Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305)

by Topper, Jessica

  Her schoolgirl dreams crushed. Her schoolgirl crush, just a dream now.

  Thinking back to her drawings and the things she had said, it was easy to piece some of the details together now. Allen was the guy on the beach, the “flunky” her mother didn’t want her to follow out to California. He was the guy who gave her the best and worst night of her life at the Lake Shore Hotel. He was the rocker who dated supermodels.

  And now he was dead.

  I remembered how she had closed the book and held it close, claiming there were wrongs in there she could not right.

  Her sketchbook sat by the Batman clock on the nightstand. Probably a few flips through the pages would provide me with a breathtaking rendering of this girl’s past. Moments she had captured in time to ponder, to work through. To lose herself in.

  Private property, Noah. Not cool.

  Besides, what good would it do? In a few hours we’d each take to the sky and leave behind the few surreal, slightly drunken hours we’d spent in each other’s company. We would both become each other’s doozy of a flight delay story, to be told over drinks in another hotel bar. I didn’t need to know her life story.

  But I craved to know her.

  I heard the shower turn off. Minimizing the browser, I turned my mind to other things, like dismantling the Jacuzzi nest.

  All those Elvis tunes I had joked about the night before looped through my head. Around and around they went, like my parents when they used to waltz through the living room to Elvis’s “It’s Now or Never.” My mother had always had a soft spot for the King, and that song especially, as it was sung to the tune of her favorite Italian folk song, “O Sole Mio.”

  I debated whether to pull up Laney’s zebra-striped no-fly zone, but ended up leaving it. I was sure housekeeping had seen far kinkier stuff left behind. It’s not like we had fashioned duct-tape handcuffs on the bedposts.

  The Naughty Sleepover cards were still scattered on the floor.

  Name one thing you wish you had done differently, I heard in my hungover state, her voice just a hazy recollection. As I bent to retrieve the cards one by one, my mind automatically gave answers different from the one I had voiced the previous night.

  I wish I hadn’t groveled like a dog to Bidwell in that morning meeting.

  I wish I had just packed up my desk and left right then and there.

  I wish I could rip Sloane’s hold on me off like a Band-Aid, smooth and quick, and tell her how I really feel.

  I wish I didn’t care so much about what other people thought.

  I wish I had kissed that girl on the plane.

  Laney. The dress bearer.

  The thought of her lugging that dress around like a sack of couture potatoes made me smile.

  God, we were both such a mess.

  “It’s all you.”

  “Huh?”

  I turned to find Laney standing in the bathroom doorway, back in her traveling clothes, with a towel turbaned atop her head. She had the dress back in the bag and draped over her arms.

  “Your turn.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  We brushed wordlessly by each other. That sweet smell of hers reminded me of pulling pink tufts of cotton candy from a paper cone as a little kid at the fair. It made my head spin and my mouth water.

  What was wrong with me? Normally I ran my life like I coded an app, moving carefully and methodically along, allowing no distractions. Suddenly I was daydreaming and cyberstalking. What was it about this girl? I closed the bathroom door and leaned against it for a moment to get my bearings.

  Her makeup bag was on its side, its contents spilling across the counter. It was unbelievably small to have contained that much stuff: like the clown car of cosmetic bags. Sloane never traveled with less than her case, a professional one that had a split-hinge top and a lock. Her lipstick selections alone would bust the seams of Laney’s bag.

  There was no sighting of the source of the warm sugar cookie smell, no perfume or lotion bottles to prove to me that she didn’t naturally produce that heady scent that made me salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

  I noticed an almost full, uncapped tube of toothpaste, dented in various spots from where she must have gleefully squeezed and released it without giving it a second thought. Mine, in contrast, was flattened and rolled neatly from the bottom up. Its cap was on, straight and tight. All my life I had been the kind of guy who carefully pushed from the bottom and worked his way up, slowly, methodically. Taking my time to make sure I was on the right path before moving forward.

