Queen of Babble in the Big City (28 page)

Rumor travels faster, but it don’t stay put as long as truth.

—Will Rogers (1879–1935), American actor and humorist

I
wake to pounding.

At first I think the pounding is just coming from inside my head.

I open my eyes, not recognizing where I am for a few moments. Then my vision clears, and I see what I had originally taken for big pink blurry blobs floating before my eyes are actually roses. And they’re on the walls.

I’m in the bed in my new apartment above the bridal shop.

And, I realize when I turn my head, I’m not alone.

And someone is knocking on the door.

These are far too many realizations to have at once. Any one of them would be confusing enough all on its own. But considering the fact that they all occur to me simultaneously, it takes me a minute to process what’s actually going on.

The first thing I notice is that I’m still in my Jacques Fath evening gown—rumpled now and stained with chocolate cake. But it is very firmly
on…
as are my Spanx beneath it.

Which is good.
Very
good.

I notice furthermore that Chaz is fully dressed as well. That
is, his tuxedo pants and jacket are still on, but he appears to have lost his tie, and his shirt is more than halfway unbuttoned, the studs—his grandfather’s onyx and gold studs, I remember him telling me—gone, as are his shoes.

I rack my poor, addled brain, trying to remember what happened. How did Chaz—my best friend’s ex-boyfriend; my ex-boyfriend’s best friend—end up sleeping, even if fully clothed, in my new bed?

And then, as I take in other facts—such as that Jill’s bouquet is sitting on my bedside table, looking wilted but really not worse for wear, and that my shoes appear to have vanished—I begin to recall the chain of events that led to this startling early-morning discovery: Chaz and I sharing a New Year’s kiss that started out as merely a friendly peck…at least, that’s how I’d intended it to be.

But then Chaz was throwing his arms around me and turning it into something more.

I’d pushed him away—laughingly—only to realize he wasn’t laughing. Or at least, not as much as I was.

“Come on, Lizzie,” he said. “You
know—
”

But I’d laid a hand over his mouth before he could finish whatever it was he’d been about to say.

“No,” I’d said. “We
can’t
.”

“Oh, why the hell not?” Chaz had demanded against my fingers. “Just because I met Shari first? Because you know if I’d met you first—”

“NO,”
I’d said, pressing my hand down even more firmly. “That’s not why, and you know it. We’re both feeling very vulnerable and alone right now. We’ve both been hurt—”

“Which is all the more reason we should seek solace in each other,” Chaz said, taking my hand in his and moving it away from his mouth—so he could kiss it! “I really think you should take all your frustrations over Luke out with me. Physically. I promise to lie very still while you do it. Unless you want me to move.”

“Stop it,” I’d said, wrenching my hand away. How could he make
me laugh so much during what was supposed to be such a serious moment? “You know I love you—as a
friend.
I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize our relationship…as
friends
.”

“I do,” Chaz said. “I want to do things that might jeopardize our relationship as friends a
lot
. Because we’re
always
going to be friends, Lizzie. No matter what. I really think it’s the whole physical part of our relationship that needs a lot more work.”

“Well,” I’d said, still laughing. “You’re just going to have to be patient then. Because I think we both need time to grieve for what we’ve lost…and to heal.”

Chaz, not unsurprisingly, made a disgusted face at this—both the idea of it as well as the way I’d put it seemed to displease him. But I’d continued, undaunted, “If, after a suitable amount of time, we’re both still interested in taking our friendship to another level, we can reevaluate.”

“How much time are we talking about?” Chaz had wanted to know. “I mean, to grieve and heal? Two hours? Three?”

“I don’t know,” I’d said. It had kind of been hard to concentrate, considering the fact that he still had his arms around me, and I could feel those studs of his grandfather’s pressing through the silk of my dress. That wasn’t all I felt pressing through it, either. “At least a month.”

He had kissed me again after that, as we swayed back and forth to the music.

And I don’t think it was just the champagne that made me feel as if it were raining gold stars all around us, instead of white balloons.

“Well, at least a week,” I’d said, when he’d finally let me up to breathe.

“Deal,” he’d said. Then he’d sighed. “But it’s going to be a long week. What have you got on under there, anyway?” His hands were at the waistband of my panties, which he could feel beneath my dress.

