Fashionably Late

by Beth Kendrick

  Claire maintained a Zen-like state of serenity through the mock ceremony, stopping only once to upbraid the wedding planner. And she actually complimented Mom’s dress. But when the bridal party reassembled for dinner at the hip West Hollywood restaurant, she pulled me aside, her face grim.

  “I have some bad news, Becks.”

  “What? You’re not going to go through with the wedding?” I perked up. She and I could be single girls together! We could find a fabulous apartment on the beach and start exciting new lives, practically the stuff of sitcoms, and—

  “Of course I’m going to go through with it, you git. Do you have any idea how hard it is to snare a straight, single, good-looking man with a nice car and a decent stock portfolio in this town?” She gave me a pointed look. “I know how to hang on to a good thing.”

  “So what’s the problem? Is this about the flower girl who had the audacity to grow three inches before your perfect day? I told you, I’ll fix the hem tonight.”

  She twisted her fingers together around her 2.88-carat diamond ring. “This isn’t about the flower girl’s dress, but you’re getting warm.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, the first stirrings of dread creeping into my stomach.

  She reached into the crowd and dragged Gayle into our little dance of dysfunction. “I can’t say it. You tell her.”

  Gayle sighed, straightened her prim yellow cardigan, and looked me straight in the eye. “There’s no way to put this gently. The wedding dress you made is out. She’s decided to go with a Carolina Herrera.”

  My jaw hit the floor as I turned back to Claire. “You…but how did you…?”

  “I ordered it six months ago,” she confessed, covering her eyes with both hands. “Just in case yours didn’t work out. I’m horrible, I know. You’re going to hate me forever.”

  “So you’ve been planning to wear a different gown since…” I did a quick count back. “June? And you wait until the night before the wedding to tell me?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I know you hate confrontation.”

  Gayle snorted. “She hates confrontation?”

  “I can’t believe this.” I gaped at them. “That dress took me months to make. I’ve been cutting and sewing and scouring the entire Southwest for Venetian lace in just the right shade of ivory and all this time you knew. You knew you were going to throw me over for Carolina Herrera?”

  “No! I only decided for sure last week. I’ve been going back and forth about which gown to wear, and I just think that, for the newspapers and everything, the Carolina Herrera would be better.”

  Ah, yes. The newspapers. Way to grind another shaker of salt into the wound. “The newspapers,” which would not be photographing the dress that had consumed the greater part of my twenty-fifth year.

  “Claire. Do you have any idea how many other design projects I turned down so I could do this gown?”

  My sisters exchanged a look.

  I put both hands on my hips. “Listen. I could have worked on other design projects.”

  Gayle patted my shoulder. “Oh, Becca, no one’s saying your feelings aren’t valid…”

  “…But seriously, come on,” Claire finished. “Other design opportunities? Name one.”

  I set my jaw, but had no reply.

  “Besides, the bridesmaids’ dresses will still be in the paper. And try not to cry over this, okay? No one wants puffy-eyed bridesmaids in their wedding photos.” She gave me a quick hug. “Be strong, Becca. For me.”

  Gayle took a sip of her Chardonnay. “Claire, could you dial down the narcissism for one second, please?”

  “I’m allowed to be a narcissist today. All weekend long, in fact. It’s my God-given right as a bride.”

  “Can’t we please focus on Becca for one second? She’s very upset.”

  “And you think I’m not? The florist just called and said they ran out of white tulips! I don’t have all night to chant healing affirmations, okay? I have a wedding to throw.”

  “Claire…”

  “Ugh. Fine.”

  My sisters turned to me, exasperated.

  “Go ahead,” Gayle prompted.

  I threw up my hands. “What on earth would possess you to buy an extra wedding gown anyway?”

  Claire patted my head as she would a fuzzy bunny’s. “Babe, this is Los Angeles. Everyone buys at least two gowns. It’s the thing to do. Seriously. Modern Bride says it’s the hot new trend.”

