In Adrian’s fifteen years of business as a consultant in the highly competitive wedding industry, he had never met anyone like Bunny Stirrup. He was actually thankful to Rosita Naranja for the Five Days of Olé, as her destination wedding in Brazil had been tagged. He felt the need to put an actual physical distance between himself and his most demanding client. His poor assistant, Jo-Jo, would earn his stripes this weekend at Bunny’s wedding, Adrian reflected, reclining comfortably in his first class seat. It was an event he would put in the category of a funeral for the groom.
He declined the offer of another vodka tonic, feeling a pleasant hum from his first drink, or perhaps simply from the relief of escaping his bionic client, who ate, drank, and slept with images of her own glory impossible for even him to provide in her sprint to the altar.
Compared to Bunny, even the parties he arranged for the sultan of Brunei were a breeze. Before he went on vacation he had organized twenty-five black limos to transport the sultan’s wives and daughters to the private discotheque they had rented for a party. One sultana per car. But the sultan’s challenges were merely logistical in nature, putting Adrian basically in the shoes of an air traffic controller. Bunny was impossible, to the marrow of her bones.
It wasn’t just her constant demands: That was old hat for Adrian. During wedding season he whittled his sleep down to four hours, which was enough to revive his typical demeanor, that of a happy frog. He expected to take calls and make decisions at any time except his sleeping hours, which he scheduled between six and ten in the mornings, when most of his clients were sleeping or dressing for brunch.
Adrian could hardly believe it himself, but he had come to loathe Bunny Stirrup, privately crossing the line he always drew between himself and his clients, whom he regarded, more or less, as cartoons. Bunny was simply in a different zone of selfishness, ego, and manipulation than anyone else he had known. He had watched the gracious smile she turned on her cowering bridesmaids, dazzling them with her perfection while she salted the wounds of their insecure hearts by prying, with cutting faux innocence, into the progress of their love lives. She dug her heels into the kittens she called her friends with a joy he could only call vicious. Bunny made the poorer girls beholden to her, dangling custom-made black pearl necklaces for them to keep as if pearls were nothing but pebbles to her, in all her extravagant graciousness. The next afternoon she would leave them surprised by the responsibility to pay their own lunch tabs at the Colony Club, simply to remind them that she had the royal prerogative: She could extend opulence, but she could withdraw it at whim.
He saw that Bunny counted Edward as less than nothing in this process, and he saw the mere mention of this same Edward made her friends quiver with longing to their paraffin-waxed knees. And the callous way she treated the poor child, Emily, would have violated the dignity of a turtle.
Adrian guessed it all must wash under the arching bridge of Bunny’s beauty. But how could Edward submit to this fate? He supposed that love, in this case, was not blind but rather the opposite, a case of too-vivid sight blocking the effectiveness of reason.
In this manner, Adrian put himself to sleep until the touchdown in Rio. Refreshed by his catnap, the irrepressible bubble bobbed up from his seat, and floated away to begin working his magic.
He could thank Bunny for one thing, he thought, hailing a cab in his travel-book Portuguese. She had trained him hard. He could manage the remaining Day of Olé with his eyes closed. The mishap with Linda Libra, the bridesmaid gored by a bull on Tango Thursday, was an unfortunate setback, but the groom had actually secured a substitute whom he promised was en route. Adrian couldn’t believe that Rosita Naranja had a thirteenth friend, but Alex promised him that someone named Becca Reinhart would meet him today for a little nip and tuck session to get Linda’s dress hanging on her right.
Everybody was so drunk, asserted Alex with pride, that he didn’t believe anyone would care about the slight change in cast. Adrian felt especially thankful to this emergency substitute bridesmaid for filling in at the last moment. He really should have arrived earlier to keep an eye on the olés for all five days. Bunny had kept him too long.
After showering and changing his clothes at the hotel, the eagle-eyed, feather-collared wedding coordinator headed to the Naranja ranch to oversee the dressing of the bridesmaids. He sought first a minute to coordinate with Haze Oolong, a South Beach fashion photographer who had flown in yesterday to shoot the wedding event.
