by Alina Jacobs
“One of us has to work,” I retorted.
Wes gave me a worried smile. “You should get a dog though. Kal is great.” Wes’s large American Akita wagged his tail and went back to begging Liz for food. Wes set a chair in front of her and put her feet up.
“You need to stop treating me like I’m fragile,” Liz complained.
“I can’t believe I had no idea you were pregnant,” Wes fretted, putting a pillow under her feet. “You weren’t even taking any vitamins. This is a terrible start to parenthood. What if the baby comes out with three heads or something?” Satisfied that her feet were properly taken care of, Wes handed her a bowl full of raw spinach.
Liz made a face.
“It’s so adorable it’s almost sickening, isn’t it?” Dana said in my ear, jabbing me in the ribs. “Drink?”
“I’m not drinking with you anymore. The last time, I ended up agreeing to be set up on a blind date. The woman turned out to be one of the Svenssons’ love interests, and they almost killed me.”
“I was doing you a favor,” Dana insisted as she mixed a vodka tonic. She squeezed the lime into the glass and handed it to me. “You need to get back out there. The more you practice talking to pretty women, the more accessible and attractive you’ll seem.”
“Why does everyone care if I date someone?”
Dana sighed. “You are turning into some sort of Beauty and the Beast parody. When I came over here last week to visit Wes, you were just standing at your condo window, hulking and sulking.”
I glared at my drink. “Why don’t you take your own advice?”
Dana laughed. “Please. As if I want anything to do with any of the little boys running around Manhattan with their expensive sports cars and overpriced scotch.”
“There’s always Gunnar Svensson.”
“Gross. No.”
“But you kissed him on Christmas Eve!” I protested.
“It wasn’t a real kiss. It was a drunk-friend kiss.”
“There are other Svensson brothers.”
“My dad would flip his shit if I started dating one of the Svensson brothers. They hate each other. And I doubt one of the Svenssons would date a Holbrook anyways.”
“They like Wes.”
“Because my brother is a bit of an idiot. They find him easy to manipulate. As we all well know.”
I looked away.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dana told me.
It was the same thing everyone in my family told me. But it had been my fault. Wes wouldn’t have known. I had been in the military. I did cryptography. It was literally my job to recognize patterns, rout out spies, and then eliminate them. And yet I had let Rhonda worm her way into my family.
I tossed back the rest of my drink. My cousins and brother were play fighting, their dogs bouncing around them, their girlfriends giggling. I felt like such an outsider.
“I need to go,” I told Dana, setting the glass down. “Market opens in Japan soon.”
“Don’t forget, you have to be at my wedding-planning meeting tomorrow!” Liz called out as I tried to sneak out.
I froze. “Why?” I said in horror.
“You’re the best man, aren’t you?” she said.
There was another worried look from Wes.
“Of course,” I said, jaw tense. “But that doesn’t make me the wedding planner.”
“Wes is going out of town a lot over the next few months before the baby comes,” Liz pleaded, “so I need you there to make sure that he’ll like what we pick.”
“I’ll like anything you pick out,” Wes told her, gazing at her softly.
I tamped down the jealousy and bitterness, forcing my expression to remain neutral. “Yes, Liz, anything you pick is fine.”
“Please!” Liz begged.
“I bet there will be alcohol,” Carter said.
“You’re not invited,” his girlfriend told him. “You’d just derail the entire meeting.”
“I can party plan,” Carter insisted. “Flowers, bells, papier-mâché, cake—boom! Wedding.”
“This is why you have to be the best man, Mark,” Grant said with a laugh. “Carter will turn it into a train wreck. You’re the only one of us who is marginally organized.”
They’ve only been engaged for a few hours, and I’m already sick of weddings.
5
Brea
I would never be sick of weddings. Even though the engagement party had only just occurred, I was already envisioning the perfect wedding. Everyone had their own idea of what the key part of the wedding was. For some people, it was the cake, for others, the décor, and for some, the food. For me, it was the dress. There was an art to the perfect wedding gown. The dress had to complement the venue, and it had to fit the bride’s personality. I had a few ideas for Liz’s dress, though none of them screamed “sexy.” There was only so much I could do with a baby bump, especially since by the time she stood at the altar, it was going to be a full-on baby.
“She’s back!” my parents called when I opened the door to the small two-bedroom walkup.
My two dads had moved to New York from their respective small Southern towns in the eighties, fallen in love, and survived the AIDS crisis by being introverted recluses and rarely leaving their apartment. They loved to eat, and they loved a bargain. So the apartment was packed with stuff and food, which was just how I liked it.
“We thought you might have found a man, fallen in love, and run off to a foreign country,” Todd Bachler said as he ate a slice of pizza.
“As if,” I scoffed, grabbing a slice of peperoni from the box.
Beau, his husband, held up a Roomba, giggling. “We adopted another one.”
I looked around the apartment. My dads had a soft spot for the robots. We weren’t allowed to have pets in the apartment, so they adopted Roombas. They hated seeing the little round robot vacuums being abandoned, so on their walks, they would take in Roombas that people had put in the trash. The eight-hundred-square-foot apartment was now home to six Roombas, and they all had names and backstories.
