“What look?”
“You’re planning something.”
What the hell? The worst he could do was say no, and that would only put us back where we started.
“Las Vegas,” I said.
He stared. “Your mother really would kill you.” But he didn’t say no.
“You can do nice weddings in Vegas,” I said. “It isn’t all Elvis ministers and drive-through chapels.”
“Vegas.”
I nodded. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. “It’s like the wedding and honeymoon all rolled together. We’d go straight from the ceremony to the swimming pool and have a couple of froufrou drinks with little umbrellas.”
He just kept looking at me. We hadn’t been together all that long, not even a year. Before that he was my lawyer and always seemed mildly in awe of the problems I managed to get myself into. But I couldn’t always read him. The relationship was still too new. And we still wanted to get married. God help us.
Then he turned his smile back on. “Big scary werewolf drinking froufrou drinks?”
“You know me.”
“Vegas,” he said again, and the tone was less questioning and more thoughtful.
“I can get online and get us a package rate in an hour.”
“And we won’t be paying four figures for a photographer.”
“Exactly. More money for froufrou drinks.”
He shrugged in surrender. “All right. I’m sold. You’re such a cute drunk.”
Uh. . . thanks? “But I’m still getting a really great dress.” Maybe something in red. Me, Las Vegas, red dress. . . Forget the bridal magazines, I was ready for Vogue.
“Fine, but I get to take it off you at the end of the day.”
Oh yes, he’s a keeper. I smiled. “It’s a deal.”
At work the next afternoon, I mentioned the Vegas idea to Matt, the guy who ran the board for my radio show. We were in the break room pouring coffee and chatting.
“Las Vegas?” Matt said. He was another show-business twenty-something, stocky, with his black hair tied in a ponytail. “That’s seriously cool. Whacked out, but cool. I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”
“You only live once, right? And we’ll have a story to tell at cocktail parties for the rest of our lives.”
“It would be more cool if you’d already done it and not told anyone until you got back,” he said.
“We haven’t decided anything yet. We may still get talked into going the conventional route.”
He looked skepti
cal. “I don’t know. You found a guy who’s willing to elope in Vegas—let everyone else have the normal wedding. You only get married the first time once.”
There was the philosophy of a generation wrapped up in a tidy little sentence.
That afternoon, Ozzie, the KNOB station manager and my immediate boss, poked his head into my office. I wondered what I’d done to piss him off this week.
“Kitty?”
“Yeah—what can I do for you?”