  “Modern Bride says no such thing.” I appealed to a higher authority. “Gayle…”

  But Gayle shook her head, digging her cell phone out of her bag. “I’ve said my piece and now I have to call Tiffany and Co. to order some platinum-plated hors d’oeuvres forks for the happy couple.”

  “If that’s supposed to be some kind of dig about our registry…”

  “No, no, I know lots of brides who request eight-hundred-dollar ceramic fruit bowls.”

  “Choke on my bling, Gayle!” Claire yelled after her.

  “Eight hundred dollars for a fruit bowl?” I marveled.

  “Totally reasonable.” She huffed, smoothed her thick blond hair back behind her ear. “Do you have any idea how much we’re spending on this wedding? And ten years down the road, when Andrew leaves me for his personal trainer and I get shafted in the divorce and have to live in…” She closed her eyes against the horror of it all “…Van Nuys, I’ll need something to remind me of my halcyon days.”

  “That’s not a very romantic thing to be thinking about the night before your wedding.”

  “I’m not a romantic, I’m a realist.” Claire paused to wave across the room to her future husband, who had been trapped by our mother and was currently enduring a lengthy monologue on the merits of lapel versus wrist corsages. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s fine for you—you can design clothes until you drop dead. Even if you never set foot out of Phoenix, you can keep telling yourself that success is right around the corner. But I’m not risking my entire future on some fantasy that’s never going to happen. If I haven’t made it as an actress by now, it’s never gonna happen. I’m thirty. Thirty!” She frowned down at her green bias-cut slip dress. “And look at me!”

  She was actually thirty-one, but I sensed that now was not the time to split hairs.

  “You look great,” I said grudgingly. Better than she deserved to look, considering what she’d just done to me. Tall and willowy, a fanatic disciple of Bikram yoga and Pilates, the undisputed beauty of the Davis family. “And how do you know your acting career won’t take off any day now?”

  “With a fresh batch of nineteen-year-olds bouncing off the bus every day? I don’t think so. I’ve gotten three acting gigs in the past five years. Two beer commercials and a deodorant print ad do not a career make. Even my agent has given up and decided to try screenwriting. You only get so many chances and I missed mine. So down the aisle I go.”

  “Plus, you love him,” I reminded her.

  “Maybe I do.” She leveled her gaze. “But that’s irrelevant. Love and security are very different things, and you have to get your priorities straight.”

  I didn’t argue. As the youngest sister, my role in our family was to tag along with my sisters and be agreeable. Gayle was the level-headed mediator, Claire was the dramaholic glamour gal, and I…well, put it this way: when we were little and my sisters decided to play Annie in the backyard, I was always assigned the role of Sandy the dog.

  “Life is about compromise,” she lectured. “You’ll see. Speaking of which, where’s Kevin?”

  I took this as my cue to go find a new conversation partner and an adult beverage.

  The clink of silverware and the buzz of Friday night conversation spilled out onto the restaurant’s patio as I stared up at the white twinkle lights punctuating the cool evening air. Anxiety and bitter disappointment oozed from my every pore as my mood pitched into a downward spiral.

  I snapped to attention as a clean-cut stranger approached purposefully from the bar, holding
two glasses of champagne.

  I glanced over my shoulder, hoping a buxom blond beach bunny behind me had caught his eye. But no. It was just me, about to have my first encounter with an L.A. pick-up artist. Claire had warned me about this unctuous breed of bottom-feeder: “Seriously, Becca, they’re toupee-wearing, STD-carrying skeeves who feed on wide-eyed tourists like an entourage on free Cristal. Don’t talk to them. Don’t even say hi. They’ll take the slightest courtesy as a sure sign they’ll be bagging you in their jacked-up Camaro by the end of the night. Trust me.”

  To be fair, this guy didn’t look like the toupee-wearing type. On the contrary, he was tall, dark, handsome; a veritable walking cliché. But whatever. I was frustrated, I was depressed, and I was in no mood for this.

  The guy got a load of my stormy expression but forged ahead, clearing his throat and leading in with: “Excuse me, miss—”

  I dropped the porcupine routine and rolled my eyes. “That’s your opener?”

