Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305)

by Topper, Jessica

  Turned out she must’ve been interested in the long-term performance of my equity offerings. In layman’s terms, she said yes to my proposal.

  And from then on, there seemed to be no slowing down, no—

  “We’re sorry, folks, but the latest news from air traffic control—” Our captain’s voice was drowned out by the collective groan of the cabin.

  Turning back. We were turning back.

  Cold Feet

  I found the blue-and-white hotel shuttle Anita had described with no problem, but my courage to brave the snowdrifts in flip-flops was elusive. Think warm thoughts. Think toes in the hot sand. I plunged myself into the revolving doorway to the outside world. A blast of frigid air bitch-slapped me within the vacuum and I lost my nerve, twirling back through the revolving doors a second time. On my third time around, I saw Noah standing inside and shaking his head. The garment bag and I pushed back into the airport.

  “Are you done playing merry-go-round in the doorway? Because some of us would like to get on that shuttle.”

  “I thought you left hours ago. What happened?” I asked.

  “Sitting on the runway for three hours happened.” He did not look happy. “You?”

  “Same shit, different plane. Although I never made it down the gangway.”

  “Lucky us, we get to try it all over again tomorrow. In the meantime . . .” Noah turned, making toward the revolving door. “What are you waiting for? That shuttle is filling up.” He paused, looked me up and down, and rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t wait till you got to Hawaii to show off the pedicure? It’s still winter in most of the country, you know.”

  “Long story. I’ve got other shoes in my checked luggage.” Which may or may not be on its way to Hawaii without me, I realized.

  “Of course you do.” He glanced once more at the door and then back down to my stupid flip-flops. Was he considering carrying me across the threshold and onto the shuttle? The preposterous thought struck me, and a giggle burst out. I covered my mouth to feign a cough, but I couldn’t contain my grin. “Sit,” he commanded.

  I sat. Noah kneeled down beside me and thrust his hard-shell case open. He tossed me a pair of socks in a neat roll and pulled out a pair of red Converse high-tops.

  “Thanks.” Even with the thick white socks, his sneakers were Bozo-the-Clown big on me, but at least they protected me from the elements. Noah went to work tying them tight to my feet, like I was a kindergartner on the first day of school. I tilted my head and watched him make perfect double knots. He didn’t seem like a Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars kind of guy, in his matchy-match suit and Italian loafers. So put together, and so not my type. He had added a gray wool overcoat to his getup. Very Fifty Shades of Blah. There was a tiny crepe-paper poppy fastened to the buttonhole of the coat’s lapel, giving his monochrome ensemble a small pop of color the same hue as the red Chucks.

  “So why are you traveling alone,” I asked, picking up on our lunch conversation, “to a bachelor party? In a suit?”

  “Meeting my friends there.” He snapped the case shut. “Mostly college friends, from the Pacific Northwest. I had an early meeting. Hence, the suit. It’s been a really long day.” Hence, shut up, his look conveyed.

  We boarded the bus and were met with glum looks; our fellow passengers were clearly ready to get the show on the road and didn’t take kindly to newcomers pushing on with more luggage. The driver moved to take my garment bag to hang, but I waved him away. “I’ll hold it on my lap, thanks.”

  One seat remained in the very last row of five across. It was big enough to fit half my ass, so I perched, garment bag unable to be contained within my personal space. The mother sitting next to me shielded the eyes of the child on her lap, as if the hanger was going to reach over and poke his eye out. It’s only a dress, I felt like saying. But it was more than a dress. It was my mother, personified. Ready to jump down my throat for poor choices, unfortunate mistakes.

  Noah stood in the aisle, his stance wide as the bus lurched and lumbered up the highway ramp. With his computer bag slung from his shoulder and one hand on the bar above his head, he looked like a typical New York straphanger on his subway commute home: grumpy yet unflappable. His expression was impassive, but his stare intense as he zeroed in on a spot overhead, slightly to my left. I wondered what he was thinking about; what warranted such a strong jut of that chiseled jaw.

