Queen of Babble Bundle with Bonus Material

by Meg Cabot

  “I already have a bridal shop,” I say, sniffling. “In New York.”

  “I know,” Luke says. “But that shop belongs to someone else. And they’re selling it. I’m talking about a shop of your own.”

  “But…” I say, looking at the display window in front of me. “In France?”

  “Look,” Luke says. “You speak French. My family can loan you the start-up income. Lizzie…don’t you see? This is a perfect opportunity for it.”

  “But.” I look around at the people hurrying by in all their different shapes and colors, at the buildings all around me, at the taxis and buses and delivery vans and trucks whizzing by, the sun slanting through the leaves of a nearby tree, growing, against all odds, through the pavement, in the shadow of the skyscrapers all around us.

  Because that’s what New York City is all about. Trees growing up out of the pavement, in the shade, where no tree should ever grow.

  And I say, “I love New York.”

  “You’ll love Paris too,” Luke says. “You’ve been there, remember? It’s just like New York. Only better. Cleaner. Nicer.”

  “It’s so far away,” I say as a kid walking by with a dog fails to clean up after it, and a woman with a Chanel purse yells at him for it.

  “From what, Lizzie?” Luke asks. “Your grandmother? She’s dead. Remember?” But Gran isn’t who I’m thinking about.

  “I can’t decide right now,” I say. “I…I’ll have to think about it.”

  “You do that,” Luke says. “You think about it. You take all the time you need. But I think you should probably know…I’ve accepted the job my uncle offered me.”

  “What?” I think I must have misheard him again.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Luke says hurriedly. “If you decide to stay in New York, we’ll just do the long-distance thing for a while. People do, Lizzie. We’ll make it work. Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry? My fiancé—on whom, it is true, I am cheating—informs me that he is going to move permanently to another country, but that I shouldn’t worry?

  “And if you need a place to stay, you know you can always move back into my mother’s place on Fifth. She already said it was all right. She’ll just need to use the place one weekend a month, for her—you know…”

  He means her monthly Botox injections. But I don’t say that out loud, since Luke doesn’t need me to remind him about that.

  I am standing there, openmouthed in astonishment, when a voice behind me says, “Hey.”

  I spin around, startled, and see a flash of khaki and the brim of a baseball cap.

  “Luke,” I say into the phone. “I have to go. I…I’ll call you later, all right?”

  “Okay,” he says. “Honestly, Lizzie…I don’t want you to worry. About any of this. I’m going to take care of it. Of you. I love you.”

  “I…y-you too,” I stammer. And hang up. Then I demand, “What are you doing here?”

  “Standing in front of Vera Wang’s flagship store?” Chaz quips. “Oh, I come here most days, actually. I like to try on a few of the mother-of-the-bride gowns. They feel so smooth and slinky against my skin.” He blinks down at me. “Shari called me. What do you think? And then I called the shop when you wouldn’t pick up any of my calls on your cell. Tiffany told me I might find you here. She says you like to come here to clear your head.” He looks at the display window. “I can see why. It’s so…shiny.”

  I stare at the shop window too. But what I’m actually looking at is our reflection, him so tall and lanky, with his University of Michigan baseball cap perched on top of his head, and his strong, muscular legs, so tanned, unlike the tourists who occasionally walk past. And me, slightly wilted in my sundress from having run all over town in the heat of high summer, my hair hanging in a bedraggled mess from my barrette, wanting, basically, to die. We make the strangest-looking couple.

  If that’s what we are. Which I’m not even sure of.

  And of course behind our reflection is the beautiful, perfect Vera Wang wedding gown of the week. In a size two.

  “They’re closing the shop,” I say to his reflection. “The Henris. They’re closing it. And moving to Provence.”

  “I know. Tiffany told me that too.” He shrugs, looking infuriatingly unconcerned. “So. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I yell at him. “What do you think I’m standing here trying to figure out?”

  God! How can I be in love with him? How can he be so different from Luke, whom I thought I loved for so long? I don’t want you to worry. About any of this. I’m going to take care of it. Of you. That’s what Luke had to say.

