Mini-Astrid was writing in her tiny notebook so fast she was risking carpal tunnel syndrome. As Astrid droned on, amid choruses of “That’s brilliant, Astrid!” from the more butt-kissing of her minions, the non-Wow contingent’s eyes popped open with Is she kidding? astonishment. She wasn’t.
Astrid clapped. “All right, Modern Bridesmaids. Please begin taking your places around the Modern Bride, gazing at her and the dress.”
Wow Weddings’s photographer, the award-winning Devlin of the first name only, clicked shut his cell phone and popped off his chair, a huge camera around his neck. He might have been good-looking if he weren’t such a complete jerk. He snapped, literally, at his assistant, a pretty twenty-something with a crew cut, who quickly set up the lighting.
Devlin arranged us around a mannequin now wearing the shiny purple dress. “You with the dark hair,” he said, gesturing at Jane. “Your shirt is all wrong—the color is awful on you and boatnecks are for twelve-year-olds.” He snapped again at his assistant, and she tossed a long, double-breasted black leather coat at Jane, who raised an eyebrow but put it on. “You with the streaks of gray—” he upped his chin at Beth “—If you could rinse with some Nice ’n Easy before the next shoot and tweeze your eyebrows, that would be great.” He turned his attention to Amanda. “Blondie, you’re going to have to stand sideways with an arm across your chest as you reach to touch the dress—that way, your breasts won’t take the focus off the shot and detract from the bride.”
This was very likely the first time a man called for Amanda’s breasts to be downplayed.
This was also Devlin in a good mood. Luckily, Jane and Amanda seemed to find him an object of great fun, a caricature of a caricature. The more insulting he was, the more they had to restrain themselves from bursting into laughter. And Noah’s sister, whom I barely knew, was too busy hating her soon-to-be ex-husband to even notice another jerk.
Devlin shook his head at Philippa. “Philippa, we’ll need to tone down your prettiness for Eloise’s bridal-party shots. Let’s put your hair in two heroin-chic braids—” He snapped, and his assistant jumped up and whipped Philippa’s long, straight white-blond hair into elastic bands. “Much better. Wipe off her girlie lipstick and add some brown-red gloss.”
“I look awfully washed out without my pink lipstick,” Philippa squeaked.
“That’s the point,” Devlin said as Philippa was transformed into East Village chic. “All right, people—gaze adoringly at Eloise and delight in the dress.”
“What about her?” Philippa asked, pointing at Natasha.
Devlin glanced at Natasha Nutley, taking in her Nicole Kidman ringlets, her gorgeous green eyes, her height, her skinniness, her Anthropologie outfit. “She is absolutely perfect as is.”
Jane and I shared a knowing smile. Two years ago, Natasha had been Jane’s archenemy, mainly for being as perfect as Devlin affirmed. Now, Jane’s former nemesis was one of our best friends. Even Natasha’s two-year-old daughter was perfect. At the moment, baby Summer was clapping in the corner as an It’s Your Day staffer waved an Elmo puppet at her.
Devlin snapped his camera and mouth for a half hour. Jane, Amanda, Natasha, Beth and Philippa could barely smile near the end.
Astrid clapped twice for attention. “Modern Bridesmaids, please move to the dressing rooms to be fitted. Philippa, we already have your measurements, so stay put.”
The other four women trailed after the fashion editor. As they disappeared into the dressing rooms, Jane, Amanda and Natasha shook their heads in wonder.
“You don’t get sanity or the wedding you want?” Jane had asked when I told her about the deal I’d made with Astrid.
Okay, I got neither. The key word for me (at the time, anyway) had been free. I didn’t have an aunt who’d been putting away money for my wedding for years. I didn’t have a mother-in-law with an antebellum mansion in Louisiana to spare for my wedding. What I did have was a mother-in-law-to-be who announced at least twice a conversation that she and her husband considered themselves “traditionalists.”
The day after Noah and I got engaged, Noah’s parents and sister had come over to celebrate our engagement with deli sandwiches and a family-size bag of potato chips. “What I mean by traditionalist, dear,” his mother explained, “is that traditionally, the bride’s parents pay for the wedding.”
