by Meg Cabot
“I couldn’t go through with it,” Ava says simply, then gasps and seizes my arm. “Oh my God! What happened to you? Lizzie—has Luke been beating you?”
I look down at the hives, which have now broken out all over the insides of both my arms. In a way, they do resemble bruises.
“No,” I say with a laugh, because the idea of Luke ever hitting me is so absurd. I could probably knock him clear into New Jersey. “They’re just hives. I get them every time I think about…you know.”
“Butt sex?” Ava asks understandingly.
“No,” I cry, ripping my arm from her grasp. “My wedding. And what do you mean, you couldn’t go through with it? You mean you just…canceled your wedding to Prince Aleksandros?”
“That’s about it,” Ava says with a sigh, patting Snow White on the head as the poor dog trembles in the icy blast from the limo’s air conditioner. “I was just boarding Daddy’s private jet, and suddenly it hit me: I’m about to become someone’s wife. I was like…are you shitting me? I’m only twenty-three! I haven’t even been to college. What am I doing, becoming someone’s wife? So I jumped back into the car and I’ve been riding around ever since, trying to get my head together.”
I gaze at Ava, truly touched by her words. Especially since I’m twenty-three too. “So you’ve decided to go to college? Ava, that is so great!”
“Hell, no, I’m not going to college,” Ava says, looking shocked. “Are you kidding me? I’m just saying there’s so many things like going to college that I haven’t done. I’m not throwing my life away yet on some guy, even if he is a prince. I have shit to do. I don’t know what, but…like, I was thinking I should cut an album. Something classy, you know? Like Hilary Duff.”
I blink at her. “Well…yes. Yes, that is definitely something you could do.”
“And I don’t even have my own clothing line yet,” Ava goes on. “My parents own one of the biggest discount department store chains in the world, and I don’t have my own clothing line yet? What the hell am I thinking?”
“Exactly,” I say. “What the hell are you thinking? Although, Ava…you can do all these things and still be married, you know. It’s not like Prince Aleksandros would try to stop you. Not if he really loved you. He’d probably be proud of you.”
“But that’s just it,” Ava says, looking down sadly at Snow White. “I don’t think he would be. You know…this is partly your fault, Lizzie. My having to cancel my wedding, I mean.”
“Me?” I gape at her, horror-struck. “What did I have to do with it?”
“Because since I’ve been coming to you, and you’ve been, like, helping me with my public image and stuff, Alek’s kinda…I don’t know. Lost interest in me. Like he keeps asking me how come I don’t show my cootchie anymore. I think he liked it when I did stuff like that. Because it drove his parents completely insane. They were totally against his marrying me, you know. Which I think only made him more into me. But now that I’ve started to act a little classier, they’ve been a lot nicer to me. And that’s made Alek completely lose interest.”
My jaw sags. Although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This explains so much about Ava’s very conservative choices when it came to her wedding gown. And why she’d come to me in the first place. Sure, she could have gone to Vera Wang, but there’d been a small part of her that had still been rebelling…just a little.
It’s all beginning to make sense. She’d wanted to please her fiancé’s parents while still retaining some small part of herself.
But in doing so, it sounded like she’d turned off her fiancé.
Oops.
“So you’re calling it off,” I say, “before Aleksandros can?”
“That’s just it,” Ava says in disgust. “I don’t think he ever was going to call it off. That’s how gutless he is. Like, he’ll stand up to his parents by marrying a total slut. But he would never call off the wedding to that slut, because that would make him look bad in the press.”
I reach over and give her warm, bare shoulder a reassuring pat. “Ava,” I say. “You’re not a slut.”
“Oh, I totally am,” Ava says matter-of-factly. “But that’s okay. I’d rather be a slut than a dickless hypocrite, like Alek. I’m just sorry about your dress.”
I shake my head. “My dress?”
“The beautiful wedding dress you designed for me,” Ava says.
“Oh,” I say, laughing. “Don’t worry about that! I’m sure I’ll find someone else to buy it. Ava Geck’s wedding dress? Are you kidding? I’ll probably be able to sell it for a fortune on eBay.”