“Oh, those are my control-top Spanx,” I’d said, deciding in that moment that in this and all future relationships, I was going to be
ruthlessly, even brutally honest—even to my own disadvantage—such as by admitting to a guy that I wear control-top panties. Not just panties, either, but basically bicycle pants.

“Spanx,” Chaz had murmured against my lips. “Sounds kinky. I can’t wait to see you in them.”

“Well,” I’d said, welcoming yet another opportunity to be brutally honest. “I can tell you right now it’s not going to be as exciting as you might expect.”

“That’s what you think,” Chaz had said. “I just want to let you know that when I look into my future, I see
nothing
but you.” Then he’d whispered,
“And you’re not even wearing Spanx.”

And then he’d dipped me, so that suddenly I was giggling up at the ceiling, from which the last of the balloons were still falling, in fat, lazy arcs.

The rest of the night was a blur of more kissing, and more champagne, and more dancing, then more kissing, until finally, staggering out of the Plaza just as fingers of pink light were beginning to stretch across the sky above the East River, we tumbled into a waiting cab, and then somehow, into my bed.

Only nothing had happened. Obviously nothing had happened because (a) we’re both fully clothed, and (b) I wouldn’t have
let
anything happen, no matter how much champagne I might have had.

Because this time, I’m going to do everything the
right
way, instead of the Lizzie way.

And it’s going to work, too. Because I’m
cunning.

I’m lying there thinking about how cunning I am—also about how untidy a sleeper Chaz is, considering the fact that his face is all smushed against one of my pillows, and that, even though he isn’t a drooler, like I am, he’s definitely a snorer—when I realize that the pounding sound I’d thought was actually my hangover is coming from the door.

Someone is knocking on the outer door to the building—which actually has an intercom, but it’s broken (Madame Henri swore to me it would be fixed by the end of next week).

Who could be pounding on the door at—oh God—ten in the morning on New Year’s Day?

I roll out of bed, then climb unsteadily to my feet. The room sways…but then I realize it’s only the slanting floors that make me feel as if I’m about to fall. Well, the floors and my severe hangover.

Clinging to the wall, I make my way to the door of my apartment and unlock it. In the narrow—and chilly—stairway to the ground floor, the pounding is louder than ever.

“Coming,” I call, wondering if it could be a UPS delivery for the shop. Madame Henri had warned me that by taking occupancy of the apartment on the top floor of the brownstone, I’d be responsible for signing for all after-hours deliveries.

But does UPS even deliver on New Year’s Day? It can’t possibly. Even Brown must give its workers the day off.

At the bottom of the stairs, I struggle with all of the various locks, until finally I can pull the door open—though I’ve kept the security chain on, just in case the person outside is a serial killer and/or religious fanatic.

Through the three-inch crack between the door and frame, I see the last person in the world I ever expected.

Luke.

“Lizzie,” he says. He looks tired. Also annoyed. “Finally. I’ve been knocking for hours practically. Look. Let me in. I need to talk to you.”

Panicked, I slam the door shut.

Oh my God. Oh my God, it’s Luke. He’s back from France. He’s back from France, and he came to see me. Why did he come to see me? Didn’t he get my brief but cordial note in which I gave him my new address so he’d know where to forward my mail, but instructed him not to contact me there?

“Lizzie.” He’s pounding on the door again. “Come on. Don’t do this. I flew all night to get here to say this to you. Don’t shut me out.”

Oh God. Luke’s at my door. Luke’s at my door…

…
and his best friend is asleep in my bed upstairs!

“Lizzie? Are you going to open the door? Are you still there?”

Oh God. What am I going to do? I can’t let him in. I can’t let him see Chaz. Not that Chaz and I did anything wrong. But who would even believe that? Not Luke. Oh, God. What do I do?

“I’m…I’m still here,” I open the door to say. I’ve thrown back the chain, but I don’t move to let Luke step inside—even though it’s freezing, standing there on the stoop in my evening gown, with the bitter cold seeping in around. “But you can’t come in.”

