Meg Cabot - Queen of Babble

“Andy,” I say, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, Lizzie,” he says, reaching for my hand. “But you just ran off! I couldn’t leave things that way-”

“Excuse me,” a woman with a heavy Texas accent interrupts us, “but are you the girl who designed the bride’s gown?”

“Um,” I say, “I didn’t design it. It’s vintage. I just rehabbed it.”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you,” the woman says, “you did a fantastic job. That dress is lovely. Just lovely. You’d never know it was vintage. Never in a million years.”

“Well,” I say, “thank you.”

The woman goes away.

And I turn back to the man in front of me.

“Andy,” I say. I can’t believe this. I’ve never had a guy follow me across Europe before. Well, across a channel, anyway. “We broke up.”

“No we didn’t,” Andy says. “I mean, you broke up with me. But you never even gave me a chance to explain-”

“Pardon me, miss.” Another woman has come up to us. “But did you really make that wedding dress li’l Vicky’s got on?”

“No, I didn’t make it,” I say. “I rehabbed it. It’s a vintage gown. I just cleaned and fitted it for her.”

“Well, it’s beautiful,” the woman says. “Just beautiful. And I liked your little song up there.”

“Oh,” I say, beginning to blush, “thanks.” When she goes away, I say, to Andy, “Look, things just didn’t work out between us. I’m really sorry about it. But you’re just not the person I thought you were. And you know what? It turns out I’m not the person I thought I was, either.”

It sort of surprises me to hear myself say that. But it’s really true. I am not the same girl who got off that plane at Heathrow, even if I do happen to be wearing the same dress. I’m someone totally different now. I don’t know who, exactly, but-

Someone else.

“Really,” I say to Andy, giving his hand a squeeze. “I don’t have any hard feelings toward you. We just made a mistake.”

“I don’t think we were a mistake,” Andy says, his grip on my hand tightening. Not in a friendly squeeze like mine was, either. His is more like he isn’t going to let go of me. “I think I made a mistake-plenty of mistakes. But, Lizzie, you never even gave me a chance to really apologize. That’s why I’m here. I want to apologize properly, and then maybe take you out for a nice meal, and then take you home-”

“Andy,” I say gently. Our conversation, already bizarre enough, has taken on an even weirder note, thanks to the musical accompaniment. Behind me, Lauren is shrieking, “‘Gitchy gitchy ya ya da da!’” and doing some choreography that is making the bass player, at least, smile happily.

“How-how did you even know where to find me, anyway?” I ask wonderingly.

“You told me a million times in your e-mails that your friend Shari was staying the month in a chateau in the Dordogne called Mirac. It wasn’t that hard to find. Now say you’ll come home with me, Liz. We can start over. I promise it will be different this time…I’ll be different.”

“I’m not going back to England with you, Andy,” I explain as kindly as I can. “I just don’t feel that way about you anymore. It was very nice knowing you, but really. I think this is where we have to say good-bye.”

Andy’s jaw is slack.

“Excuse me,” a woman says. I turn and find a middle-aged woman looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, I really don’t mean to interrupt, but I heard you rehabbed the bride’s gown. Which I assume means you took an old gown and fixed it up?”

“Yes,” I say. What is going on here? “I did.”

“Well-I really am sorry to interrupt-but my daughter would like to wear my grandmother’s wedding dress for her wedding next June, but we just haven’t been able to find anyone willing to, um, rehab it. Everyone we’ve seen about it says the fabric is too old and fragile, and they don’t want to risk ruining it.”

“Well,” I say, “that is a concern with old fabric. I mean, it’s much better quality than the materials used in bridal gowns today. But I’ve found if you use all-natural cleansers-no chemicals-you can get quite good results.”

“All-natural cleansers,” the woman repeats. “I see. Honey, do you have a business card? Because I would love to be in touch with you about this again”-she glances up at Andy’s face-“but I can see that you’re busy right now.”

“Um.” I pat myself, then remember my mandarin dress has no pockets. And that even if it did, I have no business cards, anyway. “No. But I’ll find you and give you my contact information in a little while. Would that be all right?”

“That’d be just fine,” the woman says with another nervous glance at Andy. “I’ll just…I’ll see you in a bit.”

She slinks off and Andy, as if he can hold it in no longer, bursts out with, “Lizzie, you can’t mean that. I understand that maybe you feel we need some time apart. Maybe after a bit of time has passed you’ll realize that what we’ve got, you and I, is really special. I’ll show you. I’ll treat you the way you want to be treated. I’ll make it up to you, Lizzie, I swear. When you get back to Ann Arbor in the fall, I’ll call you-”

The strangest feeling comes over me when he says that. I can’t really explain it, except that it’s as if suddenly he’s given me a glimpse into the future…

A future I can now see quite clearly, as if it were in high definition.

“I’m not going back to Ann Arbor in the fall, Andy,” I say. “Well, I mean, except to get my stuff. I’m moving to New York City.”

Behind me, I hear Shari go, “Ye-esss.”

But when I turn to look at her, she’s stonily watching Lauren implore the wedding guests to coucher avec her tonight.

“New York City?” Andy looks confused. “You?”

I stick out my chin. “Yes, me,” I say in a voice that sounds completely unlike my own. “Why? You don’t think I can do it?”

Andy’s shaking his head. “Lizzie, I love you. I think you can do anything. Anything you set your mind to. I think you’re amazing.”

It comes out more like, I fink you’re amazing.

