with rows of small, horizontal ruffles, was longer than Magnolia’s
usual length. “For tonight—with your spiky, brown boots,” the note
from Abbey commanded. It was a dress that Magnolia would have
never tried on in a store. She was fairly sure it made her resemble a
poodle, especially because Abbey had requested she wear her hair,
which hadn’t been cut in three months, loose and curly.
“You don’t think I’m old for ruffles? I’m feeling like I escaped from
the Moulin Rouge.”
“You can bring it off,” Abbey said.
When she had tried on the dress, Magnolia wondered if perhaps
tonight would be some kind of covert costume ball and everyone
would be similarly coiffed and clothed. That, however, was not the
case. The rest of the crowd—which, when she arrived, already over
flowed Abbey’s foyer, dining room, and living room and stood deep in
the hall leading to her bedroom and library—wore the usual black
and charcoal wools of a Manhattan Sunday night in March.
Servers in tuxedos circulated with trays bearing white roses—her
favorite flower—and tuna tartare; flaky, Brie-filled biscuits; and roasted red peppers and chèvre on tiny baguettes. In the corner of the
living room, a pianist played jazz, and the piano sounded—for the
first time ever—perfectly in tune. Abbey had put in all three leaves of
her dining room table and set it with an old-world damask cloth, tall
white tapers in mismatched sterling silver holders, and her usual
garden of flowered Limoge. For a centerpiece, hundreds of ranuncu
lus and lilies of the valley were packed tight with miniature white
roses in an ornate silver ice bucket.
“How did you pull off this party so quickly?” Magnolia asked
when Daniel rushed over to greet a handsome older couple and a
woman about Magnolia’s age, all regal and slim.
“It’s amazing how freedom can kick-start your engine,” Abbey said.
“Turns out, our divorce was about the only thing Tommy and I agreed
on. He met someone else, and wanted to move fast. Let me keep
everything. The minute the paperwork was signed, I felt I could fly.”
“When will the divorce come through?” Wally and Magnolia’s
split had been reasonably amicable and yet it had taken almost a year.
“Yesterday,” she whispered in Magnolia’s ear. “I’m single!”
“Abbey!” Magnolia said. “I don’t even know what to say. Congratu
lations?”
“I accept,” she said. “Now go mingle. This is my night, and you
have to promise to enjoy yourself.”
“You’re getting pretty damn pushy,” Magnolia said. She kissed her
on the cheek and walked off to the bar for a glass of champagne—
except for water, the only beverage available. She scanned the room
and noticed a bearded man in his thirties who looked vaguely
familiar.
“Do I see you around the track?” she asked.
“Four times a week,” he said, introducing himself. “Matthew
Hirsch, die-hard runner. Not that many of us crazies keep going
through the winter.”
“How do you know Abbey?” she asked. It seemed odd that he was
here—when they ran together, Abbey had never greeted him at the
Reservoir. “We just met—the other day,” he said. “On some business.”
Abbey’s next-door neighbor joined their conversation. “Good
evening, Rabbi Hirsch—may I steal you away?”
“Rabbi?” Magnolia asked. Now it clicked. “Are you the rabbi the Ben Stiller character was based on in Keep the Faith?” She’d rented that DVD twice.
“Guilty as charged,” Rabbi Hirsch said with a dimpled smile. He
hurried away with Abbey’s neighbor, leaving Magnolia to penetrate
the crush of guests in the hallway.
“She knows how to throw a party, huh?” Cameron said, coming up
to her from behind. “Now I see why she didn’t get jazzed when my
idea of a great date was Niko’s on Broadway.”
“You can feed me their moussaka any day, but Abbey’s allergic to
plastic grapes dangling from ceilings,” Magnolia said, smoothing her
forced me to wear it.”
“I was just thinking I like you all girly,” Cameron said, clicking her
glass with his.
“That’s high praise coming as it does from a man whose idea of
sartorial elegance is L.L.Bean.”
“You just wish you owned a cap that repels ticks,” he said. “And I’m
pretty sure I’ve seen you in a Bean Mad Bomber hat.”
“I’m pretty sure you gave me that hat,” Magnolia said. “And, for
the record, I love it.”
The two of them wandered back to the bar for refills. “By the way,
you actually look very handsome tonight.” He did. Magnolia couldn’t
remember the last time she’d seen Cameron in a sport coat. They
leaned against the dining room wall, which was painted a deep per
simmon, a perfect backdrop for Magnolia’s brown gown. “How did
your Bebe deposition go?” Magnolia wasn’t the only one who’d been
living in lawyers’ offices.
“Interminable,” Cam said. “Was it true that during Ms. Blake’s
vacation in Baja you sent her two hundred e-mails in one day? Did you
hear Jock Flanagan say Ms. Blake would be thrown off the magazine if she had any more ‘bullshit hissy fits’? Did you call Felicity Dingle a
‘harpy’? Like that. And by the way I didn’t call Felicity a harpy. I
called her something much worse.”
