Perhaps she wanted privacy. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
She grabbed my hand. “Will you sneak out with me for coffee? I don’t want to talk about it here.”
Five minutes later, we were in Starbucks with peppermint mochas and a cinnamon-chip scone to split. We sat in upholstered chairs at a little round table, letting the warmth and sweetness of our coffee relax us for a moment. The attractive man at the next table was sneaking appreciative peeks at Philippa, but she didn’t notice.
Even with red-rimmed eyes, Philippa elicited stares. Because I saw her every day, I stopped noticing how striking she was. When I interviewed at Wow Weddings and Philippa stepped into the reception area to fetch me to Astrid’s office because Astrid’s assistant was out that day, I’d been momentarily dumbstruck. And intimidated. Not by her, personally, but by the way she looked and dressed. I didn’t look or dress anything like the Gwyneth Paltrow perfection that was Philippa Wills.
Five foot ten, thin as a rail, with poker-straight white-blond hair, the headband, the shirtwaist dress and penny loafers, maybe a dusting of blush and a little lip gloss, Philippa Wills, editorial assistant, was bursting with enthusiasm (she’d bubbled nonstop from the moment she collected me until she deposited me in Astrid’s toile-covered guest chair about what a wonderful working environment Wow Weddings was, even if you weren’t engaged, which she wasn’t, by the way, and etcetera, etcetera).
At Posh Publishing, where I’d worked for eight years, bubbling with enthusiasm was about as welcome as a buzzing fly.
Philippa hadn’t lost that bubble in the little over two years she’d been working at Wow. And if Acid hadn’t popped it out of her yet…
Which made a sad, crying Philippa very difficult to bear.
“Philippa, you can trust me, okay?” I assured her. “Whatever it is.”
She sniffled into her tissue. “I trust you. But I can’t tell you.”
“Well, how about if we just sit here and enjoy our coffee, then,” I said. “Maybe this scone will make you feel better.”
She broke off a piece but didn’t eat it. “I want to tell you. I really do. But I’m so embarrassed.”
“Hey, who’s the queen of embarrassing herself at Wow?”
“You are,” she said earnestly.
“So therefore,” I reasoned at my own expense, “you can tell me. No matter what it is, I’m sure I’ve topped it.”
“You won’t tell a soul?” she asked. “Not a soul?”
“Cross my heart,” I assured her.
“Not even Noah?”
“Not even Noah,” I promised.
She let out a deep breath and gnawed her lower lip. “My family hates me.”
“Your family hates you?” I repeated. “Philippa, your father thinks you’re the greatest thing that ever walked the earth. Your mother adores you, and your brother is your best friend.”
“Not really,” she whispered.
“Philippa, I was at your photo shoot,” I reminded her. “Your father couldn’t stop talking about how great you are. You and your brother couldn’t decide which one of you was the ‘best.’ And your mother—”
“They were paid to do all that,” she finally said.
Huh? “You paid your family to say nice—”
Oh.
She stared down at her feet. “They’re not my family. They’re stand-ins. Fakes. Models I hired from Perfect People.”
No wonder the fake Weston Wills looked familiar! I’d probably seen his head shot when I was looking for my own fake brother.
“They’re costing me two hundred fifty an hour,” she said between sniffles. “My stand-in brother goes for three hundred, because he’s particularly hot right now.”
My fake brother would have cost only one hundred and seventy-five.
“You hired models because you’re not getting along with your family?” I asked.
Silence.
“Philippa, trust me—I’m the last person who’ll judge you about family.”
She glanced up at me and gnawed her lip, then took a sip of her coffee. “Not getting along is an understatement. They totally hate me.”
Philippa was a lot of things, but hateable wasn’t among them. “Why do you think they hate you?”
“My parents and brother are boycotting my wedding,” she said in such a low voice I had to lean forward, which meant I was almost in her lap. “And anything to do with the magazine feature.”
I waited for her to continue.
Because…
“They totally hate me,” she said on a sob.
Because…
“Because I…sort of shortened my last name when I graduated from college.”
