She's All That (23 page)

“Gads, that's sickening. Please don't tell me you're remotely moved by this. He's smarmy, Lilly!” Morgan tosses the candy on the floor, and I retrieve it like a good hunting dog. “Stuart gives a bad name to English lit everywhere with that. The home of Dickens and Thomas Hardy, and he gives you that? I'm surprised he didn't start it ‘
Roses are red.'

“What on earth do you have against Stuart?”

“Nothing. I just think you can do better, all right? And you're too old to use the word
snogged
. Can it, okay?”

“Morgan, I tell you when I looked at Stuart, something happened. You'll be embarrassed when you're the bridesmaid at my wedding to him, so don't say anything more. Your love for Marcus doesn't exactly make sense either.”

“I'll leave it alone, but he just really seems like he wants to marry into money. Does he know you don't have any?”

“He knows I don't have a car and that I live in California. Does it get much more pathetic than that?”

“He probably thinks you have a chauffeur. We're picking up Poppy at the BART station.”

I look down at my gold-foiled toffee and smile giddily.
Life is most definitely good.

“Lilly?”

“Yeah, I heard you. Poppy…the BART station.”

We drive for a short time, and a cell phone trills. “I think that's yours,” Morgan says.

“Oh right, I've never heard it ring before.” I pick up the phone, but realize I don't know how to answer it.

“Oh, Lilly, for crying out loud.” Morgan grabs the phone and opens it. “Lilly Jacobs Design.”

“Give it to me.” I grab the phone.

“Lilly?” a deep masculine voice asks.

“It's me,” I answer.

“Max here.”

“Max? Is something wrong? Is it my Nana?” My heart begins to pound.

“No, I'd just like to invite you to dinner for rescuing me the other day. I'd ask you out, but you'd have to drive, and I thought it would be easier here. I'll have something brought in, something good.”

I'll admit, I'm completely taken aback. It's the only explanation I can give for what I say next. “Why would you want to have
me
to dinner?”

Max is silent.

“Max?”

“I'm thinking about that question. Why
wouldn't
I want to have you for dinner, Lilly? Do you have an eating problem or something? I know Mildred says you don't eat, but I think you look pretty great, so you must eat something.”

My first thought is Stuart Surrey and our impending relationship. “If Nana sees me, she may be planning our nuptials,” I joke, but Max is eerily silent again. “Are you ready for that? Have you ever actually been to an Italian wedding?” He's still quiet. “The chicken dance? The accordion?” I say, hoping to scare him into thinking this is a stupid idea. Nana needs her apartment. I can't be seeing her landlord, however casual he thinks it is.

“So, Sunday night?” he finally says.

“I'm not going to be here this weekend. It's a Spa Girls weekend. We've had more than our share of crises this year. You understand. Sunday night is cutting it a little short.”

“Right. So that's a
no
?” Max asks.

I look at Morgan, and suddenly I'm thinking,
if I tick him
off is he going to kick Nana out the door?

“Is that for a date?” Morgan whispers at me. I just shrug.
I'm not sure what exactly you'd call this.
“I'll have her home in time!” Morgan yells.

Max is laughing. I scowl at her. “What time should I be there?”

“I thought I'd send a car around for you.”

A car around for me? What am I, the babysitter?
“No, I can get there. Morgan will drop me off,” I say, and stick my tongue out at her.

“Great. How's seven? Is that late enough for you to have a full weekend?” Max asks.

“It is. How's my Nana today?”

“She's doing well, Lilly. Hasn't been back to the doctor or asked for a ride. Not that I could take her anywhere, but I'd see if a cab came by. Whatever her crisis was, it appears to be over.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. Thrilled I never had to have an actual conversation with Nana about her health. She can be such a bear when things concern her private business. As if she ever lets me have any of my own personal, private business.

“Are you serious about this thing on Sunday? Why do I suddenly feel like there's some great mystery?” Maybe Nana is going to throw me a surprise party to celebrate leaving finance behind! She's been pretending to be under the weather, but really, she's cooking an Italian feast for the week. Everyone will be there, and I'll feel like a dolt that I thought I had a date. “I'll see you Sunday, Max.”

