Misery Loves Cabernet (19 page)

Dawn falls into the seat next to me. She leans in and whispers, “This is the guy who dumped her seventeen times. What is she thinking anyway?”

The salesclerk quietly hangs up the phone, then perkily walks over to one of the dressing rooms, and knocks on the door. “What do we think of the Monique Lhuillier?”

The dressing room doors open, and we see Will’s body pressing a half-zipped (unzipped?) Kate against the wall. The two have just broken from a passionate kiss as Will moves his hand out from under Kate’s white gown.

“And the plot sickens,” Dawn says, shaking her head.

“Uh, it’s very nice,” Kate says to the clerk, averting her eyes as she zips up the beaded gown.

Kate and Will smile, and exchange a “knowing glance” at each other (I hate that.) As they smooth down their clothes, I notice Kate is actually blushing.

Hell, Will is actually blushing. “Ladies,” he says, walking out of the dressing room, then slightly bowing. “So sorry about that. We were just talking about . . .”—Will turns to Kate and smiles a conspiratorial smile—“wedding favors.”

“I would say she was about thirty seconds from giving you a big wedding favor,” Dawn says jokingly.

Kate looks away from us coyly as she smoothes down her hair.

My friend, my political-talk-show-host friend—the one who asked Bill Clinton point-blank what his exact definition of sex was, then a week later asked Tom DeLay who his ideal prisonmate would be—is actually coyly looking away from us.

I think I might be ill.

“Okay, I’m going to call the Biltmore right now. I’ll see you in a few hours,” Will says to Kate.

Kate nods.

Will kisses her lightly on the lips. “You’re sure you’d rather do a hotel downtown, instead of the beach?”

“Of course,” Kate says, her face brightening. “I loved the Emerald Room. And it’s going to look magical with all the green and white flowers.”

Will looks her over lasciviously, and brushes his hand over her left hip. “And I think we should book the bridal suite.”

Again with the coy look. Puke.

“I love you,” Will nearly whispers.

“I love you more,” Kate says in that half baby talk/half-whisper thing couples do that I loathe and despise.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” Will whispers.

They kiss again, and Will turns to us. “Ladies, Kate and I have decided on your dresses. You can blame me if you hate them.”

“I just might,” I attempt to joke. “How many layers of tulle have you allowed her to drape us in?”

Will looks confused, so Dawn clarifies. “Ugly netting that goes over dresses.”

Still confused, will turns to Kate for an explanation. “I’ll handle this,” she assures him. “You go book the hotel.”

Will smiles, waves good-bye to all of us, and leaves.

We watch him pull out his cell phone as he walks out the glass double doors, and onto the sidewalk. Once the doors are shut, and Kate’s sure he’s out of hearing range, she turns to us excitedly.

She beams. “Can you believe it?” she asks. “And check this out.”

Kate puts out her left hand to show off her new engagement ring.

“Wow,” I say, stunned (and, admittedly, a little jealous) as I take her left hand, and lift it up to the light.

The center stone is a rectangular emerald-cut diamond that’s at least two carats—probably two and a half—with three smaller rectangular emerald-cut diamonds on each side, all set in shiny platinum. It is stunningly beautiful.

Dawn looks at it, and cocks her head. “I thought you always wanted a Royal Asscher cut.”

This is true. Back in our freshman year of college, we all talked about our dream engagement rings. (Are women pathetic, or what?) Dawn wanted what I thought was uncharacteristic for her: a vintage diamond ring from the 1940s with lots of small stones that sparkle. I wanted a one carat round diamond, set in platinum.

Kate was even more specific: she wanted a Royal Asscher cut—the antique cut, not the newest Asscher cut with the sixteen extra facets. It basically looked to me like a puffy octagon but a little bit more sparkly. And she wanted it set in white gold—not platinum—because she thought that made it look the tiniest bit antique-y.

“I did,” Kate admits to Dawn. “But when we were actually at Tiffany’s I decided I liked this one better.”

Dawn continues with her interrogation. “And why is Will calling the Biltmore Hotel? I thought you booked an estate in Malibu.”

