Ineffable (22 page)

Chapter fifteen

By threat of being uninvited, Margot managed to keep Tommy and Lani on a tight leash. Nori got a special license, they did the necessary paperwork, and less than two weeks later, her wedding day dawned foggy and wet. A smoke grey veil hung over the city. Though technically it hadn’t rained, the streets were dark with moisture, and everything smelt faintly damp. Margot felt wonderful.

“The rain means good luck,” Lani grinned, setting breakfast in front of her.

Margot looked down and raised a brow. No wonder her girl maintained that perfect figure. There were two hardboiled eggs on her plate, sans yellow center, one piece of jam sodden toast and some fresh squeezed, watered down, orange juice.

“It’s best to eat light before a big event,” she said. “We don’t want any last minute boo boos with the dress, now do we?”

Margot shook her head no and meant it. If that dress didn’t fit it wasn’t worth her life. Tommy’s offering was a bit more welcome. She cracked open a bottle of champagne to mix with the orange juice and lit a fat ass joint.

“I’m supposed to celebrate at the reception,” Margot teased. “You know, after the wedding?”

“Bitch, please.”

Margot just laughed. She laughed constantly as her girls dressed her and teased her, and myriad people called to wish her well and say they couldn’t wait for the reception. The one person who didn’t call was Nori, which surprised her.

She sent him a text saying a simple, I love you. She thought she might get a call then, but he was apparently taking the whole bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the ceremony thing very seriously.

She thought she might be nervous as the driver pulled Tommy’s Bentley up in front of the courthouse, but she wasn’t. A smile hadn’t left her face since she woke this morning. She was looking forward to this.

She and Nori had promised each other that nothing would change between them. They wouldn’t expect anything of each other after the wedding they hadn’t expected before it, and though they both knew that was bullshit, they were determined to cleave together.

“All this will do,” he told her when he was packing the night before for Lado’s apartment where he’d stay his last night as a single man, “Is cement what we already know. I love you. You love me. And now everyone in the world will know it.”

“And we’ll cash in on a few tax breaks.”

He burst out laughing, swung her into the air and kissed her until she was breathless.

“The next time I see you, you’ll be mine,” he said, glee in his deep voice, then he blew her a kiss and was gone.

Tommy and Lani descended on her not long after that. The rest of the girls were busy with their allotted portions of the wedding and would convene at the reception. Besides Aro, her bridesmaid and maid of honor would be the only ones in attendance for their courthouse nuptials.

She and Nori wanted things uber private and both warned Tommy not to post any pictures form the wedding on social media without their express approval. She’d grudgingly agreed. Lado had also been disappointed he was to be bilked out of his best man duties; there would be no bachelor or bachelorette parties. But then Nori reminded him that he was still the best man at the reception.

“And there’s always our vow renewal ceremony,” Margot offered.

Lado’s eyes lit up, and Nori kissed her and whispered, “That was the perfect thing to say.”

Now, as Tommy and Lani preceded her into the staid room where her nuptials would take place, she expected to see her man standing there with a huge grin on his face, but when her girls parted there was no one there but the justice of the peace.

“He must be running late,” said Lani, and she and Tommy surrounded her, making last minute adjustments to her veil, hair and the dress, an elegant, winter white beauty with a tight sweetheart neckline that showcased her bosom to advantage and a narrow hem that hit her perfectly just below the knee.

She could feel Lani painstakingly arranging the little pleats in the bustle in the back, lightly crushed on the car ride over. But as she looked up at the clock and saw the hour come and go, she knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Nori was never late. If anything he was usually early. He’d been known to dismiss drivers who arrived late to pick him up, berating them before hopping into a taxi right in front of them and taking off. He said it was the principal of the thing. That to waste anyone’s time was one of the most disrespectful things anyone could do.

Her girls were getting agitated too. They knew as well as she did that Nori was always punctual. When Tommy’s cell buzzed she pounced on her purse, snatching it out and not even noticing the $2,700 clutch fall to the ground as she walked a few steps away to read the text.

Well, Margot thought, that confirms it. She knew it before Tommy turned around. It was there in the taut lines of her friend’s Celine covered back, the droop of her head, as though it was too heavy to hold at its usual proud angle.

When their eyes met she saw that Tommy’s were wet. They glistened like the crystals she’d sewn onto her veil. The crystals Nori sat and watched her painstakingly attach by hand for days with a smug look on his treacherous fucking face.

Tommy opened her mouth, visibly struggled. She opened and closed her mouth twice more, and finally, seeing her friend’s lips tremble for the first time Margot took pity on her.

“He’s not coming,” she whispered.

Tommy stepped forward, and what followed was perhaps the longest three heartbeats of any jilted woman’s life, and when her girl said that one word it was broken, as though she too was crushed.

“No.”

For a moment no one said anything. Lani froze. The very air in the room seemed to still as the horrible truth of that wretched moment hung there between them for a century’s worth of seconds. Then the first tear fell.

And the spell was broken. Tommy flew into action. The justice of the peace was thanked for his time and told his services would not be needed. Lani whisked the veil from her head, bundled it out of sight in a bag, adjusted huge black shades on her face, and Margot was in the back of the Bentley before her neck got wet from the tears.

Tommy and Lani got her out of her wedding dress. They cleaned her face and neck and hands, put her in one of Tommy’s beautiful silk caftans and put a glass of Moscato in her hand. She drank.

She drank until a woozy drunkenness invaded the nothingness that was now her soul. She sat there on Tommy’s fabulous electric blue sofa and drank until the tears started again. Then bustling like two pissed off but trying not to show it hens, Lani and Tommy fed her. Holding spoonful’s of sticky saffron rice in front of her lips and tapping like she was a baby until she opened.

