I step back and look her in the eyes. “He wouldn’t have taken the field if he didn’t feel confident he was ready. Your brother is a lot of things, but he’s not reckless.”
“Um, guys. He just scored,” Spencer says.
We’ve been so busy worrying about him, we forgot to watch him. I look down on the field, and he’s jumping around with the guys like a lunatic. It must have been a great play.
The rest of the game flies by. Chase looks great—he doesn’t miss a step. He doesn’t go down once, which is unheard of, but his team protects him fiercely. They cream Arizona, thirty-five to seven. NFC Championship, here we come!
*****
After the celebration at the field dies down, we go back to Pat and Katie’s for a second celebration. Charlie and Chase go for a long walk, and I’m sure she lectures him. It’s the last thing he needs right now, but if it gives her peace of mind and lowers her stress level, I’m all for it.
While they’re gone, Spencer and I flip through the channels, watching all the reporters jump back on the Brennan bandwagon. He’s their golden boy again. There’s story after story about Chase’s acumen as a quarterback, his skills and talents as a leader, and how he’s an exemplary role model for athletes and young men everywhere. The love-fest makes me sick to my stomach though. Do they ever get dizzy from having to flip-flop so fast? Setting my repulsion aside, we tape a bunch for Chase to see. It’ll do him a world of good to know he’s off the ten-most-hated list. I couldn’t be happier for him.
Later that night, when we’re home and in bed, he asks, “Are you okay with my decision to play?”
The doubt in his voice worries me. I turn around to face him. “Are you? Are you second-guessing yourself?”
Running his fingers gently down my arm, he shakes his head. “No. I just didn’t want you to think… I don’t know… Charlie laid into me about how I need to think about my family first and foremost, and how it may be hard for me to see it right now, but when we have kids, I’ll look back and think this decision was so foolish. It got me thinking…”
I give him a moment to finish, but when he doesn’t I say, “First, Charlie’s emotional right now, so factor that into things. Second, while what she says may be true, she can’t know that for sure. She can’t possibly know how you’ll feel because she’s never lived in your shoes. Just like we can’t judge her for her decisions because we’ve never walked in hers. You made the best decision you could at the time, and that’s all you can do.”
I lean forward and kiss him. “I trust you with everything. With my life, my future.” I put my hand over his heart. “And my heart. Whatever happens, good or bad, success or failure, we’ll get through it together.”
“I love you.”
“I love you back.”
He turns me around so that he’s spooning me. “You think we’ll survive another Charlie pregnancy?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Arianna
After taking Monday off, Chase wakes up Tuesday morning and swears he’s one hundred percent. No headaches, no dizziness, no blurred vision. He’s cleared to drive and wants to go back to his typical practice schedule, which is usually eight in the morning until ten or eleven at night. Far longer than the average player, but what you have to do if you want to win. After a long talk with Jeb, who heard an earful from me, Coach tells Chase eight hours a day max. He just comes home every day and watches film, which isn’t the break I would like his brain to get, but it’s better than nothing.
The second she heard Chase was cleared, Shelly started loading my calendar with interviews. From morning till night, I’m on the radio, TV, blogs, vlogs. If it’s media, she has me on it. I don’t even get to stop for lunch. She didn’t just book me on sports shows either! Right wing shows, lifestyle shows, women’s shows. I talk about everything from Chase and the wedding, to gun control, to concussions, to the unaffordable real estate boom in San Francisco. By the end of each day, my voice is shot and I have a throbbing headache. Not that I have the right to complain after watching Chase for the last few weeks. A little tension headache is nothing in comparison to what he’s dealing with.
Shelly doesn’t relent on the wedding dress issue. She not-so-subtly tells me that Karl Lagerfeld is going to be in LA next week for the opening of his new men’s store on Rodeo Drive, and Vogue thinks he’d be the perfect designer for my perfect dress. I was leaning toward Versace or Valentino, but I suppose I’d be crazy to turn down a dress designed by the president of Chanel. Besides, I don’t have the time to fly to Rome right now anyway. Chase may be feeling better, but I’m not comfortable flying to the other side of the world just yet. If Lagerfeld is going to be in LA, I’ll only be an hour-long flight away if anything happens.