“I think we’re going to call him Horatio,” Beau said, patting the Roomba affectionately. “Can you make him a little outfit? We want him to fit in with everyone else.”
“Sure,” I said, flopping down on the small couch with them.
“Your mother called,” Todd said.
I stopped mid chew.
My mother was a fag hag, as my father affectionately called her, and when she had turned thirty, she’d decided she wanted to be a single mother by choice. She had used a turkey baster to impregnate herself and ended up with twins. Not wanting both, she had given my dads yours truly and kept my sister.
I’d always felt like I’d gotten the better end of the stick, even with the Roombas and the clutter. My mom had dragged my sister around the world, and she had never had a stable home. Mom went from bad boyfriend to bad boyfriend. I was sure that was why my sister was bananas, and not in a fun way.
“She wants to know why you aren’t friends with her on Instagram,” Beau added.
“I can’t have all those pictures of her half naked with her crooked breast implants all over my Instagram feed,” I told them as my dad hefted himself up to grab a container of chocolate Rice Krispies treats. “I have to work with high-end brides; they and their families are very conservative. If I want to show them a dress I like on Instagram, I can’t have Stella Rose and her animal-print thong-kini all over my phone screen.”
I took one of the chocolate Rice Krispies treats Todd offered.
“Yum! These are the best.”
Beau threw some loose cereal down on the floor, and the Roombas whirred by to vacuum it up.
“Honestly,” Todd said in exasperation.
“They were hungry,” Beau protested.
I gave my parents each a hug, and they went back to watching British comedies. As much grief as I gave them about being pack rats, I couldn’t talk. I scooted one of the Roombas, which was wearing a purple-and-silver tu
tu that I had made, out of the way as I went to my room.
It was my sanctuary. The ceilings in the tiny apartment were higher than normal, and I had filled every inch of wall space with shelving. My shelves held yards and yards of silk, lace, and tulle. I had an extensive antique button collection and thousands of dollars’ worth of seed pearls that I meticulously sewed onto wedding dress gowns and bodices.
The one spot of the wall not taken up with sewing materials hosted my #Goals bulletin board. In my dream world, in which I wasn’t still living in my childhood bedroom, I had a chic apartment—one of those prewar ones with tall ceilings, a chandelier, and original molding. I wanted a corgi and a nice kitchen and a cute husband. I would have a sewing room with huge windows with a ton of natural light. Most of all, I wanted a Louis Vuitton Stokowski steamer trunk with a fold-out table. But those were big and extravagant, and I could never in a million years fit one in my bedroom even if I did have the money (ha!) to buy one.
“I just need a rich husband,” I told the dream board. Henry Cavill’s face smoldered at me from the pinned picture.
Kind of looks like Mark Holbrook.
Traitorous thoughts. Mark Holbrook was the worst!
“No one is as great as you,” I whispered to Henry’s picture.
I took up my sketchpad and listened to my parents talk to the Roombas as I began designing a gown for Liz.
It was pitch-black outside as I tramped up the steps of the subway station to Weddings in the City’s office the next morning. Talk about rich men buying a nice piece of real estate—Ivy’s new billionaire boyfriend had bought her the coolest penthouse on top of the Brookview Hotel, a repurposed clock tower. The round two-story windows let in a flood of natural light. It was exactly what I needed to sew.
The only problem? It was an hour and a half away from my parents’ apartment. I yawned as I made a pot of coffee. It was my third cup today. I usually drank a coffee immediately when I woke up, then I bought one on the way to the train, then I drank a fancy breakfast coffee in my office.
“Yum, hazelnut roast!” I said, inhaling. I was finally starting to wake up as the coffee brewed.
Breakfast coffee was special. It was like the sweet, nonalcoholic version of those Bloody Marys that come with a grilled cheese, bacon, and shrimp balanced on top. My breakfast coffee went into a giant mug that said YOU’RE SEW AWESOME! On top went a scoop of birthday-cake ice cream, then a donut, and then whipped cream and sprinkles. If there was any leftover wedding cake from Sophie, I put that on there too.
I drank-slash-ate my coffee and selected an audiobook. The sun shone in through the window as I sewed and listened. This was how women had worked for hundreds of years, doing needlework to the sound of someone reading or other women gossiping.
“Morning!” Ivy sang out, making me jump.
I pulled off my headphones. “Sorry. I didn’t think you were going to be in this early,” I said as my friends filed into the office.
“You texted us franticly last night about Liz’s wedding, and then she also sent me a five-page, single-spaced document outlining her vision for the wedding. Plus a courier sent over this.” Ivy held up a scrapbook titled My Dream Wedding.
Ivy had started Weddings in the City as a collaborative so that brides could have a one-stop shop for a beautiful, high-class wedding. She was the wedding planner. Amy, short and bubbly, created beautiful, locally grown flower arrangements. Sophie baked delicious wedding cakes decorated with her signature sculpted sugar flowers. Elsie cooked the tastiest catering ever. Yours truly designed and sewed one-of-a-kind, ethereal wedding dresses, and Grace was the wedding photographer extraordinaire.
