by Alina Jacobs
“I highly doubt that.”
“She mentioned that there was a free room down the hall.”
Ivy looked confused. “Okay, for what?”
I grinned at her.
“You can’t seriously be thinking about sleeping with her!” she hissed. “If you are, then you’re seriously dumber than you look.”
“You said I looked attractive!” I protested.
“Yes, exactly, which is highly correlated to unintelligence.”
“Then you must be suffering from the same affliction.”
“I’m not attractive,” she scoffed.
“You are very attractive, as evidenced by the fact that you completely missed the meaning of my invite to the free room.”
Her face went beet red. “You’re disgusting. I can’t believe I felt sorry for you.”
“You came on to me! And you were offering to ‘help me.’” I made air quotes.
“With an ice pack, not…” she sputtered and flailed her arms.
“The hottest, dirtiest sex you’ve ever had in a public place?” I offered.
“Yes. No!” She jabbed her finger at me. “You need to start making better decisions. You can’t go around having sex in public places. I bet you did that with Camilla, and that’s how you ended up in this mess. You need to realize that your billions don’t make you immune to shitty life choices.”
“You mean like inviting a strange man to your condo to spend the night?” I countered.
“Yes,” she said, glaring at me, “exactly like that.”
13
Ivy
I tried to put Evan out of my mind over the weekend. Like on every weekend during wedding season, I had a bride to attend to. Unlike Imogen and Camilla, this bride was wonderful and wholesome. She even gave all of us at Weddings in the City little personalized music boxes as thanks.
“You are literally the best bride ever!” I told her when she hugged me before taking off with her new husband to start on their grand adventure. It was the wee hours of the next morning, but she still looked as radiant as she had the day before.
After dropping Amy off at her apartment—which was even tinier than mine, though it did have a courtyard she could use as outdoor living space—I went home. Finally alone in my condo, I slumped on my bed and started to cry as Fergus howled irritably from under the bed.
Sometimes I didn’t know whether the bridezillas were worse than the happy, perfect brides. The nice brides were certainly easier and more fun to work with, but it was hard to convince myself that I was totally and completely happy with my life when I saw someone who had everything I wanted, and they were so nice and sweet that I couldn’t even hate them for it and instead was just so dang happy for them.
I scraped the leftover fish Elsie had given me onto a plate for Fergus then sat on the bed to drink, eat leftover wedding cake, and rewatch Queer Eye on Netflix until the sun rose. I spent the rest of the day sleeping off the rich food and too much alcohol, dozing with the background noise of the Fab Five giving wholesome life advice, until furious knocking on the door jarred me out of my stupor.
“I’m not here,” I mumbled. The knocking continued.
It’s probably Mrs. Russo, I thought, yawning as I pulled on a hoodie. She got lonely sometimes and liked to pop in to chat and ask me if I wanted cookies, which of course I always did. She wasn’t going to mind if I wasn’t wearing a bra.
As soon as I opened the door and saw Evan there, I immediately shut it.
“Ivy,” he said through the door, “you can’t just leave a guy out here. If you’re embarrassed because you’re not wearing a bra, don’t be. Your breasts are like two perfect grapefruits, ripe on the tree.”
I swung the door back open. “What is wrong with you?” I hissed. “People will hear you!”
“I came here to fulfill all your wildest fantasies and fuck you into the bed until you scream,” he said in a low voice.
My mouth went dry, and my panties were immediately soaked.
“Nah, I’m just playing!” Evan said with a grin. “I’m taking your words to heart. No more bad decisions! I’m here on a wholesome mission to see my precious baby Fergus.”
The cat meowed happily and ran into Evan’s arms.
“How is my darling kitty? Yes, I’ve had a hard day, and I just needed some Fergus love.”
It was like those videos of the soldiers returning home to their pets. Fergus was ecstatic to see Evan.
For a split second, I thought, Maybe I should just give Fergus to Evan.
But as much as the cat annoyed me, scratched me, and tore up my plants, I couldn’t get rid of him. Besides, how well did I know Evan? What if this was a temporary infatuation, and Fergus realized that Evan was a horrible human being and went back to his grouchy self, causing Evan to kick him back out onto the street? I couldn’t take that chance.
“Yeah, well, you have ten minutes with him, then you need to get out. I have work to do.”
“No, I need longer with my precious Fergus.”
“This apartment is not big enough.”
“But I brought food.” Evan jumped up, reached into the hallway for a brown paper sack, and handed it to me. It smelled heavenly.
“I figured you might be lasagnaed out, so I brought vitello tonnato and crusty bread, spaghetti carbonara with bucatini noodles, and antipasta. I’m not sure what’s in there, but there’s usually olives, so I lay claim to all of those, along with the sliced imported Genoa salami.”
“Hell no! You interrupted me just to pet my cat. The sausage is mine.”
Evan grinned at me above Fergus’s ears. “All of it?”
“If you didn’t just bring food, I would throw something at you.”
Evan flopped back on my bed, arranging his body like an advertisement for some Italian suit maker that was so obscure only the super-duper rich knew about them. He chucked Fergus under the chin, and the large cat purred.
