Law school put a stranglehold on Elle’s social life that Jesse Ventura would have envied. Feeling as if she had no life to speak of or about, she decided that she should get out more at night and read the Angel’s outlines during the day.
She picked up the cordless phone to call Margot. With finals approaching, her classmates had become the Typhoid Marys of stress, and she needed a break. She had pored over the outlines from her Secret Angel, and had picked up Emanuel outlines on a tip. Still she was nervous. She needed to talk to someone outside the law world.
Elle dialed Margot, but before she could even say hello Margot was practically shrieking her good news.
“Wedding bells are ringing, Elle! And they’re ringing in my condo!”
Elle pictured Margot’s latest boyfriend and tried to see them growing old together. A romantic at heart, she loved the vision, funny as it was to think of Margot or Snuff mature and married.
“So Cupid struck in Malibu?”
Margot had moved into a Malibu condo after graduation, and had thrown a BYOK party in the fall. Bring your own karma. Elle had skipped the party. She had just started law school, and all she’d had to bring was negative energy.
“You got it, Elle,” Margot cried. “I’ll be a bride by next year!”
“Marg, that is absolutely fabulous.” Elle tried to disguise the note of discouragement that she felt, having expected to beat Margot to the altar. “I couldn’t be happier for you,” she added. “When’s the big day for you and Snuff?” She smiled more easily at the vision of Snuff, a twice-divorced record producer who was Margot’s whirlwind summer lover and now fiancé.
“Well, you know Snuff’s gotten me really into Zen,” Margot chirped. “I have to figure out how they do the whole wedding thing. I was thinking we could have it at that church in Sedona that overlooks the Arizona Vortex.”
“Funky!” Elle applauded the choice. “Barefoot like Cindy Crawford?”
“Oh God no,” Margot protested immediately. “I mean, I want a real dress and everything. And one for you too, beautiful. Of course I insist you be my maiden of honor.”
Elle flinched at the word “maiden.” Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. It was still a compliment. “Thanks, Marg,” she sighed.
As if reading her mind, Margot softened. “I never thought I’d get married before you, Elle. Not in a million years.”
Elle shrugged. “It’s not a race, silly.”
“I hear Bebe’s divorcing already, after only six weeks!” Margot giggled, referring to the first of their sorority sisters to tie the knot. “Not Snuff and me. We’re totally in love,” she crooned.
“I’m honored, Marg. Really. Maiden of honor in the Zen Vortex, who could ask for more?”
“Can you come home this weekend? I know it’s a rush, but I want you and Serena to get fitted for dresses. Plus I haven’t seen you since you left for law school.”
“Sure.” Elle knew she should probably study, but with her tapes she’d be set.
She turned the stereo on to check out her first installment of Torts on Tape while she began to pack. “Welcome to Torts on Tape,” mumbled the professor’s voice from Elle’s stereo speakers. Underdog whined, dropping his head beneath his paws.
“I know, Underdog.” Elle consoled her pet with a vigorous rub. “But I’ll try anything.” She dug through a heap of flashcards she had emptied on the couch, locating the stereo remote where she had used it to mark her place in a Cosmo quiz. “Somebody has to keep Emanuel outlines in business,” she laughed, gazing at two enormous shopping bags bursting with commercial study guides.
Smoothing out a hanging bag, she tried to focus on the tort du jour, “negligent infliction of emotional distress.” The gory tale involved a man suing the hospital that had sent him an amputated leg in the mail, rather than the personal belongings of his deceased father, which he had requested.
Elle cringed, imagining the UPS package. This tape should have a warning label.