Wedding Bells and Wall Street Bros

by Alina Jacobs

  I cut a piece of the eggs Benedict and held it out to her. She was about to take it off of my fork when the doorbell rang several times in rapid succession. Brea jumped, smearing hollandaise sauce all over her face.

  “Crap!” she exclaimed, wiping at it. “So much for a sexy brunch.”

  Carter was on the other side of the door when I opened it.

  “Go away.” I slammed it in his face.

  There was more ringing and furious knocking. “Mom just called me!” my brother hollered.

  I opened the door again. Carter grinned a sheepish grin as if he’d fucked up and needed me to rescue him.

  “I kind of sort of told her about Brea and your dinner with her yesterday,” he said, rocking back on his heels, “and she said that you had to come by for a casual dinner on the terrace.”

  “No, Carter, you didn’t!”

  “Dude, she weaseled it out of me! She knows when I’m lying!”

  “It’s not hard!” I shouted. “You’re always lying! You should have just stuck to your guns. What kind of a brother are you?”

  Brea popped up beside me. “Is something wrong?”

  Carter sniffed. “Did you make brunch?”

  “You are not invited, especially after you sold me out to Mom,” I said, slamming the door and hauling Brea back into the living room.

  “He can have a muffin,” Brea insisted and then proceeded to wrap up several of the glossy baked goods on a plate and bring them to Carter.

  He was still standing outside the door, and he grinned when he saw her. “You definitely need to put a ring on her, Mark,” he told me, eating half of a chocolate muffin. “I could get used to this. You’re going to see me out here every morning, begging for food.”

  I shook my head as Brea came back into the living room, giggling.

  “See?” I complained. “This is why I have to move!”

  “So we’re really going to have dinner with your parents?” Brea asked, eating a chocolate muffin and perching on a stool while I cleaned up the dishes.

  “You do not have to go.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “I don’t want any of us to go,” I said, kissing her and tasting the chocolate and sugar. “I would rather both of us be on a plane to somewhere nice, like Iceland.”

  “Iceland? What about the Caribbean?”

  “What’s wrong with Iceland?” I protested. “It’s beautiful in the spring, and it’s only dark ten hours a day right now.”

  “You don’t want the beach with all-you-can-drink piña coladas, fancy hotels, and bright-blue water?”

  “That’s a honeymoon destination,” I retorted. “Iceland is where you go when traveling as a couple. Think about the hot springs. There are also glass-walled cabins you can stay in out in the wilderness and watch the northern lights. It feels like it’s just the two of you alone in the world.”

  “And they say Wall Street bros aren’t romantic!” Brea teased.

  “I’m not a Wall Street bro!” I protested. “I only dabble in stocks. I made my real money in robotics.”

  Brea raised an eyebrow and popped the last of her muffin into her mouth. “That is totally something a Wall Street bro would say.”

  I took a deep breath. “Seriously though, if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to.”

  “I’m going. You suffered through my family. I promise I won’t set anything on fire though,” she said and checked her phone. “I need to go home and find something to wear though. What time do we need to head over?”

  “We can buy you something here so you don’t have to go all the way back to your apartment.”

  “Here where?”

  “There are shops around the corner.”

  “He shops, he does dishes,” she quipped.

  “See? Totally not a Wall Street bro,” I told her. “I’ll gladly come with you to buy a dress.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I actually make my own clothes. I don’t think I’ve worn anything I’ve bought at a store in years.”

  “Now who’s the snob?” I said, tipping her back and kissing her.

  40

  Brea

  Shit shit shit!

  I ran inside my parents’ house. I almost wished I hadn’t been so snobby in declining Mark’s offer. I was going to be late! The train had been delayed, and we’d sat in the tunnel for twenty minutes while I impatiently looked at my watch.

  “Emergency! Emergency!” I called, running into the apartment.