Ava pouts at me. “I’m not giving it back,” she says. “That thing is mine. I was thinking maybe you could make it shorter, dye it purple, slap some sequins on it, and I could wear it to the MTV Video Music Awards in September. That way tons of people will see it, and you’ll still get the exposure you deserve. I should get lots of airtime, because I’m giving out the Viewer’s Choice VMA. And Tippy asked me to go with him ’cause he’s still got that restraining order out on his wife. That was going to be a problem before—you know, being his escort if I was married to Alek—but now that I’m not, it should be all good.”
“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “Um…sure. I could do that. No problem.”
“Awesome.” Ava looks a lot happier. The limo has made its way uptown via Sixth Avenue, and now we’re snaking our way through Central Park, one of my favorite drives in Manhattan—which I certainly never thought I’d be making via limo. We’re gliding past couples taking romantic horse and carriage rides, and less romantic pedicab rides. I wonder if they’re looking at the smoked-glass windows of the limo and trying to guess who the celebrity is inside.
I’m betting none of them is guessing Ava Geck and her wedding gown designer.
“So what are you going to do now?” I ask, conscious that my stomach is growling a little. There’s nothing in it but white wine. I’m hoping Ava’s going to say that she’s dropping me off at home so I can get something to eat…or at the very least, that she’s going to suggest the two of us grab something somewhere. I don’t know how much longer I can go without sustenance of the nonalcoholic variety. Ava may be able to go for hours on just a PowerBar, but I’m not that kind of girl.
“Um,” Ava says. “Yeah. That’s why I was trying to reach you.”
I perk up. “You want to grab some dinner? You want to get some sushi or something?” Another thing Tiffany, Monique, and I have managed to do is expand Ava’s dining horizons, so that she now eats more than just cheeseburgers and protein bars. She has consequently developed an almost pathological love for sushi…which isn’t actually unusual for someone who’s never tried it before. Wasabi has known addictive qualities. “There’s Atlantic Grill right over on Third Avenue. Or Sushi of Gari…”
“Not exactly,” Ava says. “I mean, we can totally get something to eat if you want. But I actually need a favor.”
“Oh sure,” I say. “Anything you want.”
“Oh goody,” Ava says, grinning widely. “Joey, she said yes!”
Little Joey, I realize belatedly, is sitting in the front seat beside the driver, half hidden by the privacy screen, which Ava lowers to deliver this news.
“Oh, hey, Lizzie,” he calls to me from the vast expanse of leather seats and twinkling halogen lights in the ceiling between us. “How you doing?”
“Hi, Joey,” I call back a bit hesitantly, since I’m suddenly realizing I have no idea what I’ve just agreed to. “I’m good. Um, Ava?”
“What?” she asks a little distractedly, having dug out her Sidekick, into which she is tapping with some urgency.
“What, exactly, did I just promise to do for you?”
“You’re letting me stay at your place, of course,” Ava says with some surprise, not even looking up from the screen.
I stare at her. “My place? You mean…in my apartment?”
“Well, I can’t stay at my place,” Ava says, finally looking up. Ava’s condo, which is on East End
Avenue near the mayor’s house, Gracie Mansion, is within easy walking distance of mine (not that Ava ever walks). Ava chose to move to the Upper East Side—to the consternation of many a poodle-toting matron there—because that’s where she happened to find the only condo that met her exacting standards (the aforementioned four bedrooms, three baths, and an eat-in kitchen with at least two thousand square feet of outdoor terrace and full southern exposure).
But she’d also fallen in love with the nearby Carl Schurz Park, which is right by the river, and includes a dog run built especially for small dogs.
“My place is crawling with paparazzi,” she goes on. “Word’s already getting out that I left Alek at the altar. They’ve got all the hotels staked out too, and my parents’ and friends’ places, as well. You’re my only hope, Lizzie. I figured you could just stay at Luke’s.”
I’m shaking my head before the words are fully out of her mouth. “No,” I say. “No, I can’t stay at Luke’s.” The thought fills me with panic. I don’t want to see Luke. I…I can’t see Luke. Not again. Not this soon.
