She drew in a breath. The dress just tightened around her. She could exhale, but she could not take in more air. Outside, the bagpipes were playing “Here Comes the Bride,” but it was too early because there was no one to carry her dress, and she could not walk without help.
DX cocked her head. Alistair stood frozen.
“I can’t breathe,” Avery gasped.
“You wanted this,” DX said. “Nobody forced you into that monstrosity.”
“I really can’t breathe! Alistair, help me.” The edges of her vision were going dark. “DX…DX, it’s my fault.” Avery swayed on the divan. “She sent this to me.”
The locket slipped from her hand. Her field of vision shrank down to a single point of light, like looking into the front of a camera lens.
“Alistair, I’m sorry. I can’t…”
Suddenly, Alistair was spinning her around, pulling at the pearl buttons on her dress. They were buried in lace.
“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay. DX, call someone!”
Alistair wrestled with the closure.
Avery heard her own voice as if from outside her body. “There are three hundred and sixty-five buttons. It’s symbolic.”
“DX, get me a knife. I’m going to cut this dress,” Alistair yelled.
“Why would I have a knife?”
“You have a military helicopter. You have drug lords’ phone numbers! Why don’t you have a knife?”
DX’s answer was lost in the sound of ripping seams, as Alistair sent three hundred and sixty-five pearl buttons spraying across the room.
“Oh my God. That’s a Delicata Vagrant wedding dress,” DX said.
Avery caught her breath. The room came slowly back into focus.
“Can you forgive me?” Avery asked Alistair.
He sat beside her, his massive arm wrapped around her bare shoulders. The silence stretched between them as long and wide as the Pacific Ocean.
“Aves, I know you. I see you. Your heart broke when we left Portland. You’re great on camera, and your fans love you, and Venner thinks we’re better than ever. But it’s no good if you’re not happy. If you’re not happy, it’s not King and Crown. And I know you were protecting me. I know I haven’t been good with money and you think you owe me something because I worked hard to get here. But I’m from Stone. I grew up in the mines. They took us down there when we were kids so we could see where our dads worked. There’s nothing in this world”—he gestured to the divan and the large room that was supposed to be theirs even though they had never seen it before that day—“like being ten when they shut off the lights in the mines to show you your future. After Stone, everything is easy. I’ll be fine.”
“But what will you do?”
“I always wanted to do a food show.”
“Can you forgive me for picking her?”
Alistair put his other arm around her and pulled her close. His body was as familiar as the Hollywood hills, but she knew this would be the last time he held her like this. They’d be friends. They would hug. But not like this.
“You’re my best friend,” Alistair said. “I want you to be happy.”
A knock on the door signaled the arrival of the six teenage models who would carry Avery’s dress.
“Can we tell them I got sick?” Avery asked.
“I think we have to tell them it’s off,” Alistair said.
“But what about our contracts? What about Merritt’s contract? What if they go after her or after you?”
Alistair smiled sadly and put his hands over hers. “They last until the end of the show, and the show ends when you quit. E-mail Venner, Greg, your mom, the casting producer, legal, the other executive producers.”
“You can do it from the helicopter,” DX said. “It’s the last day of summer. There’s that dance at Merritt’s shop.” She pulled out her cell phone and checked the time. “It’s five o’clock. I can get you there by midnight. I’ll get the band to cause a distraction. We run.”
“You flew a Russian military helicopter to my wedding?” Avery asked.
“I landed a fifty-two-foot helicopter on a sixty-square-foot lawn. I am a goddess of war.”
“What about you?” Avery asked Alistair.
Alistair rose. He looked impossibly elegant in his suit. “I think I might rent an old Ford and take a trip up north.”
“Wyoming,” Avery said.
“Yeah.”
“You want to go back to Wyoming?” DX asked. “I’ll take you. We’ll drop Avery off and then we’ll go land in some massive snowstorm with the lights on, and everyone in—where do you live? Pit? Stick?—will think it’s UFOs, and then BAM, it’s you.”
“I am not going to be the asshole who shows up in Stone in a helicopter.”
