Liar's Guide to True Love, page 12
“Don’t worry. I won’t gnaw on the bone or anything.”
“Oh good, leave something for me.” He picks up the bone and raises one brow while he chews caveman style. It’s a good thing we aren’t in some trendy or stuffy restaurant, because I can’t help but laugh out loud, to the point that tears run down my cheeks. Nick starts laughing too, though more at me than at himself. A couple of tables start looking over, including an older couple who smiles at us. Kevin would never cause such a scene, even in good humor.
Nick asks, “So, I’ve gotta ask. Do you bring that big bag everywhere you go?”
I blush a little. “It comes in handy. I just never know what I’m going to need for my…clients. I guess I just got used to having everything I need on me all the time.”
“Tricks learned as a young ad exec, huh? What kind of stuff do you carry around for them?”
Uh oh. “Umm. Well, you never know in the cosmetics industry. Those clients always want to look their best. Sometimes they forget stuff for ummm…meetings. Like a lipstick, extra pantyhose.” I think he is buying this. This charade is pretty easy and I get a little more comfortable. “Once I had a client who really, really needed her hair done up for this big…presentation. She forgot to bring hairpins though, and thankfully I had my trusty bag, with pins galore.”
“I just can’t imagine someone taking their hair that seriously for a presentation,” he looks puzzled. “You’re right, the cosmetics industry is different I guess. Must be a drag to carry that around after them all the time.”
“It’s no big deal. It’s kind of a security blanket now.” I smile. “Love me, love my baggage.”
“I can handle baggage. Physical or emotional. As long as it’s carry-on size.”
We linger over dinner a little longer than our waiter seems to want us to. When we finally walk outside into the humid summer night, I have that feeling of excitement in my throat. Do we hail one cab or two? We are in Brooklyn, and it could make sense to share a cab and drop him off first. Is it too soon to invite him back to my place? Before I can debate this with myself, he takes my hand and gently pulls me toward him.
“I had a great time tonight,” he says softly. He gives me a soft kiss on the lips.
“What now?”
“How about a bottle of wine at my place?”
“Sounds perfect.”
We get into a cab, and he puts his arm around me. My hand is on his knee, and my head resting on his shoulder. At a glance we might look like we have been a couple for years, but I am nearly dizzy with that excitement you only get at the first flush of an uncertain romance. Nick is looking out the window, mostly, and has cleared his throat and swallowed a few times. I guess that he is experiencing that same nervous excitement. Then he turns his head toward me and I feel his breath on my hair. I am thankful that there is no traffic getting across the Williamsburg bridge and heading up First Avenue, so we arrive at my building quickly.
We get out of the cab, and I am practically skipping into my building to keep up with Nick’s long strides. That is, until we come to an abrupt halt in the lobby when I see Emma slouched in an armchair. She stands quickly and says, “Surprise! I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she continues when she sees I’m holding hands with Nick. “Robert just left for his business trip, so I thought I’d come and spend the week with you!”
“This really is a surprise,” I say with affected cheerfulness that I know fools no one. I speak to Emma and Nick, to assure Nick that I didn’t know my little sister would be waiting for me when I invited him over. And I mentally kick myself for not waiting for an invitation to his place. “Umm, Nick, this is my sister Emma. Emma, this is Nick.”
They exchange some mundane pleasantries, and Nick drops my hand. “So, why don’t I give you a call tomorrow?”
“Sounds good,” I say automatically. Emma, to her credit, is at least trying to blend into the plant that sits against the wall. She is looking at the lighting sconce as if it is the most fascinating New York landmark. “Sorry,” I whisper to Nick. “I’ll keep the wine chilled.”
He smiles and gives me a peck on the cheek. “No problem.” Emma and I both watch him stride out of my lobby. When he is out of eyesight, I glare at her.
“What in the world are you doing here?”
“That’s a fine way to welcome me! I kept missing your calls so I thought I would return them in person! Can’t I stay with you for a few days? It gets so lonely in that big house when Robert’s away.”
