Girl Act (24 page)

“Okay,” he said as he leaned back on the couch, pulling the Mexican blanket over him.

“Goodnight, bro,” I said.

It had been the most amazing, purposeful day in my life and I had played my best acting role ever. I knew I’d never forget it, as I sauntered up to Laurel’s bed. Okay, so no one will know about it. But that’s okay. Please, don’t tell.

Deeda-the-decorator woke us up. She was dressed in a short, tight black and white dress, with black ankle length boots. Obviously, she’d just been to the hair dresser, and her makeup was ultra-peach-ish. I’m not an expert on makeup, since everything I know, I learned from Paloma who used to get free makeup lessons at Macy’s. Every time she tried a makeup product, she would get new information and then pass it onto me. But in my opinion, Deeda didn’t have a complexion that could carry the peach color. She seemed super wired-for-sound and had arrived with only two other helpers—and she looked at Tristan and me as her free employees.

“I don’t think her boobs are real,” I whispered to Tristan, as she hollered for us to carry the Pier 1 Import furniture to the middle of the yard so her staff could ‘place it’ as she had pictured it in her mind. Oh, and she had lost her designer book somewhere.

“It’s like not having the bible for the rest of your life,” she said while adjusting her tight dress, probably to show off her figure to Tristan and her two helpers, Paul and Ian.

Laurel phoned her and then immediately called me. “Is it set up?” she asked.

“Almost,” I said, because Deeda told me to say that. Laurel was on the Vineyard, showing off her soon-to-be husband. She wanted to arrive at the house with only enough time to change into her wedding dress; that was her style. Gabriel had left when he heard Deeda shouting orders, and took Shadow to my father’s for doggy-day care. Luckily, he still had his Harvard Inn room to camp out in. I felt guilty that I still hadn’t asked him about his mother’s passing, but in a way I think he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Tristan, honey, set up the dance floor. It was shipped all the way from Italy,” Deeda shouted.

As Tristan headed to the heavy boxes stacked near the canopy, I asked, “Is she on caffeine pills or what?” Tristan smirked at me.

“Vivien, I need you to drape the canopy. Hurry up,” Deeda shouted.

I said nothing, because I didn’t want ruin anything for Laurel, and I had seen some over-the-top Hollywood party decorators who were loud and bossy, but still set up a party in an absolutely astonishing way. Never mind Martha Stewart, they had their shine on, too. Actually, I like M-Stew a lot better since she did jail time. In my opinion it made her more human and I have one of her interior decorating books to use when I get my own house—hopefully some year soon.

It took me an hour to drape the white silk, and to hang the imported ivy, and to intertwine the red roses. It looked so romantic.

“Come on, the bar needs to be styled,” Deeda shouted. She wasn’t using her hands to fix or arrange anything. With her peach painted fingernails she pointed out what we should do, refusing to get her hands dirty or chip her nails. Two women caterers had arrived a half an hour earlier and they were busy filling wicker picnic baskets for each of the guests with silverware, white china plates, and wine glasses. Fresh cut red roses laid against the red and white linen tables. It looked beautiful for the split second that I got to check it out, before Deeda hauled me away. The bar was draped with imported ivy, white candles in tall clear vases, and several bowls with floating gardenias. The smell was heavenly. I filled smaller bowls with mixed nuts and organic munchies that the caterers brought.

“Boys, cover the chairs,” Deeda shouted.

Paul and Ian began covering the chairs with throws and mini pillows, placing them around the round tables. I helped toss out empty boxes, plastic bubble wrap and other junk in the recycling and trash area. Then I excused myself and headed to the bathroom.

A small clean-up crew inside the house was vacuuming and arranging imported flowers in tall, ceramic, white, Italian vases in all the rooms. It looked incredible, and smelled really fantastic. Laurel and Mr. Italian were going all out.

Later I walked into Laurel’s bedroom to change my clothes, but her canopy bed had been covered with white silk sheets, a red silk blanket draped on the edge of it. There was a mega-white vase that must have weighed four hundred pounds filled with long-stem red roses. My Louis Vuitton suitcase was nowhere to be found. In fact, nothing of mine was. I went into the hallway and was about to ask someone where my things were when I saw a decorated sign on the doorknob of the room Tristan had been staying in, saying
Vivien & Tristan.
I l
ooked back at Laurel’s bedroom door; it had a huge decorated sign saying
Laurel & Anthony
on it. The door across from hers, toward the other bathroom, had her parent’s names on it. I opened the door to Tristan’s room. The bed had been made and a vase of sunflowers was sitting on the desk. Below it was my vintage LV suitcase and two matching travel bags.

