The Bride (The Boss) (12 page)

“I know. A year, and then ten days? Definitely too long.” I hugged her, a little tighter than usual. “Where’s Deja?”

“She’s on her way. Her a-hole boss kept her over,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Then, quickly, she clarified, “Rudy. Not, you know. Your a-hole.”

We took our seats, and I scanned the menu, but I didn’t want to decide on food. I wanted to tell her my awesome news.

Since I couldn’t, I asked how her visit home had been. Her stepbrother had recently eloped with his girlfriend, whom the family did not approve of. And they’d chosen Christmas day to announce that they were expecting.

“So, it was a great year to introduce Deja to everybody.” Holli wasn’t being sarcastic. She beamed brightly. “My mom was so busy finding backhanded ways to call Patricia a slut, she never even bothered to bust out her racial micro-aggressions at Deja. But what about you?”

“Christmas went fine,” I said, tilting my head. “Mom hates Neil—”

“You knew she would.” Holli sipped her water.

“I did. And um… I wanted to wait for Deja to get here, but I feel like I’m being dishonest if I keep going without telling you the biggest news.” I dangled my bare left hand in front of me and wiggled my ring finger. “It’s being sized. But I’m getting married.”

“Oh my god! Sophie!” Holli leapt up and grabbed me over the table, her long arms hugging me tight. “I’m so happy for you!”

“What are we so happy about?”

I looked up at the same time Holli did, to find Deja shrugging off her coat beside the table. Holli released me and moved to hug her girlfriend. “I thought Rudy was going to keep you from us all afternoon.”

“Well, he didn’t need me there. He was headed over to the big man’s office for celebratory whiskey. I’m guessing you guys are celebrating the same thing?” Deja’s smile flashed her impossibly straight teeth. She had some supernatural ability to wear the orangey red lipstick she had on without smearing it all over her blinding pearly whites. She stepped over to hug me. “Congratulations, Sophie.”

I beamed at her.

“So, funny you should bring up weddings,” Holli said, clearing her throat. “Because we have some news…”

I looked between the two of them, blinking in disbelief. “No way… You guys aren’t…”

They both held out their left hands. I had been so distracted with my own news that I hadn’t even noticed the sparkling princess cut diamonds on their fingers.

“Oh my gosh!” I knew we were all talking way too loudly, but I couldn’t help it. I was so excited; never in a thousand years had I imagined that I would be engaged to be married at the same time my very best friend was. “We both got engaged at the same time? This is like a movie!”

“
Father of the Bride part II
?” Holli gasped.

Deja shook her head with a smile. “No, baby.
Bride Wars
. Let’s not have this situation go down that way.”

“I don’t think we’ll have that problem,” I assured them as I took my seat. “The last time Neil got married, it was this big giant thing in Italy. And I have a feeling you’re not going to do the traditional Plaza ballroom wedding.”

“We want to get married at the castle in Central Park,” Holli effused.

“And dress like princesses. Flowers in the hair, whole nine yards. And we want to have our pictures taken on the Brooklyn Bridge,” Deja added, then she frowned. “You know, we got engaged on Christmas day, and we have the wedding basically planned. I guess it helps when it’s two girly-girls getting hitched.”

“Have you guys already set a date?” I had this weird little twinge in the pit of my stomach, the one I always got when I stupidly compared myself to someone else and found myself wanting. It didn’t make sense, but I had this little voice in my head suggesting that since Neil and I hadn’t talked endlessly about wedding plans, our engagement was somehow less valid.

I pushed that aside. That kind of shitty thinking led to envy, and I never wanted to envy my best friend. That wasn’t how we worked.

Deja was practically glowing. “Not a date-date, but we were considering an August wedding.”

“Wow, that soon?”
Did that sound judgy?
I didn’t want to sound judgy. “I mean, don’t you need time to plan?”

“With Miss Efficient here?” Holli nudged Deja with her elbow. “No way. We could get married on skates, center ice at Rockefeller Center next weekend, if she put her mind to it.”

“Please don’t,” I laughed. “I just got back from Iceland and northern Michigan. I don’t need any more cold.”

