by Meg Cabot
“So, is that the girl?” I ask between gulps of rocky road.
“What are you talking about?” Shari wants to know.
“The girl you’re trying to fix Chaz up with. Is that her?” I point to a pretty girl who has joined Chaz and Valencia over by the beer cooler they’re both sitting beside.
“Yeah,” Shari says, looking annoyed. “See how cute they look together? They’d be a perfect couple—if he hadn’t brought that ice bitch with him. And what’s Tiffany doing over there with them? She’s totally monopolizing the conversation, it looks like.”
I take an enormous bite of my ice cream. “I don’t know,” I say, my mouth too full to say more. Fortunately.
I don’t mention that Tiffany, in the car service her fiancé, Raoul, insisted we share on the way over, had sworn to me that she was going to keep Chaz from making a love connection with “that ho from Shari’s office, because he’s totally right for you. And, furthermore, I am going to split him and that orange-name lady up too.”
I didn’t bother reminding her for the millionth time that it doesn’t matter to me who Chaz dates because I’m actually engaged to someone else, because she’d just have brought up, as she usually does, that I’m “on a break,” and people who are happily engaged don’t tend to ask for one of those.
“Hey, so what’s up with Ave Geck?” Shari asks, distracting me from my gloomy thoughts. “Is she still mad at you for outing her to the press?”
I wince. The fallout from the Ava situation turned out to be worse than even I could have imagined. The Henris had not been too happy to see the front of their shop in photos plastered all over the press the morning after it was announced Ava Geck’s high-profile royal wedding had been canceled. I’d tried to convince them there was no such thing as bad press, but they hadn’t really gone for it. They couldn’t understand what Ava was doing spending the night in my apartment in the first place. Like Luke, they didn’t think an employee inviting a client to stay with her was particularly professional.
In retrospect, maybe they were right. But then, Ava had pretty much invited herself.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s not speaking to me. Which I can understand.”
“Well, she’s the only person I know who doesn’t want to be a member of Lizzie Nichols’s entourage these days.” Shari points at the small cluster of people gathered around Chaz’s pies—he’d brought both a strawberry rhubarb and a blueberry—running their fingers around the empty tins and then licking them, and then running them around the rims again. Tiffany’s fiancé, Raoul, and Monique and her fiancé, Latrell, have already handed out the bottles of champagne and boxes of sparklers they brought along with them, to contribute to the festive party mood. And to make up for the fact that they hadn’t exactly been invited.
“Okay,” I say sheepishly. “I realize four people is a lot. But they all really wanted to come.” I don’t mention that Shari’s fantastic view of the fireworks—and the fact that the Fourth of July happened to fall on a Wednesday this year, making it hard to go out of town—had something to do with it.
“I’m not complaining,” Shari says. “It’s just that if you get any more popular, I may have to move to someplace bigger in order to accommodate all your fans every time I have you over.”
“I’m not popular,” I say, abashed. “I’m just… ”
“Admit it,” Shari says with a smile. “They’re the misfit toys, and you’re the island. How are things going with Luke, anyway?”
I shrug. “Fine,” I say, speaking around the red plastic spoon hanging from my mouth. “I mean, as well as can be expected, seeing as how he’s in Paris and I’m here and we’re on a break.”
Shari points at the ring finger of my left hand. “You’re still wearing it.”
“Well,” I say, neurotically shoveling more ice cream into my face, “we’re still engaged. He’s acting like everything is fine.”
“Ooooh!” shrieks Tiffany suddenly, jumping to her four-inch stilettos and pointing into the twilit sky. “They’re starting!”
We hear a muffled boom, and the next thing I know, a huge carnation of light is exploding in the sky.
“Zee One Hundred,” Shari screams. “Switch it to Zee One Hundred! We’re missing the musical accompaniment!” She dives for the radio while two dozen people look at her as if she’s lost her mind.
A second later, Tiffany sidles up to me and says, “Okay, so here’s the L.D.”
I screw up my face at her in confusion. “The what?”