“But you are the asshole whose friend flies the most epic retrofitted military helicopter in American airspace,” DX said without a hint of criticism in her voice. “We’re all that asshole. Whatever. I don’t want to be like one of those douche-bag Quotable Cushions you two are always hawking on my Twitter feed, but I’m going to say it. Forgiveness is the sunshine that dries the rain. You just have to be who you are and hope everyone forgives you for it. You’re not going to get a better offer. That’s life.”
Avery looked down at the remains of her dress. “Will she forgive me?”
“I don’t know,” DX said. “But you have to try.”
“I have to go home and change.”
“Forget that.” DX was already heading for the door. “I have some latex body paint in the helicopter. You’ll be fine.”
“I have to wear the dress she gave me.”
DX paused midstride. Her face lit with something Avery had not seen for a long time: approval.
Chapter 34
Oh my gosh, it’s like everything you learned you learned from Avery Crown!” Lei-Ling exclaimed.
Iliana put a hand on Merritt’s shoulder.
It was the last day of summer, and they were standing on the newly cleared dance floor that surrounded the Helen of Troy fountain. Tate Grafton, from the Pride House board, had joined them. Some interns had too.
“Wow,” Tate said as she surveyed the interior of Hellenic Hardware with a look of apprehension.
“Don’t worry. It’s all properly wired,” Merritt said. “I’ve shut off the power to the back of the shop so we don’t blow a fuse.”
“It’s not that. Everyone will love it.” Tate eyed the artificial cherry trees Merritt had fashioned out of scrap metal and pink Christmas lights. “It looks great. It’s just not what I expected from you.”
“I know.”
Merritt hadn’t meant to buy a small welding station and weld together twelve cherry-tree frames in honor of Portland springtime. She hadn’t meant to circle the fountain with fake grass. Or powder coat the concrete sculpture of Helen of Troy in opalescent silver. Or replicate the Portland White Stag sign in neon tubing. She should probably have canceled the Nostalgia-rom and just donated the decorating budget to the Pride House. It looked like hipsters had made love in her fountain. It looked like…King & Crown had been there.
“It’s a feminine aesthetic,” Lei-Ling told Tate knowledgeably. “Merritt just did a whole season with King and Crown, and she and Avery totally hit it off…again, because they were friends before. And this is totally Avery Crown.”
Merritt had even used a can of King & Crown paint. She hadn’t meant to. She had sent one of the interns to the store for paint, and when she pulled it out of the paper bag, Avery and Alistair’s cartoon faces had grinned out at her, their eyes sparkling with drawn-on stars. She had almost dropped it on her foot.
“You okay?” Tate asked, half joking, half serious.
“No. Yeah. Of course. Decorating is great stress relief,” Merritt said.
Stress relief. Stress was finding out the interns had been polishing bronze pieces with vinegar instead of mineral oil. Stress was arguing with contractors over the tile work in the entryway of the Elysium. She
could handle stress without cracking a beer. This was like waiting for spring and then realizing it was going to rain forever. The only spring she was going to get were the scrap-metal trees.
“Well, it looks great,” Tate said. “We’ve got the bartender setting up at six. Catering at seven. Doors open at eight.” She ran through logistics.
When Tate left, Iliana said, “Now you can relax, right?”
Lei-Ling stepped onto the dance floor and spun around, arms flying. Above her, nets of white lights covered the dark skylights.
“I think you guys should totally be friends again,” Lei-Ling said. “I think Avery has a girl crush on you. She was like, ‘Where’s Merritt? What does Merritt think? Doesn’t Merritt look amazing?’”
Merritt glanced at Iliana. She had not told Lei-Ling. Lei-Ling had loved King & Crown since she was in elementary school. And Merritt had seduced Avery, slept with her, almost dated her, and lost her through her own stupidity, and faithful Iliana had never said a word.
“They’re getting married today. Avery and Alistair.” Lei-Ling stopped twirling suddenly. “Oh! I bet it’s on Twitter.” She pulled out her phone in its pink Hello Kitty case. “Oh, she looks so beautiful!”
The picture showed Avery in a wedding gown the size of an iceberg. Merritt felt like she had been hit by an iceberg.
