9. Dani #2
“Please don’t,” Mom moans. “You’re setting a bad example for Dani.”
“No, I’m setting a great example.” Gran bows. “I bow to you—we are not worthy. A billionaire! Where did you find him? I need to get me one of those.”
“Men like Graham Richmond have a reputation to protect.” My mom follows me as I head back into the condo.
“It’s no wonder he didn’t want people to know you were dating.
You shouldn’t have forced his hand to go public.
He obviously had misgivings about you. The woman is part of the brand of a man like that.
She is part of his soft power.” She claps her hands.
“I’ve gone to Saks and bought you some clothes. Go try them on.”
Sighing, I pick up the plastic bags and scuttle to the tiny bathroom.
Gran had the foresight to buy this apartment way back in the ’60s and keep it in the family. It’s the only way my family’s been able to keep up with the Upper East Side Joneses since my dad’s trust fund payments aren’t that much.
I bang my hip on the pedestal sink in the 1930s bathroom as I shimmy into an oatmeal-colored midi dress with flounce sleeves.
The bathroom door bursts open.
“Oh my god, I told your mom not to buy that. You look like a cannoli.” Piper slaps my arm. “Also, you’ve been secretly dating a billionaire and you didn’t tell me? I thought I was your favorite cousin!”
“I haven’t been secretly dating him.” I make air quotes. “I just met him Friday night.”
“But where were you—in the office? Wait, he’s not a client, is he? Isn’t that against the employee handbook?”
“I thought you didn’t care about the employee handbook. You said it was bullshit.”
“Yeah, it is bullshit. But you believe in it.”
“He’s not a client...” I chew my lip.
“You’re hiding something. Tell me. How did you meet a billionaire on Friday?” Piper demands. “Ooh, was it a meet-cute at that pizza place? You need to stop eating there—I think it’s a mob front.”
“No, that’s not where I met him.”
“He wasn’t online, was he? You know how your mom feels about online dating. Unless you were on one of those fancy dating sites—and if so, you need to get me on the invite list.”
“No, he… He…” I trail off. “Okay, look, you have to promise not to be mad or scream, but he…” I lick my lips. “He kidnapped me.”
Piper just looks confused.
“Off the street? Is this like a weird kink thing? This isn’t like that time you thought you got pregnant because you sat on a wet toilet seat, is it?”
“No—he literally kidnapped me. I was walking home, and he just, like, grabbed me off the street and stuffed me in his car.” I wave my arms. “Then he took me to his penthouse and made me take off all my clothes, then he locked me in his closet, then we went to brunch with his family, and he made me pretend to be his girlfriend.”
Piper is silent for a moment as I take deep, gulping breaths, because when you spell it all out like that, it does sound unhinged.
“Are you… doing… okay?” Piper asks slowly.
“I mean, look, I know your family has some weird hang-ups about sex that have led to, you know, your current situation, but it’s totally fine if you just, like, saw a guy you liked on the street and told him, ‘Hey, I want to come back to your place and hit that.’ You don’t need to make up a whole kidnapping story.
I’m not going to think you’re a slut or anything. ”
“I swear to god it’s true! It’s not like that time I was sure our gym teacher was stalking me, but he was just trying to get me kicked off the volleyball team because I was making us lose games. He did kidnap me.”
“Then why aren’t you still kidnapped?”
“Because…” I tell her helplessly. Because he thought I was revolting, but that’s too painful to say out loud. “Because he realized he made a mistake and is very sorry and offered me twenty million dollars and a condo to pretend like it never happened. Obviously I said no because— Ow!”
Piper throws a roll of toilet paper at me.
“Okay, now that I do believe. What the hell do you mean you turned down twenty million?”
“Actually, his final offer was twenty-five million.”
“And a condo! What is wrong with you?!”
“Piper, shh! Mom’s going to hear.”
“She needs to hear! Why didn’t you take the offer?”
“Everyone thinks I’m dating him. I can’t just be like, ‘Psych, I’m not—we broke up.’”
“Yeah, you can, if you do it from your fancy condo sitting on top of a pile of money. What about me, Dani? I live with your parents too. We could be single girls in the city. We’re running out of time to be young and pretty in New York.
We’re going to rot here in your parents’ house.
” Piper shakes me. “We could have each had our own bathrooms.”
“I know, but I need a boyfriend.”
“Oh my god, girl!” Piper shrieks.
“Thin. Walls. Thin.”
“Oh my god,” Piper whispers. “You’re dickmatized.”
“I’m what?”
“You got that D and you’re doing anything to keep it! I can’t believe you finally did it!”
My face is hot, either from humiliation or the memory of my face in Graham’s crotch.
“No! Of course not.”
“Why not? What’s the point of getting kidnapped if he won’t even grab your hair, throw you down on the floor, and hit that?” Piper throws up her hands.
“I told you—he thinks I’m gross. He’s a gentleman kidnapper.”
“Hence the free condo offer. But you want to hit that.” Piper puts her hands under her chin. “I’m trying to find a logical explanation here.”
“But at least now I can take him to the engagement party.”
“Screw Colette—you could hire a starving actor with your payout. Shit, you could just find a hobosexual and let him move into the storage unit that always comes with a fancy condo. That we would be living in. Right now. Where’s your phone?
” Another roll of toilet paper is beamed at my head.
“You need to call that joker back and tell him you came to your senses.”
My mom’s voice calls from the other side of the door. “Dani, do you have the first one on?”
“Coming, Mom.” To Piper, I whisper, “I can’t tell my mom that he broke up with me. I will literally never hear the end of it.”
The bathroom door bangs open. I long for my private en suite bath in Graham’s penthouse.
“Are you showing Piper dick pics?” Gran demands. “I lied to your mother about whose peanut M&Ms those were in the couch. I did you a solid—help a homegirl out.”
“You have dick pics?” Piper perks up.
“No—no manhood pictures.”
“Please don’t ever use that word again.”
“I can’t use that… other word.” I hurry out into the kitchen.
My mother sighs in disappointment and taps her chin with a freshly manicured finger.
I grasp my hands behind my back, hiding my nail-bitten fingers.
Mom sighs again. “Well, with a chest like yours, no dress is going to hang correctly. Though I guess it will do. Go try on the floral one.”
“You didn’t buy that one, did you, Aunt Linda?” Piper says with a grimace. “I don’t really think it’s going to work with her skin tone.”
“It’s not going to work with her anything.” Gran pulls out the dress, which looks like an ’80s curtain made into a flour sack.
“She needs something to disguise…” My mom waves at me. “Let’s all just hope Graham has enough sense not to wear a light-gray suit on Tuesday.”
“You will not believe what I found at Costco today!” Dad calls from the foyer.
Lulu rushes to him, barking happily.
Dad comes in loaded with shopping bags. “Aw, Beans,” he says to me. “Did you and your mom go to one of those fancy stores? Those places jack up the prices, and the quality’s not there at all. I thought you were my Costco girl.”
“She’s dating a billionaire.” Mom kisses his cheek. “She can’t go out in those Costco garments you keep purchasing for her, Hank.”