His eyes widened. “Why would they even consider calling you that? You did nothing like that on the show. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
His indignation on my behalf touched me and I said, “Well, I did hug Kent, and kiss him a bit.” Mostly on the cheek, but once on the mouth when I’d been so touched by his care for MC that I hadn’t been able to hold back.
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to kiss the guy but it doesn’t make you a slut.”
We laughed at the idea of him kissing his brother, then shared our usual friendly hug, and as I turned to go to my car he said, “Summer?”
I looked back to find him looking uncomfortable. “What’s up?”
He looked down at the ground, then back at me. “I was sorry when you and Kent split for you guys, but also for me because I didn’t get to see you any more. I’m glad I can now.”
My heart melted, and I reached out and hugged him again. “Me too. You’re the best ex-brother-in-law ever.”
He squeezed me tighter than he ever had before. “Glad to hear it.”
“I did miss you,” I admitted into his chest. “You picked on me a lot but I’ve missed you.”
His chuckle rumbled through me. “You gave back as good as you got and I liked it. So I’ve missed you too.”
We held each other for another second then he gently set me back and said, “Go save poor MC from the dress disasters. We’ll talk later.”
I nodded. “And I’ll tell you all about how I found the perfect dress for her.”
Chapter Eight
I truly thought I would tell him that, but things didn’t work out that way.
Liv and I helped MC into dress after dress after dress, and I saw why they’d had so much trouble. MC had a nice figure but she had a very long torso so most of the gowns didn’t hang right on her or line up properly with her waist. The few that did still weren’t great, and after three hours of shopping I hadn’t seen her in one thing I would allow her to buy even if she liked it. As a designer myself the sales clerks’ comments made far more sense to me than they had to the other two, but really what they were saying was, “I want a sale so let’s try some changes, but I have no idea how to make you look amazing.”
I did, though. As we tried on more dresses I began a mental list of what features worked on her, and when the poor girl collapsed on a chair in yet another unflattering white confection and said, “I’ll wear jeans, I guess. I see no other option,” I said, “I do.”
She looked up and Liv said, “Really?”
I sank to the floor in front of them since my feet were tired and said, “Definitely. Here’s what you need.” I went through my mental list with them, and at the end they exchanged a silent look that seemed to say a lot in a language I didn’t know. Then Liv said slowly, “Where would she get a dress like that? We haven’t seen one anywhere.”
I shook my head. “You won’t find it in a store. That kind of thing isn’t the trend right now. But you could--” I froze as excitement flooded me. “No, I could. I’ve always wanted to make a wedding dress and I could do it in time, I promise I could, and you’d look amazing. It’d be perfect for you.”
Another look passed between them and I knew, although I couldn’t say how, that their first look had been about whether they should ask me to make the dress. I also knew that though I’d offered they still weren’t sure.
“Honestly,” I said, trying not to sound ridiculously over-excited. “I truly can. I was going to make my own dress but we got married in a month and that wasn’t quite enough time. But I can do yours. I’ve got two months, and I’m getting closer to being caught up on the swimsuits so I’ll have that time available too, and I would really love to. I promise you’d love it too. What do you think?”
MC’s eyes shifted toward her best friend’s and once more they spoke without words. I’d never had a friendship with such a close connection, and it made me jealous. I had had something similar with Kent, but of course now MC had that.
As I wondered, too late, whether it would be painful to make the gown MC would wear to marry Kent, she said, “I... yes. If you’re sure, yes.”
That was my out, but I didn’t want an out. I had always wanted to make a wedding dress. Every fashion show ended with one, and though I wasn’t a real designer I loved the idea of making one. This was my chance. Maybe I could be a real designer, someday, if the TV thing didn’t pan out. The publicity MC’s dress would get would be good for me for either career. And I could keep my promise to myself about helping with the wedding. “I am sure, and it’ll be great.”