  The snow had a way of insulating everything. Everyone was silent as the bus crawled along the highway. No horns honking; there was no frantic pace outside the windows. All traffic had agreed to play nice and inch along. The trip may have been thirty miles, or it may have been three; it was hard to tell. But my legs were pins and needles by the time we finally arrived. I tripped down the bus steps in Noah’s clown shoes and into the warm, bright lobby of the Regency.

  “You must be the bride!” The line of guests waiting to check in parted like the Red Sea, turning to stare at me as the woman behind the desk beckoned me forward. Her colleagues were scuttling around like crabs, fetching keys, making calls, and explaining calmly to panicky and weary travelers that there were no rooms left at the inn.

  “And, whoa, Anita was right—he is going to look amazing in a tux!” she marveled.

  I turned. Noah was at the desk next to me, tapping his credit card impatiently against the marble countertop. He was beginning to blush again, the red creeping north of his shirt collar. At least he wasn’t turning green, like on the plane.

  “You must be Daisy.” I sighed in relief and returned her smile. At least one thing was going right.

  “I’ve got the honeymoon suite saved for you guys,” she singsonged. What? No! Wrong, wrong, wrong! “It’s not Hawaii, but it’s the last room left. Total is three hundred twenty dollars—going on your charge?”

  Three hundred twenty dollars? I could rent a cabana and a cabana boy in Hawaii for that kind of money. But I wasn’t in Hawaii. And I didn’t exactly have that kind of money to burn. I had only the dress as my collateral. Noah obviously had the line of credit, and he slapped his bargaining chip down with a resigned sigh.

  “Are you sure there are no other rooms?” he pressed. “We’re not—”

  “We’re traditional,” I hissed. As much as I didn’t love the situation we were in, I didn’t want to risk losing the last room at the inn because of Mr. Uptight Tech-Boy’s hang-ups. Daisy looked at me like I was crazy. I glared warily at Noah. What if he was crazy?

  “One key or two?” Daisy clearly didn’t want to be involved.

  “Two.” Noah said, as she ran his card. “Thank you, Daisy.”

  He signed his name on the slip with a cocky flourish. Was I supposed to be impressed with the size of his credit limit and the girth of his wallet or at how fast he whipped it out of his pants?

  Tech-Boy could go whiz in the snow all he wanted, the show-off. Unlike my mother, I wasn’t in the market for a sugar daddy.

  Noah

  RAISING THE BAR

  “We’re sorry, folks. We have no more vacancies,” the hotel manager announced to groans and protests.

  “I need a drink,” Laney muttered. She didn’t invite me, nor did she wait for me to join her. She simply hiked her wedding bag over her shoulder and turned on her heel—in my sneakers, thank you very much—and made toward the dimly lit lounge off the hotel lobby.

  I contemplated my choices. I wanted to go straight upstairs and sleep, sleep through the entire Vegas bachelor blowout and wake up on the other side of . . . what? The thought of heading back to New York sucked almost as much as being stuck halfway to my destination. A drink actually sounded good right about now.

  My phone vibrated against my thigh; pretty much the most action I had received below the waist in months. It was Tim—best friend, best man, worst timing—blowing up my screen with “Dude, where are you?” texts.

  When you said you’d arrive at
1300 hours, I didn’t think you meant IN 1300 hours! WTF, man?

  Dude, beyond my control. Delayed. Currently in Chicago, hotel bar.

  Shacking up with some hot stewardess?

  They’re called flight attendants, you Neanderthal. And for the record, no.

  I wasn’t about to tell him I was sharing the last available room with some strange girl before her wedding night. Emphasis on strange. Knowing Tim and his dirty mind, he was already crafting porno stories to tell the rest of the guys about how I put the “lay” in “layover.”

  And I knew him well—we’d been friends since first grade and army brat pen pals no matter where our dads’ assignments took us. We’d managed to land in the same college for undergrad, before Tim followed in his father’s footsteps and enlisted upon graduation. We had been each other’s wingmen for years: he had the bravado and I had the brains; he got the laughs with his personality and I got the looks with my, well . . . as he would call them, “pretty boy” features.

  “Work hard, play harder” was Tim’s motto and I was certain he planned to take “Bachelor Party in Vegas” to a whole new high. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy you wanted to disappoint.

