Wicked Jealous: A Love Story (22 page)

“It’s a placeholder,” she explained, “until I get him to Cartier. But now that it’s official, I wanted to get used to the heft. Anyway, we came back early to tell you kids in person. Actually, we came back so I could get started on the planning, because in this town everything books up so far in advance, but we figured since we’re back, we’d take you guys to lunch to tell you so you don’t read about it on my Facebook page.” She whipped out her iPhone. “But hold on—now that you
do
know, I’m just going to type this in.”

“You
really
weren’t kidding,” murmured Brad.

“Okay. All done,” she said. “Come on. Your dad and Max are down the street at Lilly’s. We should get going.” She looked me up and down. “Did you lose even more weight?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t weigh myself.”

“What are you talking about? Who doesn’t weigh herself?”

Nicola raised her hand. “I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” offered Brad. “’Cause once, there was this doctor on
Oprah
—I can’t remember who it was, but it wasn’t one of the famous ones—and he was saying that—”

“Fascinating.
Anyway
,” Hillary interrupted, “when we get to lunch, you can have a nice big hamburger and fries to get some meat back on your bones.” She smiled. “Maybe even a nice slice of apple pie.”

Nicola’s eyebrow went up. “Interesting,” she said as she began to quietly hum the
Law & Order
theme music.

“I’m allergic to apples, remember?” I said.

“Oh yes. That’s right. I always forget that.” She squinted. “And your arms. They’re so . . . defined.” She sighed. “Oh, Simone. I don’t even know what to say about that.” She sounded like she had caught me doing something wrong. Like smoking. Or drinking. Or listening to Justin Bieber. She walked over to the full-length mirror and began to check herself out. “Although it
is
kind of sweet that if you keep up those Mumbai classes—”

“Zumba,” I corrected.

“—then soon we’ll have matching triceps,” she went on. “Well, maybe not
matching
,
because mine have been so sculpted for so long.” She turned around and checked out her butt in the mirror. “Huh. Here I was all worried that I had gained a few pounds, but I think I may have lost some.”

I didn’t tell her that the mirror was known to kind- of-sort-of make you look a little bit thinner than you actually were. (“It’s not to mislead people and make them buy things,” Brad said when I asked him. “It’s more about helping their self-esteem.”)

“Simone, come over here,” she ordered.

I made my way over and stood next to her. We couldn’t be more different. She was tall and blonde and unwrinkled, with perfect pink nails, and I was brunette and pale, with an almost-threadbare New Order T-shirt and a chipped magenta manicure. Plus, she smelled like coconut body lotion, whereas I still had the smell of burned sausage in my hair from when Max had attempted to cook breakfast this morning.

“Wow. That’s really amazing,” Brad said as he and Nicola gazed at us.

“What? The fact that Simone and I could be sisters?” Hillary asked. “Because I look so young?”

“No,” he replied. “How much Simone has changed over the last few months. You’re like a completely different person. If they ever did a biopic about Winona Ryder’s life—you know, before she got all crazy and started shoplifting—you’d be perfect casting.”

“I love Winona Ryder,” Nicola said. “I think she’s super hot. She even looked good in her mug shot.”

Hillary’s smile disappeared. “Come on. We’re late,” she said, as she yanked me toward the exit.

“I’ll keep looking for something for you to wear on Thursday night,” Nicola called after us.

“What’s Thursday night?” Hillary asked.

If she was giving me this much grief about my weight, I could only imagine what she’d have to say about the fact that I had a date. Which was why I wasn’t going to tell her. “Nothing.”

“She’s got a date,” Nicola blurted out.

So much for that plan. I shot Nicola a look.

“Look at you—so grown up and . . .
girl
-like!” Hillary exclaimed. “Who’s it with? Someone’s cousin? I did that once for this girl I knew in high school who wore a brace for scoliosis—fixed her up with my cousin. I felt
so
good for doing such a good deed. Especially since, because he had horrible acne, it was this
double
good deed—”

“Actually, it’s with a totally hot guy who’s super popular.” Nicola smirked.

