“Hush,” Patty says softly. “The Plaza Hotel is not too fancy for you. It isn’t fancy enough for you. You should be getting married in the White House rose garden in this dress.” She takes a step back and looks at me. “Seriously, this dress is perfect on you. You look like a modest, virginal Marilyn Monroe. You know, if President Kennedy had married her instead of Jackie.”
“Modest and virginal wasn’t exactly the look I was going for,” I say, turning to look at myself in the mirror.
“Undercover bombshell,” Patty says, adjusting my veil, which is really a confection of net, flowers, and a couple of feathers sticking out of the loose bun my long hair has been pulled into. “Tea length is perfect on you. Now go out there and knock Cooper dead.”
“Please,” I say queasily. “Don’t use that phrase.”
“Ooo.” Patty winces. “Sorry. I forgot about his near brush with death last month. Both of your near brushes with death. Okay, let’s go out there and not cause Cooper any bodily harm with your beauty, but make him remember all over again why he fell in love with you . . . your wit, beauty, and charm.”
I take a deep breath and give myself one last glance in the mirror. I look nothing like my usual self. I’ve been up since dawn dealing with last-minute minicrises, such as Cooper’s lost cummerbund, and a bomb scare at the Plaza that threatened to shut down the entire wedding (until we learned it was a “prank” by Cooper’s younger brother, Jordan, who’d now been demoted from best man to the role of guest-book attendant. Frank, Patty’s husband, was now best man, with Sammy the Schnozz and Hal as ushers).
Then I’d had to rush off to have my hair professionally styled and makeup professionally applied, all the while fighting butterflies in my stomach. I’m secretly convinced that somehow, Cooper and I are never going to end up as husband and wife, even though we’ve got the license.
Patty’s right. I do look somewhat virginal in my white dress, cinched in tightly at the waist, then cascading outward to the knee like a bell of silk and tulle. But a virgin with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes and naughty twist to her red lips. How had the makeup artist done that? And why can’t I accomplish it on a daily basis?
“Heather?” My father is calling from the outer room. “Are you ready? Perry says the music is starting, and we need to get to our places.”
Perry. I so wish I could fire her for being so snooty. Well, I’ll never see her again after today. You only get married once!
Oh God, please let me only get married once.
I turn around and hurry toward my father.
“Oh my,” he says. “Don’t you look pretty.”
Dad’s never been that liberal with the compliments, or the emotions.
My bridesmaids are more gushy when they see me.
“Heather!” Magda cries. “You look like an angel. A real angel from the top of a Christmas tree.”
“That dress kicks ass,” Jessica says, appraising me. “Seriously. You could kick someone’s ass in that dress, and not rip it, that skirt is so full. I’m glad you didn’t go for a mermaid, mermaid skirts suck. You can’t kick ass in them at all.”
Only Nicole is pouting, as usual. “I still think you should have gone for a long dress,” she says. “When else are you going to get to wear a long dress but on your wedding day?”
“Don’t be stupid, Huey. How’s she going to run from a bad guy in a long dress?” Jessica asks. “She’d trip.”
“There won’t be any bad guys here today,” I say, trying to believe it. “Not with all the cops we’ve got out there.” And the fact that Ricardo is still sitting in Rikers, awaiting extradition back to Argentina, having turned out to have a few outstanding warrants there. “And you guys look amazing.”
They do. I let them select whatever they wanted to wear, so long as it was a dress matching the colors of the Gerber daisies in the floral arrangement I’d picked out.
Magda chose, as one would expect, a shimmering, Barbie-like one-shouldered evening gown in shocking pink. Patty is looking as cool and collected as a heavily pregnant woman can in rust. Jessica is seductive in a slinky lipstick-red number that clings to her slim body like a second skin, and Nicole—clearly with some guidance from her sister—looks sunny in a yellow Empire-waisted gown that is, as she so dearly wished for me, full length, but flattering on her.
“Ladies.” Perry, the scarily busy wedding planner who refused to return our calls for so much of the time we were actually planning our wedding, appears at the one moment we actually need her least. She taps her headset imperiously. “It’s time.”
She propels Nicole out the door. Jessica turns to me.
“Are you sure you don’t want an antianxiety med?” she asks, tapping her purse. “I have a ton. Half will take the edge right off, trust me.”
I smile at her. “I think I’m going to be okay.” I’m lying. I think I’m going to throw up, to be honest.
“Okay,” Jessica says dubiously. “Well, you know where they are if you change your mind.” She sets down her purse and starts toward the door. “If any are missing, I’ll know,” she adds darkly, giving Perry the stink eye. “I counted them earlier.”
Perry purses her lips disapprovingly and points at me and my dad. “You two,” she snaps. “You’re on.”
My dad looks down at me. “Ready?”
I don’t have butterflies. I have bulls, ramming their way through my small intestines. Why am I so nervous? I’m marrying the man I love.
In front of four hundred—no, more—people, in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel.
Why, oh, why, did we agree to do this? We were happy as we were. Marriage is going to ruin it. I’m going to trip. I’m going to mess up. I’m going to—
“Heather,” my father says to me sternly. “You used to do this before every single performance. But everyone always loved you. So wipe that terrified look off your face and smile. Everyone out there is pulling for you and Cooper. There’s nothing but love for you out there.”
I blink up at my dad. I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about—he was barely even around when I was performing.
But he’s right. No one is here to see me fail. They’re here because they support the love Cooper and I have for each other.