Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
THE BIG DAY
Celeste
The woman in the mirror has hands that won't stop shaking, her French manicure catching the harsh bathroom light with each tremor. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated with fear, rimmed with smudged mascara from the night before.
In four hours, I'll be Mrs. Max Kensington.
The ivory Vera Wang hanging on the door—a $150,000 dress I never would have chosen—looks more like a shroud than a wedding gown.
Each tick of the grandfather clock pushes me closer to the inevitable.
Mom needs that experimental treatment. Lexi needs UCLA.
I need Dreamscape. So I'll walk down that marble aisle like the condemned, one Louboutin in front of the other, my pulse drowning out everything but the knowledge that there's no turning back.
Olivia and Tally keep shoving flutes of Veuve Clicquot into my hands, but my stomach lurches at the mere sight of the bubbles.
"Just one sip," Olivia insists, but I shake my head.
God, I wish I could down the entire bottle and float through this nightmare in a champagne haze.
TMZ would have a field day: "Dreamscape Exec Weds Kensington CEO, Can't Stand Without Swaying.
" But my rebellious stomach won't even allow me that small mercy.
Each time I bring the glass to my lips, bile rises in my throat.
Lexi perches on the chair beside me, shadows beneath her blue eyes.
We've been over this already—first at our emergency summit on the rooftop bar, then daily in her desperate phone calls.
"I could juggle full-time work with classes," she insisted yesterday, her voice cracking.
I had to remind her that humans need sleep.
Besides, if she goes through the restaurant management program, her restaurant would, you know, expect her to manage the restaurant.
Duh. When she texted about a cheaper apartment listing, I shut that down too.
"Mom can barely make it to chemo appointments.
A move would destroy her." Lexi's shoulders finally slumped this morning.
We're cornered, both of us. This arrangement is the only way forward.
Olivia's eyes flick over my wrinkled sundress.
"You look pretty," she lies. She and Tally perch on a leather love seat in this ridiculous penthouse suite Max and his Granddad rented for me.
Soon, celebrity makeup artist Lita Wilson will arrive with her entourage to transform me—chapped lips, day-old mascara and all—into someone Instagram-worthy enough to marry a Kensington.
I give Olivia a look that could wither a cactus.
Goddamn it, Olivia, stop lying to me. I know how I look.
I have eyes and what I see is skin the color of day-old oatmeal, raccoon-dark circles under bloodshot eyes that haven't closed for more than three hours at a stretch in nine days, lips cracked like the Mojave Desert floor, and last night's mascara smudged in sooty half-moons beneath my lower lashes because I've been too numb to even splash water on my face.
I see hair that looks like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket—a rat's nest of tangles that snaps every tooth off my comb because it's as dry as straw and twice as brittle.
No matter about the hair, though—part of Lita's team consists of hairdressers to the stars, who'll arrive like a SWAT team armed with that legendary Moroccan deep hair conditioner that costs more than my mortgage payment, smells like an expensive bakery, and transforms even the most damaged strands into silk ribbons.
They'll bring professional scissors that could probably cut through metal and those magical industrial-strength bobby pins that hopefully will defy gravity and hold up the Golden Gate Bridge of hair disasters.
It’s been thirty-seven days since Max disappeared after that electric kiss—the one that made him recoil like I'd burned him.
Meanwhile, I've become Vera Wang's living doll.
Hours on a mahogany platform with her team circling me, pins between lips, measuring tapes around necks, scissors snipping.
Even Vera herself fussed over every crystal, her hands smoothing silk until, catching Olivia's tears and Tally's shock in the mirror, I nearly believed the princess lie myself.
My personal assistant Aimée has been my saving grace—or my emotional support human, as I'd taken to calling her.
Without her, I'd have drowned in Wedding Wonderland's parade of absurdities: food tastings where Wolfgang Puck (yes, THAT Wolfgang Puck) watched me like I was judging the Olympics of Canapés; cake designers who stroked fondant samples and whispered "feel the texture" while maintaining uncomfortable eye contact; and florists who'd gasp "but the SYMBOLISM" when I suggested substituting peonies with something—anything—more original.
