Page 40 of The Spirit of Love
Similar eyes, but not the same. Sam’s eyes are blown wide with wonder and presence, but Jude’s eyes…aren’t, on some fundamental level. Even on the red carpet, surrounded by staggering beauty, Jude’s eyes look closed to the world’s possibilities. Not color-blind. Beauty-blind.
They look different in person. Tonight in the garden, when we were alone, when Jude was telling me he had not a single hobby, he looked at me straight on. And he looked—I don’tknow—a little lonely, a little lost. Like all of us are sometimes. But Jude de Silva’s inner world is not my problem. I don’t care what’s missing from his life; I just want him out of mine.
“Ma’am?” the woman still in the door of the bridal shop says.
“Sorry. Hi. It’s just this guy…two guys…no one.”
“Ah,” the woman says knowingly. “Repeat after me.”
I realize I’m ready to repeat anything this total stranger says. Is this how cults recruit?
“Men,” the woman says.
“Men,” I say.
“Are the devil.”
I laugh, but the woman isn’t amused.
“Say it,” she says sternly.
“Are the devil,” I say, carefully enunciating. “Men are devils.”
“Welcome to the fitting,” she sings, dancing out of the way. “Champagne is everywhere.”
“Thank you?”
“I’m Yas, your bridal stylist. Your friends are in there already.” She tilts her ponytail toward the interior of the small shop, where racks of white taffeta make a pure and glowing forcefield as far as the credit card can see.
I step past Yas onto plush pale-pink carpet and inhale rose-scented candles. There are worse places to melt down.
“I’ve been serving the bride bubbles,” Yas calls from a wet bar on the far side of the room. “Can I offer you—”
“A healthy pour for me,” I say.
“Fenny!” Masha curves toward me like a fairy in a taupe terry-cloth LouLou’s Bridal dressing robe. Her dark curly hair is pulled back loosely in a bun, and her other bun, the one in theoven, is just beginning to rise. I blow her belly kisses. She gives my shoulders a squeeze. “I can’t wait to hear everything.Everything.”
I’ve been friendly with Masha ever since we both joined the same book club a few years ago. I admired her instantly. Her job as conservator of antiquities at the Getty Villa seemed so cool, and her comments about the book were glib and insightful—a clear indicator of good friend material. But for years, we stayed in an acquaintance holding pattern. Masha’s an introvert, and I have introverted tendencies, and sometimes two such likely friends can orbit each other for years without either one making a move.
It took us running into each other at the massive CBS Christmas party last year, where Masha introduced me to her oldest friend, Olivia Dusk, for things to really click. The moment I met Olivia we started cracking each other up with our impressions of old-Hollywood dames. She does a pristine Katharine Hepburn dropping the olive inBringing Up Baby, and no one can beat my Bette Davis landing on a cactus inThe Bride Came C.O.D. Masha, it turns out, does a mean Myrna Loy—chin up, eyes narrow, pretending not to be absolutely charmed. By the time we started talking about our favorite recent movies, I felt like the three of us had been friends in another life.
We were three undrinkable chardonnays in at that point, so, like the candid poet I am, I announced my everlasting devotion:
“You two,” I said. I pointed at them and shook my head as I searched for further language. “You two.”
Olivia hugged me tight and said she knew exactly what Imeant. The three of us clicked into a triangle of close friendship, laughing for hours and never looking back.
Now Masha fills my hands with hers and tugs me toward the dressing room. “Olivia? Fenny’s here!”
“Right out!” I hear Olivia’s muffled voice call. It sounds like she’s deep inside many layers of a gown.
“How was the doctor’s appointment?” I smile at Masha’s belly, which is the happiest thing I’ve seen all day.
“Eli Junior is auditioning for the Rockettes,” Masha groans as she flops down on the couch. “And my feet are so swollen they look like I am, too. But fuck that—how did your first day of directing go?”
I fall face-first onto the couch and feel the largest sob of all time rising in my chest—
“Wait!” Olivia calls from behind the curtain. “I’m stuck with one boob in and one boob out of this dress, but I need to be out there for this download! I want to hear all about the shoot, and all about Catalina!”