“So how are you spending your time when you’re not in a lawyer’s
office?” Magnolia asked. Phoebe was staying home with her baby, Sasha was studying for the LSAT, Ruthie got nabbed by Lucky, and Fredericka was skiing in Switzerland with a German school friend
who now owned half of Hamburg.
“Write, write, write.”
“You’re not job hunting?”
“I think my illustrious career as a managing editor may have
ground to a halt,” Cam said, as his cell phone rang. He looked at the
name. “Find you later. Got to take this.”
Magnolia began to search for someone else to talk to when Abbey
walked over. “Can I steal you away?” she said. She pointed toward the
hall. “In my bedroom.”
Abbey closed the door behind them. She kicked off her silver san
dals, pushed aside a profusion of embroidered silk pillows, and
crawled onto her bed. From the bedside table, she handed Magnolia a
small box. “For you,” she said.
“Another gift?” Magnolia said. “It’s not my birthday, Abbey. You’re
spoiling me.” She shook the box. Maybe it was the spiral earrings
Bergdorf’s ordered. Inside, however, was a small gold locket that dan
gled from an almost invisible chain. Magnolia opened it to find a pic
ture of the two of them, victorious after their first six-mile race. They
looked very young, very sweaty, and very happy.
“Put it on,” Abbey insisted. The locket sat below Magnolia’s collar
bone at exactly the right spot. “It’s my way of thanking you.”
“For what?” Magnolia said. “Being a best friend doesn’t require
thanks.” She gave Abbey a lingering h
ug.
“Being a maid of honor does,” Abbey whispered, still embraced in
Magnolia’s arms.
Magnolia pushed her away so she could see her face and said very quietly. “Excuse me? You’re getting married?” Magnolia decided not to add “again.”
“Yes!” Abbey said and started to cry. “I know it’s abrupt, but he’s
the one. Daniel and I together are magic.”
Magnolia fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “When’s
the wedding?” she asked.
“Soon,” Abbey said.
“How soon?”
She heard Abbey draw a breath. “In ten minutes.”
Magnolia bolted upright. Abbey grabbed a tissue next to her bed so
the tears streaming down her face wouldn’t drop on her dress. Her
wedding dress. “Hold on.” She darted into her bathroom.
Hold on, that’s for damn sure. Get a grip, Magnolia thought, as she
fell back on the bed and began to take short, hyperventilated breaths.
Abbey walked out of her bathroom, holding two nosegays: one with
white roses and lilies of the valley tied with garnet-red silk ribbon
and another of chocolate brown rununculus and lilac roses, which she
handed to Magnolia.
“Your bouquet,” Abbey said, placing her own bouquet on the bed. “Now, please help me with this veil. It’s your job.” From her closet she pulled out a wisp of tulle attached to a comb jeweled with garnets that
matched her bee pin. “I stayed up all night, trying to get this right.”
She sat down at her silvery mirrored antique desk and faced its
matching mirror. Magnolia put the veil on Abbey’s head but it wound
up crooked. Abbey looked deranged. Magnolia tried again, but her
hands were shaking too hard to get the comb in place. Abbey gently
pulled Magnolia’s hand off the headpiece and futzed with it until she
looked like the bride on the top of a cake. She grabbed Magnolia’s
hand. “I know you think I’m making a mistake—another mistake,
even bigger than Tommy.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” Magnolia said, “because I don’t
know what to think.”
“It’s crazy, but it’s good crazy,” Abbey said. “We’ll live here and
Daniel will commute, and in the summers we’ll live in France near
his vineyards, and of course I’ll go to Paris whenever I can.” Abbey’s
words were flying faster than Magnolia could catch. “I love his family,
and they love me.” Magnolia stared at Abbey in continued shock. There was a tap at
the door.
“Who is it?” Abbey said.
“Véronique,” a French-accented voice said.
“Entrez, s’il vous plaît,” Abbey said. The lissome blonde whom Magnolia had seen Daniel greet entered the room. “Magnolia, I’d like you to meet Daniel’s sister, Véronique. Véronique, mon amie, Magnolia.” The blonde kissed Abbey, and then Magnolia, three times
each—on their right cheek, left cheek, and then right again.
“Tu est prête, ma chérie?” Véronique said.
“Ready,” Abbey replied, as Véronique returned to the living room.
From faraway, Magnolia heard the music switch from jazz to
“Chapel of Love.” “That’s your cue,” Abbey said. “Just walk out the
door and down the hall through the living room. My brother will
have already asked people to be still. You’ll figure out the rest.”
Magnolia stood up and smoothed her ruffled dress as best she
could. She grasped the bouquet, holding it tightly in front of her gal
loping heart, and walked out of Abbey’s bedroom. The rooms at the
end of the hall were silent. A blur of faces turned to look at her as she
walked toward the candlelight. The guests had parted, leaving a wide
swath. The chapel of love, Abbey’s dining room, seemed fifty miles
away.
As Magnolia walked closer, she saw that Véronique, Abbey’s
brother and sister-in-law, and Abbey’s college roommate were each
holding a pole that supported an embroidered Spanish shawl that
usually hung on the grand piano. Under the canopy, Daniel stood next
to the older man she’d seen with him before—now, his best man.
