at me, and goes, “Oh my God. You had sex this morning.”

I nearly choke on the Diet Coke—my second of the day—I’m sipping.

“Wh-what?” I cry, trying not to spill all over the appointment book I have open in front of me. “What are you talking about? No, I didn’t.”

“Oh, don’t even try,” Tiffany says in disgust as she sashays into the shop in her four-inch lace-up stilettos. “You think I can’t tell by now when you’ve had morning sex? And whoever it was, he did you good. Who was it? It couldn’t have been Luke. I’ve never seen you glowing like that before. It’s kind of revolting.” She halts midway across the shop and stares at me owl-eyed. “Oh my God, Lizzie. Did you and Chaz—”

“NO!” I leap up from the reception desk and begin to wave my arms at her like a madwoman. “No, of course not!”

“Holy shit.” A slow smile begins to spread across her face. “You screwed your fiancé’s best friend. You slut.”

“I didn’t,” I cry. “I swear I didn’t!”

“And now you’re lying about it.” Still smiling, Tiffany reaches into her Marc Jacobs bag and pulls out her Sidekick. “Monique needs to hear about this. So does Raoul. In fact, I can’t think of one person I know who doesn’t need to hear about this. This is sick. Little Miss Prudy Pants got her rocks off this weekend with her fiancé’s best friend. Oh shit, her best friend’s ex!” Tiffany laughs to herself as she types into her Sidekick. “Even better! Man, you are going to burn in hell for true!”

I reach up and lay a hand over her keyboard. “Tiffany,” I say earnestly. “Please. Look at me.”

Tiffany looks down from her towering six feet two inches (with the heels) and blinks her heavily mascaraed eyes. “What?” she asks. She’s still grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“It’s not what you think,” I say. There’s a knot in my stomach. All the yummy eggs and toast and things I put into it an hour ago feel as if they’re about to come back up. “The thing is… ”

“Oh, what?” Tiffany demands sarcastically. “You looooooove him?”

“Yes,” I say tightly. I am so close to vomiting I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to throw up all over Tiffany’s pretty Laundry sundress, but I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it in. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Tiffany lowers her Sidekick, leans down until her face is level with mine, and says, enunciating very clearly, “Duh.”

Then she straightens back up, yanks her keypad out of my grasp, and, prattling on as she keeps her gaze on what her fingers are doing, says, “Jesus, Lizzie, do you think we don’t know that? Frankly I think the only person in all of the tristate area who didn’t know you were in love with Charles Pendergast the Third is you. It was so fucking obvious you like him and he likes you that it was just a matter of time until you guys did something about it. And you know what? I’m glad, because I am so fucking over Luke. He was getting on my last nerve. What is this spending the summer in France thing? Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care if he is a prince. There’re more important things than being royal, you know. Like, did he go to your grandmother’s funeral? No? But Chaz did, right? Did he? Is that how this all happened?”

When I nod, dumbly, still stunned by her outburst, Tiffany goes on, turning her attention right back to her Sidekick. “See? I knew it. Monique owes me fifty bucks. Anyway. I can tell by your face you’ve been completely guilt tripping yourself about all this. Get over it, Lizzie. Yeah, Luke’s a nice guy, and all, and he gave you a big rock… but when it’s counted, has he ever been there for you? No, he hasn’t. You’re better off with Chaz, who really does love you—anyone can tell that just by the way he was looking at you at that Fourth of July party… though I’ll admit most of the time it seemed like he wanted to kill you. The thing is, he’s the real deal.” She snaps her Sidekick closed, her message apparently delivered to all of the East Side, the West Side, Brooklyn, and most of Queens as well. “And that’s the kind of guy you need. I’m glad he finally banged you.”

I stare up at her. My urge to vomit has passed. I’m seized by a new urge… to hug her.

I know better than to act on this urge, however. Instead, I hug myself, and say in a soft voice, “Thanks, Tiffany. I… it’s been kind of… weird.”

“I can imagine,” Tiffany says, sauntering the rest of the way across the room to her chair and collapsing into it. “I mean, for you. You’re not used to being a bad girl. But the thing is”—she reaches into her enormous bag and pulls out a chocolate croissant, then gestures for me to make her a cappuccino, which I do—“you’re not really even being that bad. You know? I mean, it’s not like you and Luke are married. You’re engaged. And, like, barely. You haven’t even set a date. On the Bad Girl Scale, ten being really bad, and zero being barely bad, you’re like a one.”

