Queen of Babble

by Meg Cabot

  “Plastic surgery?” Luke repeats, still looking incredulous.

  “I guess I can understand the appeal,” I say. “Since you wanted to be a doctor and all, but-”

  “I didn’t-” Luke springs up from the chair and takes a few quick steps toward the far end of the attic, raking one hand through his thick, curly hair. “I told her I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid. Then I grew up and realized I’d have to be in school for another four years after college…plus three more years as a resident. And I don’t like school that much.”

  “Oh,” I say, sinking back down onto the lumpy trunk-top. “Then it’s not just because doctors don’t make as much money as investment bankers these days?”

  “Did she-” He spins around to face me. “Is that what she told you I said?”

  I can see I am treading on rocky terrain here. I hop up and, eager to change the subject, say, “What is this lumpy thing I’ve been sitting on?”

  “Because it’s not true,” Luke says, striding toward me as I bend to lift up the long white object. “It had nothing to do with the money. I mean, it’s true that for the years I’d be in school, there’d be no money coming in. And, yeah, okay, that’s a concern. I’m not going to lie. I like having my own money so I don’t have to depend on my parents for support. A guy wants to be able to pay his own bills, you know?”

  “Oh,” I say, unwinding what appears to be a length of white satin from the long, hard object it’s been wrapped around. “Totally.”

  “And, okay, I looked into the postbaccalaureate premedical programs at a few schools-because, you know, not having been premed in college, even if I wanted to try to get into med school now, I’d have to take some postgrad science classes.”

  “Sure,” I say, still working at unraveling whatever’s been wrapped inside what appears to be some kind of tablecloth.

  “And, yeah, okay, maybe I applied to a few of them. And maybe I got into the ones at Columbia and New York University. But I mean even if I go full-time, with summers included, that’s another year in school that doesn’t even count toward whatever medical degree I eventually go for. Is that really what I want? To be in school for another five years? When I don’t have to be?”

  “Oh my God,” I say. Because I have finally unraveled the long, hard thing. And gotten a good look at what was being used to wrap it.

  “That,” Luke says, looking alarmed, “is my dad’s hunting rifle. Don’t-Lizzie, don’t hold it like that. Jesus Christ.” He hastily takes the long thing from my hands, then opens it and looks down the barrel.

  “It’s still loaded,” he says in a small voice.

  Now that Luke’s taken the gun from me, I have both hands free and can give the thing the gun was wrapped in a good shaking.

  “Lizzie.” Luke sounds kind of stressed. “In the future, when you’re holding a hunting rifle-even an unloaded one-don’t fling it around like that. And definitely don’t point it at your own head. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  His voice seems far away. All my concentration is on the dress I’m holding. Even in its wrinkled, rust-stained state, I can see that it’s a cream-colored full-length satin gown with slender spaghetti straps (complete with tiny snapped loops on the underside, for hiding the wearer’s bra straps), fine gathers over the double-lined molded breast cups, and a row of buttons down the back that can only be real pearls.

  “Luke, whose dress is this?” I ask, searching inside for a label.

  “Did you hear me?” Luke says. “This thing is loaded. You could have taken the top of your head off.”

  Then I find them. The words that nearly cause my heart to stop, though they are discreetly stitched in black on a small white label: Givenchy Couture.

  I feel as if someone has kicked me.

  “Givenchy-” I stagger backward, to sink back down onto the top of the trunk, because my knees no longer appear to be working. “Givenchy Couture!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Luke says again. He’s unloaded the rifle, and now he sets it down on the chair he’d abandoned and hurries across the room to bend over me solicitously. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right,” I say, reaching up and grabbing a handful of his shirt, pulling him down until he’s kneeling by my chair, his face just inches from mine.

  He doesn’t understand. He just doesn’t understand. I have to make him understand.

  “This is a Hubert de Givenchy evening gown. A priceless, one-of-a-kind couture evening gown from one of the most innovative and classic fashion designers in the world. And someone used it to wrap up an old gun that…that…”

  Luke gazes down at me, concern in his dark eyes. “Yes?”

