Queen of Babble in the Big City (12 page)

“Oh!” I am struck by the pathos of this. Jill Higgins looks so nice and normal! How could anyone be so mean as to think she might be a gold digger? “That’s so sweet of him. I mean, John MacDowell, to hire lawyers for her.”

Tiffany grunts. “Yeah, right. He’s probably only doing it so that later on, when things go, like, south, she can’t say she was swindled.”

This seems like a very cynical take on it to me. But then what do I know? This is only my first day. Tiffany’s been working here for
two years, the longest any receptionist has stayed with Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn so far.

“Did you hear what they call her?” Tiffany whispers.

“Who?”

“The press. What they call Jill?”

I look at her blankly. “Don’t they just call her Jill?”

“No. They’re calling her ‘Blubber.’ Because she works with seals, and she’s got that tummy.”

I frown. “That’s mean!”

“Also,” Tiffany goes on, clearly enjoying herself, “because she cried when one of them asked her if it makes her insecure to know there are so many women out there who are way more attractive than she is, dying to get their hands on her fiancé.”

“That’s horrible!” I glance over at Jill. She looks remarkably calm for someone dealing with all of that. Lord knows how I’d react in the same situation. The press would probably call me Niagara—because I’d never
stop
crying.

“Miss Higgins!” Esther appears in the lobby, looking trim in a houndstooth skirt suit. “How are you? Won’t you come on back? Mr. Pendergast is running a little late, but I’ve got coffee for you. Cream
and
sugar, right?”

Jill Higgins smiles and gets up. “That’s right,” she says, following Esther down the hall. “How nice of you to remember!”

After she’s out of earshot, Tiffany snorts and goes back to painting her nails. “You know, that MacDowell guy may be rich and all,” she says. “And yeah, okay, she gets to quit her job throwing fish to those nasty seals. But I wouldn’t marry into that family for less than twenty mil. And she’ll be lucky if she sees a few hundred thousand.”

“Oh,” I say, thinking Tiffany should be an actress
and
a model, she has so much flair for the dramatic. “They can’t be
that
bad—”

“Are you kidding?” Tiffany rolls her eyes. “John MacDowell’s mom is such a battle-axe, she isn’t letting that girl plan one single part of her own wedding. Which I guess makes sense, since she’s
from Iowa or something, and her dad’s, like, a mailman or something. But still…Blubber doesn’t even get to choose her own wedding gown! They’re making her wear some old monstrosity they’ve had moldering around the mansion for a million years. They say it’s ‘tradition’ that MacDowell brides wear it…but if you ask me, they’re just trying to make her look bad so that John MacDowell has second thoughts and dumps her for some society bitch his mom’s got all picked out for him.”

My ears have perked up at this. Not the part about the society girl John MacDowell’s mom wishes he were marrying instead of Jill, but the other part. “Really? Who is she using as her wedding-gown specialist? Do you know?”

Tiffany blinks at me. “Her what?”

“Her wedding-gown specialist,” I say. “I mean, she
has
one…right?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Tiffany says. “What’s a wedding-gown specialist?”

But at that moment the reception area doors open again and a man I recognize as Chaz’s father—basically an older, grayer version of Chaz, only without the turned-around baseball cap—walks in…then stops when he sees me.

“Lizzie?” he asks.

“Hi, Mr. Pendergast,” I say brightly. “How are you today?”

“Well, I’m just great,” Mr. Pendergast says with a smile, “now that I’ve seen you. I’m really happy you’ve joined us here at the firm. Chaz couldn’t seem to say enough good things about you when I spoke to him the other day.”

This is high praise, considering the fact that Chaz, so far as I know, goes out of his way to avoid speaking to his parents whenever possible. The fact that he called them on my behalf is enough to make my eyes fill with tears. He really is the greatest guy in the world. Aside from Luke, of course…

“Thank you so much, Mr. Pendergast,” I say. “I’m so happy to be here. It’s so nice of you to—”

But at that moment the phone chirps.

“Well, duty calls,” Mr. Pendergast says with a twinkle. “See you later.”

“Sure,” I say. “And Miss Higgins is already here…”

“Great, great,” Mr. Pendergast calls, as he hurries back to his office.

I pick up the phone. “Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn,” I say. “How may I direct your call?”

After I send the caller successfully on his way, I hang up and look at Tiffany. “I’m starving,” she says. “Want to order from Burger Heaven downstairs?”

“It’s not even ten,” I point out.

“Whatever, I’m so hungover I could die. I need some grease in my stomach or I’ll york.”

“You know what?” I say to Tiffany. “I really think I’m getting the hang of this. You can leave if you want.”