But that’s okay. Because right then I forgive him. I forgive him for all of it.

“Thank you, Andy,” I say to him, a big grin bursting out across my face. Maybe I was wrong about him. Oh, not about the two of us not being right for each other. But, you know. Maybe he’s not so bad after all. Maybe, even though we can’t be lovers, we can still be friends…

“Excuse me,” someone says.

Only this time it’s not a Houston society matron who’s come up to ask me how to get stains out of fifty-year-old lace.

It’s Luke.

And he doesn’t seem too happy.

“Luke,” I say. “Hi. I-”

“Is it true?” Luke asks me. “Is this him?”

He’s jerked a thumb in Andy’s direction.

I can’t imagine what’s come over him-Luke, so unfailingly polite to everyone.

Everyone but me, I mean. But then I guess I deserve it.

“Um,” I say, shifting uncomfortably, “yes. Luke, this is Andy Marshall. Andy, this is-”

But I never get to finish my sentence. Because before I can, Luke pulls back his arm and sends his fist crashing straight into Andy’s face.

He tried to kill me,” Andy keeps saying. Although his words are somewhat indistinct behind the ice-filled dish towel Madame Laurent is pressing to his lip.

“He didn’t try to kill you,” Chaz says in a tired voice. “Stop being such a fucking baby.”

“Hey,” Andy says from his perch on the butcher-block kitchen table, “fuck you! I’d like to see how you’d react if someone sucker-punched you in the mouth!”

Only with his swollen lip and accent, the words come out sounding more like, Oi’d loik to see how you’d weact if someone sucker-punched you in the mouf.

“Chaz,” I ask worriedly, ignoring their squabbling, “where’s Luke?”

“I don’t know,” Chaz says. He was the one who’d jumped in and broken up the fight. Well, not that there’d been much of one. It had been more like a one-man assassination attempt. Luke had landed his punch, then backed off, waving his hand, apparently having injured it on Andy’s teeth.

Which Andy is now complaining feel loose.

Chaz, who’d come over to congratulate Shari for so thoroughly embarrassing herself onstage, was able to keep Andy from returning Luke’s punch merely by placing a hand on his shoulder. Andy is much more of a lover than a fighter, it turns out.

Though he doesn’t seem to know it.

“It was a completely unprovoked attack!” Andy insists. “I wasn’t doing anything to Liz! I was just talking to her!”

“Lizzie,” Shari corrects him, in a bored voice, from where she’s leaning against the kitchen sink, trying to keep out of the way of the caterers, who are streaming in and out of the kitchen with the first course-salmon-and glaring angrily at us as the chef tries to make progress at the stove with the second course-foie gras. “Her name’s Lizzie. Not Liz.”

“Whatever,” Andy says into the dish towel. “When I find that bastard, I’m going to show him a thing or two.”

“You’re not going to be showing anybody anything,” Chaz says to Andy in a firm voice. “Because you’re leaving. There’s a three o’clock train back to Paris, and I’m going to make sure you’re on it. You, my friend, have caused quite enough trouble for one day.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Andy cries. “It was that French git!”

“He’s not French,” Shari says, still bored, as she examines her cuticles.

“Lizzie,” Andy says from behind the dish towel, “listen. I’m sorry to bring it up. And now may not be the greatest time, but I was wondering about the money.”

I blink at him.

“Money?”

“Right. The money you said you’d loan me for my matriculation fees? Because I really do need it, Liz.”

“Oh no!” Shari bursts out. “Oh no, he did not just-”

“Shari,” I say to her sharply, “I can handle this.”

Because I can.

And, okay, it’s not like I ever really thought he came all this way to patch things up with me because he loves me.

But it honestly never occurred to me that he did it because of the money.

“Andy,” I say, “you came all this way to ask if I’d still lend you five hundred dollars?”

“Actually,” Andy points out, his words muffled by the dish towel, “you said you’d give it to me. But a loan’s all right, too. I feel terrible about asking, but in a way, you do sort of owe me the money. I mean, I did open up my home to you, and there was the gas money, you know, Dad spent picking you up from the airport, and-”

“Can I hit him now?” Chaz wants to know. “Please, Lizzie?”

“No, you can’t,” I say to Chaz.

Although it must be obvious from my stunned expression that I’m not about to pony up the money, since Andy’s hangdog expression has completely disappeared. In fact, his eyes have squeezed shut above the dish towel.

Shari gasps.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Andy, are you crying?”

It’s clear when he speaks that he is.

“Are you telling me,” he says, weeping, “that I hitched all the way here and you’re not going to give me the money after all?”

I’m shocked. Crying? He’s crying?

Luke must have hit him harder than any of us thought.

“You said on the phone that you couldn’t talk about it!” Andy sobs. “That’s all! You never said-”

“Andy.” I shake my head. Can this really be happening? “I mean, Andy, we broke up. What did you think was going to happen?”

“You don’t understand,” Andy cries. “If I don’t pay these blokes the money I owe them, they’re…they’re going to break my legs.”

I exchange confused looks with Shari and Chaz. “The bursar’s office is going to break your legs if you don’t pay your matriculation fees?”

“No.” Andy takes a shuddering breath from behind the dish towel. “I…I wasn’t quite truthful about that bit. It’s the blokes that run the poker ring that I owe the money to, actually. They’re…well, they’re quite serious about getting it back. I can’t go to Mum and Dad for it-they’ll throw me out. And my mates are all tapped out as well. Really, Lizzie…you were my last hope.”