The Cinderella Pact (35 page)

“What do you think, Nola?” Eileen asks.

I do my best disapproving frown. “I dunno, Eileen. Is this really what you had in mind?”

“It's black!” my mother screeches. “You can't have bridesmaids in black! It'll look more like a funeral than a wedding.”

“I beg to differ,” Chloe says. “Black is a very au-courant color right now. Especially for an evening winter wedding. So glamorous, don't you think? I mean, black really is the new white in weddings. And with Eileen's radiant red hair, she'll be stunning.”

Eileen gives the dress a second-chance glance.

Mom sticks out her lower lip. “Well, it's still maudlin, if you ask me.”

“And you agree, Nola?” Eileen checks to make sure.

“I'm sorry,” I say pitifully. “I worry that black will make the bridesmaids awfully pale and deathly.”

That was the clincher. “I have to say it's growing on me. And black was my second choice,” Eileen says.

“It was?” Mom says. “You never told me that.”

“I told Belinda.”

Lie. One-hundred-percent lie.

“And she approved,” Eileen concludes. “So it must be au courant.”

“Belinda Apple is a slut,” Mom says. “I've said it before, I'll say it again.”

“Please! She's my maid of honor.”

“Belinda Apple?” Chloe chimes, well experienced as she is in diffusing tension between mothers and daughters. “Personally, I love her. She's an absolute gas. Though I understand she's not writing her column anymore, at least not really, that she has a ghostwriter or something.”

I examine the toes of my boots and think about something boring, like this past Thanksgiving when Jim handed me a smiley-face sticker for eating only turkey, green beans, and a spoonful of pumpkin pie. (Oh, had he only known about my midnight trip to the leftovers in my refrigerator!)

“Mom, I don't care what you say. I'm going with the black dress. After all, Belinda is famous. She knows. Chloe, can you get six by the wedding in the right sizes?”

Chloe flashes me a subtle smile. “Absolutely. As a matter of fact, the bride who canceled had six bridesmaids too.”

“Excellent!” Eileen claps like a little girl.

A-line. Square neck. Black. Every zaftig girl's dream of a bridesmaid's dress.

I couldn't have chosen better myself, which, in fact, I did.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“This is the last one. I don't know how you're going to get it to Belinda but, hey, I've done my part. I nearly forgot about it, having sent out the others weeks ago. I hope that's not a problem.”

Lori DiGrigio hands me a slim white envelope on which
Miss Belinda Apple
is scrawled in calligraphy.

I don't have to open it to know what the letter is and, more importantly, know that I didn't get one as well.

Lori stands by my desk waiting for this question:
What about me? Did I get an invitation to David Stanton's holiday open house?
But I refuse to give her the satisfaction.

“I'll see what I can do,” I say, slipping the envelope into my purse. “Though I haven't spoken to Belinda in months. I don't even know how to contact her.”

“I don't really care, frankly. I'm too exhausted, and it's only the beginning. I've been sooo busy lining up the caterers and the party planners. Do you know how many fresh pine garlands I've had to order? Forty-two. That's how many doorways and mantel pieces and staircases we'll have to adorn.”

It is positively killing her that I am not begging for details. Who's invited? Who's accepted? What's the dress code?

Next to me, Joel tugs at his familiar brown cardigan and bends his head over a set of layout sheets. Then plugs his ears as Lori goes on and on about the guest list: the governor, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, Christie Todd Whitman (whom Chip apparently used to call Aunt Chrissy as a child), even the Boss himself along with his wife, Mrs. Bruce Springsteen, a name I happen to write expertly, having scrawled it on most of my eighth-grade notebooks a zillion times.

There will also be no fewer than four Christmas trees, New Jersey homegrown, each at least twelve feet tall and trimmed with the famous Stanton heirloom ornaments dating back several centuries from when the family still lived in England. There will be a string quartet in one room and a brass quartet in another belting out “Joy to the World” as guests mingle over champagne and hot cider, wearing their diamond necklaces and those omnipresent Manolos.

