Queen Of Babble: In The Big City

Chapter 18

The Monday after Thanksgiving, we got slammed at the Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn reception desk. I don’t know if there have ever been any official studies on this, but I would say, just judging from my own observations, divorce requests definitely go up after a long holiday weekend.

A sentiment with which I could actually sympathize, having spent mine with the de Villierses… who are all very charming people, but not without their annoying quirks. Like Mrs. de Villiers’s annoying quirk of talking about Dominique, Luke’s ex, and how happy she and Blaine, Luke’s cousin, are. Apparently Dominique is doing a great job managing Blaine’s financial affairs… and he needs the help, because his band, Satan’s Shadow, is superhot on the indie metal circuit.

Another hot topic of conversation for Mrs. de Villiers is Blaine’s sister’s pregnancy. Vickie isn’t even due until the spring and doesn’t even know the baby’s sex yet, but Luke’s mother is already buying tiny onesies and booties and cooing over how much she can’t wait to have a grandchild of her own, making Luke look extremely uncom for table and putting back my woodland-creaturing of him weeks, possibly even months.

And Mr. de Villiers’s annoying quirk wasn’t much better. His was not looking where he’s going and consequently putting his foot through my Singer 5050—which I purposely moved from the dressing table to the floor beneath my hanging rack, thinking no one would trip over it there, since there was a metal bar in the way.

And yet somehow Luke’s father managed to destroy it… or at least the bobbin.

He apologized profusely and offered to pay for a new one. But I told him it was all right, that the machine was old and I’d been intending to get a new one anyway.

I swear I don’t know where some of the things that come out of my mouth even come from.

Anyway, they’re gone. They left Sunday afternoon, after much kissing and talk of all the fun they’re going to have at Château Mirac over Christmas and New Year’s. Of course, they pressured me to come along, but I could tell they didn’t really mean it. Well, Luke did, of course. And maybe his dad did.

But his mom? Not so much? The smile she gave me as she said, “Oh, do come, Lizzie, it will be such fun,” didn’t go all the way up to her eyes. They didn’t crinkle at the sides like they normally did when she smiles.

No. I know where I’m not wanted. And that’s at the de Villierses’ familial holiday celebration in France.

Which is fine. It is. It’s totally cool. I explained I only had the long weekend off anyway, which I’d be spending flying home to see my parents, before returning to work on Monday.

I don’t think it’s my imagination that Mrs. de Villiers looked kind of relieved about that. I mean, that she was getting her son all to herself.

Which you would think she’d realize makes the grandchild production thing kind of difficult. But maybe she has other candidates in mind… ones who aren’t working two jobs, one of them nonpaying, and the other hardly worth bragging to her girlfriends about. I mean, a receptionist? So not as glamorous, say, as an investment banker or market analyst…

Especially not the Monday after Thanksgiving, when everybody and their mother seems to want a divorce lawyer. Tiffany says the only busier time in the office is right after New Year’s, which is when a lot of proposals take place, so people want to come in for their prenups.

I’ve said, “Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn, how may I direct your call?” so many times, my throat is getting sore, and I’m starting to rasp a little. Fortunately, Tiffany has come in early (as usual) to shoot the breeze, and is willing to spell me for a few minutes while I run to the ladies’ room to spray a little Chloraseptic down my throat.

“So Raoul says he can get your friend Shari in to see his internist,” Tiffany says, as she takes my chair. “You know, if she’s still sick. Is she still sick?”

“She’s not sick,” I say, opening my drawer and pulling out my Meyers handbag—which barely fits in there, thanks to the back issues of Vogue which Tiffany insists on saving. “She and Chaz broke up.”

“They did?” Tiffany swings her wide, blue-eyed gaze up at me. “Right before your party? God, no wonder he said she was sick. How totally embarrassing. So is one of them moving out? Which one? Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me?”

Because I’ve been trying really hard not to mention anything about it to anyone—especially people like Tiffany who could conceivably say something to Chaz’s father. Obviously Luke knows, but he’s the only person I’ve told. I’m really trying not to be such a gossip these days. Shari asked me not to say anything to anyone until she’d had a chance to speak to Chaz about it—which I hope to God she has, because I don’t know how much longer I can keep from saying anything to him when he calls the office to return his father’s phone calls. Between that and the thing about Luke’s mom, I am BURSTING with secrets.