MC smiled at me, looking shy as always but also happy, and I said, “Why don’t we go back to my place and--”
Before I could explain about the measurements I’d need, her phone rang. “Hey, Clementine,” she said. “Is everything-- oh. No. Yes. Yeah, I can. Twenty? Okay.” She dropped the phone back into her purse and grimaced. “Software’s blown up, I have to go. Liv has my schedule, so can you guys figure out when we can do the measurements?” She started struggling out of the dress she’d been wearing and we helped, and as she turned her back to put on her street clothes she said, “Ooh, and maybe you could do a sketch for me and give it to Liv? If you guys don’t mind hanging out a bit, that is?”
I looked at Liv, and she grinned. “I don’t think we mind. Coffee?”
I grinned back. “Sounds great.”
*****
It could have been awkward to hang out with Liv, since I barely knew her, but we were chatting away so comfortably from the moment we reached the shopping mall coffee shop she liked that we almost forgot to check MC’s schedule so I could measure her. Liv was clearly smart, but she didn’t use her intelligence to attack me the way my family did. She was funny too, at one point making me laugh so hard I started snorting, and I felt like we’d been friends forever. I could talk to anyone, but never on this level.
Like a real friend, she didn’t shy away from the tough questions. “You can make this dress for MC, right? On time?”
“Absolutely. I am busy, so I get why you’re worried, but if we get started right away I know I can.”
“And it’ll be gorgeous? She wants to make Kent forget about--” She gave a weird twitch. “Wants to knock Kent out with how good she looks.”
“Forget about me, right?” My heart hurt at the thought of him forgetting me but I tried to hide that in my joking tone.
She winced. “Sorry. She actually said forget about everyone else he’s ever been with, but of course you’re in that group. Sorry.”
“Hey, he’s supposed to, right? Out with the old, in with the new.”
Liv’s wince became a grimace and she leaned forward. “Isn’t this hard for you? Would be for me. Even if I didn’t want to be married to the guy any more it’d be hard to--”
‘My cell phone, on silent to avoid annoying other shoppers, vibrated on the table, cutting her off. My hand moved toward it but I surprised myself by saying, “It can go to voicemail.” I’d never felt like I could talk to anyone about this but somehow Liv felt safe. She probably shouldn’t have since she was MC’s best friend, but she did. “Yeah, actually it is hard. Kent’s a great guy. We didn’t work out, but...” I shrugged. “I guess sometimes I wish we had.”
Liv leaned back in her chair, further than before, like she was trying to get away with me. “But you’re not going to... I mean, you wouldn’t...”
It took me a second to get what she was trying not to say. “Try to break them up? Of course not. And honestly, even if I would, which I wouldn’t, I don’t think I could. Kent looks so happy with her, like... like he’s finally come home after a long time away.”
My throat tightened at the truth of that, since I didn’t think he’d ever looked like that with me, and Liv gave me a sad smile. “You’re brave, you know. And tough. Those other exes gave you a hard time on the island and you didn’t let them get to you.”
I had cried on several occasions over their cruelties, at least once on cam
era, but as I took a breath to admit this Liv said, “Not much, anyhow. Not as much as I would have. Surrounded by all those women who didn’t like you? Yuck.”
“Yeah, I’ve had better days.” I laughed. “Like any of the times I got to spend with Aaron there.”
She laughed too. “He’s much more fun, that’s for sure. When he and MC were dating I thought he was nothing but an adorable flake but after seeing how he was with her on the island...” Liv shook her head. “I was impressed, I have to say. There’s a lot more to that guy than meets the eye.”
“Not that what meets the eye is bad.”
She said with laughter in her voice, “Uh oh, we’ve got the same taste in men. Battle to the death!”
I giggled, then said, “Wait. On the show didn’t MC say you like blond guys?”
To my surprise her cheeks went pink. “I do, usually. But Aaron is... anyhow, yeah, mostly. And besides, I’ve just started seeing a new guy, and he’s blond, so I guess you and I don’t have to have that fight after all.”