From…what? Willspimple? Willsfart? Willssnot?
“Wilschitz,” she said.
Ah. Wilschitz. I would have gotten there eventually.
“A lot of people shorten their names,” I told her. “Have you tried ex—”
“I changed my first name too,” she added.
I waited.
“It used to be—”
I was on the edge of my seat.
“Phyllis,” she finally said.
Phyllis Wilschitz.
Philippa Wills’s real name was Phyllis Wilschitz.
“My family says I’m pretending to be something I’m not, but that’s not true!” she said. “I am Philippa Wills! Philippa Wills is who I was meant to be.”
“Who was Phyllis Wilschitz?” I asked.
She let out a deep breath. “When I walked down the hall in middle school, boys would shout out, ‘Run, everybody—Phyllis Will Shit!’ And girls would add, ‘Phyllis Is Shit!’”
“Oh, God, Philippa. How awful.”
I was surprised though. Usually girls who looked like Philippa were immune to middle-school torture. Philippa Wills (or Phyllis Wilschitz) had never had a pimple, let alone a bad hair day. It just wasn’t possible.
“I wasn’t exactly as pulled together then as I am now. I was a walking stereotype—the Coke-bottle glasses, bad posture from hunching over because I towered over all the boys, bad hair, the works.”
Ah. I peered at her. It was impossible even to imagine.
She took a sip of her coffee. “But my parents were sticking me in a private school for high school and I realized I had a shot at changing my image.”
“By changing your name to something glamorous?” I asked. “Glam by association?”
“Actually, back then I didn’t realize I could change my name,” she said. “I changed how I looked. I turned Phyllis Wilschitz into a hot babe.”
“How?”
“I read through every back issue of Teen and Seventeen, then bought Miss Clairol Light Blond, a pair of contact lenses and inexpensive versions of stylish clothing that I saw in Seventeen and on the popular girls at school. I practiced applying my new stockpile of cosmetics, stood up straight like my then idol Cindy Crawford and voilà.”
“Your parents helped you do all this?” I asked. “They let you change your whole look in high school but have problems with your name?”
“Oh, they didn’t help me,” she said. “I had some money saved from birthdays and holidays and every baby-sitting job I ever had. My mother was furious when she saw my dyed hair. She insisted I change it back. I begged her to understand.”
“Did she?” I asked.
“She took a pair of scissors and cut off my hair.”
I literally gasped. “She did not!”
“Yup, she did. She said that no daughter of hers was going to walk around like a harlot with bleached-blond hair when she and my father scrimped and saved to get me into private school.”
Scrimped and saved? I thought her parents were wealthy.
“So she cut off my long hair to my chin and told me it would grow out faster if it was short,” Philippa continued, “but then she didn’t want people to think I’d colored my hair, so she kept dyeing it for me. I got to be blond with a chic bob all through high school.”
&nb
sp; “Wow,” I said.
“I was still Phyllis Wilschitz, but I looked like a Philippa Wills. And I was treated accordingly. I was never made fun of again, but I hated the name. Hated it. I tried to explain that to my parents when I changed my name after college, that the name Phyllis Wilschitz didn’t match the new me. That I needed a name that conjured up an image of money, class, beauty, elegance.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “They were more than a little insulted.”
She nodded.
“Even so, I’m sure they don’t hate you. And there’s no way they’d miss their girl getting married. I’m sure they won’t boycott the wedding.”
Philippa started to cry again. “I don’t know. They’re really mad at me. They say that Wills is a slap in the face to them. That my father’s name, my grandfather’s name, my great-grandfather’s name, my great-great-grandfather’s name ain’t Wills. It’s Wilschitz. Every time I get the lecture, they really emphasize the schitz. Wil-schitz! Wil-schitz! Don’t they know that only strengthens my resolve to be Wills?”
“Did your brother get teased?” I asked.
If you even have a brother.
She nodded. “He was tortured. Mercilessly. And it affected him his entire life. When you’re teased that way, picked on, made fun of every single day so carelessly, you either turn into a raging lunatic or you retreat. My brother retreated.”