But Tiffany doesn’t take the hint. “And give up time and a half? No, thanks. I’m getting a double cheeseburger. You want one?”

I sigh…and give in. Because it looks like it’s going to be a long day. And the truth is, I can tell I’m going to need the protein.

Okay, big girls, don’t think I’ve forgotten you! Designers may have—so many dressmakers seem scared to take on those of us who are size sixteen or higher.

But there’s really no need, because large-size women CAN look great in a wedding gown…if they pick the right one! The best option is to go for a fitted bodice with an A-line skirt.

Full skirts are out on the plus-side bride, as they tend to make wide hips look even wider, as do column or sheath skirts. But an A-line skirt that gently skims the contours is a flattering look on a larger girl. Strapless gowns are not usually recommended for very large brides as they require a very fitted bodice that can be unflattering to someone with a sizable belly. But this varies from body shape to body shape.

Plus-size brides, more than anyone, can benefit from the help of a certified wedding-gown specialist, since we can really help them find a style that is both flattering
and
appropriate for their special day.

L
IZZIE
N
ICHOLS
D
ESIGNS
™

To find out a girl’s faults, praise her to her girlfriends.

—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), American inventor

T
he dwarf is singing “Don’t Cry Out Loud.”

“I don’t know about anyone else,” Chaz says, “but I find his performance exceptionally moving. I give it an eight.”

“Seven,” Luke says. “I find the fact that he’s
actually
crying a little distracting.”

“I give it a ten,” I say, blinking back tears of my own. I don’t know if it’s that all Melissa Manchester songs make me a little nostalgic, or if it’s the fact that this particular one is being sung so poignantly by a weeping dwarf dressed like Frodo from
Lord of the Rings,
complete with a Gandalf staff. Maybe it’s the three Tsingtaos I had with dinner, and the two Amaretto sours I’ve downed since, here in the booth. But I’m gone.

The same can’t be said of my best friend Shari, however. She’s picking at the label of her Bud Light, looking distracted—pretty much how she’s been all night.

“Hey,” I say, nudging her with my elbow. “Come on. How do you rate his performance?”

“Uh.” Shari sweeps some of her curly dark hair from her eyes
and peers at the man on the little stage at the back of the bar. “I don’t know. A six.”

“Harsh,” Chaz says, shaking his head. “Look at him. He’s singing his guts out.”

“That’s just it,” Shari says. “He’s taking it too seriously. It’s
karaoke
.”

“Karaoke is an art form in many cultures,” Chaz says. “And, as such, should be taken seriously.”

“Not,” Shari says, “at a dive bar called Honey’s in Midtown.”

The tenor of Shari’s voice has changed. Chaz is just being playful, but she sounds genuinely annoyed.

Then again, she’s seemed that way ever since she and Chaz arrived at the Thai place downtown where we met to have dinner. No matter what Chaz says, Shari either disagrees or ignores him. She even berated him for ordering too much food…as if there
is
such a thing.

“It’s probably just stress,” I had said to Luke, as the two of us walked slightly behind Chaz and Shari on our way toward Canal Street, dodging fish guts that had been tossed into the gutters by the Chinese markets on either side of the street. “You know how hard she’s been working lately.”

“You’ve been working pretty hard yourself,” Luke had replied. “And
you
aren’t acting like a grade-A—”

“Hey, now,” I’d interrupted. “Come on. Her job is slightly more stressful than mine. She’s dealing with women whose
lives
are at stake. The only thing the women I work with have at stake is whether or not their butt is going to look big on their wedding day.”

“That can be stressful,” Luke had insisted with touching loyalty. “You shouldn’t put yourself down.”

But the truth is, I don’t actually believe what’s bothering Shari is work stress. Because if it was just that, the delicious piles of pad thai and beef satay we’d just consumed—not to mention all that beer—would have helped. But it hadn’t. She’s as cranky now, after dinner, as she’d been before dinner. She hadn’t even wanted to come to Honey’s. She’d wanted to go straight home to bed. Chaz had prac
tically forced her into the cab with us, instead of letting her find a separate one to take her back to their place.

“I just don’t get it,” Chaz had said to us after Shari excused herself to go to the bathroom between courses at dinner. “I know she’s unhappy. But when I ask her what’s wrong, she says everything’s fine and that I should leave her alone.”

“That’s the same thing she says to me,” I’d said with a sigh.

“Maybe it’s hormonal,” Luke had suggested. Which, considering all the bio he was taking, was a natural leap.

“For six weeks?” Chaz had shaken his head. “Because that’s how long it’s been. Ever since she started that job…and moved in with me.”