Noah coughed and reminded his parents that it was just me and my postman’s widow grandmother and had been for a long time, and Mrs. Benjamin coughed back too and said that young people today were very resourceful and that they’d be happy to contribute a lovely deli platter for twenty-five people if we wanted to marry in their living room. Oh, and she’d even move their coffee table to accommodate one or two additional folding chairs.
“Well, I really appreciate that, Mrs. Benjamin,” I’d said. “But I have my heart set on a traditional wedding. You know—the works.”
“The works are very expensive, dear,” she responded.
I had two hundred and seventy dollars in my bank account. Noah had fourteen hundred.
“There’s always Vegas,” he told me.
I shook my head.
“There’s always our living room,” Mrs. Benjamin singsonged. “You could choose your color scheme to match—green with gold accents. Beth looks fabulous in green. As one of your bridesmaids, she should have input into the dress, by the way.”
As one of my bridesmaids? I’d had three conversations with Beth Benjamin, all lasting twenty to forty seconds, all about the weather. Did you automatically ask your fiancé’s sister to be in your wedding party?
“I look best in a jewel-toned green, not muted or mossy,” Beth contributed.
Mrs. Benjamin nodded. “In fact, Eloise, your gown should have a greenish cast, an ivory with a slight greenish tint, so that the colors blend. You’re not going to wear white-white, are you? I mean, you and Noah have been living together for the past two months.”
That night, I’d dreamed (nightmared) that I was walking down the aisle in a mossy-green wedding gown to Noah, whose head had been replaced by a quarter pound of liverwurst. I’d burst into tears, waking Noah, who pulled me into his arms and told me we’d figure something out, that everything would be okay, and I thought, Yes, yes, yes—everything will be okay, I can marry you, after all. You are the one for me. Of course I meant yes. The next morning, when Astrid offered me the free hundred-thousand-dollar wedding, I couldn’t say yes fast enough.
chapter 2
“On to the Classic Bride,” Astrid announced with yet another clap of her hands. “Philippa, make your choice from your two racks. You have five minutes.”
Poor Philippa. At least I’d had ten minutes. Such was the perk of being an associate staffer instead of an assistant.
Two years ago, after getting downsized from Posh Publishing and suffering through an exhausting job search, I’d been hired by Astrid on a probationary basis as associate art associate. “You were promoted to assistant art director only a few months before you were ‘let go’ at Posh, so you didn’t have time to learn the job,” she’d said. “Here at Wow, we have to do the job before we can fulfill the promise of the title.” If I hadn’t been so desperate, I would have gone back to calling every contact I’d ever made and circling ads in the Times. I accepted the position at Wow Weddings magazine with the rationalization that my prepromotion title at Posh had been assistant art associate, so, in a way, Wow was a step up.
Philippa zoomed for her own forbidden zone, to a rack on the outskirts of my Modern area. “I am so in love with this one! Isn’t it just fabulous?”
Superfabulous was more like it. A strange muted yellow and sparkly, with a low-cut halter-style top, mermaidcut skirt covered with yellow feathers and a huge Sarah Jessica Parker/Carrie Bradshaw feather-flower on the left breast, the gown hardly seemed preppy Philippa Wills’s style—or the least bit classic.
“Yes, yes, yes! This is definitely my choice for my wedding gown,” Philippa said, holding it up against h
er tall, willowy frame in the floor-length mirror on the wall. “With the right makeup, I’ll look fabu in yellow!”
You’ll look like Big Bird, was my first thought. Not that Philippa would wear the dress; Astrid would nix it in two seconds.
“No. Absolutely not,” Astrid came in on cue with one shake of her head. Her poker-straight platinum bob didn’t move. “Does that look like a traditional gown to you, Philippa? As our Classic Bride, you must choose a traditional gown. In any case, we’re not choosing wedding gowns today.”
