“Abby—you came!” he exclaimed, delighted that I’d joined him.
I rolled my eyes and draped his arm heavily over my shoulder.
Get a job in public relations, they said. It will be easy, they said.
Remind me to hunt those people down and choke them with a lobster.
“Just don’t get met wet,” I commanded, as we navigated our way slowly to the rim. “If I’m really lucky, I think I can still salvage this—”
FUCK!
His foot caught on the edge of a statue, and the two of us went down—landing on our backs in the freezing water, drawing yet another round of delighted cheering from the crowd.
I closed my eyes in complete mortification, feeling as the clouds of billowing chiffon filled slowly with water and sank like designer kelp to the bottom of the pool. The miniature crystals sewn into the skirt were soon to follow—loosening themselves one by one and sinking down to a watery grave.
A burst of sparkling laughter brought me back to the present.
“Abby!” Nick yanked the soggy slip of paper off my dress with a drunken grin, “you left the price tag on!”
“NO—IT’S not funny! It’s actually not funny at all! And if you keep laughing, I’m going to shank you with my stiletto!” I shoved him into the town car and clambered in behind—my wet dress clinging to my legs. “Straight home—Bobby.”
The driver glanced back with a professionally restrained smile, and pulled away from the curb. When Nick started talking again, he discreetly rolled up the partition.
“You’re going to shank me?!” he asked with a dripping smile.
“I’m from Brooklyn,” I replied flatly. “Why? What do they do at boarding school?”
“We stab, Abby. We stab.”
I shot him a withering look.
“Well not everyone can be as pretentiously poetic as you.”
With another word, I swiveled away from him, looking down in dismay at my once-perfect ensemble. Not only had my princess dress become some kind of body-suit, hugging onto me like a second skin, but my perfectly coifed curls hung in limp tendrils down my chest. I was Cinderella alright. If Cinderella had gotten dunked in a mountain stream.
“Sorry about the car, Bobby,” I called through the partition. “I’ll get it serviced for you in the morning.” My voice dropped several accusatory octaves. “Right after I write the Reverie a rather exorbitant check...”
“You can just say it, Abby.” Nick took off each of his shoes and emptied them into the car with a look of supreme patience. “No need to be passive aggressive.”
Oh yeah? Then I’d show him ACTUALLY aggressive!
“You EAT lobster!” I cried. “You eat lobster ALL THE TIME!”
“But I never had to actually SEE them before, Abby!” Nick’s voice rose with self-righteous indignation to be just as loud as mine. “Not their FACES!”
His eyes grew wide as he remembered. A drunken shudder ran through his body.
“It was like they were screaming,” he concluded darkly. A look of absurd seriousness shadowing his face. “And only I could hear the screams.”
I glared at him for a moment, before crossing my arms and turning back to the window in a sulk. “You could not hear the screams.”
“I could hear them.”
On the other side of the car, Nick was glaring out his own window—just like me.
“Oh yeah?” I countered petulantly. “What did they sound like?”
“...you wouldn’t understand.”