The Grace Kelly Dress Read online

  The wedding coordinator put up her index finger and then pointed at her iPhone. “Give me one sec,” she said, before flying out of the room.

  “She’s incredible, right?” Amanda said, her face still flushed with excitement.

  “That’s one word for it.”

  Amanda could never admit when she was wrong, and she had been the one to hire Emily. Rocky peeked out the door of the conference room and saw the wedding coordinator pacing the hallways, speaking so quickly Rocky could barely make out what she was saying.

  “I know it’s hard for you to say thank you,” Amanda said, polishing off her glass of prosecco in one gulp. “But I know. You’re welcome.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The wedding planner.” She blew a kiss in Rocky’s direction.

  “This wedding planner that you hired is horrible. Calm down.”

  “She’s fabulous,” Amanda said, shaking her head furiously.

  “She’s accomplished nothing but create a stupid hashtag that I don’t even want.”

  “That hashtag is gold.” Amanda pointed her index finger at Rocky. “We’re using it. And as for your other problem, I’m happy to help with that, too.”

  “What other problem?” Rocky asked. She honestly didn’t know. It seemed as if her problems had been rapidly multiplying as of late.

  “The dress,” Amanda said. “My offer still stands. I’ll take the heat off and tell Mom that I’ll wear the dress.”

  “You’re going to wear a wedding dress to my wedding?”

  “No, silly,” Amanda said. “I’ll wear it when I get married.”

  “You’re marrying Sloan now?” Rocky asked. “I didn’t even realize you got back together.”

  “Who?” Amanda said, trying for nonchalance, but Rocky was not fooled.

  “You’re back together now, aren’t you? Just admit it.”

  “I only meant I’ll promise Mom that I’ll wear the dress when I get married.”

  This was ridiculous. She was supposed to be running a company and instead she was in a conference room, fighting with her sister. It was time to end this meeting and send Amanda and the twenty-year-old on their way.

  Seemingly on cue: “Sorry about that, girls!” Emily announced as she walked back into the room. “Now, let’s—”

  “Let’s discuss the actual wedding,” Rocky said, taking control. “First things first, we’ll need a permit to have a party on my building’s rooftop—”

  “Done,” the wedding planner said to her iPhone.

  “What do you mean, done?” Rocky said. “I was told it could take months.”

  “I know a guy,” Emily said, looking up at Rocky and winking at her. “I also handled the noise permits, which you’ll need for the band to play until midnight, and I hooked up some street parking permits, too, since you said your mom and her peeps are in Connecticut?” She said it all like a question, but it was anything but.

  “Yeah,” Rocky said. “That’s right.”

  “I also made a few calls and got quotes from three caterers, two table and linen rentals, and four invitation companies. Sending them now.”

  Rocky’s phone pinged as emails filled her screen. Amanda looked over her shoulder and smiled.

  “And that band you mentioned?” the planner said. “The one that you and Drew saw on the Lower East Side on your fourth date? They’re holding your wedding date open. They said that they could either play the whole party or just do a featured artist thing around eleven, before they serve dessert. They’re ridiculously expensive, but it seemed like the sort of sentimental thing Drew would be into. Sending you those quotes now, along with a few other bands for frame of reference.”

  Rocky’s phone buzzed before she could respond.

  “And you didn’t mention lighting,” she said, “but I toured the roof space a few days ago—your doorman Sal is so nice!—and I think we need to discuss lighting. I did a party last year with these round paper lanterns. It could really work for that space.”

  “She loves paper lanterns!” Amanda said and Rocky eked out: “I do love them.”

  “Cool, cool, cool,” the wedding planner said. “I have a ton of other quotes I need to send over to you, so I’m going to create a Google doc so that we can all stay organized and on the same page. That way, we can also send notes back and forth to each other. Sound good?”

  “That sounds great, actually,” Rocky said, despite herself.