Philippa pouted and fingered the flower on the Big Bird dress. “But it’s my dream gown. I love it. I don’t see why yellow can’t be considered trad—”
“You may choose your bridal party’s dresses from this rack—” Astrid swiveled to extend an entire arm at a rack of your standard-fare-bridesmaid dress in every color “—or that rack.”
My bridesmaids poked their heads out of the dressing rooms. While Astrid was busy glaring at Philippa, Jane was mouthing this rack or that rack while Amanda and Natasha were pointing exaggeratedly to the left and right. Beth, sister-in-law-to-be, stared back and forth from Philippa to Astrid. As an accountant in a tax-law firm, Beth didn’t ordinarily come in contact with pouters or Dragon Ladies with tiny square eyeglasses and cashmere wraps the size of a bed.
“Philippa, I have a meeting at five-thirty,” Astrid said. “You have two minutes left to make your choice before I make it for you.”
Philippa glanced from the boring rack on the left to the more boring one on the right, then slid each dress along the rack as tears pooled in her eyes.
“This one’s gorgeous, Philippa,” I said, spying the floaty pink Midsummer’s Night Dream dress buried in the middle of her “this” rack. “It’s very ‘I’d Like To Thank the Academy,’ like you said you wanted.”
She glanced at the dress and her face lit up. She was relatively easy to please, if you knew how to do it. “Oooh, yes! It’s lovely! Good eye, Eloise. We’ll all look good in pink.” She glanced at her fiancé’s sisters; they bobbed their heads and smiled. Philippa beamed. “Okay, I made my choice.”
“Fine,” Astrid said. “Fashion editor, please speak with It’s Your Day’s manager about ordering the maid of honor’s version—it will be almost the same, but with special beading detail on the empire waist.” She glanced up. “Which one of you is the maid of honor?”
The three blondes glanced at me. I glanced at them. None of us said, I am!
“Um, actually, I haven’t chosen my maid of honor yet,” Philippa said. “I have so many girlfriends and it’s so hard to choose! But my top three choices for the honor of standing up for me are all a size four.”
Oh brother.
“Places, people!” Astrid barked with a clap of her hands.
Devlin began arranging Philippa’s bridesmaids, her fiancé’s three sisters and me. As the sisters were all queens of classic, he had very little to do insultwise other than making me borrow a peach cardigan sweater and insisting I remove my tiny green pterodactyl earrings. We gazed, we smiled, we fake oohed and aahed.
This was actually our second day of fake oohing and fake aahing for the camera. Yesterday Philippa and I had taken some preliminary “I’m So Happy I’m a Bride-to-Be” shots in front of the very classic Tavern on the Green in Central Park and the very modern Puck Building in SoHo.
Devlin had ordered me to look happier, to glow more. Difficult to do when you suddenly weren’t so sure your fiancé was really Mr. Right.
“Like this,” Philippa had said to me, and strangely enough, on cue, her face lit up.
Then and now, as she glowed for each snap of Devlin’s camera, I realized I was jealous of her. Jealous that she was so sure of her future, her fiancé.
I was desperate for a girls’ night out, but Jane, Amanda and Natasha all had after-the-dress-selection plans. Jane and Amanda were heading to a pre-prenatal yoga class (I kid you not) “for those just thinking about womb flexibility,” and Natasha had a playdate in a sandbox. Even Noah, who was pretty good at girl talk, had plans tonight.
“Okay, it’s a wrap,” Astrid announced with a jangle of the five thick silver bangles on her emaciated wrist. “As it’s four-fifteen, I’ve decided not to require you to return to the office.”
What a gal!
“Philippa and Eloise,” Astrid continued, “your diary entries about this shopping trip are due first thing Monday morning. I want two hundred and fifty words, perky, lots of exclamation points.” She flipped through pages on her clipboard. “Which one of you has the deceased mother? I can’t find it in my notes.”
You could hear the clichéd pin drop. The Wow staffers darted uncomfortable glances at me and Philippa.
What a complete shithead Astrid was. I glanced at Jane, whose mother had also passed away. Jane raised an eyebrow, but didn’t hurl a rubber dress at Astrid.
“That would be me,” I said, my cheeks burning.