I took out some plates and laid the food out on the narrow desk that was wedged between the bed and the wall. Normally I sat on the bed to work at the desk, but it would serve as a table.
“Don’t drip anything on my bedspread. It’s a bitch to try and haul this thing to the laundromat,” I warned Evan. “I have to go to the one a few blocks over, because that’s the only one big enough to dry this.”
“Pro tip,” Evan said, “you should remember to take the bedspread off before having hot and sweaty sex. Sheets are easier to clean than the comforter.”
“I’m not cleaning it because of that!” I shrieked at him.
Evan smirked and took the container of olives out of the bag. “Well, excuse me. I thought you just had a habit of bringing strange men back to your apartment to fulfill your hookup fantasies,” he said, spearing an olive with a fork.
“Then why in the world would I bring you?”
“I just figured you got cold feet,” he said with a shrug. “I was just too much for you to handle. I’m like a Greek god fallen from Mount Olympus, and you were so awestruck by my handsomeness that it was all you could do to worship me as I slept.”
I grabbed the bowl of olives from him. “Okay, Mr. Greek God, no more olives for you if you can’t behave.”
“You like our banter. It makes you excited,” Evan said.
“It makes me annoyed.”
“She says as she eats the food I brought her.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know the way to a woman’s heart: food and sex.”
“You date some shallow women.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, Camilla etc., etc.”
We were quiet for a moment. Though Evan annoyed me, he hadn’t deserved to be treated like that. People thought that all women were sweet and nice, but I’d had my fair share of run-ins with manipulative and abusive women, my mother being Exhibit A.
“I have to run,” Evan said, petting Fergus one last time. “I’ll be back, my furry friend.”
“You didn’t want any dinner?” I aske
d, feeling slightly miffed that he was leaving.
Evan grabbed the fork out of my hand, swirled up a coil of pasta, took a bite, then handed it back to me.
“Delicious. But I bought it for you. I have a fancy dinner meeting tonight. Going to be lots of drinking and dirty guy jokes, then we’re going to a strip club.” He laughed as I puffed up. “Kidding! I’m more professional than that. I know you think I’m an asshole, and I am, but I’m an asshole with standards.”
My condo felt colder and emptier after Evan left.
“It’s just because he takes up so much freaking space,” I muttered, angrily eating the pasta.
14
Evan
The business dinner was as dry as they normally were. I was one of the few there without a plus one—not that that was anything new either. Camilla had refused to attend any business functions with me in the last few months. She said it was beneath her, and she didn’t like the wives of the investors for my hedge fund. The reality was that they didn’t like her very much either.
At the event, no one I talked to seemed all that broken up about the end of Camilla’s and my relationship.
“You can do so much better,” the wife of one of the bigger investors assured me as she took another glass of wine from a waiter. “Stop looking for a wife online. You kids and your dating apps. You have to go out and live. The perfect girl may be waiting for you where you least expect it. One day you’ll look up and say, ‘Ah, it’s you!’”
“She’s had a bit to drink,” her friend told me after the two wandered off to the ladies’ room. “But honestly, Camilla is a, what do you kids say? A skank? It’s good that problem sorted itself out before you were tied down to her.”
“Man, women can be harsh,” Sebastian remarked. He was the other single person at the dinner. “At least they haven’t started trying to set you up with their daughters or nieces yet.” He handed me several photos of polite, well-bred young women.
“Going on any hot dates?” I asked him.
“Nah, you know I spend all my free time with my little brother. Especially now that my company is moving to Harrogate. He’s been a little antsy with the change. But you need to get back out there! The best cure for a terrible breakup is a hot rebound relationship.”
“That sounds like a bad idea,” I said with a frown, heading over to the bar.
“It’s a great idea!” Sebastian insisted, throwing an arm around me. “You just have to set the expectations up front. The girl has to know it’s just about sex and you working through some things. Surely there’s a woman out there who’s also getting over a bad breakup and just needs some stress relief.”
“Sounds like a recipe for disaster. I’m trying to limit the amount of toxic people in my life,” I said with a frown.
“Find a busy professional woman who just wants to blow off steam, you know, maybe only between the hours of seven and nine on a Tuesday, because the rest of her nights are scheduled with work events, Soul Cycle, or dinners with friends. You would just be an item in her calendar. No strings, no fuss.”
“I don’t know anyone like that,” I countered then put in my drink order. Except that I did. Ivy was a busy professional woman, and unless I had completely misread the situation—but I didn’t believe I had—Ivy was into me.
“Oh?” Sebastian said, waggling his eyebrows. “You have someone in mind?”
“I don’t,” I said, refusing to think of Ivy.
“Don’t deny it! I know you too well. Who is it? Anyone I know?” Sebastian insisted.
“Yeah, but,” I admitted, accepting my drink from the bartender, “I don’t think it will work. She hates my guts.”
“Even better!” Sebastian elbowed me.
“It’s not fun hatred. I kind of sort of owe her money.”
Sebastian sucked in a breath. “Yeah, you better stay away from that. Also, pay your fucking bills, dude. You’re going to make me look bad by association if people think you’re ducking out on contracts.”