“And you’re going to be my maid of honor, right?” Holli asked, biting her lower lip. “I mean, I know in the past you’ve said you’d hate being in someone’s wedding—”

“Oh my god, shut up! I will totally be your maid of honor!” I mean, I had kind of expected she would ask me, since I was her best friend and all, but that didn’t make the invitation any less exciting.

Our chatter turned to the possibility of destination weddings in tropical climates. As independent, twenty-first century young women, maybe we should have spent our lunch talking about more important topics, but we’d all just gotten engaged. I gave us a pass for one stereotypical lunch.

When we were ready for the check, I picked it up. “Seriously, it’s on me. You guys have no idea how much I needed this today.”

“Still waiting to hear on the job, huh?” Deja asked, her perfect eyebrows knotting together in sympathy.

“Unfortunately. But that’s not the problem.” I slipped my card into the black leather case and left it on the side of the table. “I’ve just really missed New York. London is an amazing city, and Emma was a lot of fun, when she was there…but the past year sucked. It’s good to be back to normal.”

“The version of normal where you live in a palace on Fifth Avenue and I’m engaged to a human being instead of an architectural structure?” Holli laughed. “I’m so glad you’re home. Never, ever move away again.”

“I’ll try not to.” There was no point in telling her that in fifteen years, Neil planned to entomb us both at some crusty old estate. She didn’t need fifteen years to worry about it.

In the cab home from the restaurant, I thought about Holli and how different our lives had become in just a year and some odd months. Before Neil had strolled into
Porteras
—and hired Deja—neither Holli nor I had ever expected there might be an end to our single days. I mean, we’d hypothesized about it in a dreamy, far-off sort of way. “We might think about doing that when we’re in our thirties.” “We’d better decide on the children issue before we hit our forties and it becomes difficult to conceive.” It was always in the abstract, far off future.

Maybe it was because we’d viewed married or engaged versions of ourselves as being boring and restricted—I know that’s how I’d envisioned myself. And I’d always had this idealistic view about not getting married. The wedding, the dress, the honeymoon, all of that had been beneath me in the picture of independent, successful Sophie that I had begun painstakingly constructing in college.

Had I taken a sledgehammer to that construction? Getting married to Neil—hell, just moving in with him—had definitely taken down some walls, but they hadn’t been structural supports. I was still Sophie, just like Holli was still Holli. Being with our respective partners didn’t make us any more or any less.

So, if getting married was a total non-issue, why was I so up in my head about it? Probably because it was new and exciting and, truth be told, a little scary. But I usually dug exciting and a little scary where Neil was concerned.
 

I’d always assumed that when you loved someone and you wanted to marry them, that was that. If it was this complicated, was I really ready to do it?

My phone rang as I stepped out of the elevator. I juggled my purse to answer it as I entered the security code and slipped my key into the lock. Holli was on the other end.
 

“Okay, so, are you freaking out?” she asked in lieu of a hello. “Because I’m freaking out.”

“What are we supposed to be freaking out about here? Because I might be freaking out, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.” In the foyer, I dropped my purse and coat on the floor and headed directly to the library.

“The whole getting married thing. Sophie, I have no clue what I’m doing.” Her voice trembled. “Is this… If I feel like this, then it’s probably not the right decision, huh?”

“I don’t think that’s true.” I went to the antique secretary where I kept my laptop, and I opened the lid as I dropped into my chair. “This is a major life change. I think it would be stupid of us not to have some serious considerations.”

I typed
wedding, cold feet
into the search bar.

“Are you Googling this, Sophie?” Holli asked with an annoyed “tch.” “I don’t think this is a Googleable thing.”

“Aha! ‘Cold Feet or Something More?’ It’s an article, and we are going to read it right now.” I leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “Okay. Apparently…it’s totally normal to have cold feet, blah blah… Okay, right here: ‘Many couples experience symptoms of anxiety, including increased bickering and diminished sex drive.’ Is that going on with you two?”

“No, things are better than ever. It’s like those damn rings have sex powers or something.” Holli paused so I could continue.

“‘While it’s normal to interpret every spat over household chores as an omen, remember that you’re both moving into an exciting new chapter of your lives together. Talk to your guy; he might be feeling the same way.’”