I had gotten my Louis Vuitton luggage off of Craigslist; I met a very wealthy woman in Beverly Hills at the local Starbucks and bought the set right there, because she was liquidating. I love the LV look. Vintage is so my style. Anyway, I texed Laurel;
Hey, you’ve put me in Tristan’s bedroom?
And she texed me back;
You’re welcome.
Oh, no! Laurel likes to play the ‘raw’ matchmaker, hence the reason I had to sleep with the g-spot jock years ago. Unbelievable. I wasn’t sure if I should tell Tristan or just let him find out. I mean, there was only one bed in the room.

I changed my top and stared at the sunflowers (the biggest and brightest); they’re one of my favorite flowers because of Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings. I knew Laurel had Deeda’s crew put them in my shared room on purpose. That’s why it’s hard to ever get mad at Laurel.

I raced downstairs. A red runner now covered the hallway from the front door all the way out to the back door, and into the back yard. Bags of white rose petals were stuffed to the side to be tossed on it once Laurel’s guests arrived.

I found Tristan, who had completed the dance floor and hung loads of imported ivy all along the back walls of Laurel’s very private backyard. It was almost ready for thirty guests and the bride and groom.

“How’s it going?” I asked. He looked so cute with a nail in his mouth, a hammer in his right hand, and the ivy in his left.

“Missed you,” he said. Wow, I felt my heart start to beat.

“Listen, Laurel put us in the same bedroom because her family’s arriving,” I said. I had to tell him. Before he could answer, Deeda pulled me away.

“The party gifts have to be arranged,” she barked, and off I went, back into the house and in the living room where a white bed sheet had been placed over the rug. On it were thirty white silk bags and on each of them was printed, ‘
Laurel & Anthony, in Love
’ in gold letters. Next to them were thirty gold boxes with matching gold ribbons containing Godiva Belgian mini-chocolates. There were also thin, blue, glass bottles. Next to them, printed on off-white handmade paper, were hand-written notes about donations made to the following charities: St. Jude’s, AIDS, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, ASPCA, and Greenpeace. I put one in each bottle and then placed them in the silk bags, along with a box of chocolates. It was so elegant and romantic.

Top romance films, in my opinion, are
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Say Anything, Slumdog Millionaire, Wuthering Heights, Shakespeare in Love,
and
The Fabulous Baker Boys.
Just my luck, I’m a lot like the character Susie Diamond in
The Fabulous Baker Boys
, as in sleeping with a guy and having to find out if it’s ONER or something more. Note to self; don’t share the bed with Tristan after Laurel’s wedding; that’s no way to start something real. I mean, let’s face it: I’m twenty-seven, not far from thirty; I have to find Mr. Darcy/AKA, Romeo ASAP.

My father’s favorite romance film is
Gone with the Wind.
Go figure! In that film, the man walks away. My father really is a wounded man, but still, he did name me after the lead actress, one of his favorites.

My Aunt Helen liked
Casablanca, An Affair to Remember
and
The Bridges of Madison County.

Okay, so Jill’s favorite romance film was
Dirty
Dancing
, which she watched 24/7 during her short-lived break-up with Finch. She would sit her pixie body up close to the TV screen and watch the DVD over and over. I caught her a dozen times doing just that in our SLC dorm house living room. She stopped when Finch came back into her life. FYI, she gave me the DVD.

Paloma’s favorites are
Jerry Maguire, Love Actually, The Notebook,
and, of course, her number one is
Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Once a year she dresses up like the lead character, Holly Golightly, and goes shopping at Tiffany & Co.

Laurel’s favorites are
Titanic, Brokeback Mountain, Moulin Rouge,
and
When Harry Met Sally.
She once told me that she fakes her ‘orgasms’ a lot, and that when the real guy came into her life, she wouldn’t have to. So does she cum with Anthony? Note to self, find out. I didn’t have to wait long: Laurel arrived an hour and a half before her big event.