  You do realize how hard it was to get leave? I practically had to go AWOL to get here. You’d better show!

  Yes, sir, Drill Sergeant, sir!

  At ease, Private Pretty Boy. At ease.

  I slipped the phone back into my pocket and ambled into the hotel’s cocktail lounge. Laney was digging to China in her handbag, a stiff-looking concoction by her elbow. The bartender tapped a cardboard coaster impatiently against the bar in wait for her. No doubt counting the minutes until the end of his shift so he could attempt to make it home on the snowy roads to his family. He lifted a brow expectantly as I approached.

  My credit card hadn’t made it back into my wallet yet, so I forked it over. “Make it two.”

  “Stop. Paying. For me.” Her perfect row of teeth gritted at me as the bartender turned his back and went to work. She continued to paw through her giant leather bag. I had never seen anything like it before. Its rough black hide and silver studs made me think she had ripped a biker jacket off some Hell’s Angel gang member’s back and proceeded to ride over it repeatedly with his Harley. Not exactly Prada material.

  “I’ve always wanted to say that,” I said defensively. “You know, like in the movies.” I surveyed our stoolmates. Rumpled-suited businessmen killing the hours with their corporate card tabs, weary families making their Cokes last as they sat with their bleary-eyed children on the low couches to the left of the bar area. Some flight attendants and a captain or two were laughing over a game of darts in the corner.

  “Honeymoon’s over, eh?” The bartender slid my drink into my hand and winked at me. I wanted to laugh; it certainly felt like something out of a movie now.

  “You don’t know the half of it.” I signed the credit card bill, making sure to tip well. “Over before it started.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “The minute my wife said ‘I do’ in the church, she started saying ‘I won’t’ everywhere else—the kitchen, the bedroom . . . If I get it on our anniversary and my birthday, I’m lucky.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was comforting or disturbing to hear this information from a total stranger. But it really wasn’t high on the list of things I wanted to hear, period. Last year for my birthday, Sloane got herself a boob job. “I did it for you,” she had insisted, even though I had never expressed any particular fondness for large breasts of the silicone variety. And it seemed in direct opposition to her hands-off-till-the-wedding-night sex ban she had instituted. She threw both in my face recently—the facts, mind you; not her actual breasts—as prime examples of “nothing I do makes you happy.” But in truth, they were pretty far down on a growing list of other concerns that gnawed at my happiness and had kept me awake for the last few months.

  Another hotel worker, his gleaming head shaved as bald as Mr. Clean’s, sidled up to the bartender. Silver rings dangled heavily in both ears. “They just closed Lake Shore Drive, Jimmy. How much you wanna bet Phil won’t make his shift?”

  Jimmy swore under his breath and halfheartedly smacked his bar towel down to wipe up an imaginary spill.

  “You guys serve food here?” I asked.

  “Restaurant’s down the corridor and to your left. There’s quite a wait; you might want to go put your name down now,” Jimmy advised.

  Laney was halfway through her drink; her feet—in my Converse—were curled around the rungs of the bar stool. I began to drain my own for courage, and for something to do. What the hell was I going to talk about with this girl for the rest of the evening? Crown Royal burned under the tangy comfort of ginger ale. I think Jimmy had also “made it a double” when he “made it two.”

  “I’m going to scope out the food situation here; I’ll be back in a few,” I said to Laney. She nodded and shrugged in a way that could mean good idea or go to hell, for all I knew.

  An e-mail pinged through on my phone as I meandered down the hotel corridor.

  From: Maria Ridgewood

  Subject: INVITATION

  Date: March 5, 2013 8:08 PM EST

  To: Noah Ridgewood

  HONEY, SLOANE SENT ME THE PROOF OF YOUR INVITATION—SO BEAUTIFUL, IT MADE ME CRY! AND WHAT A DEAR OF HER TO SHARE IT, I WAS SO SURPRISED. SHE WANTED TO KNOW IF I MINDED THE DATE CHANGE. I TOLD HER IT WAS A NICE TRIBUTE, BUT WHO AM I TO SAY? ULTIMATELY, THIS IS YOUR AND SLOANE’S DAY, NOAH. YOUR FATHER WOULD BE SO PROUD AND HAPPY FOR YOU. LIKE I AM.

