Queen of Babble Bundle with Bonus Material

by Meg Cabot

  Clinging to the wall, I make my way to the door of my apartment and unlock it. In the narrow—and chilly—stairway to the ground floor, the pounding is louder than ever.

  “Coming,” I call, wondering if it could be a UPS delivery for the shop. Madame Henri had warned me that by taking occupancy of the apartment on the top floor of the brownstone, I’d be responsible for signing for all after-hours deliveries.

  But does UPS even deliver on New Year’s Day? It can’t possibly. Even Brown must give its workers the day off.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I struggle with all of the various locks, until finally I can pull the door open—though I’ve kept the security chain on, just in case the person outside is a serial killer and/or religious fanatic.

  Through the three-inch crack between the door and frame, I see the last person in the world I ever expected.

  Luke.

  “Lizzie,” he says. He looks tired. Also annoyed. “Finally. I’ve been knocking for hours practically. Look. Let me in. I need to talk to you.”

  Panicked, I slam the door shut.

  Oh my God. Oh my God, it’s Luke. He’s back from France. He’s back from France, and he came to see me. Why did he come to see me? Didn’t he get my brief but cordial note in which I gave him my new address so he’d know where to forward my mail, but instructed him not to contact me there?

  “Lizzie.” He’s pounding on the door again. “Come on. Don’t do this. I flew all night to get here to say this to you. Don’t shut me out.”

  Oh God. Luke’s at my door. Luke’s at my door…

  …and his best friend is asleep in my bed upstairs!

  “Lizzie? Are you going to open the door? Are you still there?”

  Oh God. What am I going to do? I can’t let him in. I can’t let him see Chaz. Not that Chaz and I did anything wrong. But who would even believe that? Not Luke. Oh, God. What do I do?

  “I’m…I’m still here,” I open the door to say. I’ve thrown back the chain, but I don’t move to let Luke step inside—even though it’s freezing, standing there on the stoop in my evening gown, with the bitter cold seeping in around. “But you can’t come in.”

  Luke looks at me with those sad dark eyes. “Lizzie,” he says, apparently not even registering the fact that I’ve obviously slept in my clothes. And not just any clothes, either, but my Jacques Fath evening gown that I’ve been saving for years for an event fancy enough to wear it to. Not that he would know that. Because I never told him.

  “I’ve been a total ass,” Luke goes on, his gaze never straying from mine. “I’ll admit, when you brought up…well, the marriage thing last week, you really threw me for a loop. I wasn’t expecting it. I really did think we were just hanging out, you know. Having fun. But you made me think. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, as a matter of fact, though I tried. I really tried.”

  I stand there blinking at him, shivering. This is what he flew all the way back to America—apparently spending his New Year’s Eve on a plane—to say? That I ruined his holiday, even though he tried not to think about me?

  “I even talked to my mother about it,” he says, the winter sunlight bringing out the bluish highlights in his ink-dark hair. “She’s not having an affair, by the way. That guy she met the day after Thanksgiving? That’s her plastic surgeon. He does her Botox. But that’s beside the point.”

  I swallow. “Oh,” I say. And realize, belatedly, that that’s why Bibi’s eyes hadn’t crinkled when she’d smiled at me while issuing her invitation to join them in France for the holidays: she’d just had Botox injected into them.

  Still, this doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t, in fact, change the part about how Luke chose to spend the holidays with his parents instead of going with me to the Midwest to meet mine.

  I remind myself of this because I’m trying very hard to keep my heart steeled against him. Because, of course, the hurt is still fresh. Like I’d said to Chaz, we’re both still grieving.

  But seeing Luke, looking so tired and vulnerable, on my doorstep isn’t helping.

  “Mom is the one who told me what an idiot I was being,” Luke goes on. “I mean, even though she was kind of pissed about the whole thing where you thought she was having an affair. She was trying to keep the Botox from my dad.”

  I’m finally able to pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth long enough to say, “Dishonesty in a relationship is never a good thing.” As I know, only too well.

  “Right,” Luke says. “That’s why I realize how lucky I am, Lizzie, to have you.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his icy cold, leather-gloved fingers. “Because even if maybe you do have a reputation for talking too much, there is one thing about you: you do always tell the truth.”

  Nice. Also, true. Well, mostly.

  “Did you come all this way to insult me?” I ask, trying to sound haughty—though of course the truth is that I just feel like crying. “Or is there a purpose to all of this? Because I’m standing here freezing—”

  “Oh!” he cries, dropping my hand, and hastily whipping off his coat, which he then drapes gently around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. This would be a lot easier if we could just go in—”

  “No,” I say firmly, grateful for the coat. Although now my stocking feet are like ice.

  “Fine,” Luke says with a little smile. “If that’s the way you want it. I’ll just say what I came here to say and then let you go.”

  Yes. Because of course that’s the kind of thing princes do. Fly thousands of miles just to say good-bye.

  Because whatever else they might be, princes are unfailingly polite.

  Good-bye, Luke.

  “Lizzie,” Luke says. “I’ve never met a girl like you before. You always seem to know what you want and exactly how to go after it. You aren’t afraid to do or say anything. You take risks. I can’t tell you how much I admire that.”