Karl and I chat by phone and email ideas back and forth. His ideas are right on par with what Shelly was hoping for. Based on what we’re discussing, I’ll look as though I walked right out of a fairy tale—all I’ll be missing are the glass slippers.
Since we’re crunched on time, Karl’s assistant tells me to go to the Chanel store to get my measurements done rather than waiting until I see him next week. Vogue sends a photographer out to get pictures of me smiling like the blushing bride I am while this woman treats me like a pin cushion.
When Karl finds out who took the measurements, he says, “That woman couldn’t take the measurements of a mannequin,” then sends me to a little place in the garment district. In the back of a fabric factory is a tiny seamstress shop run by an eighty-year-old Jewish woman everyone calls Bubbe. Apparently he’s known her for decades and says he trusts her more than he trusts himself.
As she measures me, she talks nonstop. She tells me about how her father started the company just after the turn of the century, and it somehow survived the depression. She inherited it after her parents passed away, but she was more interested in making clothes with the fabric than running the business. She and her husband ran the business together, but she kept her little shop in the back for fun. Now her kids manage the day-to-day, but she refuses to give up her shop. She’s sweet as can be, keeps giving me Werther’s Originals because they “keep the stomach in check,” and tells me I need to eat more.
By the time I leave her, I’m as smitten as everyone else seems to be. Whenever I get my next line up and running, I’m coming to her for my fabric!
With my jam-packed schedule, the week flies by in the blink of an eye. Before I know it, we’re back in the owner’s box for the NFC Championship.
Because of how upset Charlie got last week, Spencer paid the babysitter two hundred bucks to cancel at the very last minute so they would have no choice but to stay home. Charlie insisted they could bring Calder, but we convinced her Jeb has the box over-filled today and it’s not the right place to bring a baby, especially one who is teething and miserable. I’m not sure how Spence thinks he’s going to keep her calmer at home, but it’s worth a try.
The Niners are playing New Orleans. Having played them six times in the last three years, Chase knows this team well, probably better than any other team in the league. He’s coming into this game more confident than I have seen him all season. It doesn’t hurt that New Orleans’s quarterback flirts with me every time he sees me. That little extra motivation has Chase chomping on the bit to take the field.
I’m worried he’s going to overdo it, push himself too hard to show off. But play after play, he shows me my fears are unfounded. He plays smart, careful, and amazing. New Orleans puts up a good fight. The teams rally touchdown for touchdown in the first half.
But the Niners come back from halftime energized and focused. Chase is on point with every pass. The running backs are unstoppable. They score three times in the third quarter. It helps that the defense holds New Orleans, forcing a turnover each time they get the ball. Having spent eighty-percent of the third quarter on the field, New Orleans’s defense is tired, and they get sloppy. And Chase takes every advantage. Niners win—forty-nine to seventeen—and Chase is going
to the Super Bowl!
The entire Bay Area goes crazy. Brennan jerseys fly off the shelves. Chase is all anyone is talking about. The internet’s blowing up with the Brennan Bonanza. In the morning, before he heads to Levi, Chase scrolls through the news. The corners of his mouth curl up ever so slightly as he reads, then he leaves, practically skipping with happiness. Chase has always basked in the warm glow of glory. Hopefully giving him internet access again wasn’t a mistake. I blocked him from the internet to protect his ego. I don’t want getting it back to send his ego too far in the other direction.
Wednesday, Charlie and I fly to LA, then a car drives us to the Beverly Wilshire to see Karl.
One of Karl’s assistants, a tall, lithe woman with flame-orange hair who looks as though she hasn’t eaten in the last year, greets us in the penthouse. “Welcome. I’m Life, Mr. Lagerfeld’s assistant here in Los Angeles.”