  Ivy, Elsie, and Grace were at another wedding, but Amy and Sophie were waiting for me at my parents’ apartment. My dads were regaling them with the latest saga in their quest for a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. All of us wanted one. It had been imparted to me since I was young that we needed to be on the lookout for one of these antiques at every estate sale we visited. Of course, even if there had been one, we could not afford it.

  “It was there in the back of the room,” Todd was saying. “A Louis Vuitton malle secretaire bureau steamer trunk. There was another guy there, evil, with a mustache. We both saw the trunk—”

  “Did you not hear me yelling ‘emergency’?”

  “But we saw a trunk in the wild!” Beau protested.

  “I’m assuming you didn’t buy it?”

  “No,” my father said dejectedly.

  “We will drink and mourn and eat discounted birthday cake later. But right now, I have to go meet Mark’s parents, and I don’t have anything to wear.”

  “Uh oh, she’s meeting the parents,” Sophie said, shaking her head slowly. “Nancy Holbrook runs the Holbrook Foundation. She’s from old money, related to the Rockefellers. She only wears custom Chanel suits and has a perfectly coifed bob. You can’t wear one of your lacy cutoff-jeans numbers.”

  “Of course not,” I said, rushing into my room and throwing open my closet. I sighed in dejection as I looked at my cute but admittedly quirky clothes. I started throwing them out onto my bed to try to find something—anything—suitable to wear to Nancy Holbrook’s.

  “Maybe this pencil skirt?” I suggested, digging it out of the bottom of my closet, “and this blouse?” I struggled to pull the pencil skirt on and only managed to wedge it halfway up my thighs. “Definitely wish I hadn’t eaten the last muffin,” I huffed as Sophie helped me pull it up.

  Riiiip!

  “Nooo!” I yelled dramatically. “What am I going to wear?”

  My dads appeared in the doorway.

  “No,” I said. “Whatever you found at the garage sale, I cannot wear it.”

  Beau held up an incredibly nineties high-waisted peach shorts suit with a long jacket á la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

  “There’s even a belt!” he said happily.

  “Dad, no!”

  “Girl,” Amy said, pointing to the time. “Mark’s going to be here any minute.”

  The suit smelled like wet cat. I pulled the shorts up, and my dad handed me the belt.

  “At least you shaved your legs,” Amy said as she combed some product through my hair to try to tame my curls. She fluffed them over the massive shoulder pads.

  “This is insane,” I muttered. “Is this even appropriate for a dinner party?”

  “It’s not a dinner party, it’s a casual meal on the terrace,” my dad reminded me. “You look amazing.”

  “Just keep your legs together,” Amy told me.

  “Too late for that!” my dad joked.

  “Dad!”

  “The shorts look more like a skirt if you aren’t flopping your legs around,” Sophie assured me.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. Tall, willowy, beautiful Julia Roberts pulled off the look in Pretty Woman. However, I was none of those things.

  “I need to cancel,” I moaned. “I need to tell Mark this isn’t happening and cancel.”

  “You can’t do that. It’s rude,” Todd chastised. “Now here is your wine, and Amy brought you a lovely bouquet to bring to your dinner.”

  “Make sure you don’t eat
anything like black bean hummus or poppyseeds or Oreos that could get stuck in your teeth,” Amy instructed as she sprayed me with Febreze.

  “And try to sound somewhat marginally intelligent. Also, types like Mark's mom don’t like a lot of PDA,” Todd said.

  “But don’t do no PDA,” my other dad chastised as he smeared makeup on my face. “You have to make them think you care about Mark.”

  “I do care about him.”

  Buzzz!

  “He’s here!” my father chirped.

  Mark was standing outside the door, wearing a gray suit jacket and matching slacks, white shirt, and no tie. His hair was slightly messy and not gelled back.

  “Am I dressed okay?” I squawked. At least I was wearing normal shoes—a pair of black ballet flats.

  “Of course,” he said and bent down to kiss me while my friends, parents, and an army of Roombas looked on.