“Well,” Ava says, looking slightly annoyed. “Fine. Then I’ll stay at Luke’s, and he can stay with you.”
“No,” I say, still shaking my head. “You can’t stay at Luke’s either. Because Luke and I are…we’re…we’re in a fight. Remember? Remember how he came running out of the restaurant after me just now, and I was like, Drive? Please drive? Remember that?” My eyes fill with tears again at the memory. Oh God. What’s happening to me?
Little Joey says, from the front seat, “She did say that.”
Ava screws up her face, trying to remember. “Oh yeah,” she says. “Well. Can’t I just stay at your apartment with you, then? It’ll just be for a few days. Until all this blows over. You’ll hardly know I’m there. Snow White and I don’t take up much room.”
I glance at Little Joey. Ava, noticing the direction of my gaze, laughs.
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” she says. “He won’t be staying there. He has his own place in Queens.”
I want to suggest that Joey’s place in Queens might be the ideal hideout for Ava. The paparazzi would never think to look for her there.
But then I remember what she said, about all of this being my fault. And so instead, I say, “Ava, my place…it’s just a one bedroom. There’s only one bathroom. And it doesn’t have southern exposure. Believe me, it’s not luxurious—”
“I don’t mind, I’m used to roughing it. I served forty-eight hours at CRDF, you know,” Ava assures me, referring to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Los Angeles, which housed her when she did her time for driving under the influence.
“My place isn’t as bad as prison,” I say, slightly annoyed.
“Oh, I knew you’d say yes,” Ava says, throwing her spindly arms around me and giving me a hug, and partially suffocating Snow White in the process. “This is gonna be so fun! Like camping out or something! We’ll order in, and do our nails, and watch me on TV, and stay up all night talking bad about our boyfriends. Your having a fight with Luke makes it just perfect!”
I say in a strangled voice, since her deathlike grip is cutting off my oxygen, “I can’t stay up all night, Ava. I have gowns I have to get finished.”
“That’s even better!” Ava cries, releasing me suddenly. “I can help!”
“Okay,” I say. I massage my neck where she’s squeezed it. I can’t believe this is happening. “I guess.”
“I’m so excited,” Ava declares. “Vincent, make the turn onto Seventy-eighth. We’re getting out there!”
Sooner than I could have imagined possible, Ava Geck, her Chihuahua, and seven of her suitcases are in my apartment, and her bodyguard is saying good night, while assuring me he’ll be by at nine tomorrow morning to pick Ava up to take her to the New York Health and Racquet Club to meet her trainer for her workout. She’s on my couch—though we’ve already established that she’ll be sleeping in my bed, and I’ll be on the couch, thanks to her sciatica—flipping channels with the remote, trying to see if news of her broken-off royal wedding is on E! yet. I’m supposed to be ordering dinner—moo shu chicken is out. Ava wants a Caesar salad and fettuccine Alfredo from Sistina, which is a four-star Italian restaurant on Second Avenue that doesn’t deliver…except apparently for Ava.
I’m on the phone with the restaurant’s maître d’ when the buzzer to my apartment goes off, causing Snow White to burst into a cacophony of yips and Ava to squeal excitedly, “The food’s here!”
“The food can’t be here,” I say. “I’m still on hold with Guiseppe.”
Ava throws me a panicked look. She’s changed from her rubber lederhosen into a pink velour sweatsuit. Although she has the word “Juicy” written across her rear end, I find this preferable to her many outfits that actually reveal her rear end, or at least the brown-cheeked moons of it. And so I am allowing her to wear it. But only indoors.
“It’s the paparazzi!” she cries. “They’ve found me! Already!”
“It can’t be the paparazzi,” I say. “Unless you told someone you’re here.”
“Only my mom,” Ava says. “And Tippy. And he wouldn’t tell anyone. He knows what it’s like to be hounded mercilessly by the press.”
I still don’t have the slightest idea who DJ Tippycat is, but I take her word for it that he wouldn’t rat her out. I hand her the phone and go to the wall intercom and push the TALK button. “Who is it?” I ask in my meanest voice, which I reserve only for answering the intercom.
