When my dad finally returned, he wasn’t as happy or chatty as the last time. I heard Tina say something about not having eyes in the back of her head, which made me think of some kind of alien Superman would want to punch. She sent me in the back room and set me up with some blank paper and a pencil. “Draw,” she commanded. And I did. I sat surrounded by stacks of comics, breathed in that old inky air, and pretended I was in Artists’ Alley. I drew as if my life and my dreams depended on it.
Finally, my dad came in the back and said it was time to go home. “Where’s our car?” I asked, as I climbed into the backseat of Gus’s car. He had a Cutlass, too, but it was a newer model and had fancy blue velvet on the armrests.
“It broke down in Atlantic City,” was all my dad said. He stayed silent as Gus drove us to catch the train in Asbury Park back to Manhattan. Gus and I sang along to the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday” on the radio. I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d see Gus, or Tina. I would’ve said good-bye, and thank you, if I had known.
When our train pulled into Penn, my dad finally spoke. “Never lose your dreams, Laney. You don’t want to lose your mind, like me.”
• • •
“Sweetie, you’re still here?” Anita, the flight attendant, was click-clacking toward me with her heels, towing a minuscule Windwest Airways bag behind her. “Figured you would be halfway to Hawaii by now.”
“Missed the first connection, and the new one was coming from Newark . . .”
“Lemme guess,” she said with a smirk, “it’s still in Newark.”
“Yep. So much for ‘light bands’ of snow. More like full-on, death-metal moshpit blizzard.”
Anita laughed. “That’s the Windy City for you! More sand, salt, and ice per capita than any other place.”
“The only sand, salt, and ice I’m dreaming of is a margarita on the beach,” I grumbled.
“I hear you, sister. Listen,” Anita advised, “you should grab a hotel room while you still can.”
“Eh.” I dismissed the thought with a wave of my ink-smudged hand.
“I’m serious. Get your man and go snuggle up somewhere. Hey, my cousin works at the Regency, she can totally hook you up. I’ll call her, okay? You and that dress don’t need to be all crumpled in an airport chair all night.”
She grabbed a cocktail napkin from her bag and used one of my fine-nib pens to jot down directions for me. “I’m terrible with names, but follow the colors, okay? There’ll be red shuttle signs, and it’s the blue-and-white bus. Ask for Daisy at the desk. I know she’s working tonight. And here’s my cell number—promise me you’ll text me pictures of the big day!”
“Thanks. Oh, and here.” I carefully tore a sheet from my sketchbook. In between my last Starbucks and bathroom runs, I had completed a fairly detailed rendering of Anita sashaying down the aisle of first class, silver tray and tongs in hand. She had the traditional slammin’ body of a superhero comic book dame, buxom and nip-waisted. I had glammed up her hair in voluptuous waves to match both her figure and the rolling plumes of lemon-scented steam emanating from her supply of towels.
“Oh, my God, you drew this? I’m so . . . Wow. I am blown away. Girl, that’s amazing! This is what you do?” She couldn’t stop staring at her picture and smiling.
“It’s what I did.”
“So professional.” She pushed the paper to her ample chest. “I’m gonna frame it, I’m serious. Thank you so much. Congratulations again. He’s a doll.”
“Who?” As the word left my mouth, Noah occurred to me. My accidental fiancé had his head in the clouds right about now. At thirty-five thousand feet, the lucky dog.
“Stop, you’re cracking me up! Who?” She laughed. “Have fun, good luck!”
I recalled our lunch. It hadn’t been half-bad. I had figured airport sushi to be on par with mall food court sushi, but was pleasantly surprised. The company hadn’t been so bad, either. But when he called me Bridezilla, sheesh. Tech-Boy had no freakin’ clue . . .
My cell phone beeped to life. I was almost scared to check the text. My mother was demanding updates hourly. And Danica kept sending me pictures of her bare feet, long legs crossed on a chaise, no doubt, along with a different tropical drink strategically perched in her hand in the foreground in each. I didn’t know which was more torturous.