Luke looks at me with those sad dark eyes. “Lizzie,” he says, apparently not even registering the fact that I’ve obviously slept in my clothes. And not just any clothes, either, but my Jacques Fath evening gown that I’ve been saving for years for an event fancy enough to wear it to. Not that he would know that. Because I never told him.

“I’ve been a total ass,” Luke goes on, his gaze never straying from mine. “I’ll admit, when you brought up…well, the marriage thing last week, you really threw me for a loop. I wasn’t expecting it. I really did think we were just hanging out, you know. Having fun. But you made me think. I couldn’t
stop
thinking about you, as a matter of fact, though I tried. I really tried.”

I stand there blinking at him, shivering. This is what he flew all the way back to America—apparently spending his New Year’s Eve on a plane—to say? That I ruined his holiday, even though he tried not to think about me?

“I even talked to my mother about it,” he says, the winter sunlight bringing out the bluish highlights in his ink-dark hair. “She’s not having an affair, by the way. That guy she met the day after Thanksgiving? That’s her plastic surgeon. He does her Botox. But that’s beside the point.”

I swallow. “Oh,” I say. And realize, belatedly, that that’s why Bibi’s eyes hadn’t crinkled when she’d smiled at me while issuing her invitation to join them in France for the holidays: she’d just had Botox injected into them.

Still, this doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t, in fact, change the part about how Luke chose to spend the holidays with his parents instead of going with me to the Midwest to meet mine.

I remind myself of this because I’m trying very hard to keep my heart steeled against him. Because, of course, the hurt is still fresh. Like I’d said to Chaz, we’re both still grieving.

But seeing Luke, looking so tired and vulnerable, on my doorstep isn’t helping.

“Mom is the one who told me what an idiot I was being,” Luke goes on. “I mean, even though she was kind of pissed about the whole thing where you thought she was having an affair. She was trying to keep the Botox from my dad.”

I’m finally able to pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth long enough to say, “Dishonesty in a relationship is never a good thing.” As I know, only too well.

“Right,” Luke says. “That’s why I realize how lucky I am, Lizzie, to have you.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his icy cold, leather-gloved fingers. “Because even if maybe you do have a reputation for talking too much, there is one thing about you: you do always tell the truth.”

Nice. Also, true. Well, mostly.

“Did you come all this way to insult me?” I ask, trying to sound haughty—though of course the truth is that I just feel like crying. “Or is there a purpose to all of this? Because I’m standing here freezing—”

“Oh!” he cries, dropping my hand, and hastily whipping off his coat, which he then drapes gently around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. This would be a lot easier if we could just go in—”

“No,”
I say firmly, grateful for the coat. Although now my stocking feet are like ice.

“Fine,” Luke says with a little smile. “If that’s the way you want it. I’ll just say what I came here to say and then let you go.”

Yes. Because of course that’s the kind of thing princes do. Fly thousands of miles just to say good-bye.

Because whatever else they might be, princes are unfailingly polite.

Good-bye, Luke.

“Lizzie,” Luke says. “I’ve never met a girl like you before. You always seem to know what you want and exactly how to go after it. You aren’t afraid to do or say anything. You take risks. I can’t tell you how much I admire that.”

Wow, this is a very nice good-bye speech.

“You came into my life like a…well, a tsunami or something. A good one, I mean. Totally unexpected, and totally irresistible. I honestly don’t know where I’d be now if it weren’t for you.”

Back in Houston with your ex, I want to say.

Only I don’t. Because I’m sort of curious to hear what he’s going to say next. Although mostly I just want to run back upstairs to bed.

Except I can’t, I remember belatedly. Because there’s a snoring man in my bed.

“I’m not the kind of person who’s good at going after what I want,” he goes on. “I guess I’m more cautious. I have to weigh all the possibilities, calculate each and every risk involved—”

Yes. I know.

Good-bye, Luke. Good-bye forever. You’ll never know how much I loved—

“That’s why it took me so long to realize that what I really want to say to you—” He’s fumbling in the front pocket of his charcoal wool trousers now. And I can’t help thinking, Why is he doing this…what’s he doing? Is he just trying to torture me? Does he have no idea how hard I’m trying not to throw myself at him? Why can’t he
just go away
? “What I think I’ve
always
wanted to say to you, since the day I met you, on that crazy train, is—”