Love at First Like

by Hannah Orenstein

  We head out to the patio; I strategically stand a few inches away from the illuminated heated lamp to give my face a warm glow. I press record and coo into the phone, “Hello to everyone at The Knot! This is Eliza Roth, cofounder of Brooklyn Jewels. Thanks so much for celebrating my wedding with me!” I press a kiss into my fingertips and blow it out toward the camera, flashing my diamond ring in the process. I would imagine that every bride feels at least a little bit like a celebrity on her wedding day, but recording a video to go out to a bridal magazine’s two million Instagram followers really hits that feeling home.

  “Faaaab, thank you,” Jen says, tucking her phone away in her purse. “I’ll email the rest of my questions later, and you can answer them tomorrow, like we discussed.”

  We’ve gone through this—she’s going to send over a basic set of questions about my dress, my venue, my ceremony, and my relationship, plus an added series of questions about my ring and Brooklyn Jewels. Her job will be to string my answers together into a flattering profile designed to inspire brides-to-be.

  I turn up a megawatt smile and lean over to hug Jen goodbye.

  “I can’t wait to see the story,” I tell her, giving her a dramatic air kiss.

  Jen disappears into the crowd. I make a beeline for Raj, who’s nursing a drink alongside Carmen.

  “I just spoke to a reporter from The Knot, so hopefully, this amps up sales even further,” I tell him.

  “I was watching you do your thing with her,” he admits. “You looked awesome. Totally in your element.”

  “You know, you two actually look like a real couple,” Carmen observes.

  He slips an arm around me. “What do you mean?”

  “Like, happy. In love. In sync. It’s gross,” she says.

  I don’t know how to respond to that. After years of being the single girl, it’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that I’m now the girl who looks so obviously happy with her boyfriend. Er, fiancé. Fake Husband. Whatever he is.

  “Go talk to that guy over there,” Raj tells Carmen, subtly tilting his head toward my parents’ friend’s son at the other end of the bar. “He’s been checking you out.”

  She swivels to steal a glance at him, then swivels back to us. “He’s cute. Bye.”

  “I’m really happy we did this,” Raj says.

  “Me, too,” I say, leaning my head on his shoulder.

  The party spins on. It seems like a colossal waste of time to sit and eat dinner, so we don’t bother. Instead, Raj and I cut the chocolate cake we chose together, and I carry a hefty slice on a plate as I make the rounds to say hi to more guests. I say yes to all three people who offer to get me a drink. I slip out of my pumps, hitch up my skirt, and scamper onto the dance floor to shimmy and bounce with Raj to “Kiss” by Prince, also known as the greatest love jam of all time. My heart feels like the fizzy overflow of a bubbling champagne bottle.

  I close my eyes and work my hands over my head as I dance; I let the music move me. I can’t remember the last time I fully let loose like this. Now that there’s nothing left on my to-do list and nothing left to plan and scheme and strategize for, I’m finally free. I dance until it feels like my skin sweats glitter.

  It’s after midnight when the last of the guests trickle out. I think Sophie and Liv might still be around somewhere—and I know I saw Carmen leave with my parents’ friend’s son—but I’m too blissed-out to keep track of their whereabouts. I’m lying on the cool, hard surface of the dance floor with my head cradled on Raj’s stomach. I can feel his breath slowly returning to its normal pace after eight straight hours of dancing and celebrating and getting married. Fake married. Whatever. It was a lot for me, and I’ve had six months to prepare. I can’t imagine what a whirlwind this has felt like for him. His fingers interlace with mine in a lazy handhold.

  Across the room, I can hear the sharp click of heels. It takes all my strength to lift up my head and see who it is. Sharon is approaching with an envelope in her hand.

  “This was an amazing night,” she calls across the room. “So amazing. Congratulations again to you two.”

  “Thanks,” we say in unison.

  She squats down to our level. “Here’s the marriage certificate. I need both your signatures so I can mail it in.”

  That propels me to sit up promptly. I take the unsealed envelope and unfold the paper inside. I skim it once quickly, then read it again more carefully. This wedding has been one damn hurdle after the next. If only I hadn’t had that last drink, I might be able to think faster.

