Wendy turned to see the sleek white Benz pull up in front of the hotel. She took the keys from the valet and slipped a bill into his hand. “Marta, you know I would drive you both—”
“Don’t be silly. No sane woman would drive into Manhattan during rush hour.” Marta tilted her head so one oversize gold hoop gleamed on her cheek. She gave Wendy a sly smile, showing off white teeth against bright red lipstick. “Unless, of course, you’re determined to miss that appointment with the wedding planner?”
Wendy’s stomach did one of those funny little drops, like it did sometimes on Parker’s sailboat when they ventured into rougher seas. It was silly to worry about a meeting that would revolve around world-rocking issues like whether to fill the table vases with river stones or glass beads. Silly to worry about it, even though tonight she was determined to confront her mother about her sister Birdie.
The sight of a familiar silhouette saved her from responding. “Ah, here’s my brother.”
Marta lit up. “Trey! Where have you been hiding?”
“Dancing with one of Dhara’s gorgeous cousins.” Trey sauntered over and leaned down for Marta’s airy, double-cheek kiss. “Missed you, Marta. We could have shown them how it’s done.”
“Oh, how sweet, you,” Marta said, and then gave him a playful slap that would probably leave a mark. “It’s such a pity you’re a player.”
Trey’s smile widened as he rubbed his cheek. “Know a hot Latino who can settle me down?”
“Latina, baby, Latina.” Marta gave him a wicked smile. “Unless there’s something you want to get out of the closet…?”
“You know me better, chica.”
Wendy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Since the ugliness with Kelly all those years ago, she’d spent most of her adult life keeping her older brother, Jeremiah “Trey” Warner Wainwright III, clear of her friends. The patter that sounded so banal to her seemed to work wonders with an alarmingly wide range of intelligent women. Even worldly-wise Marta came to life in Trey’s presence, but Wendy knew Marta understood his type.
“Come on, Trey.” Wendy swung around to the driver’s side. “Bitsy’s waiting for us at the club, and I’d like to get there before her third gin and tonic. You’ll take care of Kelly, Marta?”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll find our disillusioned friend and share a cab with her back to the city.” Marta gave her a sassy wink. “Have fun picking out wedding favors.”
Marta headed back into the hotel as Trey slipped into the car. He flung the jacket of his Savile Row suit in the backseat.
Wendy slipped the car into gear and said, “Next time, I’m making you take the train.”
“What?”
She reached over and tugged the Egyptian cotton of his Oxford shirt. “Your shirt is buttoned wrong.”
“The dance floor was packed. I unbuttoned to cool off.”
“You stink of sex.”
“That’s sweat.” He gripped his collar and buried his face in the cloth.
“Trey, I asked you to meet me here for convenience. So I wouldn’t spend two and a half hours trying to fetch you out of the bowels of Manhattan. I did not ask you here so you could cause trouble at Dhara’s engagement party.” Wendy felt her temper rising. “And just because your driver’s license is suspended doesn’t mean I have to be responsible for driving you upstate every weekend.”
“Relax, relax!”
“Just convince me,” she said, as she turned into traffic, “that you didn’t hook up with any of Dhara’s cousins.”
“Hey, I don’t ‘hook up’ with your friends anymore.” He fumbled with the buttons. “Ancient friggin’ history, Wendy.”
Wendy’s jaw tightened. He was right, of course. The thing with Kelly was a long time ago. And he’d made his apologies back then, as best he could after the emotional damage was done. But Trey’s screwups were frequent and had a very predictable cycle: he’d do something stupid and then spend an inordinate amount of time flailing about, looking for ways to patch things up.
Problem was, a fragile woman’s heart just couldn’t be made new again.
“So,” Trey said, settling back in the leather seat, “it’s finally getting to you.”
“What?”
“You know, Bitsy’s plan to make your wedding the Event of the Millennium.”
Wendy’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. She would have closed her eyes, if she weren’t weaving through rush-hour traffic. “Mom’s heart is in the right place,” she said. “But you’d think, if you hired a Manhattan wedding planner to coordinate an event, that the wedding planner would make most of these decisions for us.”