  “It’s all good, man,” Amanda said, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Never say that again.” Rocky swiped Amanda’s champagne glass without her noticing.

  “I’ll have my guy mock up a few bathrobe designs with the new hashtag,” the wedding planner said. “And I assume you’ll want to cover hair and makeup on your own? Although I’ve got a killer team. I’ll pop the quotes into the Google doc, you can think about it later.”

  “I need a bathrobe?” Rocky asked.

  “Can we approve #FoundAGoodMan?” Emily asked.

  At the same exact time, Amanda said yes, while Rocky said no.

  “No worries,” Emily said. “It’s the winner, I know it is, but I’ll still have my staff create a few other contenders.”

  What Rocky wanted to say was I don’t need a hashtag, but she instead couldn’t help herself from saying: “You have a staff?”

  “You were right,” Emily said to Amanda. “Your sister is so, so cute!” And then to Rocky: “So, with your in-laws handling flowers, all that’s left is photographer, videographer, and cake.”

  “I think we have the wedding cake covered,” Amanda said, looking out the window. Rocky couldn’t decide if she should let her sister get away with it or just blow the whole thing open.

  Rocky looked at Amanda, and Amanda suddenly became very interested in her fingernails.

  “You’ve decided on cake?” Emily asked. She looked down at her iPhone for confirmation and furrowed her brow.

  “I guess we have,” Rocky said. “We really liked Sloan at Big City Bakery.”

  “Oh, cool,” Emily said. “Everyone’s completely obsessed with Sloan lately. This is totally hush-hush, but she’s getting a write-up in next month’s Brides magazine. She does great work. Love her!”

  “We love her, too,” Rocky said, trying to catch Amanda’s eye. But her sister refused to look up.

  Forty-One

  The mother of the bride, as a bride herself

  Long Island, 1982

  “Now, this is how we should have started the school year. This is how it was supposed to be all along,” Debbie said, leaning back onto her dorm room bed. Joanie busied herself getting her own side of the room ready. They were already into the spring semester, but after her fight with her mother, she couldn’t get out of the house fast enough.

  Joanie smiled as she continued unpacking her bags. Debbie was right—this was where she should have been all along. In the dorms. In the city. With her sisters.

  It was kismet. Debbie’s roommate was spending the semester abroad in Spain and Student Housing hadn’t yet given her a new roommate. Joanie was ready to start the next phase of her life, and moving into the city was the way to do it.

  She slowly unpacked her things, careful to cut scented contact paper into squares for her drawers. She didn’t want her clothes to touch the shelves and drawers that countless other students had used before. Everything in the dorms seemed to have the faint scent of wet dog. She’d brought wood hangers from home, even though Debbie had only left less than half of the closet for her. And she had yet to come up with a plan for the communal showers. Debbie had bought her a pair of shower shoes as a welcome gift, but Joanie didn’t know what bothered her more: that you needed a pair of shoes to shower, or that the bathrooms were completely co-ed.

  Debbie went into the minifridge and offered Joanie a beer. When Joanie shook her head no, D
ebbie pulled out a soda water instead.

  “I just can’t believe there was a whole part of my sister’s life that I knew nothing about,” Joanie said.

  “I’m so sorry, Joanie. What can I do?”

  “Nothing, really. There’s nothing to do. I guess I just have to process it.”

  “Everyone has secrets, Joanie.” Debbie took a stack of Joanie’s sweaters and placed them into a drawer. She reached out for another piece of contact paper and then moved Joanie’s T-shirts into the other drawer.

  “I’m an open book. Aren’t you an open book?”

  “We all have things we hide from the rest of the world, don’t we? That’s what makes life interesting.” Debbie picked up a silk bag filled with bras and panties. She held it up to Joanie as proof.

  “I have nothing to hide,” Joanie said, snatching the bag away from her friend with a smile. She put the bag carefully into the top drawer, leaving its contents inside.

  “None of our sisters know that you’re a virgin.”

