by Nikki Bella
“I’m telling you man, it’s a straight ticket to getting out of this one,” Marcus said. “First off, it’ll make your ex-wife wild with jealousy. It’ll make everyone think she’s just accusing you of things because of jealousy. That takes care of that. Second off, it’ll prove that you went to Paris for a very unique, spontaneous reason. You wanted to marry your bride in secret, with your daughter present. Nobody could fault you there.”
“I could say I was just so lost in love…” I trailed off.
“That you weren’t thinking clearly. Fuck yes, my man,” Marcus said. “Although stepping off the bases and basically retiring your life out in Paris doesn’t sound like a dream to me, I got to respect it. You do sound pretty fucking calm.”
“So now I just have to convince her to marry me,” I said, laughing. The whiskey was swirling in my head. “Should be simple. Right?”
“Dude, have you forgotten who you are?” Marcus asked me. “You’re Jack Garrington. Any woman would say yes to you, no matter what. Even if you swore, over your mother’s grave, that you’d never love them. They’d be a fool not to agree to it.”
Never love them. Was I really so cold that I’d marry someone I couldn’t love? I hesitated, trying to fight my way out of the conversation. “I’ll give it a think over,” I said. “Thanks, Marcus. Really.”
“Let me know when you want me to swing out and celebrate your bachelor party,” he said, cackling. “I know of a few French strip clubs I frequented on a recent trip. I’ll send you back into marital bliss with a few stories up your sleeves.”
As if that was what I needed. I hung up the phone, simmering. I sat at the piano, bringing my fingers over the keys—finding chords, tracing old songs I used to know. When I heard Margot and Gigi on the steps outside the door, I froze. Gigi raced toward me, leaping onto my lap and hammering her hands on the keys, without rhyme or reason. Without thinking, I began to chortle with laughter.
“Daddy, you’re horrible at this,” Gigi said, laughing. “Maybe we should get you some lessons.”
Slipping myself out from beneath her, I left Gigi hammering. I turned to Margot, whose cheeks were pink and bright. Her hair, windswept, was shoved behind her ears. She seemed to glow. My breath caught in my throat. Everything in me told me not to do this.
“Can I talk to you out on the terrace?” I asked. “Alone?”
“Of course.” She followed, her head lowered. She shoved her hands in her pockets, as if she were expecting some kind of rebuff. The moment the door closed behind us, she started. “Listen, I’m really sorry if any of this is my fault. I tried so hard not to talk to anyone who looked suspicious and God knows I hid from every camera I could see. I didn’t want my picture in the paper any more than you did…”
“That’s not your fault. I’m sorry you had to see yourself in the tabloids like that,” I began. “It’s always really surprising, the first time. It doesn’t get easier, either.”
“Honestly, being in a Parisian tabloid is kind of the ego boost I needed,” Margot said. “You laugh, but when I show my friends at home, they’ll think I’m really somebody. A mystery woman.” She giggled, but I saw the look of fear that passed through her eyes.
“You’re great. You know that?” I said. I couldn’t keep it in. It fell out of me in waves, making her blush. “You’ve made this move so easy on both of us. Gigi adores you. As do I.”
She didn’t speak. She glanced back through the window, catching Gigi slamming her fingers against the keys. Pointing, she tried to joke. “I just wish I could do something about her piano skills. But I’m lacking in them, myself.”
“Margot—“ I began, interrupting her. “I had a talk with someone. Someone who told me a way to get out of this mess. But I’ll need your help.”
The look she gave me was pure, innocent. All she wanted, from the bottom of her heart, was to help.
“I need you to marry me,” I said.
Her lips separated, showing her shock. All the color drained from her face. After a long moment of silence, she stuttered. “What?”
“Hear me out,” I continued. “If you marry me, that would take care of your Visa. In four years you could apply for citizenship here. You’d be allowed to live in France, or anywhere in Europe, for as long as you wanted. That’s step one. Step two? You’d be as rich as you ever dreamed of. Money wouldn’t be an object for you. You could go shopping every day of the week, and still have more. I promise.”