Windwest Airways Flight Status: #3 ORD–LAX, canceled. Please call airline to reschedule.
Yeah, right. Call the airline. That was a laugh. Thousands of stranded travelers surrounded me, and with each step I took, I saw fewer and fewer uniformed employees. O’Hare was turning savage. I pulled my battered army coat from my carry-on bag, thankful I had opted to keep the liner zipped in for the trip.
Canceled. Finding hotel. Am OK, I quickly texted to my mom and Danica. Powering down for a while.
Meaning “no more pictures of toes and umbrella drinks, please.” And no more asking about the status of the dress. The dress and I were in a holding pattern, stuck with each other for another day.
I consulted my napkin map. Red signs. Right.
My phone bleated for my attention once more; I thought it had powered down, but apparently it needed to deliver two more messages: a sad face emoticon from Danica, and an emotionless plea from my mother.
And what of the dress?
Noah
TARMAC
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re being held here for a bit longer than expected. There’s quite a bottleneck of planes waiting for takeoff. Our crew members will come through the cabin shortly with snacks and water. We’re keeping the cabin lights dimmed, but the in-flight entertainment service is available to you at this time. Channels for viewing can be found in the Windwest FutureFly magazine, located in your seat-back pocket. We hope to have you up in the air shortly.”
We had pushed out of the gate forty-five minutes behind schedule due to a delayed crew, and at least a half hour had passed since. And then the plane had just rumbled around on its wheels for a good fifteen minutes, making it feel like we were turning in circles. Now we were just sitting motionless on the taxiway, waiting. Whether we were waiting our turn for takeoff or waiting for the ground crew to find the runway, it was hard to tell. The snow was still coming down in thick slanted sheets.
As much as I hated flying, I hated the anticipation of flying more. And all the waiting around was making me squirrelly. One and a half hours already shot. Couldn’t we just drive there at six hundred miles per hour? We can send a man to the moon, but no one has figured out how to build one long runway across the country? Gas up the plane and just drive that sucker. So it would take a little longer. So what? At least we’d know what we were up against. Currently, we were involuntary captives.
Tarmac delays sucked.
I wondered if Laney, the dress girl, was still in the terminal. I couldn’t stop thinking about that smile. And how it had lit up the dreary food court.
Turning my attention to the personal television in front of me, I flipped absently through the channels. Ah, space. The final frontier. Even though it was muted, I knew the Star Trek intro, and most of the episodes, by heart. “My gorgeous geek,” Sloane would brag to friends, with a dramatic eyeball roll. As nerd culture became the latest social trend, Sloane pretended to understand and revel in the chic of dating geek. “I’m Penny to his Leonard,” she’d say at parties. But behind closed doors, she wanted nothing to do with my movie marathons on Syfy and would stamp her high heels in horror if I so much as hinted at going to a fan convention with friends. As my internal concern that maybe we didn’t have much in common grew, she’d do a Vulcan mind meld and insist, “Well, maybe I just want you all to myself,” along with a wicked walk of fingernails down my bare chest and—I’ll be the first to admit it—I’d cave. I might’ve been a dweeb, but I was your typical horny guy as well.
“After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a
thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
Amen, Mr. Spock.
The truth was, I had wanted Sloane Bidwell from the first moment I saw her. And because I was so used to watching everything through rose-colored glass windows, gazing at the haves with my nose pressed against the have-not side, I really thought I wanted everything she stood for.
She’d clubbed with Paris in New York; she’d shopped with the Kardashians in Paris. And she had been well on her way to becoming a binge-and-purge party girl “celebutante” when her father funneled her (along with enough money to fund a new wing) into Northwestern to reinvent herself, and our worlds collided. With my temple pressed against the cool layers of plastic and glass that made up the airtight safety window, I stared out at the frigid Midwest landscape. Chicago: the city where it all began for us.
• • •
Warren Butler prairie-dogged over the top of my cubicle. “You’ve got a suit and tie, don’t you, Scout? Put ’em on. I scored us seats for the Bidwell gala tonight. At the Standard Club.”