No one said anything about the tears falling. No one said anything period. Margot couldn’t remember those two being that quiet before, and she’d known them both for more than 25 years. She supposed no one knew what to say. They just fed and watered her like a wilted plant, and she let them because she didn’t have the strength to go home.

She couldn’t bear to return to her house, walk in the door alone, and see signs of the man who had just humiliated and betrayed her scattered around like he owned the place. Until an hour ago, he had owned it, metaphorically speaking; he’d also owned the majority of her heart. She supposed he no longer wanted it. Good thing. It was hopelessly broken.

After six bites she turned her head away from Lani’s rice spoon. Her eyes met Tommy’s.

“Can I stay here for a while?”

“Of course.”

“Will you, do me a favor? Two, actually.”

“Yes.”

Margot swallowed audibly and this time when a tear fell she dashed it angrily away. “Will you bring me my big, wicker work basket? And remove all of his things from my place?”

“First thing tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

Tommy picked up her own wine glass and handed Lani hers. They held them out, and slowly with a horribly shaking hand, she clinked hers against them.

“We’re here,” said Lani.

Thank God. Her girls were all she had.

“No one’s heard from him. Candace said he hasn’t been to the office in days. He’s not answering his phone. I even went by the prick’s apartment to drop off his shit and tipped the hell out of the doorman. He hasn’t been there either.”

“This is fucking crazy,” said Lani. She remained incredulous even after the evidence clearly pointed to the most logical scenario.

Which was, “He’s a fucking asshole,” Tommy spat. “And a coward. How dare he do this? Who the fuck does he think he is? The piece of shit.”

“It just doesn’t make sense. He worshipped her. You saw them together. He was so excited about the wedding. He drove me nuts about the floral arrangements for the reception. He even chose the menu and caterer without my help. And it was fabulous.” Judging from the tone of Lani’s voice this development had been mildly shocking. “He vetted each server personally.”

“He’s a prick,” Tommy spat. “A filthy ass fucking liar. He left our girl at city hall in a handmade, white crinoline and lace fucking dress loaded with nearly 5G’s worth of crystals. He better go back to France to live. If he shows his face around here again I’m gonna bash it in with a shovel.”

Margot tiptoed back to the guestroom. She picked up the bracelet she’d been working on. It was brutal looking, spiked with broken pieces of bone tangled in a delicate web of painted olive green and black wire. She’d smashed them with a hammer and sanded the pieces. Yet it seemed romantic. It clipped together with a series of tiny hooks like a corset. Perhaps that was why. Whoever wore it would need help putting it on and taking it off.

Red and pink precious and semi-precious gems clung to the web, and she knew without conceit it was one of the most beautiful, expensive things she’d ever created. Lani had yet to take off the chandelier earrings she made yesterday. She was even coordinating her outfits around them.

The bracelet was the fifth piece she’d created in the past three days, and the floor and dressers were littered with sketches for another six or seven other pieces. She was planning to call it the Heartbreak Collection. She thought her fans would love the irony. The corner of her mouth quirked in a flashing parody of a smile. At least Nori’s desertion was good for her work.

Someone knocked. Tommy stuck her head around the door. “Well?”

That meant, was she coming out of the room or what? She took the bracelet and her work basket and went into the Tommy’s room. Lani sat in the middle of dozens of pairs of shoes.

“Okay?” she asked.

Margot nodded. The numbness was a blessing. She prayed it lasted for another six months at least. Being mildly drunk all the time helped. She picked up the glass on Tommy’s night stand and drained it. Ever helpful, her friend immediately refilled it.

Margot toasted her and drank.

“Why don’t you ever wear these?” Lani held up a pair of strappy, hot pink and purple stilettos with a fabric flower over the toe.

Tommy shrugged. “Impulse buy. They never seem right with anything I have. They’d go with that purple dress you just got. The long sleeves and cowl neck, short skirt and spindly heels will be perfect. Take ‘em.”

“Thanks!” Lani grinned at the shoes and set them aside.

Margot laughed softly and picked up her bracelet and a pair of pliers. At first she didn’t notice her girls watching her. Then she looked up and found them staring.

“What?”

“You laughed,” said Lani.

Margot laughed again. “Is that a crime?”

“No!” Tommy glared at Lani and deliberately kicked over a pile of shoes.

“Hey! Watch it, you fucking hoarder. This goddamn closet is a disgrace,” she muttered returning to her work. “I don’t know how you get dressed in the morning.”

“Very carefully,” said Tommy. “Shall I order Thai for dinner? That little place around the corner is spotless every time I go in, and they have the most wonderful spring rolls and dumplings.”

“White rice,” Lani yelled after her. “Nothing fried! She doesn’t need to be jilted and fat,” she muttered, then looked up stricken, having forgotten Margot was in earshot.

But Margot just laughed. “Okay? I think you guys have had it right all along. The only thing worth caring about is beauty and enjoying life. There is nothing else.”

The next time she looked up the bracelet was finished. Lani promptly put it on. “It matches the earrings perfectly,” she smiled, admiring her reflection.

Two more days passed without incident. And as the fifth day’s sun sank into the horizon Margot started to feel weird. At first she didn’t know what was making her so restless. So she took one of her Tommy’s Lorazepam and tried to sleep, but it didn’t work and for hours she just lay there in the dark.

It wasn’t like him. To not call, to not see how she was, to send Tommy a cryptic text on their wedding day saying, “Take care of her,” and then nothing? It wasn’t Nori. He wasn’t a coward. He might be an asshole sometimes, but not with her. And he wasn’t weak. She had been the only weakness she’d seen in him, and that was a different thing.

He wouldn’t have left her standing there in her wedding dress wondering what the fuck was going on, and he damn sure wouldn’t have just disappeared off the face of the planet.