Meg Cabot - Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

The bride’s flowers

Corsages for mothers/grandmothers and boutonnieres for groomsmen

Clergyman/officiant fee

Limousine service/transportation to and from the wedding and reception

Hotel accommodations for any groomsmen who will be arriving from out of town

The Bride and Groom:

Wedding pictures

Miscellaneous accessories (wedding favors, goblets, napkins/ printed items)

Thank-you gifts for the flower girl and ring bearer

Thank-you cards

Any overnight accommodations for themselves

Their honeymoon arrangements, unless another relative or friend offers to pay for it as a wedding gift

Parents of the Groom:

Dress/suit and accessories

The rehearsal dinner

Their hotel accommodations

Bridesmaids:

Dresses and accessories

Wedding shower

Groomsmen:

Clothing (tuxedo rental) and accessories

Bachelor party

Parents of the Flower Girl/Ring Bearer:

Dress, suit/tuxedo rental, and accessories

Hotel accommodations if arriving from out of town

Parents of the Bride:

Everything else

LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS^™

“What are you and Luke fighting about?” Ava wants to know. She’s cradling Snow White on her slim, tanned thighs. Besides the tube top and white rubber lederhosen, she is also wearing pink suede platform boots. I suppose I should be grateful that both her boobs and crotch are completely covered for once, but rubber and suede… in late June?

“Just wedding stuff,” I lie to her, although I know I should be nicer and tell her the truth, since she has, in a sense, just rescued me. The only problem is… I don’t know what the truth is, exactly.

And I actually have more pressing concerns at the moment. Like why I’m in a stretch limo with Ava Geck.

“Ava, what are you doing here?” I ask. “Why aren’t you in Greece?”

“I couldn’t go through with it,” Ava says simply, then gasps and seizes my arm. “Oh my God! What happened to you? Lizzie—has Luke been beating you?”

I look down at the hives, which have now broken out all over the insides of both my arms. In a way, they do resemble bruises.

“No,” I say with a laugh, because the idea of Luke ever hitting me is so absurd. I could probably knock him clear into New Jersey. “They’re just hives. I get them every time I think about… you know.”

“Butt sex?” Ava asks understandingly.

“No,” I cry, ripping my arm from her grasp. “My wedding. And what do you mean, you couldn’t go through with it? You mean you just… canceled your wedding to Prince Aleksandros?”

“That’s about it,” Ava says with a sigh, patting Snow White on the head as the poor dog trembles in the icy blast from the limo’s air conditioner. “I was just boarding Daddy’s private jet, and suddenly it hit me: I’m about to become someone’s wife. I was like… are you shitting me? I’m only twenty-three! I haven’t even been to college. What am I doing, becoming someone’s wife? So I jumped back into the car and I’ve been riding around ever since, trying to get my head together.”

I gaze at Ava, truly touched by her words. Especially since I’m twenty-three too. “So you’ve decided to go to college? Ava, that is so great!”

“Hell, no, I’m not going to college,” Ava says, looking shocked. “Are you kidding me? I’m just saying there’s so many things like going to college that I haven’t done. I’m not throwing my life away yet on some guy, even if he is a prince. I have shit to do. I don’t know what, but… like, I was thinking I should cut an album. Something classy, you know? Like Hilary Duff.”

I blink at her. “Well… yes. Yes, that is definitely something you could do.”

“And I don’t even have my own clothing line yet,” Ava goes on. “My parents own one of the biggest discount department store chains in the world, and I don’t have my own clothing line yet? What the hell am I thinking?”

“Exactly,” I say. “What the hell are you thinking? Although, Ava… you can do all these things and still be married, you know. It’s not like Prince Aleksandros would try to stop you. Not if he really loved you. He’d probably be proud of you.”

“But that’s just it,” Ava says, looking down sadly at Snow White. “I don’t think he would be. You know… this is partly your fault, Lizzie. My having to cancel my wedding, I mean.”

“Me?” I gape at her, horror-struck. “What did I have to do with it?”

“Because since I’ve been coming to you, and you’ve been, like, helping me with my public image and stuff, Alek’s kinda… I don’t know. Lost interest in me. Like he keeps asking me how come I don’t show my cootchie anymore. I think he liked it when I did stuff like that. Because it drove his parents completely insane. They were totally against his marrying me, you know. Which I think only made him more into me. But now that I’ve started to act a little classier, they’ve been a lot nicer to me. And that’s made Alek completely lose interest.”

My jaw sags. Although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This explains so much about Ava’s very conservative choices when it came to her wedding gown. And why she’d come to me in the first place. Sure, she could have gone to Vera Wang, but there’d been a small part of her that had still been rebelling… just a little.

It’s all beginning to make sense. She’d wanted to please her fiancé’s parents while still retaining some small part of herself.

But in doing so, it sounded like she’d turned off her fiancé.

Oops.

“So you’re calling it off,” I say, “before Aleksandros can?”

“That’s just it,” Ava says in disgust. “I don’t think he ever was going to call it off. That’s how gutless he is. Like, he’ll stand up to his parents by marrying a total slut. But he would never call off the wedding to that slut, because that would make him look bad in the press.”

I reach over and give her warm, bare shoulder a reassuring pat. “Ava,” I say. “You’re not a slut.”

“Oh, I totally am,” Ava says matter-of-factly. “But that’s okay. I’d rather be a slut than a dickless hypocrite, like Alek. I’m just sorry about your dress.”

I shake my head. “My dress?”

“The beautiful wedding dress you designed for me,” Ava says.