  Wow, this is a very nice good-bye speech.

  “You came into my life like a…well, a tsunami or something. A good one, I mean. Totally unexpected, and totally irresistible. I honestly don’t know where I’d be now if it weren’t for you.”

  Back in Houston with your ex, I want to say.

  Only I don’t. Because I’m sort of curious to hear what he’s going to say next. Although mostly I just want to run back upstairs to bed.

  Except I can’t, I remember belatedly. Because there’s a snoring man in my bed.

  “I’m not the kind of person who’s good at going after what I want,” he goes on. “I guess I’m more cautious. I have to weigh all the possibilities, calculate each and every risk involved—”

  Yes. I know.

  Good-bye, Luke. Good-bye forever. You’ll never know how much I loved—

  “That’s why it took me so long to realize that what I really want to say to you—” He’s fumbling in the front pocket of his charcoal wool trousers now. And I can’t help thinking, Why is he doing this…what’s he doing? Is he just trying to torture me? Does he have no idea how hard I’m trying not to throw myself at him? Why can’t he just go away? “What I think I’ve always wanted to say to you, since the day I met you, on that crazy train, is—”

  —get out of my life, and never contact me again.

  Only that’s not what he says. That isn’t what he says at all.

  Instead, for some reason, he’s sunk down onto one knee, in front of the closed bridal shop, and the lady across the street walking her dog, and the guy in the minivan looking for a parking space, and the entire population of East Seventy-eighth Street.

  And though I can’t believe what I’m seeing, and I’m positive my tired, hungover eyes are playing tricks on me, he’s pulled from his pocket a black velvet box, which he opens to reveal a diamond solitaire that glistens in the morning light.

  No. No, that’s really what he’s doing. And there are words coming out of his mouth. And those words are:

  “Lizzie Nichols, will you marry me?”

  acknowledgments

  Many
thanks to Beth Ader, Jennifer Brown, Barbara Cabot, Carrie Feron, Michele Jaffe, Laura Langlie, Sophia Travis, and especially Benjamin Egnatz.

  Insatiable Excerpt #2

  Chapter Two

  9:30 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

  6 train

  New York, New York

  Meena hoped she was wrong about Miss Butterfly.

  Except that Meena was never wrong. Not about death. Giving in to the inevitable, Meena let go of the gleaming metal pole and slid into the seat the girl had offered.

  “So, is this your first time visiting the city?” Meena asked Miss Butterfly, even though she already knew the answer.

  The girl, still smiling, cocked her head.

  “Yes. New York City!” she cried enthusiastically.

  Great. Her English was basically nonexistent.

  Miss Butterfly had pulled out a cell phone and was scrolling through some photos on it. She stopped on one and held it up for Meena to see.

  “See?” Miss Butterfly said proudly. “Boyfriend. My American boyfriend, Gerald.”

  Meena looked at the grainy picture. Oh, brother, she thought.

  Why? Meena asked herself. Why today, of all days? She didn’t have time for this. She had a meeting. And a story to pitch. There was that head writing position, vacant now that Ned had had that very public nervous breakdown in the network dining room during spring sweeps.

  Head writer was really where the money was on a show like Insatiable.

  Meena needed money. And she was sure the pressure wouldn’t cause her to have a nervous breakdown. She hadn’t had one so far, and she had plenty of things to worry about besides Insatiable’s ratings.

  A woman’s voice came over the subway car’s loudspeakers to warn that the doors were closing. The next stop, she announced, would be Forty-second Street, Grand Central Station.

  Meena, having missed her own stop, stayed where she was.

  God, Meena thought. When will my life stop sucking?

  “He looks very nice,” she lied to Miss Butterfly about Gerald. “You’re here to visit him?”

  Miss Butterfly nodded energetically.

  “He help me get visa,” she said. “And—” She used the cell phone to mimic taking photos of herself.

  “Head shots,” Meena said. She worked in the business. She understood exactly what Miss Butterfly was talking about. And her heart sank even more. “So you want to be a model. Or an actress?”

  Miss Butterfly beamed and nodded. “Yes, yes. Actress.”

  Of course. Of course this pretty girl wanted to be an actress.

  Fantastic, Meena thought cynically. So Gerald was her manager, too. That explained a lot about the baseball cap—pulled down so low that Meena couldn’t see his eyes—and the number of gold chains around his neck in the photo.

  “What’s your name?” Meena asked.

  Miss Butterfly pointed at herself, as if surprised Meena cared to discuss her as opposed to the ultra-fantastic Gerald.

  “I? I am Yalena.”

  “Great,” Meena said. She opened her bag, dug around the mess inside it, and came up with a business card. She always had one handy for exactly this kind of situation, which unfortunately came up all too often . . . especially when Meena rode the subway. “Yalena, if you need anything—anything at all—I want you to call me. My cell phone number is on there. See it?” She pointed to the number. “You can call me anytime. My name is Meena. If things don’t work out with your boyfriend—if he turns out to be mean to you, or hurts you in any way—I want you to know you can call me. I’ll come get you, wherever you are. Day or night. And listen . . . ,” she added. “Don’t show this card to your boyfriend. This is a secret card. For emergencies. Between girlfriends. Do you understand?”