  “Have her back by ten,” my father said cheerfully. “You poor single ladies,” he addressed my friends as the door closed, “don’t worry. We have pizza and a Richard Gere movie marathon as consolation prizes.”

  I wish I was watching movies and eating pizza, I thought as I fiddled with my necklace in Mark’s car. Beowulf was in the back seat and made the only noise as Mark drove silently down the street.

  He seemed a little on edge as we took the highway out to Connecticut. The density of the city peeled away, and the land opened up. The houses became larger and more ornate, surrounded by trees and ironwork fences with stone lions guarding the front.

  Mark took a right turn, and then we were in the super-cute town of New Cardiff, a wealthy New England town on the waterfront.

  “I’ve done weddings out here,” I said. “I didn’t know this was where you grew up.”

  “Yep.” He looked at me then back at the road. “Is it too Wall Street bro for you?”

  “Please, I’m a basic bitch. I love a cute town with brick pavers and cutesy storefronts. Weddings in the City did a wedding in that pavilion,” I pointed, “and in the old train station and had several rehearsal dinners in these restaurants.”

  Mark smiled wanly. “I need to show you something,” he said, taking another turn. He pulled the car up to a tall wrought iron gate. The guard opened it and waved him through, and we drove up a picturesque drive to a huge, rambling estate.

  “This is the Holbrook estate,” Mark said, parking the car. He stepped out, and I followed. Beowulf ran in front of us, bounding through the lush green grass. “A couple years ago,” Mark said as we walked through the grounds, “I was dating this woman. I thought she was the love of my life. I was planning on proposing to her with this ring.” He took it out of his pocket.

  “Rhonda?” I asked.

  He nodded, mouth a bitter line. “So you heard the whole sordid tale, and you still want to be with me?”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said gently.

  “She rigged a bomb that blew up my house and set it on fire to try to kill my family. I should have known, Brea. I should have known. I’m not stupid.”

  “Of course you’re not stupid,” I assured him, stroking his arm.

  “Then why did I let it happen?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I just don’t understand.” He was angry and distressed.

  “Oh, you poor naïve Wall Street bros.”

  Mark jerked away from me.

  “Look, Mark,” I said, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “I don’t know how you were raised, but I find a lot of men seem to believe that women are just pretty, stupid creatures. Men roll their eyes when they see us go full-blown bridezilla at weddings and get hung up on what type of lace we want for a dress. And yeah, I guess some women aren’t that smart. But a lot of them are. A lot of women are sociopaths, and they use men’s preconceived notions about how a woman should act against them. They’re master manipulators.”

  I took a breath.

  “Trust me, I’ve seen things in the bridal industry you wouldn’t believe—women whipping their bridesmaids’ psyches into a pink froth, constant gaslighting. One woman stole a bunch of money from her sister to fund her wedding, and then, when confronted about it, she blamed her father. It was a complete mess. So when you tell me that this bitch Rhonda manipulated and lied to you, I mean, yeah, I believe it. Some women are just flat-out evil. Unfortunately, you managed to land in the clutches of one. It is not your fault. It happens.”

  Mark turned back to me, a pathetic, adorable expression on his face. I took his hand.

  “Fortunately for you,” I quipped, “after being in the trenches of wedding planning, I can smell a manipulative skank a mile away, and I promise, if any one of those bitches comes after you, I will cunt punt them into next week.”

  Mark barked out a laugh. “What does that even mean?”

  “Like cunt punt,” I mimed and did a football kick.

  “Oh my God!” Mark said, staring at me in shock.

  “What? Oh.” I looked down at my legs.

  “Those are shorts?”

  “You seem really horrified,” I told him.

  “Why are they shorts?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Women can wear shorts; this isn’t the 1860s.”

  “I just…” Mark shook his head. “I didn’t think that was a thing.”

  “This discussion is not about me and my poor life decisions,” I told him sagely. “This is about you and self-care and healing.” I turned him around to face the pond. “Throw that ring away; throw away all the bad memories! Cunt punt that ring into the pond, if you will.”