When Adrian entered, Haze was losing a valiant struggle against yards of frothy orange fabric, trying to get a swarm of gigantic bridesmaids’ dresses to “hang right” for his picture. The bride had designed the dresses to imitate tutus, only on a much larger scale. Each was appliqued with beaded tangerines, and the overall collision of sparkle and crunch in the fabric was absolutely overwhelming.
Becca’s cab was a few minutes behind Adrian’s. She was still pinching herself at the incredible good luck of landing in this tropical tangerine parade. What a perfect avenue for escapism! She had even slept on the flight, a better rest than she had gotten for several nights. She laughed, watching the photographer struggle against this tittering circle of fabric models. They were holding as still as a hive of bees. She envisioned herself in this hilarious Minnie Mouse getup. She hoped to keep her picture out of the society pages. Dick Davis would never let her live this one down.
Becca’s presence in the dressing room went unnoticed. In her smooth black Donna Karan pantsuit, she moved like a cat behind the blooms of this orange grove. Finally, she spoke up.
“Who’s the boss here?” she asked the crowd.
“Idiot!” cursed the bride, furious that Becca didn’t recognize her. Spotted tutus quivered with laughter.
“Take it easy,” Becca cautioned her, extending her hand in greeting. “I’m the new girl. Alex says you have my dress?”
The bride flung a scowl at Becca.
“She’s too tall,” Rosita declared. She looked sharply at Haze, expecting his veto.
“She’s better than Kitty Meow,” Haze hissed at her.
“She’s perfect,” agreed Adrian, flouncing across the room with the signature, can-do ebullience that Rosita had retained at his premium fees. “So get her dress.” He paused, allowing the magenta feathers of his collar to be admired by the assembled wedding army. “Go on, go on,” he said, waving his hands away from his body. “Chop, chop, little ladies. The master is speaking to you!”
Rosita clapped her hands and was attended by several nieces, who brought Becca her glorious gown. The dress stood up on its own! Becca felt exhausted, relieved, and bewildered, all at the same time, but when she saw her dress, all her feelings coalesced into a sense of the ridiculous, which she hid until Oolong shot an ironic glance at her—at that point she laughed so hard she cried.
Rosita pointed an orange fingernail at Becca. “Help her with the zipper,” she ordered her nieces, ignoring Becca’s outburst.
Becca stepped into the polka-dotted tutu with the help of four Ewok-sized nieces chattering in Portuguese. One of them took a moment to massage the muscles of her neck. Now this was a vacation!
“Rosita! Ayudame!” Victor Azul, the makeup artist, screamed at Rosita for help.
The maiden of honor, Dolores Mas Dolores, had grabbed the Vixenish Violet eye shadow reserved for the bride. He was battling her for control. Rosita hurried to the scene. When she heard what Dolores had done, she nearly slapped her false friend.
“Betrayer!” she shrieked, holding her hand back with a ferocious effort. She directed the weeping bridesmaid to the corner of the room, to snuffle in shame. Vixenish Violet was the bride’s color. The bridesmaids wore Alluring Aqua, like it or not.
She turned to give Victor a tongue-lashing too. “You upset her. Don’t let it get to this point again. I’ll have no tears! No salt streaks!” And then, at the sight of Becca, Rosita herself burst into tears.
Her bridesmaid’s dress was too short. “It was supposed to be a ball gown,” she shrieked, “floor length!” She pointed at Becca. The gown hung awkwardly in the air at a point just below her knees. She covered her face, wailing miserably. “This ruins everything!”
Adrian came running to control the damage. He promised to pin some fabric onto Becca’s dress to make it hit the floor, if that would make his little pollito happy. Becca, who did not help matters by talking on the phone while Rosita hyperventilated, plugged her ear to listen to two new messages.