“The L.D.,” she says. “The lowdown?” When I nod, she goes on, “Don’t look at me. Look at the fireworks. Pretend we’re talking about the fireworks. Her name is Mae Lin, and she’s got some kinda like master’s degree in like social work or something. She lives in Alphabet City and she loves the Buckeyes—that’s a basketball team—and collects vintage Fiesta Dinnerware. You are so fucking dead.”
I look at Tiffany. “Tiff,” I say as the fireworks boom along the skyline behind me, “I told you. I don’t care. I don’t like Chaz that way.”
“Yeah, right,” Tiffany says with a hoarse laugh and takes a swig of her champagne. “Whatever! If he were the marrying kind, you would so have screwed him already. Just admit it.”
Z100 is blasting “Born to Run.” Shari’s girlfriend, Pat, is saying, “No. Just… no. Are you kidding me with this?” While Shari says, “Honey, it’s the Boss. What are you gonna do?”
“Here’s what you do,” Tiffany says, taking my empty ice cream bowl from me and setting it on a nearby picnic table. “Go over there—both Mae Lin and Valencia are gone now, it’s okay, they went downstairs to dry off. I ‘accidentally’ spilled my bottle of champagne on them—and tell him his pies were good.”
“Tiff.” She’s pushing me toward Chaz. I lock my knees, refusing to budge. “No. I’m engaged. And he doesn’t… what you just said. About marriage. Remember?”
“God!” Tiffany gives me another shove. “Why are you being so fucking stubborn? You can change him! I know all your other girlfriends are always telling you men can’t change, and in general it’s true. But not in this case. With you. And him. Believe me. I know. Come on, Lizzie. You’re always helping other people. Why won’t you let us help you for once?”
“Because you aren’t helping me,” I say from between gritted teeth. I have to raise my voice a little, because the boom of the fireworks—and the swell of Z100, playing from so many rooftops—is so loud. I notice two leather-braceleted men looking over at us in amusement.
I turn my back to them. “I told you, Tiffany, I love Luke. Luke, not Chaz.”
I almost completely believe this as I say it too. To the point that I even manage to convince myself that I have not spent the whole of the party trying not to look over to where Chaz is sitting and wondering how he’s managed to get such a dark tan so early in the summer, or why he insists on wearing khaki shorts. They’re so undignified for the urban male.
Although with muscular legs like his, he can, of course, get away with it…
“I don’t think you do,” Tiffany insists. “And I’m sorry, but I don’t think Luke loves you, either. He wouldn’t have gone to France—or agreed to your stupid fucking break idea—if he did. I think you two are both just afraid to admit it’s been over between you for a long time already. You had a summer fling that’s gone on way, way too long. Believe me, Lizzie, I know what real love is, and I see it standing over there by that fuckin’ beer cooler in a baseball cap. Now go… over… there… ”
Tiffany shoves me with a strength surprising in so thin a person—well, she does work out—and I find myself stumbling in my lace-up platform espadrilles… only to end up stumbling practically into the beer cooler. I’d have fallen inside it if Chaz hadn’t reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Hey,” he says, looking concerned. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, turning beet red. “I’m fine. Tiffany wants me to tell you that, um. She liked your pies.”
Chaz stares
down at me, his dark eyebrows raised.
“Oh,” he says. “Well, that’s nice.”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to regain my composure. “I did too. Good… pie. Both of them.”
Am I? I ask myself. Am I really the stupidest human being on the face of the planet? Or does it just feel that way sometimes?
“Great,” Chaz says. “So. How’s the break going?”
“The break?” I echo lamely.
“Yeah,” Chaz says. “The break you and Luke are on.”
“Oh, the break!” Behind Chaz’s head, fireworks are exploding into amazing shapes, like apples and kissing lips. And he’s not even looking. His gaze is riveted to my face. Which I hope he can’t tell is still burning as brightly as the lights of the skyline behind him. “Um, fine. I guess. Luke really seems to like it over there. It’s a lot of work. But then he knew it would be.”