“As if Bitsy would let that happen.”
“Dhara got engaged only a week ago,” she said, “yet her parents managed to throw together a party for two hundred relatives.”
“Balloons, Wendy. There were balloons.”
“They called a relative who manages the hotel, and they had a hall. They called another family friend who catered the food. They hired a DJ who was a member of the family. Voilà, a party.”
“Right, I can just see Bitsy eating lamb curry with a plastic spork.”
“No sixteen-piece band, no harpist at the cocktail party, no—”
“My dear,” he said, imitating their mother right down to the cadence of her speech, “that’s just the way things are done.”
Yes, Wendy thought, that was the way things were done with the Parkers and the Wainwrights and the Livingstons of Westchester County, that’s the way it had been done for generations, and so that was the way it was going to be done now and for all generations going forward, like a succession of rogue waves battering each bewildered young couple.
Poor little rich girl.
Wendy cleared her throat to cover up a humorless laugh. Poor little Wendy with her rich-girl problems. What she really needed was perspective: There were much worse wedding situations than hers. Dhara, for example. Agreeing, for reasons Wendy still couldn’t fathom, to marry an utter stranger.
Wendy wasn’t marrying a stranger. She was the luckiest woman in the world. In three months, she’d be married to Parker Pryce-Weston.
An hour later, when she pulled up the long drive to the Briarcliff Country Club, she glimpsed Parker leaning against one of the Corinthian columns that flanked the entrance. His blond hair made him instantly recognizable, bleached a shade short of white by weekends spent sailing the Long Island Sound. The moment the Benz rounded the long, curved driveway, a sexy Mario Lopez dimple deepened in his cheek.
She stepped out of the car and tossed the keys to the valet. Trey vaulted up the steps. “Hey, bro. Get in any sailing today?”
“Nah. Worked all day.”
“Parker Senior’s a taskmaster, eh?”
“Hey, at least I’m not in the mailroom anymore.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Listen, I’ve got to shower and change.” Trey tripped backward toward the door. “See you later for a drink?”
“Count on it.”
Parker watched Wendy come up the stairs. He held his drink with cocksure preppy confidence. He gave her that sideways little smile that always made her feel like he knew what she was thinking, and knew better than to ask.
“Hey, you,” she said, raising her face for a kiss.
“Hey, beautiful.”
He tasted like breath mints and lime. His hand stretched across the small of her back, comfortably familiar.
“You shouldn’t let Trey bait you,” he murmured. “You know it only pisses you off.”
“I believe that’s his mission in life.” She noticed that the sunburn on his forehead and forearms was just starting to darken. “I suppose they’re waiting for me?”
“Bitsy just ordered number three.” He guided her toward the doors. “Sorry I missed Dhara’s party. I was looking forward to watching her aunt Indira rocking on the dance floor.”
Wendy smiled. Parker had attended a party Dhara’s family had thrown after Dhara finished her medical residency
. Inspired by the family’s exuberance on the dance floor, he’d stripped off his tie with admirable abandon and joined them. It had been one of their first dates.
“It was fantastically chaotic,” she admitted, as she stepped into the high-ceilinged lobby, where natural light spread down from a skylight in the cupola. “And, as unbelievable as this sounds, the marriage really has been arranged by her parents.”
Then Wendy stiffened as she saw a tennis foursome blocking the path between the lobby and the yellow parlor. As they turned with pleasant smiles, she braced herself for the battering of small talk, curious questions, and embarrassing advice that her and Parker’s presence always seemed to elicit.
But then Parker—perceptive Parker—gently took her arm and propelled her forward, smiling at everyone but not slowing their pace, nodding and making excuses until they’d passed through the gauntlet.
“You know,” he said, his voice rippling with amusement once they were out of earshot. “You and I could always just skip out of here and get married on the sly.” He leaned into her. “We’d tell them we were going out on a date. No one would know we were missing for days.”