  “This goes to City Hall?” I ask Sharon.

  “Yep. I had the officiant sign it earlier, so I just need your signatures to complete it,” she explains.

  “Oh, but you don’t need to do that. I’m going to City Hall first thing on Monday morning anyway to change my name. I’ll take it. You’ve been so unbelievably helpful already, you don’t need to do one more thing,” I tell her.

  “Really, it’s no trouble at all,” she says.

  “I would love to hand-deliver it,” I insist.

  She shrugs and stands. “Sure thing. It needs to be submitted within five days of the wedding to count, just so you know.”

  “Got it,” I say. “Monday morning.”

  She walks away. Raj sits up. “You’re changing your name?” he asks, looking confused.

  “I just said that to get her off our case,” I explain. “Just so we’re all clear here, you know I’m not going to sign or submit this marriage certificate, right? This wedding was just for show.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Raj says, nodding. “We’re going to take this relationship one step at a time. If we wind up hating each other, we can always pretend to get a divorce, or whatever.”

  “Ugh, I need some time off before I plan my next fraudulent life event,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  At some point during the night, his bow tie and the top few buttons of his shirt have come undone. He looks sexy and relaxed, and I’m struck again by how lucky I am to have him in my life. I scoot closer to him and nuzzle into a kiss. But the spell is broken when I hear my name echoing through the room.

  “Eliza! Liza, Liza, look, Liza, come here!” Sophie shouts, barging in.

  She doubles over to catch her breath. “I ran here from the kitchen,” she says, panting. “I was eating your cake, sorry.”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  She straightens up and holds both of our phones aloft. “You need to see this,” she says. “Sales.”

  I scramble toward the closest empty dinner table as quickly as a person in a delicate gown can scramble. She takes the seat next to mine. Raj jumps up and hovers behind us.

  “I’ve been monitoring e-commerce all night,” Sophie explains, scrolling through a list of recent sales on her phone. “Sales are zooming up like I’ve never seen before.”

  “How much did we sell tonight?” I ask.

  “Sixty thousand dollars’ worth,” she says, leaning back in satisfaction.

  “Sixty?” I ask. My jaw drops. I turn back to look at Raj. “Sixty?” I repeat.

  “And there’s more,” Sophie says. “Carmen gave me your phone when she left. It’s hot, by the way. Like, literally warm to the touch. I think it’s genuinely overheating from all the traffic to your Instagram.”

  “Is that safe?” I ask.

  “No idea, but the app keeps freezing from all the action. Our account jumped up by eight thousand followers,” she says, showing me the new number on my screen.

  Carmen must have posted a photo to my main feed. When I look, I see that it’s a simple shot of me and Raj exchanging vows, and it makes me well up with pride. I tap on it and see the most overwhelming number of likes and comments I’ve ever gotten in my life.

  “And there’s more press to come. . . .” I say.

  “I know,” Sophie says. “Look, this is your call, and I understand if you want to crunch the numbers more thoroughly before you make a decision, but . . .”

  The number sixty
thousand echoes in my head. This is just the beginning. I know sales will continue to spike overnight as followers in other time zones tune in, and they should keep climbing throughout the week as more press rolls out. I have chills imagining what our profit margin could look like by next weekend.

  I had always hoped this would happen, of course. This is exactly why I committed to the wedding in the first place. But the likelihood of every element falling into place the way I needed them to was so incredibly slim, I never let myself fully believe I could pull this off. But I have. We all did it together—me and Sophie and Carmen and, of course, Raj.

  “You realize what this means? We can re-sign the lease,” I say.

  “We can?” Sophie asks. Tears spring to her eyes.

  “I don’t need to run the numbers,” I tell her. “If these e-commerce figures are accurate . . .”

  “They are,” she interjects.

  “Then we’re golden.”

  She collapses forward to pull me into a tight embrace. I can feel her shudder and sob happy tears into my neck. Raj runs a soothing hand over my hair and rubs comforting circles over Sophie’s back. We stay like this for a long time, soaking up the long-awaited sensation of success.