We both laughed, then she said, “I guess you should check that voicemail?”
“Forgot about it,” I said, “but probably.”
Barely a second into the message I was glad I hadn’t taken the call.
“Summer, you gorgeous thing, it’s Simon. Look, Mimi and I need to talk to you. Very important. Can you get yourself to Vegas on Thursday? Don’t worry, your New Year’s job is still on. This is something different. Something right up your... alley.”
I shuddered at his tone and deleted the message. “That guy is slimier than the snake we found on the island.”
“Which guy? And snakes aren’t slimy.”
“They aren’t? Well, he’s lower to the ground and... slitherier, then.”
I told her about Simon and my celebrity-hunting job in Toronto at New Year’s and how though he was my route to the career and fame I wanted whenever I spoke to him I ended up feeling like I needed a long hot shower, and about how Peter had offered his help and then backed off but that he had texted to say I’d done a nice job with Courtney and how happy that had made me.
When I finished she said, “Well, I hope Slimon has another great assignment for you. Maybe he’s getting the TV stuff ready early. That’d be cool. And speaking of assignments, want to go shopping? Stores’ll be open for another half hour or so.”
I laughed. “That’s not an assignment. More like a party. But sure, I’d love to.”
She grinned at me, looking relieved and happy, and I realized with a shock of excited surprise that she didn’t want to end our time together. She was enjoying hanging out with me as much as I was enjoying it.
Which was a lot.
MC was her best friend, but maybe I could be her second-best friend?
Chapter Nine
I looked back and forth between Simon and Mimi. “What? No way.”
Mimi rolled her eyes and didn’t look surprised, and Simon gave a theatrical sigh and said, “So you have inside knowledge on a huge story and you won’t let us use it? I thought you actually wanted into this career, Summer. No?”
“I do,” I said, trying to think fast. “I definitely do. But...”
“But what?”
“Obviously she doesn’t really know,” Mimi said. “She was just pretending. Told you we shouldn’t bother with her.”
Simon tipped his head from side to side like he was considering getting rid of me and panic swept me. “I do know. And I do want the career. But...”
They waited in matching frosty silences while I struggled to figure out how to end my sentence. If I didn’t tell, I’d be out of my dream job before it truly began. Seeing my name on the website above my article about Courtney had been so cool I hadn’t been able to stop staring at it, and I didn’t want to lose that. But how could I tell them where and when Kent and MC were getting married?
Mimi slapped her overstuffed appointment book shut, startling me. “Simon, she’s wasting my time and so are you. I’m off, and I’ll take over the New Year’s stuff too. Misty Will and all that. It has to be done right.”
She didn’t say, “And we can’t trust Summer to do it,” but it was clear in her tone that she was thinking it. “It’s going to be done right,” I said, “because I’m going to do it.”
Mimi’s laugh made my stomach twist. “Yeah, right. You’ve done one little thing with Courtney, which doesn’t make you an expert even though you think it does, and now you won’t pass along the information we need, and you think I’d ever trust you with New Year’s? Not a chance.”
“It’s not all up to you, Mimi,” Simon said, but he was grinning and I realized with a worsening of my upset stomach that he was enjoying watching her belittle me. I didn’t know which of them I really needed to impress, and I’d almost never felt less impressive than I did right then, but the thought of going back to Portland and admitting to everyone that my career was over already was too much to bear so I had to impress them. But... “I can’t tell you,” I blurted. “I don’t want their wedding ruined.”
Simon placed a cold hand on my upper arm. “That’s so sweet of you, and we don’t either,” he said. “Of course not. We’d just watch from a distance, maybe take a few pictures... no big deal.”
I sat torn, and his hand tightened. “Of course, if we have to do a lot of work to find them ourselves, which I promise you we would do and succeed at, we would want that work to pay off. Just a few pictures wouldn’t be good enough then. We’d need video, maybe an interview, that sort of thing. And we’d find their honeymoon location too. Is that what you want?”