“It’s not like that. It’s complicated,” I said, shushing him.
“Maybe you shouldn’t start hooking up with this woman,” Sebastian said, clinking his glass to mine. “It sounds like it could turn into a Russian mafia situation.”
Except that now that the idea was in my head, Ivy was all I could think about. But my contentious relationship with her was already a disaster.
I think I know how to fix it though.
15
Ivy
“I hate New York City,” Brea said to me when I saw her at our morning meeting the next day at the shared kitchen space where Sophie worked.
“You mean you don’t like the sociopathic men, the piles of garbage, and the astronomical rent?” Grace asked dryly.
Brea glowered over the lace bridal gown bodice she was stitching. The girl never stopped sewing. “I am almost thirty, and I still live with my parents.”
“But you’re a small-business owner,” Amy said. “That’s something.”
“One sixth of a small-business owner.”
“There won’t be a business if Camilla doesn’t pay,” Grace said.
“I’m working on it.” I felt terrible that my own lack of boundaries was costing my friends money. “It will be fine, I promise,” I continued. “Another bride just called me about planning a wedding for this time next year. Her dad and fiancé are loaded. She seems nice too.”
“What’s the catch?” Amy asked.
I grimaced. “She has terrible taste. She wants her whole wedding to be North Maine Woods-themed, and she wants to have it at a sporting goods store.”
“Oof!” Elsie said as she passed out little salmon-filled pastries to us.
“Eat this,” she ordered. “Also, I can go talk to Camilla since she’s not listening to you.”
Amy winced. “Elsie, you know we love you…”
“But you can’t go accost Camilla,” Grace said. “You can be very… blunt.”
“I have to be. I run a kitchen,” Elsie said, crossing her arms. My friend was tall and a bit intimidating.
Sophie bustled over to the table with a platter of several exquisitely decorated miniature wedding cakes.
“It’s raspberry-almond-chocolate layer cake,” she explained, slicing into one and handing it to me. “I’m trying a new recipe.”
“How are the proofs coming? Do you need any help on photos?” I asked Grace.
“I’m on top of them for now. Honestly, I spend more time telling brides that yes, I’m still working on them and no, I can’t just send them the raw files than actually working.”
“I’ll gently remind all our brides that they need to go through me so that you all aren’t having to deal with so many emails,” I told her, making a note.
“If it’s just a comment here or there, I don’t mind,” Sophie said, taking another of the salmon pastries. “But it’s the brides like Imogen who send these thousand-word emails and then call you and scream at you when you haven’t responded within five minutes.”
“We need to start adding a bridezilla clause to our contracts,” Amy said.
“I feel even worse for the wedding party,” Grace added as she flipped through some of the pictures on her tablet to show us the ones from the bridal tea from Friday. “Look at the poor maid of honor!”
“Mika is the matron of honor,” I corrected. “Her brother Evan is the man of honor.”
“You’re going to be spending a lot of time with him then!” Amy teased. “Now that you’re going to be in close proximity with him all the time, I predict several instances in which the stress gets the better of you and you need a release.”
“No,” Sophie said in concern. “Don’t do that. What if people find out? They’ll think you broke up him and Camilla’s marriage.”
“I am not going to sleep with Evan!” I said, shocked. “No way, no how. Haven’t even thought about it.”
“Not even once when he was naked sleeping in your bed?” Grace teased.
I r
eddened slightly then swallowed. “There was a feral cat between us.”
“Good,” Elsie said. “Sophie’s right. Our business is already in hot water. We cannot afford to be blacklisted because you couldn’t keep your panties on.”
“Don’t listen to them,” Grace said. “Sleep with him and then tell us about it so I can live vicariously through you. I will die chained to my laptop, editing wedding photo after wedding photo. I need some excitement.”
“The video of the ruined wedding already ended up all over the internet. People are going to be watching Evan closely for the next few months. We already have one business disaster,” Elsie warned. “Let’s not create another one.”
Forget business disasters, I thought as I dragged myself back to my apartment. I have life disasters.
I needed to figure out how I was going to pay the two mortgages. My friends and I were at max capacity during wedding season. We really needed to charge more, I decided, as I looked over our finances, feeling sick. Elsie had been an accountant before she became a caterer, and she had our spreadsheets super organized. I was not a math person, but with all the red boxes on the spreadsheet, even I could tell things weren’t all that great.
Instead of being an adult and looking for a way to send Camilla’s bill to collections, since clearly that was where this was heading, I heated up the leftovers of the food Evan had brought me and worked on a vision board for Imogen’s wedding décor.
I loved crafting and making fun, colorful boards of design ideas. That was one of the main reasons I had become a wedding planner. I just could not get enough weddings! Sitting cross-legged on the bed, cutting out shiny gold paper, pictures from magazines, and scraps fabric Brea had given me at the meeting, I slipped into my happy place. Even Fergus came out from under the bed and let me feed him little bits of the veal from the vitello tonnato.
I looked up longingly at the picture of the fabulous Brookview Hotel clock tower penthouse. Crafting would be so much better there. Then I wouldn’t have to find money for an office. There would be plenty of room for my team to camp out. Fergus yowled.