And it’s driving me mental.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Look, let me just go spray my throat and I’ll be right back—”

Tiffany doesn’t get a chance to reply, though, because the phone chirps and she has to grab it. “Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn, how may I direct your call?”

The ladies’ room of the law offices is actually situated outside the lobby, by the elevator doors. To get in, you have to punch in a code. This is not to keep random tourists from wandering in off the street to use the Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn bathrooms, since for one thing random tourists can’t even get into the building without an appointment and passing a security screening. I don’t actually know why all the offices in this building keep the doors to their ladies’ (and men’s. The management of this building is not sexist) rooms locked, and require a code to enter.

In any case, one of the duties of the receptionist at Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn is to give the code to any clients or visiting lawyers who ask for it. The code is very easy to remember: 1-2-3.

And yet some clients (and lawyers) have to be given the code two, even three times before they retain it. This can be annoying to the receptionist, though of course we never show it. Still, it makes me wonder why we need the lock at all, since in all the time I’ve been using the ladies’ room at Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn, no one has ever been in it at the same time I have. It’s the most underused bathroom in all of New York.

The day I go in to spray my throat (and put on a little lipstick and fluff up my hair) is no exception. I’m alone in the very clean, very beige bathroom. I’m gazing at my reflection in the huge mirror hanging above the sinks, grateful that last night I finally got to sleep in my own (well, Luke’s mother’s own) bed, instead of on the pull-out couch, because the bags under my eyes from tossing and turning around so much are finally starting to fade. I swear, when I am a certified wedding-gown specialist with my own shop, and I finally have some money to spare, I am going to buy one of those Pottery Barn pull-out couches that don’t have the metal bar across the middle, that are actually comfortable.

Well, first I’m going to buy my own apartment so I actually have a place to keep my stuff where it won’t get tripped over and broken.

Then I’m buying the couch.

And I probably won’t even have to worry about ever sleeping on it again, because the next time Luke’s parents come to visit, they can just stay at Luke’s mother’s apartment, and not mine—

It’s as I’m enjoying this lovely fantasy that I hear something. At first I think it’s just the heel of my shoe on the tiles beneath me. But then I realize I’m not alone in the Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn ladies’ room. The door to the last stall is closed.

I’m about to sneak away to give the person some privacy when I hear the noise again. It’s kind of a whimpering noise. Like a little kitten.

Or someone crying.

I duck down to see if I recognize the person’s shoes beneath the stall door. Instantly I realize I’m looking at the feet of Jill Higgins, New York’s current most famous bride-to-be. Because on those feet are a pair of Timberlands.

And nobody wears Timberlands to Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn but Jill.

Who is apparently taking a break in the bathroom to cry for a while before her next appointment with Chaz’s dad.

I know, as an employee of the firm, I should quietly leave the ladies’ room, and pretend like I never heard what I’m hearing.

But as a not-yet-certified wedding-gown specialist—and more important, a girl who knows what it’s like to be constantly ragged upon (as my sisters have ragged upon me for my entire existence)—I can’t just turn and walk away. Especially since I know—I just know —I can help her. I really can.

Which would explain why I walk over to the door of her stall and quietly tap on it—although I’ll admit, my heart was thumping. I really need this job, after all.

“Um… Miss Higgins?” I call through the stall door. “It’s me, Lizzie. The receptionist?”

“Oh… ”

I’ve never heard so much emotion piled into a single word. That “oh” is laden with fear—I guess about what I’m going to say or do, having caught John MacDowell’s fiancée weeping in the bathroom. Am I going to call the press? Pass her a box of Kleenex? Run and get Esther? What?—regret, self-loathing, embarrassment, and even what sounds like a healthy dose of mortification.

“It’s okay,” I say through the door. “I mean, I sometimes feel like crying in here myself. In fact, most days.”

This elicits a burble of laughter from the woman in the stall. But it’s a tearful burble.

“Do you want me to get you something?” I ask. “Like tissues? Or a diet Coke?” I don’t know why I thought she might want the latter. It’s just that a nice cold diet Coke always makes me feel better. Except hardly anyone ever offers me one.