I hand her the cappuccino I’ve whipped up, having already turned on the machine when I got in. “What are you?”

“Me?” Tiffany bites into her croissant and chews thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see. Raoul’s married, but his wife left him for her personal trainer. The only reason they aren’t divorced is because he doesn’t have his green card yet. As soon as he gets it—which should be any day now—he’s going to divorce her and marry me. But we are living together. So, on the Bad Girl Scale, I’m like a four.”

I’ve never heard of the Bad Girl Scale—never having done anything before to put me on it. I’m genuinely interested.

“What’s Ava?” I want to know.

“Ava? Oh, let’s see. She’s sleeping with this DJ Tippycat guy, and he’s married. But, according to the tabloids, his wife came after him in an Outback Steakhouse parking lot with a chain saw, so he’s got a restraining order out on her. That only puts her at about a five on the Bad Girl Scale.”

“That’s higher than you,” I say, impressed.

“True,” Tiffany says. “Tip’s got a rap sheet. He tried to take an ounce of marijuana on a plane once. It was in one of his kid’s stuffed animals. But still. Oh my God. I have to remember to tell Ava about you and Chaz. She’s gonna be stoked. She had a fifty riding on it too. Little Joey’s got a hundred on it!”

“Please,” I say, raising a hand. Ava’s a bit of a sensitive subject, since she still hasn’t spoken to me since that morning we woke up to find the paparazzi swarming outside the shop. “Can we just keep it on the D.L. for now? There are people who don’t know that I’m trying to figure out how—or if—I’m going to tell. Like Luke.”

Tiffany blinks at me. “What do you mean, if? Of course you’re gonna tell Luke.”

I look down at the ring I’m still wearing on my left hand and don’t say anything.

“You are going to break up with Luke, right, Lizzie?” Tiffany demands. “Right, Lizzie? Because, oh my God, if you don’t, do you know what number you go to on the Bad Girl Scale? Like, directly to ten. You cannot string along both those guys at the same time. Who do you think you are, anyway? Anne Heche?”

“I know,” I say with a groan. “But it’s just going to hurt Luke so much. Not the part about me, but the part about Chaz. I mean, he’s his best friend… ”

“That’s Chaz’s problem,” Tiffany says. “Not yours. Come on, Lizzie. You can’t have them both. Well, I mean, I could. But you can’t. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. Just look at you. You’re falling apart as it is, and one of them isn’t even on the same continent, and there’s no chance of you getting caught. You’re going to have to decide. And, yes, one of them is going to get hurt. But you should have thought of that before you decided to become a Bad Girl.”

“I didn’t decide to become a Bad Girl,” I insist. “It just happened. I couldn’t help it.”

Tiffany shakes her head. “That’s what they all say.”

At that moment the bells over the front door tinkle, and Monsieur Henri comes in, followed by his wife, looking tight-faced, and another woman I’ve never seen before. The woman is dressed in a summer-weight business jacket and skirt and is carrying a briefcase. She looks a little too young to be a mother of the bride, but a little too old to be the kind of bride who wears the type of gowns in which we generally specialize. Not to be ageist or anything. But it’s true.

“Ah, Elizabeth,” Monsieur Henri says when he sees me. “You’ve returned, I see. We were very sorry to hear of your loss.”

“Um,” I say. I haven’t seen Monsieur Henri since his first—and last—venture to the city after his heart surgery. According to his wife, with whom I’ve spoken on the phone several times since then, he’s been back at their home in New Jersey, brushing up on his pétanque skills and watching Judge Judy. “Thank you. I’m sorry I was away for so long.”

I was actually gone for four days, only two of which were actual workdays. But I can’t think of any other reason why Monsieur Henri should be back so suddenly, and with what appear to be reinforcements.

“Not to worry, not to worry,” Monsieur Henri says, waving my concerns off as if they were nothing. “Now, Miss Lowenstein. This is the shop, as you can see. Let me take you into the back room.”

“Thank you,” Miss Lowenstein says, giving me the briefest of smiles as she passes by, following closely behind Monsieur Henri.

I turn my bewildered gaze on Madame Henri, who can barely look me in the eye. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she says to the carpet. “I hardly know what to say.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tiffany says, breaking off while taking a slurp of her cappuccino. “I totally forgot to tell you… ”