“El-o-ise,” Astrid said in slow motion as she jotted down Dead Mother: Eloise. “Your diary entry should focus on the poignancy of shopping for your bridal party without Mother. It’s a strong human-interest point for our readership.” She thought for a moment. “Yes, a theme of Mother’s unfulfilled dream—to see her little girl married.”
My mother’s dream for me was to marry. But for much more complicated reasons than Astrid’s backward baloney.
Before I could even formulate an evil thought about Astrid, she moved on. “I’m going to have your final wedding-plans schedules for you on Monday,” she continued, “but don’t plan anything—a manicure, drinks with friends, even a headache—for the next eight weeks until you receive your schedule. Also, family-photo shoots will take place one month from now. That way, family members who need to fly in can make arrangements. You’ll receive the exact dates in your schedule packet.”
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
“Um, Astrid, what if my father or brother can’t come to the shoots?” I asked around the lump in my throat. “Just in case, I mean.”
“Simple,” she responded. “You hire stand-ins. You contact one of the model agencies we use or even an escort service and inform them you’re looking for a fatherly type and a brother type with your coloring. In fact, stand-ins are even better than the real thing, since they’re invariably more attractive, and readers like attractive real-life models. If you do need to hire stand-ins, make sure they have an urban appeal as befits relatives of the Modern Bride. If your real family is able to come, we’ll enhance their ‘hip and cool factor’ for the shoots. Same goes for you, Philippa, but with a Classic enhancement.”
My brother would please Astrid. Twenty-nine-year-old Emmett Manfred was as hip and cool as you got. But he was also who-knew-where, probably thinking deeply on a hill in Oregon or sleeping with a few rich, older women on Park Avenue for rent money. I hadn’t seen or spoken to my brother in over a year.
As for my father, I had no idea if he was hip and cool. Actually, I’d bet my life savings that he was the furthest thing from cool there could possibly be. I hadn’t seen or heard from Theo Manfred since I was five years old.
“Thank you all for coming, bridesmaids,” Astrid said. She flipped her wrap over her shoulder, snapped on her Jackie O. sunglasses and left It’s Your Day, disappearing into a black sedan double-parked in front.
Noah’s sister eyed me, said, “We’ll discuss later,” and huffed out.
Philippa and her future sisters-in-law, chattering excitedly, followed.
Jane, Amanda and Natasha took one last look at the rubber bridesmaid dress.
“The dress isn’t half as bad as your boss!” Amanda said, pulling a Fair Isle hat over her shiny blond head.
“It’s not a quarter as bad,” Natasha put in. “What a witch.”
Jane nodded. “Hey, maybe you could hire a stand-in for Astrid. A boss with normal, decent, human appeal!”
They laughed, then all peered at me.
“Are you okay?” Jane asked, her best-friend brown eyes s
earching mine.
I nodded. “It’s just a dress.”
“That wasn’t what I meant,” she whispered.
“I’m okay.” Sort of. Not really.
“Amanda, what do you say we skip pre-prenatal yoga and help Summer make Elmo sand pies instead?” Jane asked.
Amanda nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
Natasha settled Summer into her stroller and clicked her harness into place. “Summer will be thrilled to have her honorary aunts at her playdate. Eloise, you can come, can’t you?”
“Sure,” I said.
Did I mention how grateful I was for my friends?
“Elmo! Elmo!” Summer shouted.
Jane squeezed my hand. “El, if it’s any consolation, the dress you’re wearing in my wedding is worse.”
“No, I think they’re tied,” Amanda said.
Jane laughed and slung an arm around my shoulder. “C’mon, my girl. To the sandbox for a much-needed session of the Flirt Night Round Table.”
Twenty-two-month-old Summer Nutley was the most recent member of the Flirt Night Round Table, so named for the flirting the adult members used to do pre-serious relationships and the intimate discussions on every topic imaginable: love, work, sex, men, money, family and life in general. The Flirt Night Round Table began on a street corner eight years ago, when Jane and Amanda and I worked in the same building and became friends over puffs of cigarettes (none of us smoke anymore).
Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? Page 2