  “My opener?” He furrowed his brow.

  “ ‘Excuse me, miss.’ I heard that…aren’t you supposed to slither up to me and be like, ‘Your legs sure must be tired ’cause you’ve been running through my mind all night’? Or ‘Can I look at the tag on your shirt? I want to see if it says “Made in Heaven”’?”

  “I’d like to think I’m a little smoother than that. Actually, I’m just wondering if you’re a member of the bridal party. For the rehearsal dinner?”

  Oops. “Oh. Well. Yes, I am.”

  “Because they’re getting ready to do the toasts, and I’m supposed to be rounding up all the barflies like yourself.”

  “You’re the maître d’?”

  He leaned back against the doorframe. I could see amusement gleaming in his eyes. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Oh God. I’m sorry.” I desperately scanned the patio for a place to hide. “And mortified. I’m usually not so rude. This is my first time in L.A. I thought you were—never mind. I feel awful. I work in retail myself, so believe me when I say that I know from rude customers.”

  “You must, if you hear pickup lines like those.”

  As I accepted the flute of fizzy booze he offered, I couldn’t help noticing that his left hand was free of any matrimonial hardware. “This wouldn’t happen to be spiked with Prozac, would it?”

  “’Fraid not.” He extended his hand. “I’m Connor Sullivan. Anything I can do to help?”

  “Becca Davis. Beyond help at this point.”

  He raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry.

  “The bride—” I jerked my head toward Claire, who had curled up next to Andrew and was now gazing at him like a loyal little Pomeranian “—was supposed to debut my line of wedding wear.”

  He followed my gaze, then nodded. “Operative phrase: ‘supposed to.’ ” He did not seem at all fazed to hear that I was into clothing design. Probably because Southern California was already teeming with aspiring Stella McCartneys, all of them more talented than I.

  “That’s right. In the grand tradition of rookie designers, I got shoved to the back of the closet.” I shook my head and studied the shadows under the brass-rimmed bar. “I know, it’s horrible for me to even be thinking about this at my sister’s wedding, but I just…”

  I could almost hear the gears in his head whirr into male-problem-solving mode.

  “Does she still have the dress?”

  I turned my palms up. “One can only hope so.”

  He shrugged. “Why don’t you wear it?”

  “You mean like for my wedding?” How had he known I was engaged? My diamond ring was once again interred in my dresser in Phoenix. “Oh, that’s a whole other can of worms. I’m supposed to marry this guy, Kevin, but I don’t think it’s going to work out. He’s a good person, but we’re just so different and I really don’t know—”

  He looked a little taken aback by this barrage of intimate information. “It doesn’t have to be for your wedding. You just said you were a designer. Can’t you design it into something else?”

  My mouth was saying, “Oh, that’d be gauche…” at the same time my mind was re-creating the gown. I could hem it to the knee, dye it (plum? light blue?), and accessorize with strappy heels and dangly earrings.

  He paused, letting me mentally restructure for a moment. “And if you’re a designer, you’re in the right neighborhood.” I must have looked puzzled, because he pointed at the restaurant’s front door. “Melrose Avenue is right around the corner. Where are you visiting from?”

  “Arizona.”

  He nodded. “Big fashion scene out there?”

  I downed half my champagne in one gulp. “Not really. But I do work in the design business. Kind of. I’m a sales assistant in a boutique. And the owner said she might start selling some of my designs. Maybe next season.” I sighed, omitting the fact that the owner had been saying this—and failing to follow through—since my first day on the job. Mostly, she wanted me to make coffee and clean lipstick stains off tops discarded in the dressing room.

  “Hey, everybody’s got to start somewhere, right? I used to work construction in Denver, and now all this is mine.”

  My eyes widened. “It is?”

  “Well, it used to be seventy-five percent mine, but I recently bought out my business partner.” He nodded at Andrew. “Seems he had a fancy five-star wedding to finance.”

  “You must really love the restaurant business to put up with all the long hours and the snotty clientele like myself.”