She shifted. The money hadn’t made her eyes sparkle, as I’d thought it would. I pressed on, knowing I needed to convince her. “And if you decide you don’t want to stay with me, or with Gigi, you can leave whenever you want—after this all blows over, of course,” I continued. “You can go back to New York, live in a nice apartment, actually figure out what you want your life to be. I’d give you the chance to do that.”
“And all I have to do is marry you?” she whispered. Her voice wavered. “I don’t get it. I don’t understand how this helps you or Gigi.”
I waved my hand, wishing I could make this all go away. The bubble of our blissful life was popped. “I need to make it look like I came to Paris for a spontaneous wedding with you. I brought Gigi along for it. I had no bad intention, in bringing her. Just that I was so caught up in my new love for you…”
The words sounded plastic in my mouth. Couldn’t I have said that more delicately, especially when our relationship was always up in the air? There was certainly sexual energy between us. I pressed on, bringing my hands to the middle of the table. I wished for her to grip them, cling to me for support. But she was an island.
“So it’s all an act?” she whispered. “You want them to start talking about something else—to hide the fact that you took Gigi away?”
“I just need the PR scandal to go away,” I sighed, feeling like a piece of scum. “There’s so much pressure on you, when you’re as famous as I am. The world expects things from you.”
“I expect things of you, too,” Margot said, her voice soft. “But I don’t expect what the rest of the world wants.”
Was that a jab? I gazed at her for a long time. Her jaw quivered. Perhaps this hadn’t been the wedding engagement she’d always expected for herself. She—a virgin—had probably imagined white lace, candles, forever love. But what I offered her—constant money, stability, a ticket to the rest of the world… Wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that even more?
“You can think about it,” I said, sipping my drink, “but we don’t have much time. I’d need this to fall into place rather soon. And Margot?”
She looked at me, her eyes glittering with tears.
“Know that you’re the only hope I have, now, to keep my daughter with me in Paris. This is the life she should be living. I know you can see that, too.”
Margot
My eyes were lost in his. My tongue coiled, turning the question over and over. Marriage. To one of the most successful and celebrated men in the entire world. He was promising me every woman’s dream. Freedom, escape, money. But he wasn’t promising me my dream.
Love.
Since he’d entered my life—by accident, just a man at a bar stirring drinks—everything had been in an uproar. I hadn’t had my feet on the ground in weeks. Dream-like, disoriented, I’d grinned and agreed to his every suggestion. The more I grew accustomed to the way people saw me when I walked alongside him, the more I grew addicted to him. Parisian women resented me. American tourists whispered after me.
Gigi began to tickle on the keys again, a song she knew I liked. One I’d even practiced when I’d been a young girl in Michigan. I hummed along to it, remembering the sun-glossed afternoon we’d spent the day before. Rushing along the Seine, with a baguette in our hands, we’d found refuge beneath the trees, gasping and giggling for air and eating tiny bites of bread. We felt so free.
I didn’t want to give up on this dream. And if I didn’t marry him, I knew he’d find anyone else to marry. Someone else to replace me, giggling with Gigi in t
he afternoons and scouting for the best baguette across the city. After a brief tick of the clock, I nodded. My eyes met with his.
“You’ll do it?” he asked, his voice excited. “You’ll marry me?”
“It’s not like any girl would say no to you,” I said. My voice sounded hollow. My heart lost several beats, skipping against my ribs.
He stood and hugged me, like a parent or a friend, and he patted my shoulder. Shivers ran up and down my spine. For a fleeting second, I wished that we could take it all back. I wished I could be that little girl back in Brooklyn, changing my mind and agreeing to sleep with him in his penthouse apartment. Virginal, wide-eyed, I’d resisted. Now, I was in too deep.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll get the process going. Be prepared for the biggest whirlwind of your life.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
I couldn’t. When I wandered back into the living room, I sat, stunned, watching Gigi play the piano. Behind me, Jack paced, his feet falling flatly on the floorboards. He was ringing his personal assistant, saying, “Yes, we’re going to need the paparazzi there, Michael. Of course we are. We’re going to need all the relevant photographs given to the relevant media. And we should begin to send whispers of what’s actually going on here. I need this ‘kidnapping scheme’ storyline to die. Immediately.”