“No-oo-oo,” Jill says in a tremulous voice. “I’m okay. I think. It’s just—”

And before I know it, she’s off—really crying this time, in big huge gasping baby sobs.

“Whoa,” I say. Because I know what it’s like to cry like that. I’ve been there. I’ve done that.

And I know there’s only one thing that ever makes me feel better when I’ve got that big a crying jag going on.

“Hang on,” I say to Jill through the stall door. “I’ll be right back.”

I run out of the bathroom. Then, so as to avoid Tiffany (who, after all, is probably wondering what happened to me. Especially since she doesn’t technically start work for half an hour, and I’ve left her sitting in my chair, answering all the calls that I should be picking up), I zip through the locked back door to the office (code to get in: 1-2-3), and hurry into the Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn kitchen.

There, I seize an armful of items—under the watchful gaze of an intern on a coffee break—and hurry back to the ladies’ room, where I find Jill still lustily weeping.

“Hang on,” I say, setting my armful of pilfered treats down on the counter by the sinks. “I’m coming.” I survey the assortment before me. I really don’t have time to make a careful selection. I can see that urgent help is needed, and right away. I grab the first plastic-wrapped confection I see, and kneel down beside the stall to hand it through the gap beneath the door.

“Here,” I say. “Drake’s Yodels. Dig in.”

There is stunned silence for a moment. I wonder if maybe I have just committed a huge faux pas. But hey, when I cry, Shari always gives me chocolate. And it makes me feel better immediately .

Well, maybe not immediately, but eventually.

But maybe Jill’s problems are so huge that it’s going to take more than just a Yodel to make her feel better.

“Th-thank you,” she says. And the snack cake (although, really, if you ask me Yodels are more of a dessert than a snack) disappears from my hand. A second later I hear plastic crinkling.

“Do you want some milk with that?” I ask. “I have both whole and two percent. There was skim, too, but, well, you know. Also, I have a diet Coke. And a regular Coke, if you need the sugar.”

More crinkling. Then I hear a tearful, “Regular Coke would be good.”

I crack the can open for her, then pass it beneath the stall door.

“Th-thanks,” Jill says.

For a moment there’s no sound except soft slurping. Then Jill says, “Do you have any more Yodels?”

“Of course I do,” I say soothingly. “And Devil Dogs, too.”

“Yodels, please,” she says.

I pass another one under the stall door.

“You know,” I say conversationally. “If it’s any consolation, I know what you’re going through. Well, I mean, not exactly , but, you know, I work with a lot of brides. Most of them aren’t under the kind of pressure you are, of course. But, you know. Getting married is always a little stressful.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jill asks with a bitter laugh. “Do all their future mother-in-laws hate them the way mine hates me?”

“Not all of them,” I say. I’ve helped myself to a Devil Dog. Just the creamy filling inside, though. It’s less carbs than the cake part. I think. “What’s up with yours?”

“Oh, you mean besides the part where she thinks I’m a gold digger out to rob her son of his rightful inheritance?” I hear more crinkling plastic. “Where do I start?”

“You know,” I say.Don’t do it , a voice inside my head is saying.Do not do it. It’s not worth it.

But a different voice is telling me that it is my duty, as a woman, to help, and that I cannot let a girl who has suffered as much as this one has to continue to wallow in misery… especially when she doesn’t have to.

“When I said I work with a lot of brides, I didn’t mean here,” I go on. “I mean, not just here. I’m actually a certified wedding-gown specialist. Well,I’m not. I mean, I’m not certified. Yet. But I work with someone who is. Anyway, my specialty is restoring vintage or antique gowns, and refurbishing them to fit modern brides. Just in case that information is at all helpful to you.”

For a second, there is no sound from the stall. Then I hear some more crinkling. Then the toilet flushes. A second later, the stall door opens and Jill, looking red-eyed and pink-faced, her hair a blowsy mess, with Yodel crumbs all over the front of her woolly sweater, comes out, staring at me warily.

“Are you kidding me with this?” she demands, not in what you would call a teasing or even friendly manner.

Oops.