“Gaudy,” she said, and passed the phone back to Lei-Ling.
“She looks sad,” Iliana said.
“Why would she be sad?” Lei-Ling cooed. “She’s marrying Alistair King.”
Merritt glanced at Iliana, who looked pained. It wasn’t fair. Iliana told Lei-Ling everything.
“Lei-Ling,” Merritt said. “Can I talk to you about something?”
Lei-Ling was flicking through pictures. “Look at these presents. They say Avery and Alistair have been getting presents every day since they announced their engagement, and they’re all here. That’s, like, a thousand presents!”
“Lei-Ling.” Merritt put her hand over Lei-Ling’s phone.
Lei-Ling’s expression changed suddenly. Her mouth formed a perfect, adorable O of surprise.
“You mean really talk? Of course we can really talk, Merritt. I always want to really talk to you. What is it?”
Merritt sat down on the bench beneath the gazebo. “Can I tell you something and you’ll promise not to tell anyone?”
“Of course.”
“It’s important. If you did tell someone, anyone who might spread it around, someone I…care about could get really hurt.”
Merritt wondered if getting outed would hurt Avery as much as she had hurt her. She thought of Avery’s clumsy, spontaneous kisses. How many times had Merritt turned her down while Avery was in Portland? And yet Avery had launched herself at Merritt again and again, at the possibility of happiness. No wonder Lei-Ling liked her. They had a lot in common.
“I’ll never say anything to anyone,” Lei-Ling said earnestly. “Iliana can tell you. I keep secrets.”
“Avery and Alistair aren’t really a couple,” Merritt said slowly. “I mean, they are getting married, but it’s just for the show.”
Lei-Ling’s eyes shone with the delight of newly acquired celebrity gossip, and Merritt almost stopped. But Lei-Ling scooted in beside her and set her phone down.
“What is it?” Lei-Ling asked.
“You know how Vita was convinced I had a crush?”
“Yeah.”
“It was Avery.” There. That wasn’t so hard. It was just a passing crush. “I asked Iliana not to tell you because if people find out about Avery, her career is over. But you and Iliana are beautiful together, and I’m happy for you, and I don’t want her to keep secrets from you.”
Lei-Ling cocked her head to one side, her eyes surprisingly discerning behind fronds of pink mascara. “You didn’t just have a crush on her.”
“I didn’t just have a crush on her,” Merritt said.
“And that’s why you’re so sad.”
“It’s over,” Merritt said. “It was just a summer thing.”
Merritt wanted Iliana and Lei-Ling to stop looking at her. She had done her part. She had told Lei-Ling. Now Lei-Ling and Iliana could go forward into a happy, secret-free marriage. If they would stop looking at her.
“Really, I’m back in the game,” Merritt said. If the game was waiting for her heart to wither like the last leaves on the winter trees, she was in the game. “I’ll probably meet a girl tonight.”
“You’ll win Avery back.” Lei-Ling brightened. “She still loves you, and you’ll tell her how you feel, and she’ll come back.”
Lei-Ling: the unwounded Inner Child, her face like a little moon lit with love and happiness and optimism. Merritt wanted to tell Iliana to wrap Lei-Ling up in Bubble Wrap and protect her for as long as she possibly could.
“No,” Merritt said. “That’s not our story.”
Chapter 35
Merritt did not dress for the Nostalgia-rom. There was too much to do, and there was no one to impress. She half expected Lei-Ling to protest that she just had to dress up because her next true love might be there, and it would be best if her next true love met her in a retro 1980s prom dress. But Lei-Ling didn’t say anything. As the dance started, Merritt stood at the edge of the dance floor watching the space fill with people. Sporty, young butches flirted with femmes, and femmes took selfies with the cherry blossoms. A boy with purple hair waltzed with a man in a three-piece suit.
The Pride House kids had decided to simplify human interaction with color-coded, glow-stick bracelets. Green was for single. Dark blue was dating. Unfortunately, they had more designations than colors in their Dollar Store glow-stick packs, so they had complicated the symbolism like a New York subway map. Orange was polyamorous. But double orange was prefers not to answer. And double purple meant questioning but leaning toward gay. Everyone was ringed in neon.