“Who was that?” Morgan asks. “I know it wasn't Stuart because I didn't hear the full-of-himself accent. My,” she says in a pretentious fake English accent, “Lillian darling, if you would but give me the pleasure of your company, I do ever so need someone to hold my mirror for me.”

“It's with Max, my Nana's landlord. Sunday night.” I don't say anything else. I don't want to let on that I know about the party.

“That should be fun. Especially if your Nana likes him. He must have some charm!”

“Max Schwartz watches TV for a living.” I suppress a giggle.

Morgan's smile dissipates. “Max Schwartz?
Max Schwartz
is your grandmother's landlord?”

“Yeah. He broke his leg this week climbing on a ladder.” I roll my eyes. “When men are interested in me, I tell ya, it's like, roll out the geek-o-meter—”

“Get the newspaper in the backseat,” Morgan says.

“I can't read in the car; it makes me sick.”

“Get the newspaper.” I lean over the lush, leather bucket seat and grab the paper. “Turn to the society page,” Morgan orders me.

I hold my palms up.“Like I have any idea where the society page is. If Sara Lang is in there, she cuts it out.”

“The Datebook section. Back page.”

I find the correct page, and I'm stunned when I see a photo of Max Schwartz smiling in a business suit on the back.
Dang, he's sort of hot in a suit.
“What the heck?”

I read the caption: “Millionaire hotel heir falls, breaks leg.” The smaller article goes on: “Max Schwartz, heir to the Union Square Sisters chain of hotels, broke his leg in three places when he fell through an air duct in the ceiling in the world-famous Starlight Hotel. He is recovering at home. Schwartz has a weekly television column in our sister paper,
The
Peninsula Times
.”

“He watches TV for a living. He never said anything about being an heir. His father has a few hotels, but he's not involved in the family business,” I explain while Morgan just smiles and placates me.

“Lilly, as a diamond business heiress, I can officially say that I don't wear a diamond brooch that reads ‘Heiress' across the front. Max had a falling-out with his parents about not taking on the family business. I wonder what he was doing at the hotel.”

Looking at him in the paper, standing there in his suit with his coiffed goatee, I am completely riled. “He's a total liar! If I want a liar, I can go upstairs and maul Nate.”
Again.
I roll my eyes and finger the gold-foiled toffee. I read Stuart's card again and smile.
A gentleman. Precisely what I need.

“You're being ridiculous. He's saying thank you for driving him from the hospital, not, ‘Will you marry me?'”

I hold up the toffee. “It's time I got dumped by a better breed of man. If I'm going to get dumped again, I want it to matter. I want to be told with a sexy British accent that I'm only worthy of friendship. At least Stuart will make it
sound
good. Besides, I've got work to do. I'm tired of people with money. Maybe I need to move to a middle state.”

“You are so weird. They don't buy much couture in Wyoming.”

“In Jackson Hole they do. I could do cowboy couture.”

We drive the rest of the way to the BART station in silence, and there's Poppy waving on the platform. She's wearing her neon-colored, tie-dye skirt. “She's wearing that ghastly thing on purpose. She knows I hate it!” I say to Morgan.

“It's comfortable for her.”

“You are
not
defending that skirt.”

“Johnny Cochran couldn't have defended that skirt.”

Poppy dumps her bag, an awful tapestry thing, in the trunk and comes around. “Hey, girls, are we ready? Did you bring the designs, Lilly? I can't wait to see what I'm wearing.”

“I brought the designs, all the fabric, everything. I thought I'd perfect the designs and take measurements while you each get treatments.”

“Lilly, I signed you up for a massage and a papaya facial,” Morgan says, tossing her hair back. “It's a Spa Girls weekend. You're not working all weekend.”

I shake my head. “I won't have time, Morgan. I really have to get to these gowns if we're going to make your deadline. I usually spend more than a month on a specialty gown like your wedding dress, and you're talking three in less time than that.” Then I look at her. “You're not pregnant, are you?”

“Of course I'm not!”