  “Yeah, but that’s totally different. That’s private.”

  “You didn’t bring any of the sisters out with you when you were hitting those clubs to find Mel,” she said. And then, her voice a bit softer: “Not even me.”

  “Those clubs are not exactly the sorts of places that Deltas would appreciate,” Joanie said with a warm smile. Their eyes met. “Not even you.”

  “Then bring Mel and her friends around here.”

  “They don’t exactly seem like the Greek system types, if you know what I mean.”

  “People can surprise you.”

  “I’m meeting them at Jesse’s show on Wednesday. You wanna come with?”

  “Sure thing,” Debbie said. “And then maybe you’ll invite them to one of our events? We have the Theta mixer on Friday night. They were your sister’s friends. Maybe they’ve been to fraternity parties before.”

  “Maybe.” Joanie tried to imagine Mel, with her massive mohawk, at a fraternity mixer. Or Jem, with the bleached white hair and red tips. Or Mikki, with the tattoos running up her arms. Michele’s friends would probably cause the Delta sisters to clutch their pearls and hide under their pastel cardigan sweaters.

  And Jesse. What would they say about Jesse, with his violet eyes and painted-on leather jeans? With his punk music and his too-loud band? She shook her head as if to get Jesse out of her thoughts. She should not be thinking of another man when she had Matthew. He was down at the hardware store, getting wood for a shelf, since Joanie mentioned that she needed a place to store her jewelry. That’s who should be filling her mind. Not some other guy she barely knew.

  “Secrets or not, I just wish your sister had asked for help. I wish the sisters had known. That’s what the Deltas are all about.”

  “No one knew.”

  “Let’s make a pact. We tell each other everything, no matter what. Especially if we need help.”

  “Deal,” Joanie said, putting out her hand. Debbie sat down next to her, leaned over, and gave her friend a hug.

  “Now that you’re living in the dorms, you can come and go as you please. You can do anything you want.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “But not tonight. Tonight we have a mixer with the Kappas. And not tomorrow night. We have a mandatory meeting in the Chapter Room about the Delta fund-raiser. But after that, you can totally do whatever you want.”

  “You make it sound so glamorous.”

  “And speaking of whatever you want, I bet Matthew’s pretty excited to have you just a few floors away.”

  “He may have mentioned something about that.”

  “What did Matthew say?”

  “He said that I might as well not bother making my bed, because I’ll be sleeping in his every night.”

  “Oh, well, excuse me,” Debbie said, in a faux-angry voice. Then, her face turning serious: “But I don’t mean about moving into the dorms. I mean about Michele.”

  But Joanie hadn’t told him yet.

  Forty-Two

  The seamstress

  Paris, 1958

  “Diana insisted I drop in to see how the dress is coming along,” Robert said.

  Rose was startled. She didn’t think she would see him again while Diana was away.

  He held out a telegram for Rose to inspect:

  Dear Brother. STOP. Please visit Madame’s atelier to check on progress of dress. STOP. Very important that the creation of the dress not be delayed in my absence. STOP. If dress not ready in time, my wedding will be ruined. STOP.

  “You can tell your sister she needn’t worry,” Rose said. She spun the dress form around for Robert to see. She wanted him to send a good report to his sister—she wanted there to be no mistake that the dress construction was going well, that Diana would be happy with what she was creating. “I’m very pleased with the progress so far.”

  “It’s extraordinary,” Robert said, a flush coming over his face as he grinned in Rose’s direction. “But I do, of course, have to make sure you haven’t had any troubles crossing the street as of late.”

  “I stop and look both ways each and every time.”

  “One must always be careful.” He smiled warmly and she smiled back in return. “Forgive the intrusion on your work. I’m sure by now you’ve realized how difficult it is to say no to my sister.”

  He was correct; Diana was the sort of girl who was impossible to say no to. “Yes,” she said. “I have noticed that.”