“Popular?” Hillary asked, surprised. “As in
regular
popular or
captain of the Mathletes
popular?”

“Oh, definitely
regular
popular,” Nicola said. “Like
hot
regular popular.”

“Actually, you met him,” I said. “It’s the guy we ran into in the parking lot of Kmart.”

“Really? Wow. He
is
hot.”

I tried not to throw up the yogurt I had eaten, now that my soon-to-be stepmother had just said that a high school boy was hot.

“Paging Mrs. Robinson,” Brad murmured as he pointed at the poster of the movie
The Graduate,
which was hanging on the wall behind him. In the movie, Anne Bancroft (whose scarf was part of Brad’s very-special-and-not-really-for-sale-but-might-be-if-you-offered-enough-money collection in the glass case behind the counter) played this older woman who started sleeping with her daughter’s boyfriend.

“I think it’s great that you’ve found a boy who judges people on their personality rather than their looks,” Hillary said. “That’s a very noble quality to have.” She dragged me toward the door. “You can tell me all about him on the walk to lunch.”

Except I couldn’t, because as soon as we stepped outside she got a text from her friend, Claire, saying that she had heard from her assistant Melissa, who had heard from another assistant at a different studio, that Mandi Morrison, another D-girl at a rival studio who was also a “30 Under 30” and constantly trying to outbid Hillary on scripts, had gotten engaged that past weekend as well. I tended to avoid that
Bridezilla
program because I had no interest in weddings. I had already decided that if I ever got married, I was going to elope. But I’d seen enough snippets of the show while channel surfing to know that the way Hillary began to freak out about this news made those Bridezillas look like the Buddhist nuns Thor and I had watched in a YouTube video a few days earlier. (Thor’s shrink had suggested he check out Buddhism to help him deal with his anger issues, but after he stomped out of the room after getting frustrated that the video kept freezing up, it didn’t look like that was going to work.)

By the time we had made our way to Lilly’s on Abbot Kinney, Hillary had called the top florist, caterer, and band (the fact that they were already on speed dial on her cell was a little weird) and booked them before Mandi could.

As we walked into the restaurant and my dad saw me, his face lit up. “Simone, the beach air must agree with you, because you look just beautiful,” he said after he hugged me. “But you’ve being wearing sun block, right?” he asked anxiously. “Because your skin is just a petri dish for melanoma.”

I cringed. He made it sound so gross. “Yes. I’m wearing SPF eighty-five.”

“Don’t you think that’s overdoing it a little?” Hillary asked. “I bet you could get away with four. Or, if you wanted to really be careful, eight.”

“She’d burn to a crisp if she wore four,” Max said. Hillary glared at him.

Okay, I was almost used to Hillary’s comments about me. But this was getting to be too much. Could the Zumba-ites and Nicola be right—Hillary had it in for me?

Hillary shrugged. “But think of how nice and sunkissed she’d look before the burn set in.”

As Max and I exchanged a look, my father cleared his throat. “Kids, Hillary and I have an announcement—” he said nervously.

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about bothering with all that.” She flashed a smile. “I already told Simone.”

My dad paled. “Hillary, we said that—”

“Told Simone what?” Max asked.

“They’re getting married,” I said. “Can’t you tell from the fake engagement ring on her finger?”

My father turned to me. “Sweetie, I know this seems sudden, but if you let me explain—”

I shrugged. “Fine. Explain.” I braced myself for some poetic from-the-moment-I-set-eyes-on-Hillary-my-world-was-forever-changed speech. Or even a very unpoetic what-can-I-say?-Hillary’s-hot-and-a-lot-younger-than-me-and-and-a-”30-Under-30.”