“How come you're so glum?” Lori pesters Joel.

“I hate Christmas.”

“Why?”

“Because every grown-up Jewish kid hates Christmas, do you mind? Isn't it enough that as soon as I step outside, I'll be blasted with Christmas lights all the drive home while I'm forced to listen to Christmas music on the radio and walk past stores with that fucking Santa Claus? Do I have to be subjected to it at work, too?”

“Well, if that's your way of finding out if you've been invited, you're not,” Lori says, though clearly Joel had no desire, interest, or even an inkling of curiosity about whether he was invited.

“And, I'm sorry, Nola . . .” Lori makes a pity face.

Here it comes. She just couldn't resist, could she?

“But as much as
we
wanted to invite you,
we
just couldn't find a way without having to invite the rest of the staff.”

“We?” I can't help it. I take the bait.

“Yes. Dave and I. We've been working
verrry
closely. In fact, I'm having dinner with him at his house tonight, to go over plans.”

It hurts. It does, to think of the two of them acting like a married couple decorating “their” home, inviting “their” guests—one of whom is pointedly not me.

Still, I have to ask. “Isn't Olivia helping out?”

Lori wrinkles her nose. “Olivia? What would she have to do with the party planning?”

OK. Now I'm confused. Unfortunately, Joel steps in so I can't pry.

“Better Stanton should work late and focus on mollifying advertisers than eat pizza with you,” Joel says. “Have you seen the circulation numbers for the holiday issue? The pits.”

This, I know, is a total lie as (a) circulation numbers are highly guarded secrets known only to our advertising department and Interpol and (b) the holiday issue isn't even out yet. Still, it's enough to shake up Lori so that she must go tottering off on her high heels to check.

“Why do you let her do that to you?” Joel says after Lori's out of earshot.

“Do what?”

“Treat you like such a schlub. That woman thrives on making you a doormat and look at you. You're gorgeous, thin like a willow, and you're knocking off that column like an old pro.”

I smile placidly. “It's not as hard as I thought it would be,” I lie.

Joel dismisses this. “Nah. You're a natural. What I want to know is, why don't you spruce yourself up some? You know, treat yourself to a new wardrobe. Show off your new figure. Then maybe Mr. Bigshot Publisher will take notice.”

That's the thing about Joel. He's flattery, flattery, flattery right up to the last line until he slams with the zinger. He should learn to edit himself.

Plus, I am not as thin as a willow. I am still a hefty girl, though I prefer the word zaftig. Zaftig connotes Mae West—my secret personal role model. All bosom, hips, and attitude. Yes, I'd do all right in life if I could get by as Mae West.

My phone rings. It's Nancy sounding breathless. I eye my watch. Four p.m. Odd.

“How soon can you get to Trenton in this traffic?” she asks.

“Why? What's wrong?”

“Everything, but that's not why I'm calling. I'm about to do something very drastic and I either need to be talked out of it or be supported. Are you game?”

“Give me an hour.”

 
I find Nancy packing up her grand office. Pictures are down and leaning against the walls along with her framed diplomas and citations from various bar associations. Cardboard boxes are out and filled with folders. The fire in her gas fireplace (yes, it's that fancy a law firm) is roaring full strength. Nancy herself is flushed red.

In our friendship that spans two decades, I have never seen Nancy so striking. Her auburn hair is long so that it falls to her shoulders with Pantene-like shine and bounce. Her jet black suit is tailored, making the most of her new waist and slimmer hips. A Diane Von Furstenberg scarf hides her post-fat wrinkles at her neck and her ears are decorated with stunning pearls. She looks years younger—a far, far cry from the harried woman in dusters—and I wish desperately that Ron were here to see her.

“My God, you scared me,” she says, putting her hand to her chest. “You completely creeped me out standing in the doorway, staring. What are you doing?”

“Uh, nothing.” I step in and close the door. The office is bizarrely quiet for five in the afternoon. The receptionist said everyone was in a meeting. “I think the question of the moment is what are
you
doing?”