  WILL YOU HUMOR YOUR POOR MOTHER AND PLEASE TELL SLOANE TO SEND ME TWO WHEN THEY’RE PRINTED? I WANT TO KEEP ONE IN THE SCRAPBOOK, UNOPENED, FOR MY FUTURE GRANDCHILDREN.

  ENJOY YOUR TIME WITH THE BOYS, VIVA LAS VEGAS!

  CIAO, MOM

  Great. Leave it to Sloane to ambush my mom about the invitations.

  There would be no mistaking what they were upon arrival in the two-hundred-plus mailboxes around the globe—the hefty weight of the paper stock; the addresses all done by hand in calligraphy; the double “Love” stamps, hand-canceled. Another envelope with the engraved invitation would be nestled within. Yes, real engraving. Touch the back! Somewhere out there, custom metal plates would be created and pressed to create the announcement, the RSVPs, the works. Every enclosure card and envelope would be stacked in order of size, as etiquette dictated.

  Every detail screamed Sloane.

  Me, I was like the pesky piece of tissue in between. Why is it there? What is its purpose? The minute you pull out the all-important invitation, the tissue invariably sifts to the floor, forgotten. Crumpled underfoot.

  My mother wanted two invitations: one she could open and gaze upon, to show her friends and to respond to, and one to keep sealed up like a time capsule. For the grandchildren she so desperately wanted.

  I reread the e-mail as I slowly approached the restaurant. Despite all my teachings, my mother had yet to grasp the concept that writing in all caps was essentially shouting at someone. I hoped she didn’t do it to her clients of Cucina Caters to You, her home-cooked meals delivery service.

  My stomach growled nostalgically at the thought of her seafood lasagna, her Bolognese. And there was literally no substitute for her almond amaretto cake. Comfort food was my mother’s old-world specialty, with a little dash of Catholic guilt for flavor.

  The bartender hadn’t been kidding about the wait list. It seemed the line of people who had been hoping for available rooms had just shifted over to the restaurant. And if the patrons looked unhappy outside of the place, the food service workers within appeared utterly miserable, dragging their feet and glumly serving up bland-looking fare. My stomach turned just thinking about spending any additional time near the place.

  Jimmy had moved on to other customers back in the bar, and apparently Mr. Clean
had decided to move in on Laney. Seriously? Fake fiancé or not, I was a bit pissed off. Who hits on a girl carrying a bridal dress?

  You do, you horn dog. You flirted with her over that banana on the plane and teased her about envying your limp asparagus. It’s a wonder she hasn’t screamed sexual harassment by now.

  Come on, I reasoned with myself. She seems like the type of girl who knows a joke when she hears one.

  And who knows a joke when she sees one, too.

  You.

  I was so busy debating with myself over the fallacy of my phallic innuendos that I hadn’t noticed Laney had climbed half on the bar and was in the process of unbuttoning her sweater. What was this, her audition tape for Brides Gone Wild?

  “You think those are big?” she was saying. A cocktail waitress loading her tray behind the bar turned to survey the goods as well. Mr. Clean stood there smiling smugly with his arms crossed over his mammoth pecs, just like he did on the bottle of floor cleaner. The resemblance was uncanny. “Wait’ll you see my—”

  “Um, Laney. Sweetheart. What are you doing?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “He showed me his. I’m just showing mine,” she said coyly, raising her bare shoulder to her chin and blinking over it seductively. So perhaps Mr. Clean wasn’t the one with the dirty mind. She was flirting with him, despite my being there. “Got a problem with that? Sweetheart?”

  Oh, she was flirting in spite of my being there.

  “Ha, she totally has you beat, Lance. Pay up!” crowed the waitress.

  “You win, angel.” Mr. Clean slapped down a fiver. He turned to me and bared one muscle at a time. The wings tattooed across the span of each of his biceps appeared to take flight as he flexed. “Totally bigger than mine.”