  Yalena just gazed at her, smiling happily.

  She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand at all that Meena’s number might literally mean the difference between life and death for her.

  They never understood.

  The train pulled up to Forty-second Street station. Yalena jumped up.

  “Grand Central?” she asked, looking panicky.

  “Yes,” Meena said. “This is Grand Central.”

  “I meet my boyfriend here,” Yalena said excitedly, grabbing her huge roller bag and giving it a yank. She took Meena’s card in her other hand, beaming. “Thank you! I call.”

  She meant she’d call to get together for coffee sometime.

  But Meena knew Yalena would call her for something totally different. If she didn’t lose the card . . . or if Gerald didn’t find it and take it away. Then give her a fist sandwich.

  “Remember,” Meena repeated, following her off the train. “Don’t tell your boyfriend you have that. Hide it somewhere.”

  “I do,” Yalena said, and scrambled toward the nearest flight of stairs, lugging her suitcase behind her. It was so huge, and Yalena was so small, she could barely drag it. Meena, giving in to the inevitable, picked up the bottom of the girl’s incredibly heavy suitcase and helped her carry it up the steep and crowded staircase. Then she pointed Yalena in the direction the girl needed to go—the boyfriend was meeting her “under the clock” in the “big station.”

  Then, with a sigh, Meena turned around and headed for a train back uptown, so she could get to Madison and Fifty-third Street, where her office building was located.

  Meena knew Yalena hadn’t understood a word she’d said. Well, maybe one in five.

  And even if she had, there wouldn’t have been any point in telling the girl the truth. She wouldn’t have believed Meena, anyway.

  Just like there was no point in following her now, seeing the boyfriend for herself, and then saying something to him like, “I know what you really are and what you do for a living. And I’m going to call the police.”

  Because you can’t call the cops on someone for something they’re going to do. Any more than you can tell someone that they’re going to die.

  Meena had learned this the hard way.

  She sighed again. She was going to have to run now if she wanted to catch the next train uptown. . . .

  She just prayed there wouldn’t be too many people on it.

  Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

  Meg Cabot

  Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

  For Benjamin

  A HISTORY of WEDDINGS

  In ancient times, weddings were a little more casual than they are today. Rival tribes, in order to increase their population, would frequently stage raids against one another, with the sole purpose of acquiring brides. That’s right—they’d steal one another’s ladyfolk. The raiding party was kind of what you’d consider your modern-day groom and his groomsmen.

  Only, you know, they wouldn’t be wearing tuxes. More like loincloths.

  Sometimes the young ladies in question got wind of the raiding party beforehand and didn’t necessarily put up much of a fight.

  But this didn’t mean there wasn’t ill feeling on the part of their families and friends.

  Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster

  Always have more gifts on your registry than you do wedding guests. This way you can avoid receiving the same gift twice…and those guests who can’t actually make it to the festivities will still be able to find something lovely to get for you!

  LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™

  • Chapter 1 •

  Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  —Emily Brontë (1818–1848), British novelist and poet

  Chaz,” I say, poking the man in the tuxedo who lay sprawled across my bed. “You have to get out of here.”

  Chaz brushes my hand away as if it’s annoying him. “Mom,” he says. “Stop it. I told you, I already took out the trash.”

  “Chaz.” I poke him some more. “I mean it. Wake up. You have to go.”

  Chaz wakes up with a start. “Wha—Where am I?” He looks blearily around the room until his unfocused gaze finally comes to rest on me. “Oh. Lizzie. What
time is it?”

  “Time for you to go,” I say, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling on it. “Come on. Get up.”

  But I might as well be pulling on an elephant. He won’t budge.

  “What’s going on?” Chaz wants to know. I have to admit, it’s not easy, being so mean to him. He looks downright adorable in his tuxedo shirt, all stubbly faced and confused, with his dark hair sticking up in tufts all over his head. He squints at me. “Is it morning already? Hey—why do you still have your clothes on?”

  “Because nothing happened between us,” I say, relieved that it’s true. I mean, stuff happened. But my Spanx are still on, so not that much stuff. Thank God. “Come on, get up. You have to go.”

  “What do you mean, nothing happened between us?” Chaz looks offended. “How can you say that? That’s my beard burn you’re wearing.”

  I lift a hand guiltily to my face. “What? Oh my God. You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not kidding. You’re completely chafed.” A look of self-satisfaction spreads across his face as he stretches his arms. “Now come over here and let’s continue where we left off before you so rudely fell asleep, which I’m going to try not to hold against you, although I will admit it’s going to be difficult, and will probably necessitate punishment in the form of a spanking if I can figure out how to get those things off you. What did you call them again? Oh, yeah. Spanx.” Chaz brightens. “Hey, how appropriate.”

  But I’ve already dived for the bathroom and am examining my face in the mirror over the sink.

  He’s totally right. The entire lower half of my face is bright pink from where Chaz’s stubble rubbed it as we made out like a couple of teenagers in the back of the taxi on our way home from the wedding last night.

  “Oh God!” I cry, staggering back into the bedroom. “Do you think he noticed?”