  Eventually, Sophie pulls back and wipes her tearstained cheeks with the backs of her hands. “I’m so unbelievably proud of you,” she says. “I know that I’ve been hard on you and that I’ve doubted you. Logically, this scheme never should’ve worked. I’m grateful that it did—but if you ever try to pull something like this again, I’m going to kill you.”

  It’s Sophie’s approval that breaks me. My face crumples and my eyes well up. Knowing that my sister appreciates everything I did for our family makes the past six months of stress worth it. I clutch her hand and blink back happy tears.

  “Every family needs a fun aunt, right?” I ask.

  • Chapter 30 •

  “Please turn your phones to airplane mode,” the flight attendant intones over the speaker system on Monday afternoon, as Raj and I are set to fly to Athens and connect to a smaller flight to Santorini.

  Getting here has not been easy. We stumbled into the bridal suite at the Wythe Hotel sometime after two in the morning, had triumphant wedding-night sex for approximately four minutes before collapsing in exhaustion, and spent all of Sunday making post-wedding, pre-honeymoon arrangements. I wrote a follow-up email to Jen at The Knot answering all of her questions and begged the travel company sponsoring my honeymoon to let me change the name on the second set of tickets from Blake Barrett to Raj Goyal. Meanwhile, Raj convinced his manager to let him take a week off, then sprinted to three different department stores before he could find a single bathing suit available for purchase in late October. It’s been that long since his last vacation. Then, this morning, after helping Sophie and Jess pack and ship all the orders that tumbled in over the weekend, I re-signed Brooklyn Jewels’s lease and gave our landlord a fat check. By the time Raj and I made it to our gate at the airport, we had just minutes to spare.

  Now seated on the plane, I check my phone one last time. There’s a text from Carmen that I must have missed while sprinting through the airport. I tap it open and see an aggressive number of words spelled out in capitals and more exclamation points than I’ve ever seen her use—and she’s a pretty intense person.

  “I know you’re about to leave for your honeymoon (!!!) so I’ll keep this brief, buuuuut . . . I GOT IT!!!!! I got it. FUNDING with CECELIA SUNDQUIST. I raised five million dollars in Series A and I am IN BUSINESS, BABY!!!!! Thank you to the moon and back for ALL YOUR HELP!!!! Love you love love you forever xoxoxoxo!!!!!”

  I gasp and show Raj the text. “Carmen did it!” I exclaim.

  But he’s already reading a nearly identical text on his own phone. “She wants to bring me on full-time,” he says. “She offered me a job! For a lot of money.”

  “Would you take it?” I ask.

  “She’s awesome. We’ll have to talk when I get back from our honeymoon, but I don’t see why not,” he says.

  I can’t help but grin as I type a congratulatory text back to Carmen.

  When I turn my phone onto airplane mode, thus entirely disconnecting myself from the outside world, I feel a wave of relief. It’s been a long, stressful six months glued to my phone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the way social media has skyrocketed my business to a new level of success. I know how lucky I am to be able to garner a following and capitalize on their support. But I’m also looking forward to a week away when I can just be me, Eliza, not Eliza, the girl behind @brooklynjewels.

  After the plane takes off and we’re soaring comfortably through the clouds, a flight attendant comes down the aisle pushing a beverage cart.

  “I overheard you talking earlier,” she says in a conspiratorial tone. “I heard this is your honeymoon? Congratulations.”

  “Oh, thank you!” I say.

  “Can I offer you something bubbly to drink?” she asks.

  “Sure, thank you so much.”

  She takes two mini bottles of prosecco from the cart and hands them to us along with paper napkins.

  “To our third date,” I chuckle quietly to Raj once she’s out of earshot.

  He clinks his bottle against mine. “Cheers!” he says.

  We both take celebratory swigs. The prosecco is sweet and fizzy; it’s exactly the right way to kick off our first trip together.

  “Do you want to take a photo of this?” he asks. “I know you love to keep your followers updated.”

  I consider it briefly, then shake my head. “Nah, let’s live in the moment.”