“I did.” Kate says, pinching up her nose, “but we’ve decided to move up the wedding to New Year’s Eve, and I wasn’t sure if the place in Malibu was available. Plus, I started thinking about how many guests are coming from the Eastside. You, Charlie, all of Will’s friends . . . so I thought a nice downtown hotel would be easier on the guests. Plus, you can’t really do elegant at the beach, and we’re spending so much, I really want everything to be perfect.”

Now don’t me wrong: I love the Biltmore. It’s one of the prettiest hotels in town, and I’ve gone to weddings there that were exquisitely beautiful. But Kate has always wanted a beach wedding. And a Royal Asscher–cut diamond. And a June wedding.

The salesgirl distracts my thoughts by appearing with a dark green, strapless velvet gown with a satin ribbon that wraps around the hip into a bow.

“Kate and Will have chosen this dress for Kate’s maids,” the salesgirl says in a bubbly voice. “The maids will be in forest green, the maid of honor in emerald green. The dress has a bias cut, emphasizing the waist, and a slit up the left leg to make walking and dancing a breeze. The bow is subtle, yet dramatic, and the top area is fitted with a built-in corset. This dress makes any woman look like she has the perfect figure.”

“How can something be subtle yet dramatic?” Dawn asks.

“We love it!” I say emphatically. “We’ll take it!”

Dawn is unconvinced. She turns to Kate. “Kate, this is beautiful, but it doesn’t look like any of the dresses you’ve been talking about.”

“I know,” Kate concedes, “but I’ve decided that the dresses I was looking at don’t really fit in with the tone of our wedding. We’re going for sophisticated. Classic. My ideas for bridesmaids’ dresses came from being a flower girl twenty-five years ago. Styles change.” She smirks. “And, besides that, one day I’m going to be your bridesmaid, and I don’t want you trying to get even.”

Dawn smiles, and does what every maid of honor has done at least twice before a wedding: She bites her tongue. “It’s perfect. I love it.”

“Yay,” Kate says, clapping her hands a little. Then her look turns somber. “Okay, now I have a serious wedding problem that only my dearest friends can help me solve.”

Uh-oh. I’ve seen my sister Andy with that look: Are Kate’s divorced parents refusing to sit together? Is her grandma so sick she can’t fly to the wedding? Will one of us be assigned to keep Uncle Harry away from the bar?

Kate looks at us in all seriousness. “Sometime in the next few weeks, I will need to pick a cake. Will doesn’t like sweets, and he has no interest in learning the difference between ganache and buttercream. Can I count on you guys to help me taste cakes?”

“Oh, sweetie,” I say sarcastically as I put my hand over my heart. “You know you never need to ask.”

As Kate smiles, her cell phone rings. She walks to her purse to get it. She checks the caller ID, then opens her phone. “Hey, Jack,” she nearly purrs.

Yes, I said
purrs
.

Then she quickly tries to walk away from us to talk.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, grabbing Kate before she can make her escape. “Why are you on the phone with Jack if you’re marrying Will?”

Kate quickly covers the phone. “Shh!” she whispers. “I haven’t told Jack about the marriage yet.”

“You what?” Dawn exclaims.

“I haven’t told him yet,” she repeats in a whisper. “I called him yesterday to tell him, but we had this really great talk, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him then. I’m gonna tell him Sunday night, over dinner.”

“Dinner?” I ask, trying not to sound alarmed.

“Yes. We’re having dinner at Mario’s. I need to get him in a public place, so he won’t make a scene.”

You don’t need to take a man out to dinner so he won’t cause a public scene. Men don’t cause scenes in public—women do.

Kate quickly walks away from us to finish her conversation. I turn to Dawn, who turns away from Kate to inspect our new bridesmaids’ dresses. “Which part did you find more interesting?” I ask Dawn. “The fact that her favorite color is red, but her wedding is in two shades of green? Or the fact that she’s on the phone with her ex-boyfriend of nine years?”

Dawn shakes her head. “Oh, I’d say the fact that she’s meeting her ex for dinner at the restaurant where they shared their first kiss.”

Some nights are a total waste of new lingerie
.

The weekend should have gone off without a hitch. I had booked a red-eye flight Thursday night, and played the romantic weekend over and over again in my head to get me through the lonely nights of my week.