“Leaving.” She flips through another file and tosses it in the trash. “Probably.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I'd rather pack up my office and be good to go before I get fired than have everyone trotting back and forth, whispering as I pack up my desk.”

“Oh.” I have no idea what's going on.

“I never could have done this without you, Nola. I hope you know that.”

“Get fired?”

“I don't mean that. I mean, tell off Ted Kline in front of the firm.”

Now I'm the one with my hand to my chest. Ted Kline is the most powerful lawyer in New Jersey. Taking him aside and delivering a few choice words is one thing, but the whole firm?

“Listen, Nancy . . .”

She pushes me back. “Don't talk me out of it. For months, ever since I told you guys that the reason I let myself blow up was so Kline would lose interest in me, I've been thinking about what it means to stand up for yourself. It's been my little project, shrinking my body while building my self-esteem.”

Finished packing, Nancy goes over to the fire and warms her hands, though it is perfectly warm in here and the fire's not really that hot. “I kept telling myself that maybe Kline wasn't so bad and maybe I made the situation worse than it was because I was under a lot of pressure as a young associate or because Ron and I were having financial difficulties.”

Financial difficulties—that's a new twist.

“Then, this morning, he did it again. We were standing in the elevator and I noticed him ever so slightly pat the ass of Tanya Williamson, a kid who's so fresh out of law school she still has the bar tapes memorized.”

I know “bar tapes” has something to do with the law, but hearing the words made me think of some Paris Hilton Internet spam.

“That's when I realized that even if I'm not on his radar anymore, this guy is constantly on the prowl for fresh meat. He's not going to quit until someone steps forward and slaps him down. You following me, kiddo?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“OK.” She goes over to her drawer, pulls out a compact and lipstick, and does her lips so they are an affirmative brownish red. Goes very nice with the hair, actually. “I'm ready.”

“I'll be right here waiting for you when you get back.”

“No way.” She takes my hand. “You're going with me. You don't think I'd jump into that shark pool without a witness, do you? How're you at raising your right hand and swearing to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

If she knew about Belinda, she'd know better than to ask a ridiculous question like that.

 
“Gentlemen, ladies.” Nancy marches in ahead of me, smart and efficient in her suit, a heavy file folder tucked under her arm. I can tell by the way everyone snaps to attention that she is a commanding force here.

Me, on the other hand, not so commanding. The serious faces gathered around the oval table can't help but glance at me questioningly, I'm so out of place in my black elastic-waist skirt, tan ribbed turtleneck sweater, and scuffed boots. Clearly they have concluded I am one of Nancy's lowlife clients, the kind who sue candy bar companies for getting their dentures stuck on caramel.

“This meeting's almost over, Nancy. I thought you were too busy on the Boardman case to attend.” A white-haired man with a flushed face and a loud pink-and-navy striped tie that you see on the cover of catalogs but you can't imagine some real man wearing is standing by a chart with all sorts of zigs and zags on it. CLIENTS CONVICTED? BILLABLE HOURS? It's a mystery.

“Maybe someone here can bring her up to speed.”

“I don't need to be brought up to speed, and I don't give a tinker's damn about this firm's third quarterly report.”

There is a shocked gasp, the kind of shock one might express, say, if it were revealed that the Reverend Pat Robertson had conducted a longtime affair with a hooker—a gay hooker, at that. I suppose this is what passes for scandal at the Barlow, Cafferty and Kline law firm, not giving a “tinker's damn” about quarterly reports.

“Nancy,” Kline is saying, his tone instantly patronizing. “If it's outside the scope of the firm's fiscal health, then at least wait until the end.”

“Oh, it's within the scope of the firm's fiscal health, all right.” Nancy slams the file onto the table and opens it, pulling out a stack of copies that she distributes. When I get mine, I see it is a sworn affidavit of some sort. A “quick, sleazy” read (the kind we do best at
Sass!
) tells me it's from one of Kline's clients swearing that he sexually harassed her during a divorce case.