I tucked my knees close to my chin, trying to feel very small. When Jack got off the phone with his personal assistant, he called someone else and spoke to them in rapid French. Then, he called another. I could feel the wheels spinning, almost too fast, now. I focused on my breathing. Inhale. Exhale.
After another twenty minutes, Jack leaned down to speak to me. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t think.
“I just booked you an appointment with one of the best seamstresses and dress designers in all of Paris. She’s on the Champs-Elysees.”
Dress designer? Already? “Oh,” I said, my mouth forming a round O. “When is that?”
“Tonight,” he said. “The wedding will be in two days. I’ve already gotten our church. One down the road, actually. Near the metro stop Arts and Metier.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. I rose, my legs feeling spindly beneath me. “Is anyone going to be at the actual wedding?”
“A few people,” he said, scrubbing his hands through his hair. Was this making him as stressed as it was making me? “Just enough for the photos to circulate. Some French celebrities. My friend Marcus, that asshole I told you about who works on Wall Street? And a few ex-co-stars.” He gestured toward me. “You don’t have anyone you’d like to invite, do you?”
I thought for a moment. My parents? They’d only just learned I’d left the country. As they’d never taken a single interest in travel, they’d scoffed at it. But my mother had heard of Jack Garrington before. She’d said, “I hope you aren’t living in sin.”
Sigh.
“I don’t think so,” I responded. I walked to my room, feeling like a zombie, and put my shoes on. Tracing a hand through Gigi’s blonde hair as I passed, I said, “Do you think you could watch Gigi tonight? I don’t think she’d have a blast at the wedding dress designer’s.”
“Of course.”
His eyes were on me, analyzing my movements the way you analyze someone who’s about to go crazy—or has, in the past. I inched toward the door.
“Do you want me to call the driver to take you?” he asked.
“No, no,” I said. “I think I’ll take the train.”
“I don’t know if it’s safe. They’ve already caught on that you’re with me,” he said.
“Safe?” I asked. I bit my lip, my eyes filling with tears. “What do you mean?”
“They’ll photograph you.”
I grabbed a baseball cap from the far wall, where it hung, and smacked it over my hair. I shrugged evenly and then walked down the steps, toward the humming street below. In reality, these were probably the last few days when I wouldn’t be photographed non-stop, for being his bride. I had to use them as much as I could. My last hours of normalcy.
As I walked to the train, I felt the tears begin. On some level, they came because of joy. I’d always wanted to be married. I’d dreamed of it since I was a little girl: the white dress, the cake, the flowers. I hadn’t given particular worry for who the man would be. He would fill in the space by the pulpit when he could. In the meantime, I’d prepare for everything else.
And I would stay virginal.
The train was crammed. I had to stand up, clinging to a pole to keep from falling left and right. It was rush hour. Everyone was armed with a baguette or three, poked between their arms and their torsos. Their faces were sad and falling down, their cheeks sagging into their necks. I wondered if, because I’d be marrying the richest man on the planet, I’d be able to avoid aging, in the traditional sense. They could staple up my cheeks and chin. They could keep my eyes from growing wrinkly. Was it worth it?
The designer woman was a stout and short Frenchwoman, in her mid-fifties. She was standing outside, wearing designer lace and smoking a cigarette. She gave me a once-over as I approached, her eyebrows high and painted, her lips almost purple. She looked incredible. And she sensed that I didn’t have a lick of money to my name, beyond Jack.
“Oh, honey,” she said, seeing the tears in my eyes. “If you didn’t cry on your wedding day, then I’d assume there was something wrong with you.”