  Congratulations, Ridgewood. You’ve just summed up your entire life using a tube of toothpaste.

  “You decent?” she called.

  “Um. Yeah.” I poked my head out the door. “What’s up?”

  “Forgot to grab a few things.”

  I pulled the door wider and she squeezed by.

  “Whose idea was it to rebook us at ass o’clock in the morning?” she grumbled, tossing one item after another willy-nilly into her cosmetics bag.

  “Um, your mother’s?”

  She gave my reflection in the mirror a dark look.

  “It’s an hour later than in New York, at least,” I added.

  With one swipe, she knocked the rest of her products back into her bag and hustled out.

  I had no more witty one-liners for her that morning.

  Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.

  Dashboard Confessional

  Hangover city. And I was in a hotel room with exactly zero coffee, zero Tylenol, and precisely one hot guy, whistling in the shower. My head throbbed. No matter how hard I had brushed my teeth and how much toothpaste I had used, they still felt like they had mittens on them. My mouth was dry and cottony. Blech.

  I flopped down onto the bed, next to where I had laid the garment bag out. After being forced into wearing it the past night, I regarded it slightly different in the morning light. Sort of like the morning after you had a nightmare; the dark shadows in the room didn’t look so spooky come sunrise. I touched the crumpled thick plastic of the zippered bag. Maybe the dress, having been worn, was slightly more yielding.

  Maybe this was the beginning of a truce. A democracy, forged between the layers of eggshell white silk and taffeta, the beads and sequins, and myself.

  Maybe.

  I smiled; Noah was whistling that Talking Heads song again. The previous night was a haze, but what I remembered hadn’t been all that bad. More fun, in fact, than I had thought being delayed and snowbound could ever be.

  Speaking of which, it was probably a good idea to check my flight status. I sat up too fast and felt a head rush, not unlike when Noah had twirled and dipped me in our hallway waltz. I knew he wouldn’t let me fall, but it had still given me a scary thrill.

  Noah’s laptop glowed warm and invitingly on the hotel desk. I marveled at its neatness, everything he needed stored in a straight line of folders down the right-hand side of the screen. I thought of my own office space at home, with both my physical and my virtual desktop in perpetual disarray.

  Navigating the mouse to the dashboard, I went to click the browser but landed on the widget next to it. Oops. I swerved back like a race car driver and hit the correct icon, but not before iPhoto popped open.

  I might have had a hard time saying the name Sloane, but picturing her wasn’t going to be a problem. Not when a million thumbnail photos of her clawed their way into my brain:

  Sloane at a regatta in sailor whites, toasting the camera with her champagne glass. Sloane in a bikini on a schooner, her sunglasses and her smile movie-star large.

  Sloane before the boob job, Sloane after the boob job.

  Sloane cutting the ribbon at a new nightclub, Sloane making the duck face, Sloane eating calamari, Sloane, Sloane, and more Sloane.

  Photo after photo displayed her obvi
ous beauty and wealth; demonized her. And pretty much desensitized me. Just another pretty face.

  That was, until I saw the one lone photo of Sloane and Noah, toward the bottom of the screen.

  The rock that hung from her finger was huge, as her hand splayed coyly across her lips. I’ve got it all, her smile mocked. I win. She was propped up on her elbow, leaning in toward Noah, who was in profile. Kissing her cheek. His eyes were closed. But hers were open, as if she were taunting the camera. Go ahead, her eyes seemed to say. I dare you.

  I felt a little sick to my stomach. Maybe it was guilt for spying. Or maybe because I wanted to take that challenge. She didn’t deserve to have it all. And she certainly didn’t seem to deserve Noah. I hit the little red X at the top of the window and closed it, turning my attention to the Internet for my flight. But something familiar caught my eye.

  Noah came into the room, dressed and rubbing his head with one of the hotel’s fluffy white towels.

  “You Googled Allen?”

  He froze, towel in hand, at my accusation.