I sigh. I really am glad to see her, and I guess she had no way of knowing I might have a date on a Sunday evening. I pick up one of her bags—matching Longchamp duffels—and head toward the elevator. “How much did you pack?”
Emma follows with the other duffel and some other little case that I guess contains makeup and accessories. “I thought I’d stay until Friday, when Robert comes home. And I figured we’d be going out to different bars and clubs, and I didn’t know what I’d want to wear! At least we wear the same shoe size, otherwise I’d have had to pack another bag.”
I sigh. “We aren’t quite the same shoe size. Don’t stretch any of my sandals out, like the last time you borrowed some.” I guess she senses that she interrupted something important, since she doesn’t respond to the shoe argument and wants to change the subject.
“Who was that Nick guy anyway? Are you serious?”
We might be serious if you hadn’t been here, I think to myself. “I met him through Kate. We’ve only been out a couple times.”
“That must be fun, the dating life.” I get the sense that she is just trying to be nice, to make up for interrupting my date.
“I guess it can be.”
We get up to my apartment, and Emma drops her bags and goes to the fridge.
“How about a bottle of wine? I love a crisp white when it’s so hot out,” she says. She puts the bottle of sauvignon blanc that was meant for Nick on the counter, and rifles through the drawers for the bottle opener. What the hell, I think, as I pull out two glasses. She’s my little sister and she and I used to have a lot of fun together before she became Mrs. Suburbia.
I take a few sips of wine and decide to listen to my answering machine messages while Emma unpacks some of her clothes and toiletries. I listen to the messages on the handset—no need for Emma to know too much about my personal life and pass judgment—or even worse, offer advice. I am immediately glad that I do this when I hear Kevin’s voice with a lot of noise in the background. He called from a bar called Brass Monkey and wanted to see if I was free for a drink. He also wanted to see if I got the flowers he sent. What? First flowers, then a drink out. He called me when he was in public and someone could overhear? It wouldn’t be like Kevin to go out for a drink alone, so he must have been with someone who could easily have heard him calling me. Would they wonder who I was and ask him? What would his answer have been? I see Emma humming to herself while she goes back and forth between her luggage and my bedroom, hanging a few things in my closet. I’ll call Kevin later when I have some privacy.
Emma settles down on the sofa next to me and takes a big gulp of her wine. “Easy there, tiger. There’s an entire bottle you know,” I say to her jokingly. “Wait, aren’t you trying to get pregnant?”
“I just took a test yesterday. I’m not. Besides, a glass of wine here or there isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
I shrug my shoulders, what do I know? “So what made you decide to come to the city anyway, aside from Robert not being in town?”
Emma looks around, and fiddles with a piece of fabric left out from Teal Bride’s table-setting ideas. “Well I finally finished decorating the Great Room, and had some time on my hands.” She levels a look at me that reminds me of the vibrant, artsy person she used to be. “Even I need a break from living so close to Mom and Dad too, you know. Did you know that they are expecting us to go there for brunch every Sunday? You get out of it, since you always seem to have Saturday night weddings.” It does sound like my mother to attempt to instill new family traditions all of a sudden, after we are too old to have our habits changed. “I should probably call her to let her know I’m staying with you. Otherwise she’ll be calling the house and then the police when I don’t answer after the fifteenth time.” I nod in understanding. Despite the Nick interruption, I am glad Emma is here. Even after all these years of explaining our mother to Suzanne, Kate and Mia, all of whom have met her several times, Emma is the only other person who truly understands how nutty, overbearing, loving and contradictory our mother is.
We spend the next half hour or so catching up on the usual pleasantries—she tells me the colors of her Great Room and I wonder to myself when suburban family rooms became so affected as to become “great.” I tell her about the weddings I am working on, which never fails to excite her. Emma still has some wedding nostalgia, after her own one-hundred-and-fifty guest affair where I was maid of honor and planner.
Emma asks more about Nick, and I tell her the truth, though a little watered down. I tell her that I feel a connection, but it’s too soon to tell if it’s a real one, or just attraction. I tell her about our hours-long phone conversations, and how I feel like we’ve known each other a lot longer than we really have. “Oh, except he sort of thinks I’m Mia.”