  Whereas all Chaz has to say is: So. What are you going to do?

  Then again, I’m the one who was so keen on wanting to stand on my own two feet.

  “Well, you’ll figure it out,” Chaz says now, with another shrug. “I’m starving. Have you had lunch?”

  Have I had lunch? That’s all he has to say?

  “How?” I demand. “How will I figure it out?”

  He looks a bit startled by my outburst. So does the Chinese-food deliveryman hurrying by.

  “I don’t know,” Chaz says. “You’ll open a new shop.”

  “Where? How? With what money?” I demand, my voice breaking. Because that’s what I’m pretty sure my heart is doing.

  “Jesus, I don’t know, Lizzie. You’ll figure it out. You always do. That’s what’s so amazing about you.”

  I turn my head and look up at him. Him, and not his reflection.

  And I realize—as I’ve been realizing over and over all summer…all year, actually—how hard I’ve fallen for him.

  This is really it, I realize. There’s no turning back. I think I’ve just gone up a notch on the Bad Girl Scale.

  “Luke is dropping out of medical school,” I say. “He’s taking a job with his uncle’s company in Paris. He’s moving to Paris.”

  “Gee,” Chaz says tonelessly. “I’m so surprised to hear that.”

  I stare at him, appalled. “You knew? He told you already?”

  He shrugs yet again. “He’s my best friend. He tells me everything. What do you expect?”

  “You told me,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “You told me he’s never been able to stick to anything in his life. And I thought you were nuts. But you were right. You were a hundred percent right.”

  “Luke’s not a bad guy,” Chaz says mildly. “He’s just…confused.”

  “Well,” I say, slipping my cell phone back into my purse. “Are you going to ask me?”

  “Ask you what?”

  “If I’m going to move to Paris with him? He wants me to, you know. He says his family will loan me the money to set up a shop there.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Chaz says. “And no, I’m not going to ask you.”

  I set my jaw. For someone I’m so crazy about, Chaz happens to be the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.

  “Why not?” I demand. “Don’t you want me to stay here in New York?”

  “Of course I do,” Chaz says. “But, like I said, what happens in the future is already unavoidable. So I’m just going to enjoy what time I have left with you.”

  “That,” I say disgustedly, “is such crap.”

  “Well,” he says in the same unruffled tone, “that’s probably true too. What do you feel like? I feel like Thai food. Do you feel like Thai food? Isn’t there a good Thai place around the corner from here?”

  “How can you think about food at a time like this?” I yell at him. “Do you know—do you have any earthly idea—that every time I think about marrying Luke, I break out in hives?”

  Chaz raises his eyebrows. “That,” he says, “is not a good sign. I mean, for him. And, I’m guessing, for Paris.”

  “It’s a horrible sign,” I say. “What did you mean back in Detroit when you said Luke hasn’t exactly been a Boy Scout the whole time he and I have been going out?”

  Chaz rolls his eyes. “Look,�
� he says. “I don’t really want to talk about this in front of the Vera Wang flagship store, okay? Let’s go home. We can change out of these hot sticky clothes and I can run you a cool bath and order some Thai food and fix us both a couple of gin and tonics and we can sip them while we discuss the vagaries of life and I give you a full body massage—”

  “No,” I say, resisting the arm he’s put around me. “Chaz! I’m serious. This is serious. I don’t want to—”

  But I never get the chance to tell Chaz what it is I don’t want to do, because at that moment, two women who were passing by stop in front of the window and gaze at the gown I was admiring.

  “See, Mom,” the younger woman says. “That’s the kind of dress I want.”

  “Well, dream on,” her mother says. “Because a dress like that costs twenty grand. Do you have an extra twenty grand lying around?”

  “It’s not fair,” the girl insists, stamping her Steve Madden–clad foot. “Why can’t I have what I want? Just this once?”

  “You can,” the older woman says, “if you want to be paying for it for the next thirty years. Is that how you want to start your married life?”