Just like a movie star, she pulled up in a limo, accompanied by her older (as in fifteen), slim, divorced Italian banker Anthony—he looked like the Italian actor Fabrizio Bentivoglio (from the comedy film
Scialla
) and he was wearing an expensive tailored suit and hand-made leather shoes. His dark eyes focused only on Laurel. She hugged me and dragged me by my arm up the stairs to her bedroom, followed by two teenage cousins who were carrying her seven garment bags.

“I’ve missed you incredibly much,” Laurel shouted, dramatically.

“Me, too,” I said.

“Thanks cousins,” she sang out, as they hung her garment bags on the rack set up for the event.

Then she hugged them and they dashed out of her room. Laurel shut the door, leaning against it like a movie star.

“He’s the best I’ve ever had,” she said in a super loud voice. It wasn’t like she was showing off—Laurel always says what she feels in a super loud voice.

“I think I was waiting my whole life for him. I like that he’s older than me and that he was married twice before; he has experience and he makes me happy,” she boasted, loudly.

“And how is he in bed?” I asked, not wanting to wait any longer.

She giggled. “I knew you’d want to know,” she said, with her hands on her perfect size twelve frame.

“I’m predictable,” I replied.

“Stay that way,” she shouted.

“Go on, only lower your voice,” I said

“Well, I waited seven days,” she bragged, in a slightly lower tone.

“Seven?” I asked, wondering if she and Paloma had read some guide to dating book that I hadn’t seen.

“Try it sometime, it really works. The kissing becomes crazy sweet, and the hand holding breathtaking, and the heavy petting magnificent.” She was glowing as she spoke.

“And then, when you did it?” I asked. Okay, so I like to know the ending of most movies before I see them. Go figure.

“I could never do a ‘Sally’ (as in
When Harry Met Sally
), because I get turned on when he touches me anywhere on my body,” she said, and I believed her.

“Wow, I’m so happy for you,” I said.

“Look what I bought you, best friend,” she said.

I sat on Laurel’s freshly-made silk sheet covered bed as she pulled out my new Ralph Lauren black dress, Victoria Secret black bra and matching panties, sheer thigh-high stockings, and my very first pair of black Prada high heels. Okay, so I saw
The Devil Wears Prada
because Meryl Streep was the lead—and I see all of her films, it’s like attending a master acting class. She played the role of Miranda Priestly, and it just killed me whenever she spoke. The true art of being a ‘bitch’ is shown in that film and she exemplifies it.

“He’s got a girl coming, and she’s sitting next to him, because he’s into her,” Laurel said as I glanced up; I had been busy worshiping my first pair of Pradas.

“Who?” I asked.

“Tristan, and don’t pretend you don’t like him. Don’t sulk. You’ll be at the same table, number three,” she said.

“I wouldn’t sulk. I’ve just met him,” I said, defensively.

“You haven’t slept with him?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Laurel, I want to get married, too, not just tally up names of guys I’ve slept with at the end of my life,” I said.

“Don’t pout,” Laurel warned.

“I’m not. Thanks for the pretty things,” I said, trying to stop myself from feeling sad.

“Go get dressed, I want you downstairs ASAP,” Laurel said. I got up to go.

“Give me a huge best friend hug,” Laurel said, and I did.

“You’re one of my best, best, best friends and I wouldn’t let you down,” she whispered in my ear. Maybe—as in she’ll pay for my therapy for the rest of my life if I end up single and unmarried. Who knows! I didn’t ask her what she meant; I just took my new stuff and ambled out of her bedroom. She was smiling. It was natural: she was in love and about to be married.

It was the longest slow walk back to Tristan’s room. I opened the door, taking a deep breath. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” I told myself. He was dressed in an Italian grey suit that Anthony had picked out, per Laurel’s request.

“How do I look?” he asked, grinning.

“Handsome,” I said.

It was true and I knew that the other girl would think so as well. I hung up the dress and put the bra, panties, thigh-highs and Prada heels on the bed.

“This is going to be a special wedding,” he said.

He had the closet door mirror open and I stood there, looking at it sideways, staring at me—single, unmarried, and not in love. God, I wanted to sob right there and then. He came up behind me.

“Hurry up. I want to see you dressed up,” he said.

“I will,” I answered.

“By the way, I won’t be sleeping in here tonight, it’s all yours,” he said, and that’s when the lump in my throat appeared.