“You’re joking, right?” The Standard Club oozed old money, and Kip Bidwell was a major money player, known throughout Chicagoland as well as the tristate New York area. The guy had his hands in transportation, real estate, sports teams, and, as of late, mobile advertising and R&D. We had been trying to land a meeting with him since finishing our alpha tests on my translation app over a year before.
“Why on earth would I ever joke about wearing a suit and tie?” Warren asked drolly. He dropped back into his cubicle and I could hear his machine-gun fingers going a million miles an hour on his computer keyboard, trying to keep up with that brain of his.
Warren had been my dad’s oldest friend, and he was a perpetual funny guy, but there was always a modicum of truth in what he said. Although his mind was always on business, his body still had yet to trade in the tie-dye for a shirt and tie. While my dad had moved from base camp to base camp, Warren had caravanned from parking lot to parking lot, seeing at least two hundred Dead shows.
I got up and walked over to his side of the partition separating us. Our cubicles were just two of many designated to keep the worker drones of the IT department on task. Warren had gotten me the intern job right when I hit Chicago for graduate school, and although it sucked big boring dog balls, I was grateful for it.
I was grateful for Warren, too.
“I have the suit from my dad’s funeral,” I told him. “It still fits.”
Warren had the keyboard resting on his lap, with his feet, clad in beat-up Birkenstocks, propped up on his desk. Pinned on the corkboard behind his monitor were pictures: Warren and my dad as kids, Warren and my dad making peace signs, my dad’s hair clipped short to his head while Warren’s flowed long. Warren as fearless leader of my Outward Bound experience, his arm draped around a scowling teenager (me) out in some godforsaken forest somewhere. That was around the time he’d decided to christen me Scout. And finally: a picture of Warren and my mother flanking me at my college graduation.
While I had been proudly wearing the mortarboard, my dad’s convoy had hit a very different kind of mortar: 81mm rounds embedded into a roadside improvised explosive device, seven thousand miles away. Killed instantly.
“Good to hear, kid,” Warren said, dropping his feet to the floor and swiveling his chair to face me. “Because tonight you’re going to change our lives.”
• • •
Sloane Bidwell was holding court in the center of the room, smiling and nodding with a grace I had only seen in movies. Diamonds dripped from her regal neck as she threw her head back with a devil-may-care laugh over something some ascot-wearing buffoon had said.
“Let’s go talk to her. Butter her up,” Warren suggested.
“What do you mean, ‘butter her up’? She’s not a loaf of bread,” I told him. And even if she was, she was fresh-baked artisan to my day-old Wonder. There was nothing I could say to this creature without making her look down her nose at me. I could tell.
“Her daddy has more dough than God’s bakery. He’s got investor capital out the yin-yang. He’s also got access to the highest-quality pool of testers. Our betas need Kip Bidwell. Let’s go make your dad proud.”
He was already making his way toward her, and I had no choice but to follow.
“You look lovely tonight, Miss Bidwell,” Warren finally said, after an excruciatingly long wait by her elbow for a chance to break into the conversation. She smiled at him expectantly. “Warren Butler, of the Kennebunkport Butlers.”
Her smile stayed exactly the same; I had a feeling she was trying to place him in her mind. Or her mind was trying to compartmentalize the information and decide whether he was worthy or unworthy of her time.
“And this handsome lad”—he clapped me on the shoulder—“is Noah Ridgewood.”
This was his buttering-up strategy? “How ’bout those Wildcats?” I heard myself say.
She turned, but she didn’t look down at me. She looked through me. Infinitely worse.
“Noah’s at U of C,” Warren supplied. A waiter passed by, balancing a champagne tray, and Sloane helped herself to a bubbling flute.
“Greek?”
“No, but he’s got the Mediterranean thing going for him. Italian on his mother’s side,” he said as he slowly backed away to leave the two of us alone.
“I meant fraternity,” she said coolly, but I saw a minuscule arch in her brow as she flicked a quick glance across the span of my chest, up to my face, and down to my groin.
“We’re trying to get a meeting with your father about some apps I’ve developed.”