Matthew Hirsch, in a black velvet yarmulke and a tallis over his
Armani suit, winked at Magnolia as she walked toward the chuppah.
Daniel bowed to her slightly and offered a half-smile. A white rose
bud was now in his lapel.
The pianist changed to “Here Comes the Bride.” Magnolia hadn’t
taken her friend for the sort of woman who would want that song
played at her wedding, but it certainly got everyone’s attention. Every eye turned to Abbey as she proceeded through her living room, twin
kling like a small star.
Later, when friends asked Magnolia to describe the ceremony, all
she could remember was that Abbey circled Daniel seven times, there
were vows in three languages—English, French, and Hebrew—and
the bride and groom each sipped from a tall silver goblet of wine, pre
sumably poured from an excellent Rothschild vintage and a very good
year. The rabbi spoke of fate, of people coming together, and used the word beshert. Magnolia glanced down to see if her red bracelet was still there. It had disappeared. “When the job is done, the bracelet will be gone,” she remembered Malka as saying. But she couldn’t contemplate what the missing bracelet might mean, because just then Daniel
stepped on the glass and kissed Abbey like the actor in the favorite movie of Magnolia’s mother, A Man and a Woman. Shouts of mazel tov and bonne chance echoed through the apartment.
As the piano played Cole Porter, waiters circulated with champagne
and more champagne. There was dancing, singing, and shrieks of joy.
The pianist struck up “Hava Nagila,” and Rabbi Hirsch grabbed Mag
nolia by the waist for several loops of the hora. Abbey broke away
from Daniel, took both of Magnolia’s hands, and began twirling with
her in the center of a circle of clapping friends and relatives.
“If you expect me to do the cancan, forget it,” Magnolia said.
“Thanks for being so sportive about wearing the dress,” Abbey said. “It didn’t come from the flea market, by the way.”
“Oh, really?” Magnolia said, half out of breath as the two of them
whirled.
“It was Daniel’s mother’s. Couture. From her trousseau.”
“Do I have to give it back?” Magnolia said. “I like it better now.”
“It’s yours,” Abbey said. “The least I can do.”
At midnight waiters brought out a four-layer wedding cake of
chocolate iced in white fondant. Chocolate piping replicated the
embroidery from the shawl that had doubled as the wedding canopy.
The couple cut the cake and fed each other pieces, and then everyone
gorged on cake, profiteroles, and lemon squares. Well past 1:30, the bride and groom bid the crowd adieu and guests started to drift away.
Magnolia found her boots—which she’d pulled off hours before and
left in a corner—and went to Abbey’s bedroom to put them on.
Ringlets stuck to her face. She looked as if she’d been to a hockey
game, not a wedding.
“Magnolia Gold, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you this ripped,”
Cameron said as she walked out of the bedroom.
She’d danced with him hours before. Then he’d switched to
Véronique as a partner, and Magnolia ha
d got into a long, inebriated
conversation with Daniel’s father, who promised Magnolia an invita
tion to the Cohen villa in St. Tropez, providing she didn’t keep her
bikini top on like a typical American. Magnolia had agreed.
“Hmmm,” Magnolia said to Cameron, swaying in the boots, which
felt staggeringly high. “I might have had a little too much to drink.”
Feeling at risk of falling, she put her arms around his neck.
In Abbey’s hallway, as a clock chimed, she suddenly gave him a
sloppy, lingering kiss. He kissed her back. His tongue tasted like chilled
champagne.
“C’mon, Mags,” he said, grabbing her around the waist. “I’m walk
ing you home.”
A fine rain fell as they strolled, wordlessly, down Central Park
West, then past brownstones on the side streets where more sensible
people had gone to bed hours before.
“I can’t believe she did it,” Magnolia said, several times. “It took
such guts.”
“Sometimes guts is all you need,” Cam said.
“Guts and roses.”
They arrived at her building. Magnolia was still happily intoxi
cated, but not so skunk-drunk that she didn’t remember that fifteen
minutes before she’d kissed her longtime former employee and cur
rent friend. And he hadn’t pulled away. Quite the opposite.
As if she were a documentary filmmaker shooting from across the
street, she saw—in black and white—a man and a woman holding
each other. The couple looked as if they belonged together. Magnolia wondered what would happen next. But mist blurred the image, and
she was suddenly exhausted.
It was hard to tell whether what she was seeing was real or a cham
pagne dream.
Magnolia awoke at noon and forced herself out of a catatonic sleep. She was wearing her underwear and she was alone, which
she decided were both good things. She remembered enough about
last night to wonder if Cameron would be there and if they’d both be
naked. She winced.
Once she’d published an article in Lady that said if you have a hangover you should make yourself a fruit smoothie from a banana,
soy milk, and a handful of vitamins. Magnolia opened her refrigera
tor. It contained batteries, leftover pad thai, and some rather nasty
carrots. She filled a glass with water, drank it down with two aspirin,
and filled it again.