“Well,” Chaz says, picking up his beer and taking a sip of it, “he’s always had a thing for numbers.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Well, he’s just doing this as a favor for his uncle.”
“Yeah,” Chaz says. “Right.”
I glance up at him sharply. “What do you mean by that?” I snap.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” he asks defensively. “I don’t mean anything. I just said you were right.”
“You sounded like you were being sarcastic,” I say.
“Well, I wasn’t being sarcastic,” he says.
“You think he was desperate for any excuse he could get,” I say, clarity breaking over me suddenly like a crystal ocean wave, “to leave town and get away from me. Because I’m smothering him.”
Oh my God. It’s happening again. My mouth, I mean. Running away without me. What am I even talking about? I mean, I know, of course… it’s what I stay up nights—when I should have fallen asleep hours before, exhausted from adjusting seams all day with Sylvia and Marisol—worrying about.
But why am I mentioning it to Chaz, of all people?
Chaz seems to be wondering the same thing.
“How much wine have you had?” Chaz asks, laughing with disbelief.
“None,” I say. Amazingly, it’s the truth. Also, I’m wishing I’d shut up. But my mouth keeps on moving without me, as usual. “And you’re wrong. I don’t smother him at all. If anything, I don’t pay enough attention to him. And besides, that would completely fly in the face of what you said that day.”
“What day?” Chaz asks, looking more confused than ever.
“The day I told you he proposed. You said he was proposing only because he’s so scared of being alone, he’d rather be with a girl he knows isn’t right for him than be by himself.”
Shut. Up. Lizzie.
Chaz blinks at me. “Well… I still think that’s true.”
“But you can’t have it both ways.” In the distance, the fireworks are still going off, in much quicker succession than before. Boom. Boom. Boom. Each blast seems to be timed to go off with my heartbeat rather than the Bon Jovi song that’s now blasting from the radio around us. I’m standing so close to Chaz that I can see his chest rising and falling in the same rhythm through the front of his short-sleeved polo. It’s hard not to put my hands on his chest to see if his heart is beating in time to mine as well.
God, what is wrong with me?
“Either I’m smothering him or he’s scared to be without me,” I blurt out instead. “Which is it?”
“You are completely insane right now,” Chaz says to me, still laughing a little. “You know that, don’t you?”
The truth is, I do know that. But knowing it doesn’t help.
“You’re his best friend,” I point out. “You’ve known him longer than I have. And you seem to have so many opinions on our relationship. Or at least you used to. I realize we haven’t talked about it in a while because you’ve been so busy with Valencia, but I assume you must have some new theories on the matter. Go ahead. Let’s hear them.”
“Not now,” Chaz says, looking down at me with a grin I can only call suggestive. “Too many people around. Why don’t you come back to my place after this? I’ll be happy to tell you every theory I know. And illustrate them, as well.”
The grin has caused my breath to catch in my throat. Not that I’m about to let him know that.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I demand. I’m standing so close to him now that our faces are just inches apart. “Is that the only way you can relate to women? As sexual objects?”
“As you know perfectly well,” Chaz says, looking mockly offended, “no. What is the matter with you tonight? Is this about Valencia? Are you jealous or something? I don’t think I should have to remind you that you’re the one who’s engaged.”
“Right. To your best friend.”
“Hey, he’s your fiancé. As you seem to feel the need to keep reminding yourself.”
“At least I have a fiancé,” I say. “At least I’m not an emotional cripple who is afraid to commit myself to someone just because the girl I liked turned out to like girls.”
“Oh yeah?” Chaz’s blue eyes flash more brightly than any of the fireworks that have exploded in the night sky so far. “Well, at least I didn’t get myself engaged to the first guy who asked me to marry him just because I’m in the wedding gown business and I couldn’t stand seeing all my clients getting pretty diamond rings on their fingers and not have one for myself.”
I suck in my breath, outraged—just as my cell phone vibrates in the pocket of my gingham sundress. I have to keep the stupid thing on all the time these days because of bridal gown emergencies. Although I have no weddings scheduled for today.