  “No,” the bride says, sounding as if she’s pouting a little.

  “I didn’t think so. So get over it. We’re going to Kleinfeld’s.”

  “God,” the bride says as her mother drags her away. “You’re so cheap. If you had your way, we’d get my wedding gown at Geck’s.”

  The mother and daughter drift away, and I find myself staring after them in astonishment. Every single nerve ending in my body is tingling. I feel as if I’ve just caught fire.

  A shop that offers beautiful couture for the ordinary girl, at prices she can afford. For brides.

  “Oh my God, Chaz,” I say. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” He still has his arm around me. “The part about the full body massage I’m going to give you?”

  “Them.” I open my purse and start digging around in it for my cell phone. “Did you hear what they said?”

  “About going to Kleinfeld’s? Yeah. Hey, maybe that’s where you should get a job. That’s where everybody goes to get their wedding dresses. That’s where my sister went. Not that it helped. She still looked like me. In a wedding dress. Poor kid. She tried waxing and everything.”

  “No,” I say, stabbing at the numbers on the keypad of my phone. “Not that part.”

  Be there, I pray. Pick up. Pick up.

  A second later, a voice chirps, “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” I say. “Please don’t hang up. I know you hate me. But I’ve got a business proposition I’ve got to talk to you about. It’s important. And you won’t regret it. I promise. Where are you?”

  “Me?” She sounds slightly confused. “I’m at the dog run. Why?”

  “Stay there,” I say. “Do not move. I’ll be right over.”

  A HISTORY of WEDDINGS

  Carrying the bride over the threshold is a tradition that harkens back to the ancient practice of capturing brides from rival tribes or villages. It was also thought to—say it all together now—trick any evil spirits that might be lurking in the new home.

  Today’s modern bride may find the practice sexist or—often more alarming, considering the state of many HMOs—may fear her groom will throw his back out in attempting to lift her.

  It is, for these reasons, a tradition that is losing popularity and may safely be skipped in lieu of a kitchen witch.

  Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster

  There is a rumor flying around that the cost of the gift you give at a wedding as a guest should roughly equal the amount of the cost of the food and wine you are served at the reception. This is ridiculous. Your gift should be tasteful—and does not even have to come from the bridal registry—but does not in any way have to be proportionate to the cost of what you are being served. Any bride who suggests otherwise deserves the wooden spoon you give her applied to her backside.

  LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™

  • Chapter 21 •

  Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

  Aristotle (384 B.C.–322 B.C.), Greek philosopher

  Wedding gowns?” Ava echoes, her carefully plucked eyebrows raised. “At Geck’s?”

  “Why not at Geck’s?” I’m perched beside her on a park bench next to the small dog run at Carl Schurz Park. The small dog run is actually a raised, fenced-in stage along the boardwalk by the East River, where pedestrians can stop and watch the tiny dogs as they skitter after tennis balls thrown by their owners. This seems a source of particular delight to toddlers, whose parents lift them to stand along the edge of the stage, and who shriek in delight every time a Pomeranian or miniature pinscher comes dancing in their general direction.

  Ava, however, is holding an exhausted Snow White in her lap. The Chihuahua has apparently run after so many tennis balls that she is virtually unconscious on her mistress’s smooth, tanned thighs, a fact of which the reality television crew, filming Ava for the pilot she hopes gets picked up, Slaves of Ava, is taking pointed note. I can’t help staring at the cameras looming over me, even though Ava has told me not to pay any attention to them.

  “You don’t even see them after a while,” she says, with a yawn that, I can’t help noticing, is made all the more elfin and charming by the fact that her bee-stung lips are perfectly glossed.

  “Ava.” It’s even harder than usual to get her full attention due to the fact that DJ Tippycat is still inside the dog run with his French bulldog puppy, and Ava’s gaze keeps straying toward him every five seconds. “Listen to me. You said you wanted to do something with your life. Remember? After you broke things off with Prince Aleksandros. You have to have meant something more than just another tired old reality show. Well, this is your chance. Not only to prove to the world that you’re more than just an bubbleheaded heiress, but to help out millions of brides who want to have a beautiful gown but can’t afford it.”