“Oh,” I say, laughing. “Don’t worry about that! I’m sure I’ll find someone else to buy it. Ava Geck’s wedding dress? Are you kidding? I’ll probably be able to sell it for a fortune on eBay.”

Ava pouts at me. “I’m not giving it back,” she says. “That thing is mine. I was thinking maybe you could make it shorter, dye it purple, slap some sequins on it, and I could wear it to the MTV Video Music Awards in September. That way tons of people will see it, and you’ll still get the exposure you deserve. I should get lots of airtime, because I’m giving out the Viewer’s Choice VMA. And Tippy asked me to go with him ’cause he’s still got that restraining order out on his wife. That was going to be a problem before—you know, being his escort if I was married to Alek—but now that I’m not, it should be all good.”

“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “Um… sure. I could do that. No problem.”

“Awesome.” Ava looks a lot happier. The limo has made its way uptown via Sixth Avenue, and now we’re snaking our way through Central Park, one of my favorite drives in Manhattan—which I certainly never thought I’d be making via limo. We’re gliding past couples taking romantic horse and carriage rides, and less romantic pedicab rides. I wonder if they’re looking at the smoked-glass windows of the limo and trying to guess who the celebrity is inside.

I’m betting none of them is guessing Ava Geck and her wedding gown designer.

“So what are you going to do now?” I ask, conscious that my stomach is growling a little. There’s nothing in it but white wine. I’m hoping Ava’s going to say that she’s dropping me off at home so I can get something to eat… or at the very least, that she’s going to suggest the two of us grab something somewhere. I don’t know how much longer I can go without sustenance of the nonalcoholic variety. Ava may be able to go for hours on just a PowerBar, but I’m not that kind of girl.

“Um,” Ava says. “Yeah. That’s why I was trying to reach you.”

I perk up. “You want to grab some dinner? You want to get some sushi or something?” Another thing Tiffany, Monique, and I have managed to do is expand Ava’s dining horizons, so that she now eats more than just cheeseburgers and protein bars. She has consequently developed an almost pathological love for sushi… which isn’t actually unusual for someone who’s never tried it before. Wasabi has known addictive qualities. “There’s Atlantic Grill right over on Third Avenue. Or Sushi of Gari… ”

“Not exactly,” Ava says. “I mean, we can totally get something to eat if you want. But I actually need a favor.”

“Oh sure,” I say. “Anything you want.”

“Oh goody,” Ava says, grinning widely. “Joey, she said yes!”

Little Joey, I realize belatedly, is sitting in the front seat beside the driver, half hidden by the privacy screen, which Ava lowers to deliver this news.

“Oh, hey, Lizzie,” he calls to me from the vast expanse of leather seats and twinkling halogen lights in the ceiling between us. “How you doing?”

“Hi, Joey,” I call back a bit hesitantly, since I’m suddenly realizing I have no idea what I’ve just agreed to. “I’m good. Um, Ava?”

“What?” she asks a little distractedly, having dug out her Sidekick, into which she is tapping with some urgency.

“What, exactly, did I just promise to do for you?”

“You’re letting me stay at your place, of course,” Ava says with some surprise, not even looking up from the screen.

I stare at her. “My place? You mean… in my apartment?”

“Well, I can’t stay at my place,” Ava says, finally looking up. Ava’s condo, which is on East End Avenue near the mayor’s house, Gracie Mansion, is within easy walking distance of mine (not that Ava ever walks). Ava chose to move to the Upper East Side—to the consternation of many a poodle-toting matron there—because that’s where she happened to find the only condo that met her exacting standards (the aforementioned four bedrooms, three baths, and an eat-in kitchen with at least two thousand square feet of outdoor terrace and full southern exposure).

But she’d also fallen in love with the nearby Carl Schurz Park, which is right by the river, and includes a dog run built especially for small dogs.

“My place is crawling with paparazzi,” she goes on. “Word’s already getting out that I left Alek at the altar. They’ve got all the hotels staked out too, and my parents’ and friends’ places, as well. You’re my only hope, Lizzie. I figured you could just stay at Luke’s.”

I’m shaking my head before the words are fully out of her mouth. “No,” I say. “No, I can’t stay at Luke’s.” The thought fills me with panic. I don’t want to see Luke. I… I can’t see Luke. Not again. Not this soon.

“Well,” Ava says, looking slightly annoyed. “Fine. Then I’ll stay at Luke’s, and he can stay with you.”

“No,” I say, still shaking my head. “You can’t stay at Luke’s either. Because Luke and I are… we’re… we’re in a fight. Remember? Remember how he came running out of the restaurant after me just now, and I was like, Drive? Please drive? Remember that?” My eyes fill with tears again at the memory. Oh God. What’s happening to me?

Little Joey says, from the front seat, “She did say that.”

Ava screws up her face, trying to remember. “Oh yeah,” she says. “Well. Can’t I just stay at your apartment with you, then? It’ll just be for a few days. Until all this blows over. You’ll hardly know I’m there. Snow White and I don’t take up much room.”

I glance at Little Joey. Ava, noticing the direction of my gaze, laughs.

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” she says. “He won’t be staying there. He has his own place in Queens.”

I want to suggest that Joey’s place in Queens might be the ideal hideout for Ava. The paparazzi would never think to look for her there.

But then I remember what she said, about all of this being my fault. And so instead, I say, “Ava, my place… it’s just a one bedroom. There’s only one bathroom. And it doesn’t have southern exposure. Believe me, it’s not luxurious—”