While we no longer did business out of a corner café, we still needed to get ourselves together. Maybe raise prices, hire a secretary—preferably a hot one who looked like Chris Hemsworth.
“I’m surprised you need to read about billionaires considering you half had one yesterday,” Grace teased, motioning to the sexually suggestive book cover on my phone.
Thoughts of Mark Holbrook flooded back.
“He’s a wedding-hating robot,” I told them. “He has some sort of complex.”
“I bet he has a big bank account,” Sophie said, waggling her eyebrows. “And an even bigger dick.”
“Ladies!” Elsie admonished. “Mark is the relative of a client. We need to keep it classy. This is a high-end establishment.”
“Yes,” Ivy smirked, “we don’t use that word. Call it a ‘member’ or a ‘little Mark.’”
“That just sounds skeezy!” Amy retorted.
“Yeah, like a brothel,” I added.
“We are small-business owners!” Elsie barked over our shrieks of laughter.
“Barely. Brea had ice cream for breakfast!” Sophie complained, holding up my empty mug.
“And I’m having it for lunch,” I said, going back to my sewing.
6
Mark
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The nice thing about waking up early, aside from having more time in the day and being able to work before the flood of emails rolled in starting at nine, was that my family didn’t bother me.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Mark!” Carter hollered. His raggedy little dog yipped under the crack of the door.
I was doing T’ai chi in my living room.
“I am going to ignore him,” I told myself. “He does not exist. I am a block of ice, a piece of wood carved in the desert sand.”
“Let me in. I need to use the bathroom!”
“What the—” I wrenched open the door. “You have a whole apartment to yourself. Why are you even down here?”
“We came to see you!” Grant was behind Carter, flipping through his phone. His half brother Wes was beside him. He gave me a weak smile. I didn’t return it.
“I tried to tell them to leave you alone,” Wes told me.
“Clearly not hard enough,” I grumbled.
Wes followed Grant and my brother inside. Carter immediately went to my fridge.
“Do you have any food from the Gray Dove Bakery?”
“No.”
“But it’s in your office building.”
“Do you have some reason for being here?” I asked. “I have to finish my workout then go to the office.”
“This,” Carter announced, “is an intervention.”
“No.”
“We just feel like,” Wes said gamely, “that, well, all of us have a girlfriend.”
“Dana is single,” I interjected. “Why don’t you go harass her?”
Grant shuddered. “She’ll do something mean like put whipped cream in your shoe.”
“Besides, you are the one with the tragic backstory,” Carter added, peeling one of the hardboiled eggs in my fridge.
“I booked you a slot in a speed-dating event,” Wes said, handing me a flyer. “You might be able to meet someone. Even if you don’t find the love of your life, maybe you can at least make friends.”
“You work too much,” Grant told me as Carter dropped little pieces of eggshell on my floor.
“I don’t need friends, and I certainly don’t need a girlfriend.”
“Why don’t you just try,” Wes said, tone cautious.
“We aren’t leaving until you say yes,” Carter told me, slicing off a piece of cheese and shoving it into his mouth.
“Okay,” I lied. “I’ll go.”
Grant narrowed his eyes at me. “That seemed a little too easy.”
“I’ll be there,” I told them. More lying. Then I herded them to the door.
I looked at the flyer after they left. “Speed dating,” I scoffed. The cover photo was of a vapid-looking woman with a martini glass. I balled up the flyer and threw it in the recycling bin.
I wanted to go to speed dating about as much as I wanted to go to the wedding-planning meeting that afternoon.
The Weddings in the City office was in one of the Svensson brothers’ historic hotels. Fortunately, I didn’t run into any of
them as I crossed the lobby to the mirrored elevator that took me up to the top floor.
I had three hours blocked out on my calendar for this. If it went on any longer, I was going to politely excuse myself.
The things I do for family.
Liz was already seated at the long wooden table, Wes next to her. I shook hands with Ivy, the wedding planner.
“We’re just waiting on the maid of honor,” Ivy told me. “Would you care for tea or water?”
The elevator dinged.
“I’m here! I’m here! I had to get coffee!”
I turned just in time to see Brea skidding toward me, an enormous cup of coffee in her hand.
7
Brea
The shock of seeing Mark freaking Holbrook in the office was too much. I stumbled in surprise, and my ballet flats skidded on the hardwood floor as I careened toward him. He put out a hand and caught the coffee cup as I face-planted in front of him.
“Oh my God, Brea!” Ivy exclaimed as she ran to help me up.
“Still not used to the hardwood floors,” I said weakly as I clambered to my feet.
Mark wordlessly handed me the coffee cup.
“At least you saved the most important thing, right?” I said as I limped to my seat, my hip silently screaming.
“That’s why he’s the best man!” Wes joked.
Mark fucking Holbrook. No way was I going to plan a wedding with him.
I slurped my coffee. Mark’s eye twitched.
I did not want him here ruining the wedding. Normally, I wasn’t all that involved in the planning except for the dress and veil. But now? I rubbed my hands together. A whole, entire wedding was going to be planned by me! Mark was not going to ruin this with his glare and his bad attitude.
I sent evil thought waves at him over my coffee. I’m going to make you quit, I silently promised.