“Lizzie, it’s me,” Luke says. “Can I come up?”
I stare at the intercom as if live snakes have suddenly come bursting out of it. Luke? In all the excitement with Ava, I’d completely forgotten about my fight with him.
Ava hasn’t, however. She bolts upright. “Is that Luke?” she asks, her bright eyes wide. “Are you gonna buzz him in? I can totally make myself scarce. You won’t even know I’m here. I’ll hide in the bathroom.”
I continue to stare at the intercom, uncertain what to do. On the one hand, I’m still really, really mad at him. On the other hand…it’s Luke. I love him.
At least…I think I do.
And yet…could he have been a bigger jerk?
“Unless you want me to pour water on his head,” Ava offers generously. She’s gotten up from the couch and gone to the window, where you can look down and see whoever is standing in the doorway—providing they aren’t hiding beneath the awning, as the UPS man is wont to do when it’s raining. “Because I could totally do that for you, if you want me to. Or pee. I could pour pee on him. I haven’t gone yet. I could go in a cup and dump it—”
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. “I—I’ll just go talk to him outside. You go ahead and order. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
Ava looks dubious. “Are you sure? Because I’ve been holding it all day—”
“I’m sure,” I say. “And you really shouldn’t hold it, Ava. You could give yourself a urinary tract infection that way. I’ll be right back.”
I grab my keys and hurry out of the apartment and down the stairs, a little leery of leaving Ava to her own devices in my place…but also a little relieved to have a moment to myself. Even if, the next minute, I know I’m going to have to be dealing with Luke.
Who says, “Oh,” when I undo the many locks to the outside door and step onto the stoop into the warm evening air beside him. “I thought…I thought you might buzz me up.”
“I can’t,” I say unsmilingly. “I have company.”
Luke looks surprised. I’m pleased to see he isn’t smiling, either. At least he’s taking this thing seriously. So often, when we argue, he seems to think my anger is amusing, as if I’m a kitten who’s upset about someone hiding her catnip mouse. I’m not a kitten.
And I’m tired of being treated like one.
“Company?” he echoes. Now he’s smiling. “What, did you and that girl from the limo go and pick up some sailors while you were out cruising around or somet
hing?”
“No,” I say, still not smiling. “Ava’s going to be spending a few days at my place. She and her fiancé just broke up, and she can’t go back to her place because it’s being staked out by the paparazzi.”
Luke’s smile vanishes. “Lizzie,” he says. “Jesus. So, you’re just letting her stay with you? Why can’t she stay in a hotel?”
“Because—” I break off and glare at him. “You know what? Who cares? She’s not. She’s staying with me. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal,” Luke says, “is that she’s a client. And you’re treating her like she’s a friend. You can’t get business mixed up with your personal life, Lizzie. This is exactly what we were just talking about, back at the restaurant.”
“Oh, really,” I say. I’m ignoring, with effort, a man who is walking by with an Italian greyhound on a leash. The man is pretending he’s not listening to our conversation, but he totally is. I don’t care, really, except that the dog is distracting. It’s so…skinny. I know it was born that way, but it’s still freakish. How does it digest its food with such a tiny stomach? “And just what does my grandmother’s drinking problem have to do with the fact that I refurbish wedding gowns for a living?”
Luke reaches out to grab both my shoulders in his hands and gives me a gentle shake.
“Hey,” he says in a gentler tone than he’s used until now. “I’m sorry about that. Okay? I know I was out of line, and I apologize. I tried to apologize there in the restaurant—I chased after you and would have told you so right there, but you jumped into that limo and were gone. If everyone standing out there hadn’t told me that was Ava Geck you were with, I would have…well, I totally would have thought you’d been kidnapped or something.”
“No, I wasn’t kidnapped, Luke,” I say, trying not to notice how good his hands feel on my skin. I can’t let sensations like that distract me. “I just…we just…I want…”
What am I saying? What do I want?
Where am I going with this?
Why won’t that man take his dog and go somewhere else? Seventy-eighth Street is really long. Does his dog have to pee right there in front of my shop?