“Yes, but as soon as we got back, my mother would continue with the wedding plans as if nothing had occurred.”
“Your mother is a force of nature. But you’ll sail through the storm.”
“Well, brace yourself tonight.” Wendy heard her mother’s voice, drifting from the open doors of the yellow parlor. “I’m going to talk about Birdie.”
“Right now?” Parker stopped a few paces from the door and gave her an odd look. “Sure you want to do that?”
“I can’t put it off much longer or the seating arrangements will be written in stone. I’m just glad you’re here—”
“Here are the lovebirds.”
Wendy started. Bitsy appeared at the door of the parlor, striding forcefully toward them.
“We’ve been waiting for you, my dear.” Bitsy brushed her smooth cheek against Wendy’s. Her hair, a mix of blond and white, was drawn back in a sleek ponytail. “Traffic bad?”
“Terrible.” Wendy loosened her grip on Parker’s arm and gave him a here we go look. “We sat on the Whitestone Bridge for half an hour.”
Her mother’s gaze lingered for a moment on Wendy’s right ear, and Wendy realized she’d forgotten to remove the pewter stud in her cartilage piercing. It was only the second piercing in that ear, the other four having closed up long ago. Her mother liked to call that piercing Wendy’s “last little eccentricity.” Wendy remembered well her mother’s reaction when she came home with it.
Honestly, my dear, I’m a little relieved. Every Livingston has an eccentricity. At least you didn’t run off to join a polygamous cult in Utah like your cousin Beth.
Bitsy raised a brow but said nothing aloud. Instead, she led Wendy into the parlor. “You remember Terry, of course?”
Wendy thrust her hand at the wedding planner. “Terry, so good of you to make the trip up here again.”
“There is so much to be done.” Terry slipped her reading glasses onto her nose as she settled down to consult her binder. “If you all don’t mind, I’d like to skip the pleasantries for now and get right down to work.”
Bitsy gave Wendy a wide-eyed look. You know how these New Yorkers are. “Very well then. Wendy, Terry was just showing me some fabulous ideas for the wedding favors…”
Wendy sat with her eyes glazing over as Terry flipped through a book of suggestions, elaborating on each one. Wendy couldn’t help compare these engraved silver vases and cigar holders with the handcuffs she’d received at an artist friend’s wedding last year, held in the basement of an East Village pub. The dress code for the ceremony was leather. The guest book was black canvas stretched across the back wall, finger-painted in red.
Nope, no painted miniatures of copulating stick figures for her wedding. It would probably be Tuscan candy dishes, if her mother’s keen attention was any indication. They all talked about the candy dishes for a good fifteen minutes, until Parker finally quipped that they should definitely do the pottery—but keep it far from Uncle Tad. Everyone laughed, because Uncle Tad was a notorious imbiber and was best remembered for breaking a seventeenth-century Chinese vase at the Livingston-Randall wedding thirteen years ago.
Wendy joined the laughter, because if she smiled along with everyone else, then the first issue of the evening would finally be resolved.
Her mother moved quickly to another topic—what to do with the children invited to the wedding. Wendy’s smile froze. She and her mother had already “discussed” this issue, and Wendy had made her intentions quite clear. Many of her and Parker’s friends had beaten them to the altar, and several already had babies and toddlers. Wendy wanted all of them there, milling about in their joyous chaos, just like the swarm of dark-haired young Pitalias and Boharas at Dhara’s engagement party, racing around the hotel ballroom like pods of mackerel, weaving and changing direction in silvery unison.
Parker squeezed her hand. She jumped a little and realized she must have grunted.
“Mother,” she said, feeling like an actress who’d just been prompted for her line. “As we discussed, we can ask the club for the use of one of the parlors. We can hire a few babysitters, have some games. The children can join us for the meal. It’s as simple as that.”
“I suppose that would work.” Bitsy gave her a high-browed look. “If you continue to insist, that is.”
“I do insist.”