“So he’s not Mr. Wall Street?”
She smiled. “He’s a librarian.”
“Does he understand about your changing your name?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t change his. But then again, his first name is Mike. That’s livable.”
“You really think they’ll boycott the wedding?” I asked.
“They figured I’d stop ‘this name nonsense,’ my last name, anyway, when I married Parker. They assumed I’d become Philippa Gersh and they’d never have to see or hear the Wills again. But I’m not taking Parker’s name and—”
I was surprised. Very. “You’re not taking Parker’s name?”
“Why should I?” she asked.
“No reason. I guess I just assumed.”
“I worked really hard to become Philippa Wills. I’m not going to give up who I am just because I’m getting married. And who I am is Philippa Wills. I’m not Phyllis Wilschitz or Philippa Gersh. I’m Philippa Wills.”
I was impressed. Very. “Good for you, Philippa,” I said. “So what does Parker think of all this?”
She gnawed her lower lip.
“Philippa, Parker does know your real name, doesn’t he?”
She didn’t answer.
Whoo-boy.
She sipped her coffee. “What was the point of telling him? We’d been dating only four months when Parker proposed, so it was too early for a ‘meet the folks,’ and since he proposed there hasn’t been an opportunity to get all of us together. I haven’t had to tell him. I’ll tell him before I introduce him to the Wilschitzes. Whenever that will be…”
“But you will have to eventually because—” Your name is really Phyllis Wilschitz.
“Because why? Because Philippa Wills isn’t really my name?” she asked. “It is. It’s as much my name as if my parents had named me that twenty-five years ago. I’m Philippa Wills.”
But—
But what? Was she wrong?
I tried to imagine telling Noah that my name wasn’t really Eloise Manfred.
Me: “Noah, before we get married, there’s something I have to tell you. My name isn’t really Eloise Manfred. It’s Elowishious Manfrednoodle.”
Noah: “What? You lying liar! You’re not who said you were. It’s over. We’re breaking up. The wedding is off!” Yanks ring off finger and stomps away.
If I told Noah that my real name were Elowishious Manfrednoodle, I had no doubt he’d really say, “Thank God you changed it. I wouldn’t have gone on a first date with you if your name were Elowishious Manfrednoodle.”
Then again, Elowishious Manfrednoodle wasn’t a name anyone would have.
I tried to imagine Philippa telling Parker Gersh that her real name was Phyllis Wilschitz.
Parker: “Phyllis Wilschitz? How are we supposed to get our wedding announcement in the New York Times with a name like Phyllis Wilschitz? I can see the headline now: Instead of Philippa Will Marry, it’ll say Phyllis Will Shit.”
Or: “Phyllis Wilschitz? We are a match made in heaven! My real name is Phallus Gershhead.”
I didn’t know Parker Gersh well; I didn’t know him at all, actually. I’d met him only once, on his and Philippa’s first date. Noah and I had arranged it as a double date after work. Philippa had rushed into the Wow rest room at exactly 5:00 p.m. with her cosmetics kit, curling iron, straightening iron, hair spray, perfume and three different outfits, including the one she was wearing.
Two seconds after we arrived at the restaurant, a busboy spilled my glass of red wine all over Philippa’s dress. Parker snapped unnecessarily at the busboy, but he was beyond gracious to Philippa, running to the bar to ask for a little seltzer and napkins, assuring her she still looked remarkably beautiful and would were she wearing a burlap sack. Philippa had beamed and let down her guard and that, as they say, was that.
He’d adored her from minute one and had treated her like a princess since. Philippa was right. Why would he care that her last name didn’t match his? What did it matter what your name was? Didn’t we all learn in eleventh-grade English class that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet?
Then again, Emmett had learned the opposite. He’d changed his name for two weeks when he was in high school.