She rolled her eyes as if she had heard it all one hundred times before. “Remember when an app was something you ate?” She grabbed a complicated-looking morsel from a silver tray passing by. “I’d much rather talk about that instead.”
I opened my mouth to reply, and she pushed the entire thing past my lips. A perfect storm of flavors exploded on my tongue. “What,” I gasped, after chewing and swallowing, “was that?”
“Sweet potato gaufrettes with duck confit and cranberry black pepper chutney,” she rattled off. I liked the way the French words, whatever they meant, flowed off her tongue as fluidly as the English. “I know, because I chose every item on the menu. And none of these boring businessmen seem to care.”
Warren was loitering around the buffet table, nursing a drink and scanning the crowd. He held up his phone and gave it a little shake, indicating that I should show her the apps in question. Ignoring him, I ventured, “I am sure everyone appreciates the food. They’re just too busy networking to really discuss it.” Kissing ass was more like it.
Sloane drained her tall flute of champagne and frowned at the strawberry wedge lodged at the bottom. “Well, what makes you any different? Tell me one thing. Make me laugh,” she demanded. Using her perfectly manicured fingernail, she coaxed the fruit up the inside of her glass.
Warren took that moment to casually walk behind me and beta-test Fartrillion, an app I had jokingly made in school. Of course he chose the most obnoxious, juiciest-sounding fart noise as the prototype. Sloane’s eyes widened. She glanced from left to right, then she stepped back, flaring her nostrils.
“It was the app, I swear!”
“You shouldn’t eat duck, then, if it gives you gas.”
I burst out laughing. “No, look.” I pulled my own phone from my pocket. “One of the applications my partner and I have developed. It’s a silly one, I know. But I’ve got tons of others and I think your father might be really—”
“Let me see it.”
I offered the phone to her. Biting her plumped-up lip in thought, she scanned over the choices before placing a lacquered talon on the Atomic Bomb button and letting it rip. A prominent member of the city council quickened his pace past us at the sound of it. Sloane stifled a laugh and hit another pa
rticularly ripe selection. It practically vibrated through the hallowed halls of the Standard Club, raising eyebrows and lowering voices.
“You can record your own, too,” I began to say, just as she sidled up to Mayor Daley and her father in deep discussion.
“Daddy . . .” she said, her eyes taking on a maniacal twinkle and her finger hovering dangerously close to the Tearjerker button. I saw my whole career pass before my eyes, doomed before it could get started. Warren was already heading for the exit door. She leaned in close to her father and the mayor of Chicago, whispering as she manipulated the buttons on my phone.
I couldn’t bear to look. Turning away, I drowned my sorrows in more duck confit. It might be the first and last time I ever got to try it. I’d probably be eating ramen noodles for the rest of my life.
I felt a weight drop into the pocket of my cheap suit. Sloane had deposited my phone back in and whispered in my ear, “You’ve got his last meeting of the day, next Tuesday. Thanks for making me laugh.”
Later that night, I discovered her number programmed into my phone. She’d entered it as stealthily and as boldly as she had entered my life. It was a strange new world for me. Socialite girlfriend, powerhouse family. I had been dredged up from the dregs like that strawberry in her champagne glass. Her dad liked my ideas; he actually liked me. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Ridgewood.” He thought I was “a grounding force” for Sloane, who tended to chase “the wrong type,” whatever that meant. “Meet the potential in-laws” turned into “manage the portfolios,” and Warren and I, along with our growing family of apps, were blended into the Bidwell conglomerate with open arms. We were in the black, and in a corner office in Manhattan, quicker than you could say “hedge fund,” with Warren’s name hanging from the hyphen in an act of good faith. Bidwell-Butler Solutions was born.
Truthfully, deep down I never thought things with Sloane would last. Just as her father would pursue ultraspecialized bets and had the power to unsentimentally dump losing positions in his business trades, I thought for sure Sloane would wake up one morning, wonder what the hell I was doing there, and discard me like last year’s fashion trend.
Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305) Page 6