  “With your vast knowledge of computers, you consulted the divine oracle of Wikipedia about my love life? How dare you!”

  “What were you doing on my computer in the first place?” Noah demanded, striding over and taking possession of it.

  “I wanted to check my flight time.”

  “Yeah? Then why is my iPhoto open?”

  I had exited out of the picture gallery, but I hadn’t closed the program, apparently.

  My temper flared; how dare he get angry with me! Sneaking a look at his rich, gorgeous girlfriend was hardly on par with him cyberstalking my dead boyfriend. I wanted to grab the wet towel draped across his neck and smack him with it. Hard.

  “I guess I hit the wrong button by mistake,” I said, glaring defiantly at him.

  “Well, how would you feel if I said I turned a page in your sketchbook by mistake?” His words sent my heart pounding. “I didn’t, by the way, touch your sacred book. All I looked at was one lousy website.”

  My eyes blurred down the timeline of text. “Well, Allen was more than just . . . just this jumble of discography and death. He was . . .” I struggled for words and breath, “he was my home. My heart. My best friend.”

  “So you got back together? After all?”

  “After everything.” I nodded.

  Ever after.

  “Ten years too late,” I whispered, “but better late than never.”

  Never after.

  I marched over to the bedside table and deposited Allen’s Batman clock and the picture of my cat back into my bag. “He didn’t have the big rock star, better-to-burn-out moment, okay?” I grabbed my sketchbook. “There was nothing sudden or romantic or mysterious about it.” I flipped page by page as I continued my rant. “He didn’t die in a bathtub like Jim Morrison; he didn’t walk into a river and never return like Jeff Buckley.”

  I dropped the open book across the keyboard of his computer and gestured for him to take a look. The panel I had drawn had a MEANWHILE . . . caption box up at the top. A hospital bed, a machine marking vitals could be seen. And a tiny, wavy balloon holding only breath marks. In art school, we called them “cat’s whiskers” or “fireflies.” At work, they were known as “crow’s feet.” They usually came before and after a cough or sputter to help the reader visualize the actual sound.

  When you use a set of breath marks with no word in between, it looks like a tiny burst bubble. Usually indicating unconsciousness of a character.

  Or death.

  No visualization needed.

  “Cancer just goes on until it’s done. And then you go on,” I said softly.

  Noah gingerly picked up the book, cradling it open-faced in his large palm and gazing at it. With his other hand, he clicked his laptop shut. Then he set the book on top and closed it.

  “Laney,” he began and reached for me.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t do that because you feel sorry for me.”

  “I’m not,” he said quietly. I closed my eyes as his thumb ghosted along the top of my brow, brushing my bangs off my forehead. Warmth radiated at my temple as his fingertips lingered. I felt his lips touch my forehead, not a kiss of consolation, not one for good luck. Whatever it was, it was exactly what I needed, right there and right then.

  We stood just like that, for a while, and I don’t think either of us wanted to be the one to break the seal.

  “Come on,” he finally murmured against my skin. “We’ve got places to be, flights to catch, and people to see, right?”

  Noah

  GOTOHAIL

  “Oh, thank you, little baby Jesus.”

  Laney had spotted a Keurig in the lobby the minute we stepped out of the elevator. She made a beeline to the machine while I dropped the key cards at the front desk.

  I turned to find her holding the hanger of the garment bag in one hand, an unopened packet of sugar in the other, and staring blankly at the steaming cup of joe on the counter in front of her. Jeez, she really couldn’t function without caffeine.

  “One lump or two?” I asked.

  She growled at me. I didn’t take it personally. She had warned me she was a bear without her caffeine. Whatever anger or hurt that may have lingered over the Google and iPhoto incident had dissipated. It was as if we’d locked up all that we had revealed to each other during the drunken evening and hungover morning and sealed it with that innocent forehead kiss, leaving it behind with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. And all that was left was a comfortable calm.