I’d swallowed. It was all my fault. I just knew it. If I had just moved in with Shari like I’d promised, instead of ditching her to live with Luke, none of this would have happened…

“If you think you can do so much better,” Chaz is saying now, shoving the songbook across the table of the booth we’re sitting in, “why don’t you give it a whirl?”

Shari looks down at the black binder in front of her. “I don’t do karaoke,” she says coldly.

“Um, that’s not what I recall,” Luke says, waggling his dark eyebrows. “At least, not from a certain wedding I remember…”

“That,” Shari says dourly, “was a special occasion. I was just trying to help out Big Mouth over there.”

I blink.
Big Mouth?
I mean, I know it’s true and all…but I’ve been getting better. Really. I haven’t told ANYONE about meeting Jill Higgins. And I’ve managed to keep from Luke the fact that his mother’s lover (if that’s who the guy even is…which, more and more, I’m starting to suspect) has called the
apartment yet again
. I’m a veritable vault of incendiary information!

But I decide to cut Shari some slack. Because I did leave her in the lurch and all.

“Come on, Shari,” I say, reaching for the binder. “I’ll find us something fun to sing. What do you say?”

“Count me out,” Shari says. “I’m too tired.”

“You can never be too tired for karaoke,” Chaz says. “All you have to do is stand up there and read from a teleprompter.”

“I’m too tired,”
Shari says again, this time more adamantly.

“Look,” Luke says, “somebody has to get up there and sing something. Otherwise, Frodo is going to perform another ballad. And then I’ll have to slit my wrists.”

I’ve started flipping through the binder. “I’ll do it,” I say. “I can’t let my boyfriend commit suicide.”

“Thanks, honey,” Luke says, winking at me. “That’s so nice of you.”

I’ve found the song I want and am filling out the little slip of paper you’re supposed to give to the waitress if you want to sing. “If I do this,” I say, “you guys have to do one, too. Luke and Chaz, I mean.”

Chaz looks solemnly at Luke. “‘Wanted Dead or Alive’?”

“No,” Luke says, shaking his head vehemently. “No way.”

“Come on,” I say. “If I’m doing it, you guys have to—”

“No.” Luke is laughing now. “I do not do karaoke.”

“You have to,” I say gravely. “Because if you don’t, we’ll be subjected to more of that.” I nod toward a group of giggly twenty-somethings, each wearing the light-up penis necklaces and slackly drunken expressions that give away the fact that they are part of a bachelorette party—as if the fact that they’re screeching “Summer Lovin’” from
Grease
into a single microphone is not evidence enough.

“They are making a mockery of the karaoke,” Chaz agrees, pronouncing “karaoke” with the correct Japanese inflection.

“’Nother round?” the waitress, wearing an adorable red silk mandarin dress, with a not-so-adorable metal bar through her lower lip, wants to know.

“Four more,” I say, sliding two song slips toward her. “And two songs, please.”

“No more for me,” Shari says. She holds up her mostly full beer bottle. “I’m good.”

The waitress nods and takes my song slips. “Three more, then,” she says, and goes away.

“What did you mean,
two
songs?” Luke asks me suspiciously. “You didn’t—”

“I want to hear you sing that you’re a cowboy,” I say, my eyes wide with innocence. “And that on a steel horse you ride…”

Luke’s mouth twists with suppressed mirth.
“You—”
He lunges at me, but I shrink against Shari, who goes, “Stop it.”

“Save me,” I say to Shari.

“Seriously,” she says. “Cut it out.”

“Oh, come on, Share,” I say, laughing. What’s wrong with her? She used to love goofing around in dive bars. “Sing with me.”

“You’re so annoying,” she says.

“Sing with me,” I beg. “For old times’ sake.”

“Get out,” Shari says, giving me a shove toward the end of the bench we were sitting on. “I have to go pee.”

“I won’t get out,” I say, “unless you sing with me.”

Shari pours her beer over my head.

Later, in the ladies’ room, she apologizes. Abjectly.

“Seriously,” she says, sniffling as she watches me stick my head beneath the hand dryer. “I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s okay.” I can barely hear her above the roar of the hand dryer—not to mention the keening of the bachelorettes onstage. “Seriously.”

“No,” Shari says. “It’s not okay. I’m a terrible person.”

“You’re not a terrible person,” I say. “I was being a jerk.”

“Well.” Shari is leaning against the radiator. The ladies’ room at Honey’s is not what anyone would call the height of chic decor. There is one sink and one toilet, and the walls have been covered in vomit-beige paint that does little to hide the layers of graffiti beneath it. “You
were
being a jerk. But not any more than usual. I’m the one who’s turned into such a massive bitch. I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Is it your job?” I ask. The hand dryer is solving the problem of my wet hair. But it isn’t doing much for the beery smell coming from my Vicky Vaughn Junior minidress. That’s something I’m going to have to tackle with the Febreze bottle when I get home.