Emily and Edward, speaking together, left her a cheery hello from the car. They were visiting the kennel, then tomorrow would be off to Sternwood, the Kirklands’ house in the Hamptons, for his wedding. Emily was excited to see the horses that Edward’s parents kept on the twenty-five-acre property. She laughed that the house had a name, and wanted to know if she could shake its hand. Both of them seemed so carefree, so full of animation and the jolliness of being together. They missed her, Edward said plainly. They wished she would come back soon.
Becca turned off her phone. She didn’t check her other message. The giddiness of her escape had been shattered. She felt empty, realizing that she would not be able to let Emily go without suffering. Her face had grown pale, and Becca hardly noticed when Adrian crouched at her knees to pin a swath of fabric around the bottom of her dress.
She felt urgently that she should leave. She longed to be with Emily.
Dully she noticed, as Adrian buzzed around her legs, that he was tickling her.
“Come on, sweetie, don’t let the jet lag get you down,” he chirped. “Look alive! We all should be glad we’re here, and not at Bunny Stirrup’s wedding this weekend.”
Becca gasped, which Adrian took as a sign she was relaxing with deep breathing exercises. He walked her over to the corner.
“That’s it, in and out. Listen, get a load of this, to make yourself feel better,” he whispered. “I’ve met a witch! This ice queen Bunny Stirrup had me working like a slave on her hitch to some rich kid, Kirkland, I think,” he said with pity. “Boy is he in for it. I can’t even laugh about it—and that’s saying something, sweetie, believe me! Poor little lamb, I don’t think he’ll ever laugh again.”
Becca was different from the other girls, a Wall Street friend of the groom, and such a fish out of water that he adopted her naturally as a confidante. She held her breath and listened, not revealing anything she knew. She felt a pressing need to discover all that she could about Edward’s wedding.
He had shuttled Becca next to the sewing table where he could reach all the pins stuck in Rosita’s custom orange cushion, which the on-site seamstress would alter to fit Becca. They were far from the other girls, who were waiting together for Victor to do their makeup.
Becca laughed, showing Adrian that his story relaxed her. “Go on,” she said. “I could use something funny, especially about weddings. And I used to think my job was stressful.”
He smiled, gratified that she recognized what he suffered. “Oh, she’s typical, in some ways, has a little basket of kittens for bridesmaids, bats them around”—he paused to remove a pin from his teeth—“like that one.” He nodded his head to indicate Rosita. “But I hate to think of what she says behind my back, because every time someone leaves the room I see her turn from Yin to Yang, you know what I mean?”
“Not exactly,” said Becca, allowing Adrian to turn her feet in a new direction as he traveled the endless circumference of her gown with his pins.
“Like she falls all over the poor guy’s mother, calls her Mum and compliments her tea and crumpets, and then as soon as she’s in the next room she curses her soul and counts the days until she dies and dumps her fortune of diamonds and furs into Bunny’s lap. She says she’s got the old bat hoodwinked on the prenup, and I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Becca’s face grew white. She felt nauseous and blinked as if waking from a dream. Edward was walking into that? She squared her shoulders, trying to imagine facts she didn’t know, something to better explain it. Edward was a big boy, she told herself, and it was stupid to listen to gossip. He knew his fiancée best, she told herself, but she knew Edward Kirkland better than that. He was as honest as the day is long, and half as innocent.
“Yikes,” she managed, to keep Adrian talking.
Adrian withdrew a pin from his mouth. “Oh, she’s crass, and she absolutely hates everyone who doesn’t bow to her, and even most of the people who do, but it’s a shame to have the little kid involved. I suppose it’s for the best that the ice princess is shipping her off to Zurich first thing. She’ll be safer the farther she is from Bunny.”
Becca’s heart jumped into her throat. Her impulse was to tackle the feathered Adrian and shake every word of gossip out of him, but she held her place, breathing quickly, pulling her hands close to her, in fists, as she spoke.
“Zurich?”
She heard Adrian laugh. “Oh, you should hear her! She’s absolutely delighted with her cleverness. Bunny got the kid in mid-semester to some year-round boarding school out in Switzerland. She says they’ll visit her in ski season, maybe,” he imitated her voice, “except the Alps are so passé, they simply might not.”