“‘Your guy?’ Are you giving us relationship counseling out of
Cosmo
? Because so help me—”

“It’s not
Cosmo
, it’s some Wedding Belles blog. I think it’s for Southern brides, but a lot of this still applies.” I scanned the text. “Oh. That’s not good.”

“What’s not good?” Holli shrieked.

“Well, there’s a list of reasons why you
should
call off an engagement. Do you want to hear them?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear them.

“I don’t know?” Holli sounded as panicked as I felt. “Wh-what if there’s stuff on there that applies to us? What happens then?”

“I don’t know. I guess we…don’t get married?” The thought of it crushed my heart, like it was being sucked out of a tiny breech in an airlock in a space movie. “Or, not. I mean, it’s a blog, right? It’s not like if we read it, we’re doomed to unhappiness forever. Nobody gives a shit about blogs.”

“Not even a little,” she agreed. “But what if we don’t read them? After all, neither of us planned to get married. We’re probably just freaking out because we changed our minds, or whatever.”

“But it might be nice to know—”

“No, it won’t,” Holli stated firmly. “Look, do you think there is going to be anything on that list that’s going to make you love Neil less? Because I’m pretty sure there won’t be anything on that list that’s going to make me fall out of love with Deja.”

“Okay. You have a point,” I conceded. “We’re just being crazy.”

“This is terrifying, though. I mean, I just moved in with her in September. And things are going great, but—” She broke off with a sigh. “You know, it’s just so grown-up and official. I’m only twenty-five. The rest of my life is a long time.”

“It might not be,” I reminded her. “It almost wasn’t for me and Neil. And I feel like kind of an asshole. This time last year, I would have given anything for some kind of future with Neil. Now he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, and I’m doubting something that I desperately wanted before?”

I imagined Holli nodding sagely as she said, “You know, we’re totally fucked up.”

“We are,” I agreed. “I’m so glad we talked each other off the ledge.”

After we hung up, I sat with my finger hovering over the track pad. Holli was right. There was nothing on that list that would make me not want to marry Neil. So there was no sense in even looking.

But I bookmarked it just in case.

* * * *

Neil texted me at one saying I should call him at around five for our phone sex rendezvous, because he’d be between meetings. Then he texted again at three to tell me his schedule for the day had gone off the rails, and he wouldn’t be home until after ten.

I whimpered as I read the text, then scolded myself. I’d gotten so spoiled by having Neil to myself all the time, and I’d known that it would be hard to go back to the way our lives were when we’d just started dating. Compared to our old routine of Skype sex during the week and the occasional weekend together, things weren’t so bad for us now. Still, I dialed his phone, because I needed to hear his voice.

“Sophie?” He sounded concerned, but a bit distracted.

“You’re really not going to be home until ten?” I whined.

“I’m sorry, darling, but I did warn you that going back to work—”

“Would mean taking care of stuff that piled up while you were gone. I know. You’re making up for a year off.” I resigned myself to falling asleep to reality television.

“Look, darling, I have to go, but do call me later. Around seven, I should have time then. Do you remember what you have to do this evening?” he asked, his voice pleasantly neutral. The naughty man was talking to me about this in a room full of people, I was sure of it.

“Of course I do, Sir,” I purred.

After we hung up, I told Sue she should knock off an hour early and leave dinner to me, since Neil wouldn’t be coming back and he’d probably eat at the office. Then I worked on a video for my YouTube channel.
 

After India had started linking my videos to her massively popular Tumblr, I’d had to invest a lot more energy into them. I couldn’t just point a flip phone at the mirror and do my eye shadow. Now I had a studio light, a small, collapsible background, a state-of-the-art HD camera and professional microphones. The videos used to be a hobby, dashed off in a couple hours’ time. Now, I worked for weeks on just one, and Neil had taken to calling the library “the studio.” They just weren’t as much fun as they’d been before. Today, I decided I would record a tutorial on a smoky eye look—if Neil did get home early, I might be able to pull off the sultry vixen routine—and consider whether continuing with the makeup maven shtick was worth it.