“It’s not my job,” Shari says mournfully. “I love my job.”

“You do?” I can’t hide my surprise. All Shari ever seems to do is complain about her hours and workload.

“I do,” she says. “That’s the problem…I’d rather be there than at home, any day.”

I open my double-flap seventies Meyers handbag (in stunning lime-green vinyl, only thirty-five dollars with my Vintage to Vavoom employee discount) to look for something—anything—that I could spray on myself to get rid of the beery smell. “Is that because you love your job so much?” I ask carefully. “Or because you don’t love Chaz anymore?”

Shari’s face crumples. She puts her hands over it to hide her tears.

“Oh, Share.” My heart twisting, I step away from the hand dryer to put my arms around her. Through the door, I can hear the thump-thump-thump of the bass as the bachelorettes shriek that it’s up to you, New York, New York.

“I don’t know what happened,” Shari sobs. “I just feel like whenever I’m with him, I’m suffocating. And even when he’s not around…it’s like he’s smothering me.”

I am trying to be understanding. Because that’s how best friends are with each other.

But I’ve known Chaz for a long time. And he has so never been the suffocating or smothering type. In fact, it would be hard to find a more happy-go-lucky guy. I mean, except when he’s jabbering on about Kierkegaard.

“What do you mean?” I ask her. “How is he smothering you?”

“Well, like he calls me all the time at work,” Shari says, furiously wiping away her tears. Shari hates it when she cries…and consequently doesn’t do so very often. “Sometimes even twice a day!”

I blink down at her. “Calling someone twice a day at work isn’t all that much,” I say. “I mean, I call you that many times a day. A lot more than that, actually.” I don’t even mention how many times a day I’ve started e-mailing her, now that I spend so many hours at a workstation with an actual computer, on which I’m supposed to record any notes and messages for the lawyers I work for.

“That’s different,” Shari says. “Besides, it’s not just that. I mean, there’s the whole cat thing.” My revealing to Shari that Chaz was thinking about adding a four-legged friend to their domicile had resulted in her being “diagnosed” with a previously unknown dander allergy, and the sad admittance that she would never, alas, be able to live in a house or apartment with anything furry. “There’s also the fact that when I get home from work, he wants to know how my day went! After already having talked about it on the phone.”

I drop my arms from her. “Shari,” I say. “Luke and I talk to each other about a million times a day.” This is a slight exaggeration. But whatever. “And we always ask each other how our day went when we get home.”

“Yeah,” Shari says. “But I bet Luke doesn’t spend the whole day you’re gone lying around the apartment reading Wittgenstein, then going grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, and making oatmeal cookies.”

My jaw drops. “Chaz goes grocery shopping, cleans, and makes oatmeal cookies while you’re at work?”

“Yes,” Shari says. “And does the laundry. Can you believe that? He does the laundry while I’m at work! And folds everything up into these perfect squares! Even my underwear!”

I am looking at Shari with suspicion now. Something is wrong. Very wrong.

“Share,” I say. “Are you even listening to yourself? You’re mad at your boyfriend because he calls you regularly, cleans your apartment, does the grocery shopping, makes you cookies, and does your laundry. Do you realize that you’ve basically just described the most perfect man in the world?”

Shari scowls at me. “That may sound like the perfect man to some people, but it isn’t to me. You know what would be the perfect man to me? One who was around less. Oh, and get this: he wants sex.
Every day
. I mean, that was all right back when we were in France. But we were on
vacation
. Now we’ve got responsibilities—well, some of us do, anyway. Who has time for sex
every day?
Sometimes he even wants it twice a day, morning and then again at night. I can’t take it, Lizzie. That’s just…that’s just too much. Oh my God…can you believe I just said that?”

I’m glad she asked that, because the answer is no, I can’t. Shari’s always been more sexually aggressive—and adventurous—than me. It looks like the tables have finally turned. I have to keep myself from blurting out that Luke and I often have sex twice a day—and that I quite enjoy it.

“But you and Chaz used to, um, do it that much all the time,” I say. “I mean, when you first started going out. And you liked it then. What’s changed?”

“That’s just it,” Shari says. She looks truly upset. “I don’t know! God, what kind of counselor am I, when I can’t even figure out my own problems? How can I help people with theirs?”

“Well, sometimes it’s easier to help other people with their problems than deal with your own,” I say in what I hope is a soothing voice. “Have you talked about all of this with Chaz? I mean, maybe if you told him what was bothering you—”

“Oh, right,” Shari says sarcastically. “You want me to tell my boyfriend that he’s too perfect?”