  Obviously she didn’t want me messing with her coffee, so I wordlessly relieved her of the garment bag instead. She went to work, smacking the sugar packet on her palm like a junky prepping his arm for a vein.

  “I’m going to survey the transportation situation. Meet me outside. After you’ve had your fix.”

  Arriving in the previous day’s late afternoon blizzard, I had been unable to see three feet in front of me. Now the sun glinting off the snow was blindingly bright, and I could see the Regency was just one of several hotels on the road, close to the slow-moving snarl that was I-294.

  The hotel staff was out scattering salt on the walkways, and the white-gloved doormen were huffing cold clouds of breath in their labor as they pushed winter to the curbs with their shovels. It was the heavy, wet kind of snow that made your bones cold just looking at it. Across the way, several cabbies were hunched over, digging impacted snow from their wheel wells where the street plows had repeatedly pushed it. The road was still a mess of slush and drifting snow, and the wind whipped a reminder that its wrath wasn’t quite through yet, despite the cold, hard glare of the sun.

  “You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me.”

  Laney was next to me now, coffee in hand, looking slightly more chipper. Staring at the huge queue waiting for cabs and the measly number of cars rolling up to the taxi stand, she groaned. “This is going to take forever!”

  I smiled. “Actually, more like three minutes.” I held out my phone for her. “See the star on the map? That’s our location. And the pulsing red dot? That’s Ruel. He’s driving a 2011 Signature L Lincoln Town Car and he’s coming to pick us up.”

  Laney’s eyes were more hazel than green in the bright morning light, and they widened. “Let me guess: one of your fancy apps?”

  “Yep. I just plug in my location, and it works off a pool of participating car services in the area. The driver closest pings you back to tell you arrival time and estimated fare based on your input destination. Everything is included—tolls, tips—and payment is done through the app so no money even exchanges hands.”

  “That’s fan-freakin’-tastic,” Laney exclaimed, as the pulsing red dot—and the car itself—turned onto our street.

  I thought so, too . . . aside from the unsettling fact that Sloane’s father owned half the fleets in
the Midwest and a few in the tristate area as well. His backing of this app venture was apparently his equivalent of a dowry that, he’d warned me in no uncertain terms, I could kiss good-bye if the wedding didn’t happen.

  Like the doormen pushing snow off the walk, I shoveled the thought to the back of my mind; it was too heavy to deal with at the moment.

  “Ruel’s got a five-star rating. That means he speaks great English, knows the local roads, keeps his car clean, and is a good conversationalist,” I explained. “Riders can rate their experience afterward, and the drivers, in turn, can rate the user.”

  “That is wild,” Laney marveled.

  Ruel pulled smoothly up to the least slushy part of the curb and hopped out. “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Ridgewood. Let me help you with your bags.”

  I winced, anticipating Laney’s reaction, but she merely giggled. “Hey, it got us free champagne,” she reasoned, “twice. And the last available hotel room in Chicago.” Ruel held the door for her, and she dipped into the luxury sedan as regally as a queen. “Own it, Noah.”

  “Hi, Ruel.” I grinned. “Careful, we’ve got a wedding dress on board.”

  I handed off the bulky bag, and he carefully draped it over our luggage before securing the trunk with a wink.

  “I trust you had a good night, sir?”

  “One of the better ones, of late.” I ducked in after Laney, who was already playing with all the buttons on the car’s interior like a little kid.

  “Look! Heated seats back here!”

  She popped her coffee into the cup holder and waved to the grumpy-looking crowd still waiting for any sign of a cab on the horizon. “Later, suckers.”

  “Too bad they didn’t GoToHail.”

  Laney lifted a brow in my direction. “GoToHail? Who comes up with these app names, anyway?”

  I chuckled. “Geeky computer software guys, after one too many drinks at their hotel bar. I was out at a convention in San Francisco when the idea came to me.”

  “You travel a lot, then? For work?”

  “Yeah. But I’ve always been used to moving around. We picked up stakes so many times when I was a kid.”