“What?!” Emma has no idea what I mean, and I realize that I’m not making a whole lot of sense after all this wine.
“Well not really. I mean, he thinks I do what Mia does—job wise.” Emma still looks confused. “He doesn’t know I’m a wedding planner. So if you run into him again while you’re visiting, I’m an account executive at Greyson Advertising—just like Mia. Except I work with Maybelline.”
Emma laughs and says, “Hey, whatever line gets you in the door.”
“Really? That’s not the answer I expected from you.” I expected a small scolding from Emma, something along the lines of Suzanne’s perspective, how I can’t start a relationship with such a big lie.
“Well, why not,” she says. “I was reading some article about these men who go to classes to learn how to pick up women. They basically learn how to tell lies about themselves in order to get a conversation going, and to get the girl interested in them. You’re pretty much doing the same thing, only you don’t need to take a class or read a book to learn how to do it.”
“I’m a natural liar, gee thanks,” I say as I pour more wine for both of us.
“You just know how to play the game. It’s a compliment! That’s why you’re always getting dates with interesting men, and I’m stuck in New Jersey playing housewife.” Emma starts picking at her nails, an old habit that comes back whenever she is distressed.
“You’re having second thoughts about being a stay-at-home mom?”
“Well that’s just it—I’m not a mom. Not yet anyway. And who knows, maybe I won’t be one. And then what? I can’t decorate the Great Room every day.” Maybe my mother was right and Emma is getting worried that they can’t have a baby. You always hear those stories about infertile young couples. You just never think it will happen to you—or your younger sister. “Maybe I’m just not mommy material.”
“It’ll happen for you. Try not to stress about it. Sometimes it just takes time.”
“No, Cass,” she says, agitated. “I mean, maybe I don’t want to be a mom.” She drinks more wine, as if gearing herself up. “I don’t know that I have that maternal instinct that everyone thinks I do. The idea of having a baby doesn’t make me feel excited. At all.”
I am completely puzzled. Not because I don’t understand how she feels. But because I didn’t think she felt this way. “That’s not unusual, Em. A lot of people your age—or my age for that matter—don’t feel ready to have a baby.”
Emma is still agitated and obviously on the verge of tears. “I just feel like there is so much I haven’t done! But we’ve been married for three years. Aren’t I supposed to want a baby by now? We saw Juno the other night—I finally rented the DVD, because God knows we don’t even go out to the movies anymore. I’m supposed to be able to relate to Jennifer Garner’s character right? But I felt none of that. I felt like Juno, wanting to just get on with life, have a whole blank slate of a future in front of me.” She is really crying now, with no help from the half bottle of wine. Maybe I should have made tea instead.
“Why do you think you should be having a baby? Is it Robert? Is it Mom? You don’t have to feel pressured.”
“Robert’s been ready to be a dad since the day we got married. He’s been willing to wait this long. But I swear, as soon as we graduated college, it’s like he became a different person. All through college, he was in that band, remember? He was going to be a musician, or at least work in the music industry with artists. Then all of a sudden he gets recruited to sell drugs, and I’m living my mother’s life in New Jersey.” Just so you know, Robert is hardly a drug dealer, and Emma is a far cry from living the Sopranos life. Robert is a sales rep for Pfizer, and he pitches pharmaceuticals to doctors, which includes schmoozing them at five-star restaurants. His business trip this week is a medical conference in Las Vegas.
“Have you told him how you feel?”
“You know Robert. It’s his way or no way.” She sniffles a little, the tears subsiding. “I used to think his confidence and the way he makes decisions was attractive. He’s so sure of himself, of everything. Now I think he’s just stubborn. Besides, no one can understand why I wouldn’t be perfectly happy with the life I have—gorgeous house, a husband who is easy on the eyes and makes a nice living. I’m living a life of leisure! Only you can understand about wanting something different, Cass. You’re living a totally different lifestyle—going out every night, new guys to date all the time, girlfriends who really get you.”