“Look,” I say, straightening up from where I’ve been leaning against the bathroom wall. “I’m sorry. I just heard, you know, through the grapevine, that your future mother-in-law was trying to make you wear some dress that’s been handed down in their family for generations or something. And I just wanted to let you know that—you know. I can help.”

Jill is blinking at me, her expression devoid of any emotion whatsoever. She’s not wearing any makeup, I notice. But then she’s one of those healthy, outdoorsy girls who can get away with it.

“Not just me, I mean,” I add hastily. “Lots of people can help, this whole town is filled with people who can help. Just don’t go to this one guy, Maurice? Because he’ll just charge you a lot and he won’t actually fix it. The gown, I mean. Monsieur Henri—that’s where I work—is the place to go. Because, you know, we don’t use chemicals or anything like that. And we care.”

Jill blinks at me some more. “You care ?” she repeats, sounding incredulous.

“Well, yeah,” I say, realizing—a little belatedly—how I must sound to her. Because it isn’t as if she isn’t hounded all day by people who want something from her—the press, for a quote or a photo; the public, for what it’s like to be engaged to one of the richest bachelors in New York; even her beloved seals, the ones she’s willing to throw out her back for, are probably always after her for fish. Or whatever it is the seals in the Central Park Zoo eat.

“Look,” I say. “I know you’re going through a rotten time right now, and it must seem like everybody and his brother wants a piece of you or whatever. But I swear that’s not why I’m telling you this. Vintage clothing—it’s my life. I mean, you can see what I have on, right?” I point at the dress I’m wearing. “This is a rare long-sleeved, kimono-style dress from the 1960s by the designer Alfred Shaheen, who was better known for his authentic South Seas designs—basically Hawaiian shirts—but who also made some hand-screened Asian prints as well. This dress is a fantastic example of his work—see the wide, obi-style belt? Which is actually a good look for me, because I have more of a pear shape, you know, so I want to emphasize my waistline and not my hips so much? Anyway, this dress was in pretty bad shape when I found it in the bottom of the dollar bin at the place where I used to work back in Ann Arbor, Vintage to Vavoom. It had this really gross stain on it—grape jelly, I think—and it was actually floor length because I think it was meant to be a hostess dress. And it was way too big for me in the boobs. But I just threw it in a pot of boiling water and gave it a good soak, then I dried it out, cut it off to mid-knee, hemmed it, redid the darts, and, boom.”

I do a little pivot for her, the way Tiffany had taught me to.

“And now I’ve got what you see here. What I’m trying to say”—I pivot over to where she’s standing, gaping at me—“is that I know how to take someone else’s trash and turn it into treasure. And that if you want me to, I can do it for you. Because what would stick it to your future mother-in-law more than you walking down the aisle in the dress she’s forced onto you, looking way, way better in it than she ever did?”

Jill shakes her head. “You don’t understand,” she says.

“Try me.”

“That—that thing she wants me to wear. It’s… hideous.”

“So was this,” I say, indicating the Alfred Shaheen. “Grape jelly. Floor length. Bullet boobs.”

“No. This is worse. Way worse. It’s got like—” Words seem to defy Jill. So she uses her arms to make a circle. “This hoop skirt thing. And there’s… stuff.Hanging. It’s got this plaid thing—”

“The MacDowell clan tartan,” I say gravely. “Yes. Yes, of course it would have that.”

“And it’s like a million years old,” Jill says. “And it smells. And it doesn’t fit.”

“Too big or too small?” I ask.

“Too small. Way too small. There’s no way anybody could make it fit. I already decided.” She tosses her head, her blue eyes glittering. “I’m not wearing it. I mean, she already hates me. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“True,” I say. “Do you have something else in mind?”

She looks at me blankly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you have another dress in mind? Have you shopped for another gown?”

She shakes her head. “Oh, right. When would I have time to do that? In between manicures? What do you think? No, of course not. What do I know about any of this stuff? I mean, John, he keeps telling me just to go to Vera Wang or whatever, but it’s like every time I even think about going into one of those places—you know, those designers—I get all short of breath, and… well, it’s not like I’ve got girlfriends, or whatever, who are into that stuff. Everyone I know, they’ve got like monkey shit all over their shoes.Literally . What do they know from bridal gowns? Really, I was just thinking maybe I’d fly home and pick something up back at the mall in Des Moines. Because at least there I know what I’m getting myself into—”

Something cold and hard grips my heart. I recognize immediately what it is, of course. Fear.