  “That RUSTED on it!”

  Something causes Luke’s lips to twist upward a little. He’s smiling. How can he be smiling? I can tell he still doesn’t get it.

  “RUST, Luke,” I say desperately. “RUST. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get rust out of fine fabrics like silk? And look, look here…one of the straps is broken. And the hem-there’s a tear here. And here. Luke, how could someone have done something like this? How could someone have…MURDERED a beautiful vintage gown like this?”

  “I don’t know,” Luke says. He’s still smiling, which means he still isn’t getting it.

  But he’s also laid a hand over mine, where I’m still clutching his shirt. His fingers are warm and reassuring.

  “But I have a feeling if there’s anyone in the world who can resuscitate the victim,” he goes on in his deep, quiet voice-which sounds even deeper and quieter in the stillness of the long attic-“it’s you.”

  His eyes, as I gaze into them, look very dark, and very friendly…just as his lips, as always, look eminently kissable.

  HOW CAN HE HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? It’s not fair. It’s just not.

  I do the only thing I can, under the circumstances. I gently release his shirt and drop my hand-and my gaze-away from his.

  “I guess…” I say, looking down at the yards of stained fabric in my lap, hoping he doesn’t notice my blush-or the sudden speeding up of my heartbeat, which I can feel slamming against my ribs. “I guess I could try. I mean…if it’s okay with you, I’d like to try.”

  “Lizzie,” Luke says, “that dress has been up in this attic for God knows how long, and, as you mentioned, wasn’t exactly treated very nicely. I think it deserves to belong to someone who will give it the care and attention it needs.”

  Just like you, Luke! I want to cry. You deserve to belong to someone who will give YOU the care and attention YOU need…someone who will support your dream of being a doctor, and not nag you to move to Paris, who will stick by you for those five more years of school, and who will promise never to turn your ancestral home into a spa for people recovering from plastic surgery, even if it would bring in more money than weddings.

  But of course I can’t say this.

  Instead I say, “You know, Chaz is going to New York University in the fall. Maybe if you do decide to go to that postbacca-whatever-it is thingie, you two could find a place to live together.”

  That is, I add silently, if Dominique doesn’t insist on coming with you…

  “Yeah,” Luke says, still smiling. “It’d be just like old times.”

  “Because,” I go on, keeping my hands strictly away from him, and on the silky smoothness of the dress in my lap, “I think, if there’s something you really want to do-like being a doctor-you should go for it. I mean, because otherwise you’ll never know. And you might regret it your whole life.”

  Luke, I can’t help noticing, is still kneeling beside my chair, his face still way too close to mine for comfort. I’m trying not to think about how my advice-about how he should go for it-could also apply to my kissing him. Because, you know, I might never get another chance to see what it would be like.

  But kissing a guy who has a girlfriend is just wrong. Even a girlfriend who doesn’t necessarily have his best interests in mind, like I do. It’s the kind of thing Bria
nna Dunleavy, back at McCracken Hall, would do.

  And no one liked Brianna.

  “I don’t know,” Luke says. Is it my imagination, or is his gaze on my mouth? Do I have something stuck to my lip gloss? Or-oh God-are my teeth purple from all that red wine? “It’s a really big step. A life-changing one. A risky one.”

  “Sometimes,” I say, my gaze on his own lips-his teeth, I note, are not purple at all, “we need to take big risks if we want to find out who we are, and what we were put on this planet for. Like me, jumping on that train and coming to France, instead of staying in England.”

  Okay, he is definitely leaning in. He’s leaning in toward me. What does this mean? Does he want to kiss me? How can he want to kiss me when he has the world’s most gorgeous girlfriend lying half naked out there by the pool?

  I can’t let him kiss me. Even if he wants to. Because that would be wrong. He is taken.

  And besides, I’m sure I still have stinky wine breath.

  “Was the risk worth it?” he wants to know.