Charlie and I exchange glances.
“Life?” she mouths to me.
I shrug. It’s LA.
Life guides us through the massive suite filled with racks and racks of clothes enclosed in garment bags. “Mr. Lagerfeld sends his most sincere apologies, but he was needed at the store. Louvel, one of our top designers, is here, and he will help you with your fitting.” She opens the door to a back bedroom. “If you would make yourself comfortable in here. I’ll bring your dress right in.”
“My dress?” I ask. “It’s ready?” How is that even possible? We were just exchanging design ideas a week ago.
Life doesn’t answer before she leaves, closing the door behind her.
Clearly the Wilshire prepared the suite just for Chanel. The bed and dressers have been removed. There are several comfortable-looking armchairs and two sets of three-way mirrors, each with a fabric-covered stool in front of them.
Charlie unzips a garment bag on a rack by the window, sneaking a peek at whatever creation is inside. “Life is on the top of my ‘shock the hell out of Spencer with bad names’ list. I can’t wait to tell him this is my number-one choice for baby number two.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Javier, the photographer from Vogue whom I met last week, pops his head in. “Don’t mind me, it’ll be like I’m not even here.” He walks to the corner of the room, pulls out a few light stands, then positions them around the room. “I’ll get a few shots of you when they bring the dress in, then I’ll step out while you change. I’ll pop back in when Louvel starts the fitting.”
While he’s setting up the lights, there’s another knock on the door. A tall bald man with skin the color of milk chocolate walks in holding a large garment bag. “Arianna, hello!” he says in a thick French accent. He walks over and gives me three air kisses on my cheeks. “Karl is so disappointed he couldn’t be here, but alas, I am better than he is, so it is your lucky day!”
My eyes are fixated on the bag. “I can’t believe he has a dress for me already.”
“After your conversation, he was inspired and sketched. I picked the fabrics myself, and voilà! A dress is born. We’ve had a seamstress working on it night and day to get all the pearls and beads into place.” He hangs the bag on a hook on the wall. “Are you ready?”
“I am!” Charlie replies before I get the chance to. “I’m dying here!”
He winks, slowly unzips the bag, then pulls out the dress. Charlie gasps as he holds up a dress that will undoubtedly be talked about for years to come.
The dress in front of me is nothing like I was expecting. Based on my conversations with Karl, I was expecting Barbie’s dream dress—classic, elegant, and in its effort to be timeless, somewhat unoriginal. Clearly I underestimated Mr. Lagerfeld. This dress is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Not in a made-for-the-runway-no-sane-person-would-ever-actually-wear-this kind of way, but rather in a this-dress-breaks-the-mold way. I have no doubt this dress will be replicated a million times over once people set their eyes on it.
The gown is strapless with a sweetheart neckline. Its tapered bodice remains slim through the hips, then opens to a mermaid skirt. The color is a white somewhere between eggshell and ivory, but not quite what I would call cream. Javier snaps away as I study the dress and take in the intricate way the material is layered to create the cascading effect.
Louvel hangs the dress on the wall hook, then turns to face us. He clasps his hands. “Well? Go ahead, tell me how fabulous it is.” He looks at Charlie. “It’s exquisite, isn’t it? Just to die for?”
“There are no words,” Charlie says, sounding completely awestruck. “It makes me wonder what the hell I was wearing when I got married.”
I study the clever way they’ve hidden the zipper. “Your dress was gorgeous.”
“It was, but this dress makes mine look like a cover up you’d wear at the beach,” Charlie replies.
I glance over my shoulder at her. “Stop. Your dress was spectacular, and you were the most beautiful bride.”
She smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess I was.”
Glaring at me, Louvel puts his hands on his hips. “Well? I’m waiting.”
I look at him. “For what?”
He gapes at me. “For what? Where’s the screaming? Where’s the crying? Where’s the hysterical happiness? I’ve just shown you the world’s most breathtaking gown, and you’ve barely muttered a peep.”