“Is that why you’re here? Because you want to try out city life?” I give her a skeptical look. “It’s still not all champagne and roses you know. Sure I have a lot of fun, but it’s not a better life. Just different.”
“I know, I know. But I need that now, Cass. I just had to get away from that town, from Robert, from everything.” A red flag pops up in my head.
“You’re not thinking of leaving Robert are you?”
Emma looks into her glass, as if trying to read tea leaves. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I don’t know.” She takes another gulp of wine, and I am tempted to take the glass from her. She’s talking crazy and getting way too mopey. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” I’ve witnessed the beginnings and endings to several starter marriages—Suzanne’s as well as a few that I planned for close acquaintances. Emma’s and Robert’s never struck me as one, but I suppose there could be plenty that I don’t know about. Emma closes her eyes and then says, “So what are we doing tomorrow?” And just like that she has shut down and I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. Well, she’ll be here for the week, I think to myself. Hopefully that’s enough time to get to the bottom of this quarter-life crisis she seems to be having.
Chapter 13
Monday morning
I decide that as long as Emma is crashing on my couch and wanting a taste of city life, I might as well give her a dose of reality and put her to work. I have her organize my binders of past weddings and wedding ideas for future events, something I had been meaning to do for a while. She diligently uses my label maker to create binders for Large Events, Rehearsals, Religious/Ethnic, Theme Receptions and Flowers. Then she assembles various photographs and magazine cut outs and files them in clear plastic sleeves. She doesn’t complain once at being given the mundane administrative tasks. In fact, she practically basks in business-like behavior, even answering my landline with a chipper “Cassandra Handley Event Planning, how may I direct your call?”
While she does all this, I work on mood boards for my Attorney/Princess Bride. I generally like to come back with at least three complete concepts for all the major aspects of a wedding, with each one mounted on a piece of eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch foam board. Each board contains fabric swatches for color and table cloth ideas, a party favor, photographs of lighting schemes that might work, as well as examples of a dress, cake, flowers that could all work within that concept. A bride will rarely choose the exact same item as on any of the boards, but I’ve found that it really helps them articulate what their vision is when they have something to look at and react to, as well as give them comfort that I have ideas of my own to bring to the table, and have an understanding of what kind of “mood” they want for their wedding.
I almost always include a “white wedding” mood board, unless the bride has specifically stated that she does not want an all-white wedding. This is the board that I show first, the one that often makes the bride tear up a little, or at least give a gasp of delight. It’s the board that screams “I’m getting married.”
I start with pictures of three different dresses, all ball gowns with full skirts. The first has yards and yards of tulle—think ballerina. The second is silk satin embroidered with crystal detailing on the bodice and skirt, shown with a fur-lined cape for a winter wedding. The third is silk taffeta with rosettes on the skirt and cathedral-length veil. I mount all this with some spray adhesive, and also add several fabric swatches of the most common dress materials in both white and ivory. Emma takes a break to oohh and ahhh over the swaths of fabric that I have laid out, not to mention various Swarovski crystals and beads that I have to add a little sparkle to the boards later on. I then move on to headpieces. My bet is that this Bride will go with a tiara, so I mount a few pictures of ones with crystals and faux pearls. I add a real hairpin with crystal flowers for a three-dimensional effect to the presentation.
For flowers I use a combination of magazine ideas as well as photos I have taken myself over the years, of some of the most unique and beautiful arrangements at my weddings. Elton often provides me with some of his favorites as well, which has been a pretty effective way of finding business for his shop, as well as effective for me to keep on top of what the latest trends are in flower arrangements. I place one photo of a bouquet that is all white roses and stephanotis, then another of white orchids, then another of all lily of the valley. For centerpieces, I plan to present the idea of using small white Christmas trees made of feathers, flanked by white poinsettias, to show something unique and seasonal. I also add a photo of a standard towering arrangement with tall vases filled with water and dendrobium orchid stems, topped by an arrangement of orchid blooms. I also include two simple ideas for small, low arrangements, which many brides opt for when I point out how much more conducive they are to cross-table conversation.