  Acknowledgments

  I’m so grateful to my agent, Allison Hunter, for encouraging this novel from the beginning. If not for her enthusiasm and support, this book would not exist! Clare Mao made this process so seamless. Janklow & Nesbit is a wonderful home for authors.

  It was a pleasure to collaborate again with my editor, Kaitlin Olson. She brought this book to life with her savvy edits, eye for detail, and passion for jewelry. Many thanks to Lindsay Sagnette, Suzanne Donahue, James Iacobelli, Libby McGuire, Megan Rudloff, and Isabel DaSilva at Atria Books for making this book possible and for ensuring it falls into readers’ hands!

  Thanks to Sinem Erkas for designing the gorgeous cover and to Willa Bennett for brainstorming the winning title. Together, they’re a perfect match.

  I was inspired to write this novel after stumbling across talented jewelers with popular Instagram accounts. Thanks to Jillian and Tim Sassone of Marrow Fine for the inside scoop on what it’s really like to run a jewelry business.

  Special thanks to Lucia Stacey, who lent her poem “September” and her stage name, Penelope Strangelight, to this book. I’m honored to print my favorite piece of poetry.

  I’m very lucky to work among such a supportive, passionate group of people. Thanks to Bryan Goldberg, Kate Ward, Lindsay Mannering, Kylie McConville, Veronica Lopez, Iman Hariri-Kia, Caitlin Eadie, and everyone at Elite Daily.

  The day I published Playing with Matches, I received a flood of questions from readers who wanted to know if and when I’d publish a second novel. I couldn’t get those readers’ words out of my head, and so Love at First Like was born. Thanks to everyone who sent kind messages and cheered me on.

  Thanks to my friends for celebrating this book from the start: Alexia LaFata, Annie Kehoe, Dana Schwartz, Devon Albert-Stone, Emma Albert-Stone, Elyssa Goodman, Emily Raleigh, Kelsey Mulvey, Morgan Boyer, Roshan Berentes, and more.

  Thanks to Jerry and Eleanor Hart; Karen, Bob, and Jake Sykes; Bruce, Xander, Nathan, and Zoe Orenstein; and Jamie, Karin, Dani, and Rosie Orenstein for all their love.

  I am so lucky to have the most supportive family in my corner. Thank you to Audrey, Jack, and Julia Orenstein for always encouraging me to pursue my love of writing, and for their thoughtful feedback on every draft.

  I write love stories for a living. Thank you to Saul Hamadani for giving me one of my own—it was truly love at fir
st like.

  Love at First Like

  Hannah Orenstein

  This reading group guide for Love at First Like includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Hannah Orenstein. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  In Hannah Orenstein’s Love at First Like, a New York jewelry shop owner accidentally leads her Instagram followers to believe that she’s engaged—and then decides to keep up the ruse.

  Eliza Roth and her sister, Sophie, co-own a jewelry shop in Brooklyn. One night, after learning of an ex’s engagement, Eliza accidentally posts a photo of herself wearing a diamond ring on that finger to her Instagram account, beloved by 100,000 followers. Sales skyrocket, press rolls in, and Eliza learns that her personal life is good for business. So she has a choice: continue the scheme or clear up the misunderstanding. With her landlord raising the rent and mounting financial pressure, Eliza sets off to find a fake fiancé.

  Fellow entrepreneur Blake seems like the perfect match on paper. And in real life he shows promise, too. But Blake doesn’t know Eliza is “engaged”; Sophie asks Eliza for an impossible sum of money; and Eliza feels drawn to someone else—Raj, the bartender down the street.

  With a wedding to drum up more business on the horizon, Eliza’s lies begin to spiral out of control, and she’ll have to decide whether to stay engaged online or fall in love in real life.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  1. The novel begins with Eliza’s ex-boyfriend Holden becoming engaged. They’ve been broken up for many years, but she worries that “his engagement means that I’ve officially lost the breakup.” Why do you think this engagement gets under her skin so much?

  2. When defending her choice to leave her Instagram photo up, Eliza notes in chapter 2 that there are some female entrepreneurs “whose businesses are bolstered because the founders have enviable lives.” Do you agree with this statement? Can you think of other business owners who have grown their brands by having what seem like interesting personal lives?