I was to leave LAX at 11:25
P.M.
, have a cocktail and some nuts on the plane, then fall asleep to awake refreshed and ready for romance when the plane landed at JFK at 7:48 the next morning. I would take my time getting my luggage, hail a cab, then drop off my luggage at Room 2516 of the W hotel in Times Square, where Jordan was already staying. At that point, I would have a leisurely lunch at Pastis, then cab it over to the West Village to do a little lingerie shopping at La Petite Coquette before meeting Jordan back at the room.

Woman plans, God laughs
.

I called the limo service to pick me up at my house in Silverlake at 8:30. Sharp. Which theoretically should have given me plenty of time to get to the airport, go through security, blah, blah, blah.

The limo does come to my house at exactly 8:30.

And that is the last thing that goes right for the next twenty-four hours.

When we get to LAX at nine o’clock, we come to a long line of stopped cars. The driver turns on KFWB News to hear that LAX is completely shut down due to a bomb scare.

Not one car moves for the next twenty minutes.

Ten minutes of non-movement after that, I call Jordan.

He picks up. “Are you here already?”

“Hardly,” I say, trying to cover my panic. “LAX is completely shut down.”

“What do you mean it’s shut down?” Jordan asks, concerned.

“Bomb scare.”

“Oh,” he says, his voice relaxing. “Well then, it’ll probably be half an hour, forty minutes tops. We’re fine for time. Listen, when you get to the W, the room key is waiting for you at the front desk. Promise me you’ll just drop off your stuff, and not snoop around.”

“Okay,” I say, my voice brightening as I decide to sound a little kittenish. “Why?”

“I may have ordered a few things to begin our weekend on a romantic note,” Jordan says mysteriously.

“Really?” I say, intrigued. “Like what? Champagne? Strawberries? A pink satin blindfold?”

“Ma’am, I can hear you up here,” my driver informs me in his nondescript foreign accent.

Jordan’s phone is cutting out, so we say our good-byes.

Fifteen minutes later, I call him back to say we still haven’t been allowed into the airport. I go right to his voice mail.

When you’re heading down the wrong path, there are usually lots of signs warning you along the way. Be intelligent. Pay attention to the signs
.

I don’t even vaguely pay attention to the obvious signs of doom. At eleven o’clock, cars are finally allowed to start coming into the airport.

But security is heightened, so it takes me another two hours to get through security. All flights are leaving late, so at least I don’t miss my plane. But by the time I’m finally on the plane and ready for takeoff, it’s almost two in the morning.

No matter, I will still be in New York by ten o’clock in the morning. I’ll just drop off my stuff at the hotel then, instead of Pastis, I’ll hit a street vendor for a falafel or a hot dog, then go to Petite Coquette.

And tonight I will finally get to see Jordan again. The thought puts butterflies in my stomach.

As I settle in my seat, the airline attendant offers me a glass of Pommery Brut champagne and some peanuts.

I calm myself down. Okay, so things didn’t go according to plan: I am in a business-class seat with a glass of champagne in my hand, preparing for a fabulously romantic weekend with my fabulously sexy boyfriend. Life is good.

I smile to myself as I pull out the copy of
War and Peace
I’ve been reading for the past few months, and begin reading.

Twenty minutes, and twelve pages, later, the plane still hasn’t left the gate.

Ten minutes after that, I hear our captain over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We’re having a small problem with one of the parts of our left engine. We’re just gonna have our mechanics look at it, and we should be on our way momentarily.”

Noooo . . .

An hour and a half after that, I am off the plane, calling Jordan, and getting his voice mail again. “Okay, we’ve had a slight setback,” I say, trying to sound cheerful despite the fact that I want to rip out my hair. “It’s almost four here, something was wrong with the engine, and we all needed to get off the plane. But they’re bringing us another plane now, and we should take off soon.”

Then at five o’clock: “Okay, I’m boarding now. I can’t wait to see you.”

And at 6:30: “Did you know that if all of the passengers get off a plane, but then not all of the passengers get back on, they have to rifle through everyone’s luggage to find the missing person’s luggage, and throw it off the plane?”

At 7:45 in the morning, we are finally on the runway, and heading to New York.

By way of Connecticut.

Because apparently, even in November, a hurricane can hit New York. I’m sorry—I’m exaggerating. As my local weatherman had cheerfully told me on the Six o’clock News the night before, Hurricane Steven had been downgraded to a tropical storm as it headed toward New York, and because it was November, it would be nothing more than a lot of rain.