  Ava doesn’t look remotely interested. She’s gazing through the enormous black lenses of her sunglasses at a tugboat chugging down the river in front of us. I glance over my shoulder at Chaz, who is waiting for me out of camera range. He refused to sign the waivers the film crew demanded in order for me to speak to Ava while she was on camera, so he has to wait out of the shot until I’m done. He doesn’t look too unhappy. He’s found a hot dog vendor and is munching away, enjoying one with everything, along with a cold soda, in the shade.

  “I don’t know,” Ava says. “What do I know about clothing design?”

  “You don’t have to design the gowns,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’ll take care of that part. You just have to market the clothes. And Geck Industries have to provide the labor and materials. I’m not talking sweatshop labor or cheap materials, either. I’m talking quality craftsmanship, sewn here, in America. The gowns have to look gorgeous and feel nice against the skin. But nothing can retail for more than four hundred dollars. It all just has to be designed by me and marketed by you…the Lizzie Nichols–Ava Geck bridal line.”

  She perks up at this. “Hey. I kind of like the sound of that.”

  “I thought you might,” I say, eyeing the camera uncomfortably as they swoop around us.

  “Lizzie and Ava,” she says. “Or Ava and Lizzie?”

  “Whichever,” I say. I can’t quite believe she’s actually going for it. I’d been shocked she’d even taken my call, let alone agreed to meet with me. I hadn’t planned much beyond my initial pitch, not thinking I’d get further than that. “Either works, I think.”

  “That’s so cute,” Ava gushes with so much enthusiasm that Snow White nearly tumbles from her lap. “Can we, like, do bridesmaid dresses too?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I say. One of the cameras comes in for a close-up. I am acutely conscious of the fact I haven’t powdered my nose all day, and that I am sweating copiously. I pray to God this show won’t ever get picked up by a major network. Or Bravo.

 
On the other hand, if Ava accepts this deal, who even cares?

  “And flower girls?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “What about clothes for dogs,” Ava says. “When DJ Tippycat’s divorce from that ho wife of his comes through, we want Snow White and Delilah to be in our wedding.”

  I look down at Snow White, struggling to find purchase on Ava’s vinyl mini. One of the cameras zooms in on Ava’s crotch. I switch my prayer to a different one…that she’s wearing panties.

  “Um,” I say. “Sure. We can do a line of wedding wear for dogs.”

  “Okay,” Ava says. “That sounds like fun.” She eyes me a little uneasily. “But if we’re going to work together, Lizzie, I need to know we’re not gonna have that same…problem we had before…are we?”

  I shake my head. “Ava, I swear on my grandmother’s grave, I will never blab something I’m not supposed to ever again.” And I know, as I say it, that this time I really mean it.

  Really.

  “Okay,” Ava says cheerfully. “Lemme call Daddy.” And she gets out her cell phone.

  “Wait.” I stare at her. “You’re going to do it now?”

  “Yeah,” she says, dialing. “Why not?”

  “Um.” I glance over at Chaz. He beams at me and gives me a thumbs-up. “Nothing. Go ahead.”

  A second later, Ava’s removed the gum from her mouth with a murmured Sorry in my direction, and is saying, “Daddy? It’s me. Yeah, hi. So, I want to start my own line of bridal wear at the store. What? The reality show? Oh, whatever, that’s so two thousand and seven. Anyway, I’m working with Lizzie, the girl who did my dress for my wedding to Alek? Uh-huh. Yeah, the one who outed me to the paps. But that, like, wasn’t her fault, really. Her sister did it, and she’s, like, a fat-armed cow. I know. Anyway, she wants to—well, here, I’ll let her tell you.” To my horror, Ava holds her pink Swarovski-encrusted phone out to me. “Tell him the thing about the beautiful gowns for girls at prices they can afford.”