There, she’d violated the unwritten WASP code of expressing strong feelings, and in the parlor, there descended a moment of acute discomfort. The wedding planner must have sensed the sudden stillness, for she lifted her face from the ink-splattered page of her planning book and her gaze traveled between the two women, her pen poised above the page.
Well, my little Birdie, Wendy thought, it’s now or never.
“While we’re on the subject,” Wendy said, corralling her courage, “there’s something else—”
“Excuse me, ladies.”
Parker squeezed her hand painfully. Startled, she glanced at him as he rose from the chair.
“I’m going to leave you to your plotting and scheming.” He gestured vaguely to the parlor door and beyond, to the smoking room. “My future brother-in-law is saving me a stool at the bar.”
Before Wendy could react, Parker dropped a quick kiss on her head and strode toward the door. She sat stunned, watching him leave the room. Then, ignoring her mother’s elevated brows and the planner’s curious look, Wendy stood up to follow him.
She ran into him just outside the door.
“I’ve been thinking about this, Wendy,” Parker said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And I disagree with you about Birdie.”
She shook her head, not understanding. Parker knew how much this meant to her. She could do without the sex-toy wedding favors, the black strobe lights, and the techno-punk band.
But there was no way she was getting married without Birdie.
“Your sister,” he said, “just doesn’t belong at our wedding.”
Marta ushered Kelly into the cab and then squeezed in after her, addressing the cabbie before Kelly could.
“Take the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge,” Marta said, pressing the screen on the back of the seat to mute the voice urging her to buckle up. “Then go to Fifty-sixth and Eighth.”
“No, no, your apartment is closer.” Kelly sat in the corner of the cab, her hands white on her clutch. “Have him drop you off at Tudor City first.”
“I’m not going home yet.” Marta slipped her oversize bag off her lap and let it jangle on the seat between them. “I’m visiting Carlos at the restaurant, so it just makes sense to drop you off first.”
It was a little white lie, but it worked, and Marta watched Kelly succumb to the edgy silence in which Marta had found her, toying with the ribbon of a balloon in the corner of the ballroom. Kelly had been flushed and sweaty. Marta had done a quick scan of the hall, hoping some
hunky Bohara might be responsible for Kelly’s disheveled state, but Kelly was most definitely alone.
Marta nudged her shoulder, trying physically to knock her out of her mood. “Stop thinking about Dhara, Kelly. We’ll drag her out for lunch next week.” If I can squeeze that in, with that IPO looming. “We’ll slip some gin into her ginger ale, and she’ll spill the whole story. We’ve got some time. The wedding date isn’t set yet. Her sister said something about the astrologer looking at dates in the fall, so the family can fly over some relatives from India.”
Kelly glanced at her, blankly, and it was as if the girl were waking from a deep sleep.
“Isn’t it weird, though, how happy she seemed?” Marta glanced out the window. Under the elevated railway, the storefronts changed from Hindu newsstands to Greek diners to Spanish bodegas. “Maybe Dhara knows something we don’t. In some ways, this arranged marriage idea is smart. It’s efficient. You make the decision, and boom, it’s done.”
Kelly blew out an exasperated sigh. “Marta, she’s not shopping for the perfect sweater. She’s choosing her husband. And you don’t agree to an arranged marriage because you’re thirty-seven and you think it’s time.”
“We’ve all got biological clocks, and they’re tick-tick-ticking.”
“You marry for love. Period.”
At the look on her friend’s determined face, Marta felt a familiar stab of worry. It was charming, in a way, that a woman Kelly’s age could still believe in something as slippery and romantic as true love. The problem was that the belief seemed to keep Kelly from getting involved with anyone. Kelly—always waiting for the Big Thing—might miss the love boat altogether if she didn’t open herself up to possibilities.
“Hey,” Marta said, “what ever happened to that guy you work with, the one who keeps bugging you to go out for coffee?”
Kelly frowned. “Lee?”
“Yeah, that Chinese guy, the one with the fabulous hair.”
“Marta,” Kelly said, in full you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me mode, “I work with him every day.”
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