33. Jenna
Jenna
“Idon’t think I’ve ever been to a literal gala before,” Nora says, turning from side to side as she studies herself in the full-length mirror.
“I mean, I’ve been to plenty of functions and school events that called themselves a gala.
But none of them required hand-beaded designer dresses because I’m expected to pose for pictures on a red carpet. ”
“I wish I was posing for pictures on a red carpet,” Miranda says, leaning back on the chaise lounge and slurping down champagne.
“The only gown I’ll be wearing is my dressing gown while I try to ignore my children’s screaming so I can watch the live stream on my iPad and grumble at my husband for not being a member of the billionaire club. ”
“Your sacrifice is noted,” I tell her, “and appreciated. Hailey doesn’t know how lucky she is that you two share a size.”
“We don’t share a size. We share a silhouette.
” Miranda sets down the champagne and stands, presenting herself with both hands like a game show prize.
“Same rack, same hips, same fundamental distrust of zippers. It’s the closest thing I have to a twin, and I’ve never even met the woman.
Now. Which one am I wearing first, goddess? I am your canvas.”
We’re running on a tight schedule with only two weeks until the gala—Hailey made it through Tuesday’s video interview with Field, and he wants her in Chicago for her final interview the Friday before the gala.
The roadblock is her current boss, who refused to give her Wednesday and Thursday off and would only approve Friday.
Hails is pretty sure he’s figured out she’s trying to leave.
So she’s flying in Friday and going straight to the interview, which leaves exactly one emergency fitting between her plane landing and Saturday night.
The dress has to be chosen, held, and mostly altered before she ever sets foot in Chicago.
Enter Miranda, whose measurements are almost identical to Hailey’s. She’s driven in from the suburbs with a diaper bag she refuses to explain, and has spent the last hour treating the boutique like a one-woman residency.
She is, I’m forced to admit, magnificent at it.
She doesn’t just try the dresses on. She auditions them.
The burgundy one gets a slow, tragic walk and a verdict—“This is a dress for a woman who knows where her husband’s body is buried.
Too much widow. Hailey’s more of a flight risk”—and goes back on the rack.
The navy one is “gorgeous but it whispers, and from what you’ve told me, your sister has never whispered in her life.
” A silver column gown gets four steps before Miranda shakes her head.
“I look like a very festive thermos. Next.”
Layla is laughing into her champagne. Serena has given up pretending to answer work emails. Audrey has started writing the verdicts down so she can tell Logan verbatim later.
And then the gold one comes out of the back room.
Liquid gold, draped low across the back, cut for a woman with hips and zero remorse about them—and Miranda goes quiet for the first time all morning. She turns in the mirror. The whole fitting room lets out a collective breath.
“Oh. My. God,” Miranda says to her own reflection. “Look how amazing my ass is in this. If your sister doesn’t take this, I’m keeping it, and my marriage will simply have to survive what happens next.”
“She’s taking it,” I say, already photographing every angle for the world’s most aggressive group text.
“That’s the most Hailey dress I’ve ever seen.
She wore a sequined disaster to her prom that she still defends under oath.
This is that dress after eleven years of therapy and a celebrity stylist.”
Hailey’s reply comes back in nineteen seconds: a voice memo that is entirely screaming, then a second one that is the word:
Hailey:
BACKLESS?!
And then a third:
tell Miranda I owe her my firstborn, or I’ll at least let her borrow my Metrocard.
The fitter takes the gold dress away with Hailey’s measurements and Friday night’s appointment, and Nora’s final alterations get pinned while Michaela’s texted objections are read into the record—she’s “rather perturbed that children and canines aren’t allowed to attend the gala, because she finally has Archie waltzing in a manner befitting his station. ”
“I’m with Michaela on this one,” Miranda says as she exits the curtain, tucking her T-shirt into the waist of her jeans. “I’m rather perturbed too!”
Somewhere in the middle of it I sit on the chaise next to Miranda’s abandoned champagne and watch this room full of women who didn’t even hesitate when I asked if anyone was willing to help me dress shop for Hailey, and I do something I wouldn’t have done two months ago.
I take out my phone and ask for a favor . . .
Me:
Question. My seat at the Mercer table—I won’t be using it now that I’m at Willa’s. Any chance Miranda could have it? And is there room for one more chair? Her husband.
Bennett:
Of course. They’re welcome. I’ll have Vicky handle the tickets today.
Also—did you get a picture of Layla’s dress? She’s keeping it a secret but I’m somehow supposed to match my tie.
Me:
Nice try. She’s got your tie picked out. You’ll see her dress when she chooses to show it to you.
Bennett:
There was a time when being your boss trumped girl code. But I get it . . .
I send him a gif of Eeyore looking sad and he adds a laughing reaction to it.
Bennett:
Being married suits you, Jenna.
Me:
You too, boss
I put the phone away and wait for a lull, which with Miranda means I have to wait at least ten minutes for her to inhale.
“So,” I say. “The Gala. You’re coming.”