  Mark took the sparkling engagement ring out of the box, inspecting it for a moment, then took a deep breath, wound up, and threw it. It skipped across the water twice then sank. I applauded, and Beowulf yipped.

  Mark pulled me to him and hugged me then kissed me. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said, snuggling me against his chest. I kissed his jaw.

  “That felt good,” Mark said as I rubbed his back. “Who knew throwing an eighty-thousand-dollar ring into a lake could be so therapeutic?”

  I froze. “That was an eighty-thousand-dollar ring?” I ran to the edge of the pond. “What the fuck!”

  41

  Mark

  “I don’t know why you’re so upset about the ring,” I said as we drove away from the Holbrook estate.

  “That was an expensive ring,” Brea said in shock.

  “But it had bad memories attached,” I argued. “What happened to self-care and letting it go?”

  “Shit, I would have bought you a ring pop to throw, and we could have pawned that diamond in self-care.”

  I laughed, feeling freer than I had since before Rhonda. I reached over and took Brea’s hand. I wanted to say something cheesy, like that I would make sure her ring cost twice that amount. But Brea already looked wigged out, and I knew my mother, though she tried, could also be quite intimidating. For once, I wished Carter or one or all of my cousins were going to be at this casual dinner on the terrace, as my mother had put it.

  “You grew up here?” Brea asked as she stepped out of the car and set Beowulf down on the ground.

  The puppy had never been out to my childhood home, and he seemed as apprehensive as Brea to be out on the vast grounds. Though not as big as my uncle’s estate, my mother and father’s house still had an award-winning garden, impeccable decorations, and a lovely terrace to look out over the landscape.

  Brea grabbed the wine and the flowers out of the car. I wrapped an arm around her waist to take her up the wide stone steps to the grand front door.

  “Mark!” my mother announced as my father, Jack, opened the door.

  “Mom, this is—”

  “Brea!” she exclaimed, hugging her. “Yes, of course I’ve heard all about your girlfriend. We’re so glad to meet you.”

  My father beamed at her. What was going on? Usually all anyone got from my father was a scowl. My mother was too polite to make people feel unwelcome,
but even she was being warmer than normal.

  Brea handed my father the wine and my mother the flowers.

  “Or you can switch,” she joked.

  My father studied the wine label.

  Please don’t make a snide comment. If my father made Brea cry, I was going to turn right around and take my girlfriend and my dog with me and leave.

  Brea looked at the label of the wine. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh shoot, I grabbed the bad wine. So sorry.” She tried to take it back.

  “Bad wine?” My father laughed. “You must have impeccable taste in wine. This is a 1970 Château d'Yquem. I’d hate to see what your good wine is. See, Mark,” my father said. “I knew you could find a nice girl if you tried. She’s so much better than—” My mother kicked him in the shin.

  Who were these people?

  “It’s just going to be us tonight, dears,” my mother said, leading us into the salon. “Now that your Uncle Walter is back at the Holbrook estate, I can finally breathe.”

  “We let him stay here after the well, uh…” my father said, looking down nervously at my mother’s very sharp—both fashionably and physically—pointed shoes. “How about some appetizers. I made them myself,” my father offered.

  “You cooked?”

  “Not me personally,” my father clarified. “I put them on a plate though.”

  My father made cocktails while I looked around the house. I hadn’t been home in almost a year.

  “You redecorated?” I asked my mother just to fill the silence.

  “Yes. Do you like it?”

  “You have wonderful taste,” Brea gushed. “I wish you could come design my house.”

  Nancy laughed. “I tried to convince Mark to let me come add some life to his condo, but he barely lets us in.”

  Jack finished mixing the drinks and set one on an old steamer trunk. Brea sucked in a breath and started choking on one of the stuffed mushrooms. I patted her on the back while she pointed to the trunk.

  “That’s vintage,” she rasped. “A vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunk, and you’re putting a wet glass on it.”