  I can’t seem to tear my gaze from his lips, which are coming closer and closer toward mine.

  “Totally,” I say. And close my eyes.

  He’s going to kiss me. He’s going to kiss me! Oh no!

  Oh. Yes.

  It was an American woman named Amelia Bloomer who first spoke out against the dangers of the crinoline (and also the unhygienic practice of wearing skirts that swept the earth and floor). She encouraged women to adopt the “bloomer,” a baggy-legged pant worn beneath a knee-length skirt that would not in any way be considered immodest today. The Victorians, however, objected strongly to women wearing the pants in the family, and “bloomers” went the way of Members Only jackets and Hall amp; Oates.

  History of Fashion

  SENIOR THESIS BY ELIZABETH NICHOLS

  16

  A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms.

  – Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British author and poet

  Jean-Luc?”

  Wait. Who said that?

  “Jean-Luc?”

  My eyes fly open. Luke is already on his feet and rushing for the attic door.

  “I’m up here,” he calls down the narrow staircase to the third floor. “In the attic!”

  Okay. What just happened? One minute he was about to kiss me-I’m almost sure of it-and the next-

  “Well, you had better come down now.” Dominique’s voice sounds prim. “Your mother’s just arrived.”

  “Shit,” Luke says. But not to Dominique. To Dominique, he calls, “Right. I’ll be down in a second.”

  He turns around to look at me. I’m sitting there, the Givenchy evening gown still spilling off my lap, feeling as if something was just ripped from me. My heart, maybe?

  But that’s ridiculous. I didn’t want him to kiss me. I didn’t. Even if he was going to.

  Which he wasn’t.

  “We should go,” Luke says. “Unless you want to stay up here. You’re welcome to anything you want to take-”

  Except the one thing I’m starting to realize I want most.

  “Oh,” I say, standing up. I’m mildly surprised to find that my knees can still support me. “No. I couldn’t.”

  But I haven’t let go of the evening dress, a fact Luke notices, and which causes one corner of his mouth to go up in a knowing way.

  “I mean,” I say, looking down guiltily at the armful of silk I’m holding, “if I could just take this and maybe try to restore it-”

  “By all means,” Luke says, still trying to hide his smile.

  He’s laughing at me. But I don’t care, because now we have another secret together. Soon I’ll have more secrets with Luke de Villiers than I do with anyone else.

  Although, thanks to the Lizzie Broadcasting System, I don’t have secrets with anyone else. This is definitely something I need to work on.

  I follow Luke down the stairs. Dominique is waiting at the bottom. She’s changed from her bathing suit into a cream-colored, very contemporary linen dress that leaves her shoulders bare and makes her waist look tiny. On her feet, I’m quick to note, are a pair of slides with wickedly pointy toes.

  “Well,” she says when she sees me trailing behind Luke, “you certainly got the full tour, didn’t you, Lizzie?”

  “Luke and his father were very thorough,” I say, trying to hide my guilt. Why should I feel guilty, though? Nothing happened. And nothing was going to happen.

  Probably.

  “I’m sure they were,” Dominique says in a bored voice. Then she casts a critical eye over Luke. “Look at you. You’re all dusty. You cannot greet your mother like this. Go and change.”

  If Luke doesn’t like being bossed around like this, he doesn’t show it. Instead he heads off down the hall, calling, “Tell Mom I’ll be there in a minute,” over his shoulder.

  I start for my own room, where I intend to stash the evening gown until I can find some lemons or, even better, cream of tartar to soak it in. I’ve had luck in the past getting rust stains out of silk with both.

  But Dominique stops me before I can take a single step.

  “What is it that you have there?” Dominique asks.

  “Oh,” I say. I unfold the dress and hold it up for her to see. “It’s just an old dress I found up there. It’s such a shame, it’s covered in rust stains now. I’m going to see if I can get them out.”

  Dominique casts a critical eye up and down the garment. If she recognizes its significance as a piece of fashion history, she doesn’t let on.