  “Oh, I don’t come in every day. I hire the best managers I can find and let them do their job.”

  “So what do you do with the rest of your time?”

  “I have stakes in a couple of different businesses out here. A little of this, a little of that.”

  “Probably a good idea.” I nodded. “I hear the restaurant business is pretty risky.”

  “I love a challenge.” He grinned. “And I’m not really a nine-to-five kind of guy—I like to have a few irons in the fire. A drastic career change every now and then is good for the soul. Keeps life interesting.” He watched my face closely. “You know, if you’re really serious about clothing design, you should move out here. Here or New York.”

  “That’s what they tell me.” I finished off the rest of my champagne, slapped on a cheery smile, and prepared to make my way back to the Carolina Herrera fan club in the next room. “But I’m only out here for two more days, and then it’s back to Phoenix, hotbed of haute couture.”

  “You must be a good designer if she was willing to let you make her gown.” He glanced at Claire, who was now barking orders into her cell phone. All I could hear over the din of the crowd was the word “tulips” repeated over and over.

  “Oh, I’m not good enough for Melrose yet,” I assured him.

  “How do you know until you try?”

  I shrugged.

  “Life is short,” he said. “I actually need a replacement for one of my hostesses. She’s heading back to London for a month and you could sub for her. Just dip your toe in. Send a few samples out, shop them around during the day, see if you get any nibbles. You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

  “But…” I automatically started to refuse, even as I envisioned all the possibilities. All those stylists buying all those outfits for their red-carpet clients. “Why would you do that for me?”

  “Why?” He paused for a moment, then put both hands in his pockets. “Because I know your brother-in-law-to-be? Because I remember what it’s like to start out in this city?”

  I gave him a long, assessing look. “Uh-huh.”

  He laughed at my expression. “Don’t worry. I’m completely up to date on all sexual harassment laws. You and your fiancé have nothing to worry about on that score.”

  I tapped my fingernail against my glass. “That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know how to be a hostess.”

  “Can you smile, answer a phone, and pander endlessly to self-important egomaniacs?”

 
“Did I mention I work in retail?”

  He grinned. “Thirty days. Give yourself a chance.”

  And then he excused himself, leaving me alone with an empty glass and a heady rush of potential.

  6

  I broke off my engagement during a Friday night airing of Gladiator on cable a week after Claire’s wedding.

  Bad timing, true, but I’d already bought tickets for a Southwest Airlines flight leaving for LAX on Saturday morning, and every time I tried to discuss the state of our union, Kevin tuned me out or changed the subject. It was as if he knew, like a Jedi sensing a disturbance in the force, what was coming and vowed to restore the natural balance of things with benign chitchat about the weather. When I finally called him the day I got back from L.A., he acted as if nothing untoward had ever happened. Wedding plans, olive trees, and lifelong romantic commitments suddenly vanished from our conversational horizons.

  “Kevin,” I began, giving up any pretense that I could focus on Russell Crowe’s blood-soaked battles. “We need to talk.”

  He frowned at the TV screen. “You know, actually, in ancient Rome, when the emperor gave the ‘thumbs-up’ signal, it meant ‘kill him’, not ‘spare him.’ ”

  “Uh-huh.” This was a big thing with him—pointing out all historical inaccuracies and implausible plot points in films and TV shows. Most of the time I found this clever and endearing, but lately it had started to wear a bit thin. “Listen. I’m going to Los Angeles tomorrow. And I’m going to be out there for a while.”

  He crammed popcorn into his mouth and crunched furiously.

  I sighed. “Please don’t ignore me. This is hard for me, too.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a month. Maybe longer; depending on what happens.”

  “Well, you must have given Alexa a time frame,” he insisted. Alexa was my boss at the boutique.

  “I didn’t. In fact, I quit my job at the boutique.”

  This got his attention. “You quit? Becca, how could you do that?”

  “Oh, come on, it was a bullshit job.” I started twisting my ring around and around my finger, easing it over my knuckle and all the way up to the nail bed. “Practically minimum wage, crappy benefits, no opportunity for advancement…”