  “And I know how hard it is to be doing something so important—planning this wedding—without our mother around, so I want to support her in any way that I can.”

  “How sweet you are,” Rose said, getting lost in his eyes. Seeing his eyes soften, she then quickly qualified: “You’re a very good brother.”

  “Thank you,” Robert said. “I certainly am. In fact, I’m stuck with two tickets to the opera tonight because of her. I was supposed to go with my fiancée, but since she is with my sister, searching the far ends of the earth for a specific swath of lace, I’m afraid they’ll go to waste.”

  “That’s terrible,” Rose said, and tried to parse his meaning. Was this Robert’s way of inviting her to the opera? Or was he simply making conversation? Either way, it shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. As Julien was fond of reminding her, the Laurents were important clients. She was not to befriend them. She surely was not to fall in love with them.

  “Would you care to go with me?” Robert asked, his face open and unguarded.

  “Yes,” Rose said, already forgetting herself. As the word left her mouth, she knew that she should take it back. She knew she should tell him no, she had made a mistake, and she could not attend the opera with him. It would be so simple to say no, so simple to deny her feelings. She could say that she had to work. She could say that she had plans with her “beau” Charles that evening. She could say a million different things, all of which meant that she could not attend. All of which meant that she did not want to see him. But then, even though she knew she shouldn’t, she said: “I would love to go with you.”

  The rest of the afternoon ticked by slowly, minute by minute. At five o’clock, Rose told Julien she was heading home. As he said goodbye, she felt a tug at her heart. Lying had been coming more easily for her. She hated lying to Julien, but wasn’t he the one who’d essentially taught her to lie? She found the more she lied to Diana about where Madame was, the easier it was to lie in every other part of her life. Even to Julien.

  Rose met Robert at a small café a few blocks away from the opera house. She couldn’t help herself from looking around, making sure that she wouldn’t get caught. But what was wrong with what she was doing? After all, if Diana had offered her tickets to the opera, surely Julien would have understood. Even though the Laurents were clients, not friends, Rose had never been to the opera before and that counted for something,
didn’t it? And as for meeting for a light supper before the show, she certainly had to eat, didn’t she?

  Rose caught Robert’s eye from across the restaurant. As he stood up and made his way to her, Rose held her breath. She felt giddy, buoyant. She knew that this man belonged to another, but what was wrong with enjoying one night in his company? Feeling as if she belonged to someone, for just one evening. What harm could that do? And this was about the opera. Just the opera. She simply couldn’t let an expensive ticket like that go to waste. It wouldn’t be right.

  “May I take your coat?” Robert asked, and his hand brushed against hers as she spun around. She tried to suppress her tremendous smile as she turned back to face him, but it was no use. No use at all. She was positively beaming.

  They sat down at a tiny round table, and Rose’s knees knocked into Robert’s as they sat.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon,” Rose said, giggling nervously. Already she had embarrassed herself.

  “Not at all,” Robert assured her. “I’m too tall for this table, it seems.”

  Without thinking: “You’re perfect.” The moment the words escaped her lips, Rose gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

  “What was that?” Robert asked. “I’m afraid it’s so noisy in here that I couldn’t hear you.”

  “It was nothing important,” Rose said, and let out a deep exhale, put her hands back down into her lap.

  “Then let’s order a drink.” He summoned the waiter.

  Rose sat back in her chair. As Robert asked her if she preferred white or red wine, she thought about what life would be like with this man. A harmless fantasy. It would be a life so different from the one she was living. Instead of going home to a lonely boarding house room, she would go back to a proper home. Instead of eating dinner by herself, gazing out the window at the people passing by in the street, she would have a dining room, and eat a home-cooked meal with Robert. Instead of going to the cinema on her own, she would have a constant companion—even though she resisted at first, she had to admit that it had been fun sitting with Julien and Charles the previous week. Having someone to walk you to your seat. Having someone to discuss the film with once it was over.