  “It is very old, I think,” she says.

  “Not that old,” I say. “Sixties. Maybe early seventies.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “It smells.”

  “Well,” I say, “it’s been sitting in a moldy attic. I’m going to soak it for a while to see if I can get the stains out. That will help with the smell as well.”

  Dominique reaches out to finger the smooth silk. A second later she’s reaching for the label.

  Uh-oh. She’s seen it.

  She doesn’t squeal, though, the way I did. That’s because Dominique can actually control herself.

  “You are good at sewing?” she asks very calmly. “I thought I heard your friend Shari say so…”

  “Oh, I’m just okay,” I say modestly.

  “If you cut off the skirt here,” Dominique says, indicating a place where, if I were to cut off the skirt, the hem would hit her just above the knee, “it would be a cute cocktail dress. I would have to dye it black, of course. Otherwise it looks too much like an evening gown, I think.”

  Whoa. Wait a minute.

  “Because it is an evening gown,” I say. “And I’m sure it belongs to someone. I’m just going to try to restore it. I’m sure whoever it belongs to would love to have it back.”

  “But that could be anyone,” Dominique says. “And if whoever it belongs to really cared for it, she would not have left it here. If it is a matter of cost, I will gladly pay you-”

  I snatch the dress from her fingers. I can’t help it. It’s like she’s turned into Cruella De Vil, and the gown is a dalmatian puppy. I can’t believe anyone would be so vicious as to suggest cutting-not to mention dyeing-a Givenchy original.

  “Why don’t we see if I can get the stains out first,” I say as calmly as I’m able to, seeing as how I am practically hyperventilating in shock.

  Dominique shrugs in her French Canadian way. At least, I suppose it’s French Canadian, since I’ve never met one before.

  “Fine,” she says. “I suppose we can just let Jean-Luc decide what to do with it since it’s his house…”

  She doesn’t add, …and I’m his girlfriend, and therefore all couture spoils in his house should rightfully go to me.

  Because she doesn’t have to.

  “I’ll just go put it away,” I say, “and then come down to meet Mrs. de Villiers.”

  Mention of the name seems to remind Dominique that she’s want
ed elsewhere.

  “Yes, of course,” she says, and hurries to the stairs.

  Hideously relieved, I dart into my room and close the door behind me, then lean against it as if I have to catch my breath. Cut a Givenchy! Dye a Givenchy! What kind of sick, twisted…

  But I don’t have time to worry about that now. I want to go see what Luke’s mother is like. I gently hang the evening gown from a peg in the wall (my room not having a closet), then strip off the swimsuit and dress I’ve been wearing all day. Then I throw on my robe and zip into the bathroom for a quick wash, makeup reapplication, and hair combing before coming back into my room to throw on my Suzy Perette party dress (I finally got the paint out).

  Then, following the sounds of conversation drifting up from downstairs, I hurry to meet Bibi de Villiers.

  Who turns out to be nothing like what I expected. Having met Luke’s father, I had built up a picture in my head of the kind of woman he would marry-diminutive, dark, and soft-spoken, to go with his dreamy absentmindedness.

  But none of the women I see from the second-floor landing when I reach it fit this description. There are three women standing in the foyer-not including Shari, Dominique, and Agnes-and none of them is dark or diminutive.

  And they’re DEFINITELY not soft-spoken.

  “But then where are Lauren and Nicole going to stay?” a girl about my own age, only considerably blonder, is demanding in a heavy Southern accent.

  “Vicky darlin’, I told you.” Another blonde, who has to be the girl’s mother, since the resemblance between the two is uncanny (except that Mom has about twenty pounds on her daughter), is speaking in long-suffering, but still distinctly Texan, tones. “They’re just going to have to stay in Sarlat. Aunt Bibi told you she could only fit so many people here in Mirac-”

  “But why do Blaine’s friends get to stay here,” Vicky is whining, “and my friends have to go to a hotel? And what about Craig? Where are his friends going to stay?”