It looked magic; Merritt could see it even if she couldn’t feel it. If there were a magic wardrobe to another world, it would be here. But there wasn’t. She knew because she’d swept every inch of the shop. She’d cataloged every chifforobe. She’d priced every lamp, and eventually she would sell every piece.
* * *
Near midnight, the DJ cut in with a few more words about the Pride House and the promise of more dancing. Merritt leaned against a Veltar woodstove, fiddling with her phone. A few months ago she would have picked up one of the girls on the opposite wall. Now she couldn’t even tell which ones were pretty. They all were. She didn’t care.
From across the room, Lei-Ling exclaimed, “Oh!” She stood on tiptoes peering out one of the rainy windows.
Merritt glanced up from her phone. The mood of the crowd had changed. People were only half dancing. A collective whisper traveled around the room. Everyone was looking at the door. Merritt wasn’t interested in whatever drag-queen finale the Pride House kids had arranged. She turned back to her phone, scanning a website of antique chandeliers without really looking at anything.
From across the room, Lei-Ling called out, “Merritt, look.”
It had to be a mistake, a trick of the light, an illusion to cut Merritt one more time. Avery was standing on the other side of the dance floor. Merritt gasped. It was her! Merritt felt too many emotions swirl through her: love, hope, tenderness, shame. Avery had always made Merritt feel too much. Merritt’s heart was full of crows sitting on power lines, and crows and power lines worked for her, except that when she looked at Avery, she was a little girl on the deck of her stepfather’s yacht again. She was a teenager contemplating another Thanksgiving alone. She was thirty-three, and her best friend had gotten married, and she wanted her own sweetheart to come home to, and she wanted it to be Avery.
The vintage dress Merritt had bought for Avery all those years ago still fit her perfectly. She looked like a ghost. A bride from 1890. The girl Merritt had expected at the Vale Academy prom.
One of the interns followed behind Avery with an armload of glowing bracelets. The boy was tryin
g to explain the color system, holding up a variety of options that might have meant pansexual, atheist vegetarian, or single libertarian seeking nonsmoker. Avery waved him away gently.
When she reached Merritt, she said something. But Merritt could not hear her because she had stopped breathing. The locket hung at Avery’s neck. Did it mean what Merritt wanted it to mean? Avery was going to open up her chest like an antique birdcage, reach inside, take out her heart, and drop it on the floor. Then she would leave. Again. It was too much. The sleepless nights. The yearning in her body that was so at odds with the cool detachment she wanted to feel. The jangle of Avery’s voice mail. The hope she had felt as she’d mailed the locket. Then the stretching disappointment when she’d heard nothing back. The knowledge that a woman who wouldn’t return her calls would not fall for a silver-plated trinket. The silence had been so expected and so crushing. Tears pressed at the back of Merritt’s eyes. She tried to blink them back, but they weren’t blinking tears. She couldn’t hold her breath to stop them.
“I love you,” Avery said.
“I called you,” Merritt whispered. “That’s the dress. That’s the locket.” She reached out and touched the tip of one finger to the cool metal. “I sent you the locket and you didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t know,” Avery said. “TKO just took over. I knew Venner and my mom were monitoring my calls, watching out for publicity offers and stalkers. But I didn’t know…I think they deleted half the messages. They owned my phones, my mail, my life. They did until today.”
“You got married.”
“I didn’t.”
“I saw it on Twitter.”
“That’s not real.”
“Are you?” Merritt whispered.
Avery was very close. Merritt could smell her sweet, familiar perfume.
“If you come back and then you want to leave…” Merritt managed. “I wanted to belong to someone. I wanted a home. I wanted to matter. If this isn’t real, you can’t ask. Please don’t ask me.”
“Ask what?”
Merritt turned her back to Avery and the crowd with their cell phones raised, eager to capture every moment of this fabulous celebrity spectacle. Merritt had said it too loud. Someone would hear. It would be on the Internet like a wildfire.
Worth the Wait Page 24