“Well, in talking to my accountant and business manager, with the extra money I’ll be making this year, based on the projections for how they think the
Ruh-Roh
video game is going to sell over Christmas, getting married in this calendar year will save me a lot in taxes.”

Taxes?
That
I was not prepared for. Maybe because it was the least romantic thing I had ever heard in my life.

“So you’re marrying her because it’s going to save you
money
?” I cried.

My dad turned red. “Well, obviously, that’s not the
only
reason—” he sputtered.

“We’re also getting married because we love each other a great deal!” Hillary said indignantly. She turned to him. “Right?”

“Of course,” he agreed. A little tentatively, if you asked me.

Even though I could have moved back home now, I was going to stay in Venice as long as possible. Hillary on a good day was hard to take, but as a Bridezilla? Forget it.

Max shook his head. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered. “All I’m gonna say is that if I end up over forty and still single, it’ll be completely understandable, given the role model I have.”

Obviously, being a grown-up wasn’t all that much different than being in high school. Even at my dad’s age, people still dated people who they thought they
should
date, for a lot of reasons other than the fact that they really wanted to be with them. Could it be any more unromantic? Personally, I found the whole two-people-from-different-worlds-meet-and-despite-the-odds-end-up-together-because-they’re-meant-to-be fairy tale–like thing pretty sappy and unrealistic, but it was a lot more interesting than getting together for tax purposes.

Hillary smiled. “So. Check your in-boxes for updates as to the wedding. And now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to something else.” She turned to my father. “Like the fact that your daughter has her first real date. With a boy who’s
popular
popular rather than
Mathlete
popular!”

“You have a date?” Dad asked nervously. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this. Who is he? What do his parents do?”

Why didn’t he just come out and ask how much
money
they made? That was the real question. “I actually know his mom,” I replied. “From Zumba. She’s really nice.”

“And his dad’s a big-time director,” Max added. “The guy’s been nominated for six Academy Awards and won five of them.”

Hillary looked up from her texting. “An Academy Award–winning director?! You didn’t mention
that
part. Who is it?”

“Stan Frank,” I replied.

Hillary gasped. “He’s not just an Academy Award–winning director. He’s . . .
God
. Do you
know
how many movies I’ve offered him that he’s turned down?!”

“Really? He wasn’t interested in directing a movie about a talking fish?” Max asked.

“Oh no. I wouldn’t offer him that stuff,” she scoffed. “I only went to him with my A-list movies. Like the animated musical version of Cleopatra.” She turned to me and shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re going out with the son of someone so important. That’s like dating . . . a
prince
or something. Like someone in the royal family.”

As Hillary yammered on about how, if I didn’t screw things up and Jason actually ended up as my boyfriend, then the Franks could come to the wedding, I reached for a piece of bread and slathered it in butter. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Max’s eyebrows raise.

“It’s just one piece,” I murmured. I knew that one piece wasn’t so bad, if I stopped at one. And I had to have
something
to soften the blow that my father was definitely not acting like a prince of a guy.

“I can’t believe she actually got him to make it official,” Max said as we walked home. Dad hadn’t even asked if I wanted to come home now that they were back from Italy. And I didn’t suggest it, either. The less time I spent with bride-to-be Hillary, the better.

“Yeah, well, it sounds like he didn’t exactly fight her too hard on it,” I replied, feeling nauseous from all the bread I ended up having. I hadn’t stopped at one slice. After three slices, I decided to stop counting.

“And what about when she found out who Jason’s dad was? She got so jacked up I thought one of her fake boobs was going to deflate.” Wow. It seemed that Max’s glass had gone from half full to nearly empty in terms of the Hillary thing. I had to admit—I kind of
liked
this side of my brother.

“Maybe they won’t end up going through with it. Maybe she’ll have a pitch meeting with a writer who’s even more successful than Dad, and she’ll dump him and move into that guy’s house and redo
his
daughter’s room,” I said hopefully. Who was the one with the glass half full now?