During dress fittings, I'd hum the Imperial March while perfect strangers circled my butt with pins.
Then there was Alicia-Fucking-Crawford, photographer to the stars, who kept demanding I practice my "candid laugh" until I started snorting like a congested hippo.
The makeup squad insisted I pick a "face aesthetic" from their sacred scroll of options: Natural?
Matte? Dewy? Smokey? Glam? Bridal? I deadpanned "Option G—Goth bride.
Think Morticia Addams meets Edward Scissorhands.
" Their collective gasps could've inflated a hot air balloon. Worth it. I was feeling spicy that day.
So, yeah. That was my past 37 days. Or 888 hours.
Or 53,280 minutes of wedding-prep hell squeezed between my regular 60-hour workweek like stuffing an elephant into spanx.
My Netflix queue has gone from "Recently Watched" to "Are You Still Alive?
" My yoga mat has developed its own ecosystem.
My running shoes actually hissed at me yesterday.
Meanwhile, Max has ghosted me so thoroughly I'm considering hiring an exorcist. His texts went from monosyllabic grunts—"yes," "no," and the ever-eloquent "k"—to digital tumbleweeds.
Part of me keeps hoping he'll text "JK LOL WEDDING'S OFF" with a confetti emoji, but nope.
This matrimonial train keeps chugging along, and I'm tied to the tracks in a white dress.
Now I'm sitting here with bags under my eyes so large they require their own zip code, developing what feels like the plague.
If I sneeze on some billionaire and get sued, I'm adding it to the wedding registry.
I arch an eyebrow at Olivia. "Pretty?" My voice cracks.
"Stop lying." I glance at Tally, who stares back with unblinking eyes, red lips pressed thin.
Tally—silent. Verbose, never-stops-talking Tally.
I see their pact hanging between them—don't upset the bride.
But Olivia's gaze keeps darting to my puffy eyes, while Tally fixates on my $150,000 gown's bodice.
I need them to be the friends who told me my bangs looked like they'd been cut by a lawnmower, who warned me my ex was cheating.
“Okay, okay,” Olivia says. “You look kinda tired.”
Tally rolls her eyes dramatically. "Celeste, honey, you look like a nuclear disaster.
Those aren't bags—they're luggage sets. Thank God for Lita Wilson, or you'd terrify the children at the reception.
" She gestures at my head. "And that situation needs industrial equipment.
You're the 'before' photo where the model lives in a wind tunnel. Even Anne Hathaway's Princess Diaries makeover started with better raw material. You need José Eber himself to style your hair.” Then she laughs. “Wouldn’t that be fabulous?”
I snort despite myself. "For your information, it's Keeley Sanchez doing my hair, not José Eber.
Though I wouldn't mind if José showed up.
I've always wanted to meet a man whose hair is more fabulous than ninety percent of his clients.
" Keeley Sanchez, with her signature silver-streaked bob and collection of vintage Cartier bangles that clink as she works, reigns as Hollywood's most sought-after hairstylist. Her nimble fingers have crafted the Kardashians' sleek updos for Met Gala appearances and transformed the Hadid sisters' tresses into windswept perfection for Vogue covers shot on Mediterranean cliffs.
Then I smile at Tally. "Thank the tiny baby unicorns of Mount Olympus.
For a hot minute there I thought aliens had replaced your brain with a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal or you'd joined some kind of secret society where they surgically remove your personality and replace it with a Hallmark card. " Then I look at Olivia. “You’re up.”
Olivia winces. "Uh, you've looked better.
" I sigh. Classic Olivia—she'll never give me the brutal assessment Tally would deliver without hesitation.
But that's why I need them both. Last month when I came home from Mom's chemo appointment, Olivia showed up with tissues and homemade soup, while Tally texted me memes about cancer wigs until I laughed so hard I forgot to cry.
They balance me out and I need them both like air.
And soon I'll have neither of them. Malibu might as well be Mars compared to downtown LA or Claremont—especially with that PCH traffic.
Max's beachfront paradise might as well be solitary confinement.