Great. I’ve offended him. The last thing I need to do right now is make enemies with Karl Lagerfeld’s high-strung go-to man. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be quiet. I’m just so caught up admiring the craftsmanship. This dress is quite the work of art.”
The look of annoyance on his face melts away. “It is, isn’t it?” He snaps his fingers at Javier, then points to the door. “You—out while she changes. We need to see if this dress looks as smashing on her as it does on the hanger.”
Javier steps out, then I slip out of my clothes. Louvel helps me get into the dress. It’s heavier than I expected. A lot of material—silk, tulle, and organza, I think—went into this dress. The bodice is thick and sturdy with a corset built in.
Louvel steps back to get a full view of me. Smiling with satisfaction, he walks around me. “I feel like a proud papa. The dress is everything we’d hoped it would be. I certainly hope all of the women attending your wedding are already married, because after seeing you in this, no woman will ever feel she’s able to measure up. You are a vision.”
Javier comes back into the room and snaps a million pictures. Charlie takes a few on her phone to send to Katie, and my heart pangs as the little girl inside me wishes my mother were here. My mind begins to wander, thinking about the void I’ll feel on my wedding day without her and Daddy. My eyes sting as tears well up, but I blink them away and focus on Louvel.
“It’s okay to cry,” he says. “Most women do when they see ‘the dress,’ and cheriè, this is the dress. I have never seen Karl more excited about a design idea, and seeing it here, on you, I can see why. Tell me how much you love it!”
I look at myself in the three-way mirror. The dress is idyllic, not simply because it’s stunning but because it was clearly designed for my body. It hugs every curve and accentuates my best features. In this dress, I feel like the most beautiful presentation of myself, and yet… something is missing. It’s like when I see a Lamborghini. It’s a gorgeous car, everything a girl like me wants, and it drives like a dream, yet when I get behind the wheel, I have no desire to buy one. It’s just not for me.
Tension in the room mounts with each second that goes by without me saying something. I search for the right words, but I’m tongue-tied. I’d settle for the words that will appease Louvel and make him stop looking at me with those wide, expectant eyes.
“I’m speechless,” is the best I can come up with. “I’m just so overcome with emotion, I’m at a complete loss for words.”
He throws his hands in the air. “I will take speechless! Sometimes speechless says it all!” He kisses my cheek. “It is the dress of your dreams though, isn’t it? You love it?”
; “I love it,” I manage.
He dances around in a circle, cheering, “She loves it! She loves it! Of course you love it.”
He pins and fidgets and checks every inch of the gown. Apparently either I’ve lost weight in the last week or Bubbe’s measurements left a little too much room in the waist. The dress will have to be taken in a bit.
Louvel’s phone rings just as he’s finishing the fitting. He steps out, and Javier also excuses himself, saying he has everything he needs.
“So what do you really think?” Charlie asks. “I know you well enough to know when you’re speechless, something’s wrong.” She and Louvel have been gushing over the dress throughout the entire fitting, so I know exactly how she feels.
I turn in the mirror, looking at the dress from a new angle. “It is the crème de la crème of wedding dresses.” I try to sound excited.
She puts her hands on her hips. “And yet you sound as though he’s presented you with a white trash bag to wear to your wedding.”
“You know what he said about knowing when you’ve found ‘the dress’?”
“Yeah?”
I twist so I can get a better look at the back. “I already had that moment—with my dress. And while this dress is unbelievably stunning, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s not the dress that comes to my head when I picture myself walking down the aisle.”
Pressing her lips together with pity, she cocks her head to the side. “Oh, Ari.”
Listening to my own words, I want to slap myself. I sound like a spoiled brat. I shake my head, hoping to shake these thoughts out of my mind. “Don’t listen to me, I’m just being emotional. I think I’m PMSing. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a once-in-a-lifetime dress. I’m seriously one of the luckiest women alive.”
“It’s okay to be disappointed you’re not wearing the dress you designed. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Love To Love You (Love/Hate #3) Page 31