“That,” I snap at Chaz, “is so untrue. I happen to love Luke. And I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“Yeah,” Chaz sneers. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe someday you’ll even start to believe it.”
I slide the phone out, thinking maybe Luke is calling—although it’s close to two in the morning in France—then see that it’s my mom.
“And I suppose,” I say to Chaz, “you think you’re so much better for me than he is.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Chaz says. “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to go off to France for the summer and leave a girl like you on your own with guys like me around.”
Flustered by this, I fumble with the phone, nearly hanging up on my own mother in my attempt to answer her call.
“Mom?” In the background, the fireworks are reaching their crescendo. It’s the show’s grand finale. “I can’t talk right now. I have to call you back—”
“Oh, Lizzie, honey,” my mom interrupts. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I know you’re at Shari’s party”—we’d talked earlier in the week, and I’d mentioned that I’d be attending a party at Shari’s today—“and I don’t want to spoil it for you. But I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anybody else: Gran died.”
The fireworks are so loud, I don’t think I’ve heard her correctly. I put one finger in my ear and yell, “WHAT?”
“Honey, GRAN DIED TODAY. Can you hear me? I just wanted to make sure you didn’t hear it on your machine or from the Dennises or anything like that. Honey? Are you there?”
I murmur something. I don’t know what.
I think I’m in shock.
What had she said?
“Lizzie?” Chaz is looking down at me with a funny expression on his face. “What is it?”
“Can you hear me now?” Mom is asking in my ear. The ear I can hear out of. When I say yes, she says, “Oh good. Anyway, it was very peaceful. She went in her sleep. I just found her there this afternoon, in her chair. She must have dozed off watching Dr. Quinn. You know she figured out how to TiVo it. She had a beer in one hand, I don’t know how she got hold of it. Well, we had a Fourth of July barbecue, she must have sneaked one… Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, we’re planning a memorial service for this weekend. I know how busy you are, but I hope you’ll be able to come. You know ho
w fond she was of you. It wasn’t right that she played favorites with you girls, but you really were always the one she liked best out of all the grandkids—”
The world seems to have tilted. Suddenly, I can’t stand up anymore. I feel my knees give out… but it’s all right, because Chaz has his arm around me and is steering me toward the beer cooler, the lid of which he’s snapped closed. He sits me down on it, then sinks down beside me, one arm around my shoulders, going, “It’s okay. Take it easy. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”
“Gran’s dead,” I say to him. I can’t see him very well.
Then I realize it’s because I’m looking at him through a veil of tears. I’m crying.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Lizzie, I’m so sorry.”
“She was watching Dr. Quinn,” I tell him. I don’t know why. It’s all I can think about. “And drinking beer.”
“Well,” he says. “If you’re Gran, and you have to go, that’s the way to do it.”
I let out a hiccupy sound, halfway between a sob and a laugh.
“Lizzie?” Mom’s voice sounds in my ear. “Who’s that with you?”
“Ch-Chaz,” I say with another sob.
“Oh, honey,” Mom said. “Are you crying? I didn’t think you’d be so upset. Gran was ninety, you know. It wasn’t as if this was entirely unexpected.”
“It was by me,” I wail. I realize dimly that the booming of the fireworks has ceased, and that it’s grown very quiet all of a sudden. I realize, as well, that the pale blobs I can see through my tears are faces… the faces of everyone at Shari’s party. And that they’re all turned toward me. I fight to regain my composure, reaching up and trying to wipe away my tears with the back of my wrist.
But they won’t stop. They just seem to come faster.
Chaz, seeming to realize the problem, pulls me into a hug. And suddenly I’m weeping against his chest.
“Oh,” Mom says comfortingly into my ear. I’m clutching my cell phone tightly in one hand, and the front of Chaz’s shirt with the other. “Good. I’m glad Chaz is there. He’s a good, old friend and will take care of you.” I don’t mention that my “good, old friend” not five minutes ago was making lewd suggestions about “theories” he was going to illustrate to me back in his apartment.