Miranda blinks. “Coming? To the livestream? Obviously. I have snacks planned. There’s going to be a grading system—”
“To the actual gala. My old seat at Bennett’s table is yours if you want it.
There’s one for your husband too, so he can watch you pose for pictures on the actual red carpet, in an actual gown, while an actual babysitter deals with the screaming.
” I shrug like it’s logistics, because it is logistics, and logistics is the one language I’ve always been fluent in.
“You’ve spent all morning dressing everyone else. Seems only right you get to—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence.
Miranda screams. So loud the fitter drops her pins and Layla knocks over a shoe display—and then she’s on me, arms locked around my neck, kissing my cheek over and over, rapid-fire, like a machine that produces only affection and cannot be turned off.
“Thank you thank you thank you, bestie!”
“I am not your bestie,” I say, with as much dignity as a woman being kissed seven times by another grown woman in a boutique can produce.
Miranda pulls back just far enough to grin at me, mascara already compromised, holding my face in both hands like Ma does, like Helena does, like apparently every woman who has ever decided I belong to her does.
“You’re so funny, bestie,” she says.
I roll my eyes. “Just go and pick your dress.”
By one o’clock we’re installed in our corner booth at Lockwood, six women in various states of pinned and measured, and Layla is ordering the wine flight “for the table” because supposedly none of us has anything important to do besides drink this weekend.
“And the cheese board,” she tells the server. “And she’ll have the martini—”
“Actually,” I say, “I’ll do the flight too.”
The table goes still. Five faces swivel toward me in disbelief.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing,” Nora says, but her face says everything.
“Nothing at all,” Serena adds, already smirking into the menu.
Audrey, naturally, is the one who says it out loud.
“In the last year and a half of documented brunches, lunches, and emergency wine summits, you have ordered a martini or sparkling water one hundred percent of the time. You once described the wine flight as ‘a commitment mechanism for people who can’t make decisions.’ This is a significant deviation, Jenna.
We’re allowed two seconds of visible enjoyment. ”
“It’s wine, Audrey. Not a personality transplant.”
“Mm,” Serena hums, the tone of a woman who believes nothing.
Lunch happens the way it usually does when we’re all together—multiple conversations, everyone in all of them, Nora doing a dramatic reading of Michaela’s text messages about her dress choice: “The neckline is fine, but the color says vice principal”; Layla explaining her fitting posture philosophy; Audrey reporting that Logan has calculated the tensile strength of her bodice to ensure maximum dance-floor mobility.
“He factored in the humidity,” Audrey adds, adjusting her glasses with absolute sincerity. “It was actually very romantic.”
“That is the nerdiest thing I have ever heard,” Miranda says, looking up from her phone with a radiant grin. “And I love it. My husband just responded in all caps with seven fire emojis. We are officially going to the ball.”
I pick up the first glass of my flight—a dry, acidic Sauvignon Blanc. It tastes exactly like relinquishing control, which I am discovering is both terrifying and unexpectedly pleasant.
My phone vibrates against the mahogany table. A message from Dominic.
Dominic:
Client just approved the agenda. Which means I am officially staring at the wall until you come home. How are the dress logistics?
Me:
I gave Miranda my seat at Bennett’s table. I am also drinking a wine flight.
The typing bubble appears, disappears, and appears again.
Dominic:
Who are you and what have you done with my wife?
Also, that is the hottest thing I’ve read all day. Send me a picture of what you’re wearing so I can spend the rest of the afternoon imagining how I’m going to take it off you.
My favorite option is with my teeth.
I stare at the screen, my pulse executing a sudden, unauthorized spike. I take a deliberate, measured sip of the Sauvignon Blanc, hoping the cold liquid will counteract the heat rushing to my cheeks. It absolutely does not.
“Oh my God, look at her,” Layla whisper-shouts, abandoning her cheese board to point at me. “She’s blushing. Jenna Pemberton is actively blushing in a public establishment.”
“I am not blushing,” I say smoothly, setting my glass down. “It’s the ambient temperature of the room. It’s summer, and the cooling in this building is notoriously inconsistent.”
“Uh-huh,” Serena says, resting her chin on her hand. “Does the cooling system also make you stare at your phone like you want to eat it?”
“Statistically,” Audrey chimes in, adjusting her glasses, “the likelihood of a fluctuation causing that specific shade of crimson is less than four percent. The likelihood of a text from Dominic Cruz causing it? Approaching ninety-nine.”
I ignore them, my thumbs flying across the keyboard before I can talk myself out of it.
Me:
I am wearing a very secure, double-lined pencil skirt and a silk blouse with fourteen individual buttons. Your teeth will require a comprehensive dental plan.
His reply comes in three seconds.
Dominic:
Challenge accepted. I’m clearing my evening schedule. Fourteen buttons is exactly my kind of liability.
A traitorous, irrepressible smile finally breaks across my mouth. I lock my phone, pick up the second glass in my flight—a Pinot Noir this time—and find five women watching me with varying degrees of utter triumph.
“Fine,” I mutter, taking a sip. “The wine flight was a good idea and it’s possible I’m in love with my husband.”