She led me into the designer studio. I glanced back, catching the sun glinting against the Arc de Triomphe at the far end of the road. The wedding gowns were stretched about the room, with the trains flowing in circular waves. Everything was jeweled or laced. Some had deep, plunging V-neck designs, while others had high turtle-necks with a modest flair. To my horror, some of the more modest-looking ones were rather see-through, meaning that the guests could basically make out the size and shape of your nipples as you walked down the aisle.
The designer woman introduced herself as Margaret.
“That’s my real name,” I whispered.
“I know,” she responded, as if we’d already had this conversation before.
She had me try on various gowns, sizing me up with her eyes and adding one after another to the dressing room. Each time I analyzed myself in the mirror, I felt like a different sort of person.
“You must find the dress that makes you feel like yourself,” she told me. “That’s the key.”
I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t true. That this wedding wasn’t a wedding for “myself.” It was a wedding out of convenience. It was a lie. So, essentially, I needed to find a wedding gown that translated the fact that all of this was a lie. I could look at the photos later and say, See? This wasn’t me at all.
I eventually chose a glittering dress, with a long train and a deep V-cut. When I told Margaret this was my choice, she clucked her tongue and shook her head. “No. This isn’t you.”
“But it will be,” I said.
She gave me a knowing look. She cinched the waist slightly, saying she’d have it sewed in the next day, and then sent me back into the dressing room to return to my sad summer clothes. Tapping her nose with her finger as I walked back into the churning city, she said, “Sometimes, we do the things we do just to survive.”
How did she see right through me? As if, by just analyzing me up and down, she saw more than just my dress size. She saw my sense of self.
I decided to walk part of the way back to the apartment. The air was chilly and cool, despite it being July. I wrapped a sweater around my shoulders, people watching as I went. People spoke in whispers over wine glasses, their eyes filled with the only kind of relief a chilly day in summer can bring. For one day, we were allowed to rest from the heat.
I wondered, abstractly, if Jack would want to sleep with me on the first night of our marriage—to seal the deal, so to speak. Nothing about the proposal had been romantic. Nothing had evoked that first passion we’d had for each other, that first night.
I would probably be sleeping al
one. Or together, and still alone.
As I walked down the last road before our apartment, I watched as a young man reached across the table and held the trembling hand of his girlfriend? Wife? Lover? She looked up at him with animal eyes, so fearful about the future. And then, in a moment of zeal, she reached across the table and smacked him, leaving red and white streaks across his cheeks. I shivered, crossing the road to remove myself from their wake. I wondered if this was a bad sign.
It certainly didn’t make me feel any less alone.
Jack
It’s not like Margot was going to be the love of my life. I’d always known, since I was a teenager, that “soul mates” were obsolete. People changed with the seasons. You couldn’t count on them to always love you. And you couldn’t count on yourself to feel the same, one year down the line. Two years down the line. Even a few weeks was tenuous at best.
But when Margot returned from the dressmaker she seemed grim, and her skin had turned a strange shade of grey. Gigi wrapped her arms around her, telling her how happy and excited she was that Margot was going to be her “new mom.” But after giving Gigi a sad smile, Margot refused the wine I’d poured her and escaped to bed. I could hear her tossing and turning in her room, behind thin walls. At one point, I even thought I heard her weeping.
I didn’t know what had happened, but everything was in full-swing already. My guests were taking their private planes to Paris. The venues for both the wedding and the reception were booked. I’d told the most expensive baker in all of Paris to make us a luxurious cake, and I’d booked the best caterer in town. If I was going to get married again—even if it was a rather “false” marriage—I was going to do it well. At least, I was going to get really drunk on expensive alcohol in the process.
After an entire day of phone calls, of picking out my tuxedo and ringing for an emergency dress for Gigi, I glanced at the clock and realized we’d be married within a day from now. I turned to Margot, shaking my head. “Can you believe it?”