Becca was trembling. Her heart had gone cold. She stepped back, her face white. Adrian looked up at her with surprise.
“Oh, dear,” he said hurriedly. “My mistake! Sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to scare you. I go a little postal on Bunny, I know. I should have waited to unload on my analyst. It’s just that I hate her so. The kid will definitely be safer in Switzerland.”
He giggled. It felt good to get it out.
Becca staggered backward.
“Why—” she began, faltering on her words. “Why do you think it’s good for Emily to go away?”
“You know her name,” the wedding consultant said slowly. He took a deep breath. Something more was going on here than he knew. It had probably been wrong to speak that way about a client. But he saw Becca’s face suddenly go pale—she obviously cared for children. He realized that telling the truth wouldn’t hurt him a bit. Who knew—perhaps the woman could do something to help the little girl. She traveled in Kirkland and Stirrup’s circle, obviously, or she wouldn’t be here. If telling the truth hurt Bunny, he smiled, what did he care?
“All right. Keep in mind,” he said in a low voice, “that I don’t know if she was kidding. With her, you know, I really couldn’t tell.”
Becca supported herself with her hand against the sewing table. Her face, at first drawn and white, became flushed with sudden energy. She had her eye on her Prada bag in the middle of the room. Her mind whirled. The plans she had made, had cancelled, had remade, her assumptions, her values—everything whistled in her ears. She didn’t know anything. I have to get to my phone, she thought. Emily needs me. She didn’t see the bridesmaids, involved in a heated argument over whose shoes were whose, though all the shoes were exactly the same. She didn’t see the makeup artist whiling away his ennui by painting the photographer. Emily needed her.
“I have to go,” she cried, shaking.
Becca ran for her bag and was a flash of orange out the door before Adrian could say another word. The last thing he saw was a trail of half-pinned fabric, dangling from her dress as she turned the corner.
She rushed toward the paddock, the first place she saw with cars. Who could she pay? Who could help her? She saw men leading horses into a convoy of white trailers. She thought how Emily would love to see these horses.
Fearing she might never see her little seahorse again, Becca’s mind went into four-wheel drive thinking of a plan. Quickly, she grabbed the mane of the horse that the men were about to load into a trailer. Barging into their conversation, she dangled an American fifty dollar bill in the air and pointed to the trailer keys. The two men hesitated for just a moment, then handed her the keys. They could always say she was dressed like a bridesmaid, so they assumed she was acting on behalf of the bride.
She opened the driver’s seat door with a crash, repeating the Spanish word for airport over and over, hoping the Portuguese was something similar. She dug her hand into her purse and thrust more money in front of her. Airport, please, please, quickly, she was saying, in any language that occurred to her, hoping the money would talk. A portly, middle-aged stable worker, wet with perspiration, stepped forward and Becca led him quickly toward the door. He took the wheel, but she pushed him aside, taking the wheel herself. In seconds the trailer skidded away, with a frightened Brazilian polo pony pressed firmly backward against its locked gate.
Becca raced through the dusty, hot streets, flying past signs she didn’t understand, pulling her navigator’s hands to the wheel as she dialed her phone. She wired cash to the airport in Rio, which she knew would clear her only path home. When she arrived at the airport, she crashed through its crowds scattering dollars like seeds in topsoil. It took three thousand dollars to buy the first class seat of an English-speaking businessman, but everyone believed from her gown that she was a celebrity, and crowds parted with curious faces turned toward her. Tense as a wire, Becca got home.
In Miami she called Philippe as she was changing planes. He had the task of picking up Becca first thing Saturday morning at JFK International Airport. She was heading for the Hamptons, she explained to Philippe, as a surprise for Emily. Her voice was tense: She snapped her answers to his questions. He asked if she were all right, and she finessed the question as best she could without bursting into tears of exhaustion. Everything whistled and ripped past her ears; her eyes were blurry from crying. She could hardly fasten on any thought in her panic about Emily.
But she did remember to ask Philippe one last favor, and he was sure by then that she had gone crazy.
“Bring my mother.”