“That's what everyone's going to think with you getting married so quickly: shotgun wedding.”

“She's right, Morgan,” Poppy says.

“Nine months later, they'll know I wasn't then.”

Ack. Foiled again.
Nothing is getting through to her this time.

I lean back in the leather seat and close my eyes.
Something
has got to happen to stop this wedding.

chapter 20

T
here are women who have a hold over men, a magical essence that calls out to them like a swirling smoke signal over their heads. I am not one of those women. I am the kind of girl that men tell they just want to be friends. The “in-between” girl until they meet the one they want to marry.

First, it happened with Robert.

Then it happened, albeit briefly, with Nate. (I'm expecting his wedding announcement momentarily.)

But it will not happen with Stuart Surrey.

I was born to be the wife of a Brit—with my Italian heritage? Colin Firth's wife is Italian. You see, it's fate. Stuart and I will have to discuss adoption, as his full head of gorgeous locks will definitely be a problem I would not saddle our kids with. But maybe Poppy's right. Maybe he has a bald mother, or some recessive gene, and our kids will turn out fine. We'll just have to see. The point is, I will not be friends with him. I will tell Stuart point-blank: “If you're looking for a friend, go find a pub. I am a woman to be taken seriously.” I am through being the “home for strays” everyone turns to when they're forlorn and have nowhere to go—like Kim…or even Max, fresh on the rebound from Valeria, despite what he says. I am not Mother Teresa. I am a serious fashion designer, and if you can't put up, then shut up—or something like that. Anyway, I'm done playing everyone's mother.

“We're here, Lilly.” Morgan stops the car in a circular driveway surrounded by vineyards and a golf course.
It's heavenly.

I blink several times while I take it all in. It's magnificent! The drive leads to a gigantic building with stately rock and a bevy of dormers. Bellmen dressed in wine-colored uniforms with gold buttons circle our car like a NASCAR pit crew. One of them opens my door and reaches in to help me out.
Wow!
This kinda rocks.
I feel myself smiling widely, thinking that there is no way Morgan can truly appreciate what this means to me. I may not have any strong desire to be rich, but being spoiled like this every once in a while? It's not such a bad thing.

One of the bellmen reaches into the trunk to retrieve all our bags, and I have to say, Poppy's tapestry number has nothing on my vintage, hard-shell Samsonite. Actually,
vintage
is too good a word.
Goodwill reject
is more appropriate. I slide over in front of the suitcase and play a sort of dance with the bellmen trying to keep it from him.

“I've got it, thank you. Very important stuff in here.” I pat the hard surface. Then I lean over and whisper to the bellman, cupping my hand, “You never want to put valuable things in a valuable case. It gives you away immediately.”

The bellman just nods, as though I'm speaking a foreign language. “It's not a problem, really, ma'am.”

Ma'am?
How old does he think I am? Granted, I'm going to be thirty soon, but that's hardly an excuse to break out the
ma'am
, now is it? I slide over closer to the suitcase until I'm standing right in front of it, but Superboy tries to grab for it. I lunge for the case, but as I do I kick it over, and I watch as it tumbles in seemingly slow motion into a step-down fountain.

“Noooo!” I hear myself wail, but it's too late. My clothes, and, much more importantly, Morgan's wedding fabric are now bubbling from the bottom of the fountain. I stand over the Samsonite corpse trying to catch my breath. I already owe Morgan $7,000. What did
that
fabric cost?

A group of bellmen scurry over, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Morgan's mouth drop open. I just allow my eyes to close. I'm devastated. My future was in that suitcase, and my stupid vanity just cost me a small fortune!

Morgan's clicking heels approach, and she looks at me as though trying to discern if I did it on purpose. It's no secret how I feel about her marrying AARP's spokesman. But one look in my eyes, and she knows. She places her arm around me. “It's all right, Lilly. We'll get new fabric.”

We both just start to bawl and hug each other. The bellmen are mystified that anything in that worn-out suitcase could be worth this kind of blather. But looking at its dripping remnants as they pull it from the fountain, I think it pretty much sums up my life.