“Jill.” I reach for another Devil Dog. I need it. For sustenance. “Can I call you Jill?”

She nods. “Yeah, whatever.”

“I’m Lizzie,” I say. “And please, don’t ever say that word around me again.”

She looks at me blankly. “What word?”

“Mall.” I shove a fingerful of delicious filling into my mouth and let it melt. Ahhhh. Better. “No. Just no, okay?”

“I know,” she says, her eyes suddenly bright with tears again. “But seriously. What else am I gonna do?”

“Well, for starters,” I say, “you’re going to bring the MacDowell clan bridal gown, tartan and all, to me, here.” I pass her one of my business cards from my purse. “Can you come this afternoon?”

Jill squints down at the card. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” I say. “Before we make any drastic decisions involving the mall, let’s just see what we have to work with, okay? Because you never know. You may have something salvageable. And then you won’t have to deal with the mallor the high-fashion boutiques. And it would be a really nice in-your-face to your mother-in-law if we could make it work.”

Jill narrows her eyes at me. “Wait. Did you just say ‘in-your-face’?”

I look at her guiltily over the second fingerful of Devil Dog filling I’ve just stuffed into my mouth. “Um,” I say around my finger. “Yeah. Why?”

“I haven’t heard anybody say that since eighth grade.”

I pop my finger out of my mouth. “I was always kind of a late bloomer.”

For the first time since coming out of the toilet stall, Jill smiles. “Me, too,” she says.

And the two of us stand there grinning idiotically at each other…

At least until the door to the ladies’ room swings open and Roberta comes in, freezing mid-step when she sees us.

“Oh, Lizzie,” she says, smiling at Jill. “There you are. Tiffany just asked me to check on you because you’d been gone from the desk for so long—”

“Oh, sorry,” I say, sweeping the remains of the junk food I’d looted from the kitchen into my arms. “We were just—”

“I was having a blood sugar issue,” Jill says, reaching out to grab another Coke and a Yodels from the pile in my arms, “and Lizzie was just helping me through it.”

“Oh,” Roberta says, smiling even harder. Well, what’s she going to do? Yell at me for sneaking the entire contents of the Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn snack closet into the ladies’ room for one of their most high-profile clients? “Great. So long as you’re both all right.”

“We are,” I say cheerfully. “In fact, I was just heading back to the desk—”

“And I have a two o’clock with Mr. Pendergast,” Jill says.

“Okay, then,” Roberta says. Her smile is practically frozen onto her face. “Good!”

I hurry out to the lobby, where Tiffany’s eyes widen perceptibly when she sees who’s following me. Esther, Mr. Pendergast’s assistant, is waiting by the reception desk. She looks even more surprised than Tiffany to see Jill Higgins following behind me and Roberta.

“Oh, Miss Higgins,” she cries, her gaze going straight to the Yodel crumbs on Jill’s chest. “There you are. I was getting worried. The security desk called and said they’d sent you up some time ago—”

“Sorry,” Jill says smoothly. “I stopped for a snack.”

“I see,” Esther says, darting a quick look at me.

“She was hungry,” I say, indicating the snack cakes and sodas—and minicartons of milk—in my arms. “Want some?”

“Er, no, thank you,” Esther says. “Won’t you come with me, Miss Higgins?”

“Sure,” Jill says, and starts following Esther out—only to fling me an enigmatic look over her shoulder as she rounds the corner… a look I am in no shape to interpret, since I’m getting ready to be yelled at by my boss.

But Roberta doesn’t say anything except, “Well. That was, er, nice of you, to, er, help Miss Higgins.”

“Thanks,” I say. “She said she was feeling light-headed, so—”

“Quick thinking,” Roberta says. “Well. It’s past two, so—”

“Right.” I dump the stuff from the kitchen onto the reception desk—causing Tiffany to make a small noise of protest and give me a dirty look. “Sorry, Tiff,” I say. “But I gotta run. My shift’s up for the day—”

And then I bolt out of there like a bike messenger with a clear shot up Sixth Avenue…