His point was clear: if I made him hunt down the wedding he’d ruin everything on purpose. No doubt there’d be lots of pictures taken at the wedding anyhow. Honeymoons, though, were supposed to be totally private. Mine with Kent, which we’d spent roaming Paris while wrapped up completely in each other and the joys of newlywed sex, had been a beautiful thing, and I didn’t want MC denied that experience. If Simon sent people after them on their cruise, to spy on them...
I couldn’t bear the thought of how awful that would be for the painfully private MC. “Do you promise you won’t wreck the wedding?”
He squeezed my arm, in what would have been a comforting fashion if his knuckles hadn’t copped a feel in the process. “I do.” He laughed. “And speaking of that, we won’t even try to get a picture of the ‘I do’ part. Nothing in the church. Telephoto lenses all the way, Summer. We’ll just get MC arriving, the happy couple leaving, that sort of thing. Nobody will see us, and nobody will even know you were involved.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, then I mumbled, “Fine,” and grabbed his computer to find the church webpage. Once I’d committed, I knew I’d done the right thing and my tension began to fade. Far better this than him hunting down the wedding, and probably the honeymoon too, and ruining everything. This way Kent and MC would have their perfect day and perfect honeymoon, and I’d get to keep moving forward in my career.
Everyone would win.
Chapter Ten
Kia approached our table on her way back from the restroom and my heart picked up its pace. I had to ask her, but I didn’t want to. I’d been thinking about it since I got her email yesterday at the Vegas airport on my way home.
She settled into her chair and I took a deep breath and said, “Um, Kia?”
She looked down at her feet. “Do I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe?”
I blinked. “No. Why would you think--”
“It happened to me once and now I’m paranoid. Okay, if it’s not that why did you say, ‘Um, Kia?’ in that freaked-out voice?”
“Because...” I cleared my throat. “Because I have to ask you about--”
“Summer?”
I turned to see a man who I’d often seen behind the coffee shop’s counter smiling at me. “Summer, from TV?”
Lots of people said it like that, full of amazement that I was really there in front of them, and I loved it. “Yup, that’s me.”
His smile widened. “Could I take a picture of you drinking our coffee? On the house, of course. I’d like to put it on our website.”
“As long as,” I said, remembering what had been in my contract with the show, “you mention that I was on ‘Ragged Royalty’.”
“Absolutely,” he said, nodding fast. “No problem at all. Coffee? Latte? Cappuccino?”
“Ooh, you do good lattes.”
He beamed. “Coming right up.”
I pulled out my lipstick to give myself a quick touchup before the picture, and by the time I was done he’d returned with a steaming mug with a beautiful leaf design in the foam.
“Here you are,” he said, setting the mug down in front of me and waving over a shy-looking worker with a camera.
While the worker lined herself up to take the picture, the man crouched down beside me and said, “I’m Gary, by the way. I own this place.”
“It’s very nice,” I said, not sure what response I should be making but knowing one was expected.
He grinned, and the worker said, “Are we ready?”
She snapped several pictures while Gary and I smiled, then suddenly became all photographer on us and insisted that she take a few while I sipped the drink and Gary did different poses around me.
“Smile at her like you’re proud of your work. Then gesture to the cup like you know it’s delicious. Then--”
“That’s enough,” Gary said firmly. “We’ve taken up enough of Summer’s time.”
The worker scuttled off and Gary said, “Thank you again, Summer. Really appreciate it. Enjoy your drink.”
I smiled at him and he left, and I turned to Kia to see her with a grouchy face and an empty table in front of her.
“Gary?” I called.
He was back in seconds. “Yes?”
“Could I get another latte for my friend here? I’m happy to pay for it if--”
He waved me off. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Yes, of course.”
It took a little longer, and it wasn’t quite as pretty when it arrived as mine had been, but I smiled and thanked him and he went off happy.
Fifteen Minutes of Summer Page 6