“Why should I have the last name of someone I haven’t seen since I was two?” he’d said in angry defense of his newly chosen last name, Smith, after his then hero, Robert Smith of the alternative-rock band The Cure. Unfortunately, Emmett wasn’t an uncommon name in New York City; there were four Emmetts in his English class alone and two in his history class, and he didn’t get credit for homework he’d turned in or reports or tests, and my grandmother had to come in for a meeting with his guidance counselor and the principal. Emmett had to make up the homework and reports and tests he’d turned in as Emmett Smith, despite the fact that his teachers still had the original work. Apparently, if the work didn’t have Emmett’s real name on it, he couldn’t get credit.
It seemed so silly then, and even sillier now. Emmett Smith’s book report wasn’t (according to the school), really written by Emmett Manfred because it had another student’s name on it (despite the fact that there was no Emmett Smith enrolled), even if it really was. So if Phyllis Wilschitz’s name was on the marriage license, would Philippa Wills really be married?
What did it matter what your name was? My mother’s last name had never been Manfred—she and my father had never married. Did the fact that she had a different last name than me and Emmett make her any less my mother? Did the fact that I had the same name as a man I hadn’t seen since I was five make him any more my father?
I’d always planned on taking my husband’s name—the perfect opportunity to ditch the Manfred that I never felt connected to in the first place. But Emmett was a Manfred. His child would be a Manfred, even if he or she were named Gould. Unless, of course, he or she changed it to something else in eleventh grade.
Eloise Benjamin.
That was the first time I put the two names together. Who the hell was Eloise Benjamin?
chapter 13
After she’d assured me she was all right, that she just needed to think and sip her peppermint mocha, I finally left Philippa at Starbucks and headed for the subway. I was meeting Noah and the Wow staff at Round Rings for the wedding-rings “selection.” As the train zoomed and shook and rumbled its way downtown, I took out the red leather journal book Jane had given me as a New Year’s gift and wrote Eloise Benjamin.
Didn’t feel right. No, that wasn’t it. The name didn’t feel familiar. Didn’t look familiar.
I tried script. Print. Calligrap
hy. (I took a course two years ago during my hiatus from dating.)
Eloise Benjamin. Eloise Benjamin. Eloise Benjamin.
I rummaged through my bag for a Tums. I popped two in my mouth and wrote Eloise Manfred.
Yes, that was right.
Okay, fine, I was Eloise Manfred, but I was marrying Noah Benjamin, so even, say, spiritually, when we became one, I would become Eloise Benjamin.
I wrote Eloise Benjamin. And needed another Tums.
I put away the journal book and stared up at the advertisements lining the top rim of the subway car.
“That means you don’t want to get married.”
I glanced up to find a middle-aged woman sitting next to me pointing at my ring. “When you tug at it like that,” she added, “it’s supposed to mean you don’t want to get married.”
Mind your own stupid business, I wanted to yell, but luckily, the doors opened and I fled onto the Spring Street platform.
Why, after last night, wonderful, delicious, orgasmic last night, was I back to twisting my ring? Just because I wasn’t yet used to Eloise Benjamin?
Eloise Benjamin. Eloise Benjamin. Eloise Benjamin.
What was the big deal? It was my first name and my fiancé’s last name. Put ’em together you got Eloise Benjamin.
I popped another Tums.
What was my problem? It couldn’t be the name, since I didn’t have to change my name—even though I wanted to. It couldn’t be the guy, since I wanted to marry him—or I had until he proposed, anyway.
Unless it was the guy.
Was it Noah?
The man in question arrived at Round Rings at exactly the same time as I did. I, from the north, and he from the south.
“Jinx,” he said, kissing me.
That had to mean something, arriving at the ring shop at exactly the same time from opposite directions. There had to be something yin and yang about that.
“Your lips are cold,” I told him, closing my eyes as he hugged me.
I will not twist my ring anymore. I will not twist my ring anymore. I will not twist my ring anymore. It isn’t Noah. It’s not him, it’s me.
Hey, wait a minute. It’s not you, it’s me meant it was him!
The moment we entered the shop, everyone turned around to check out the Modern Bride’s fiancé. “Um, everyone,” I said. “This is my fiancé, Noah Benjamin.”
Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? Page 13
