Brett gives me a quizzical look, but she doesn’t probe, just stoops to pick up the sandal and check the price tag on its arch. She gasps and sets it back down. “Get me a candle or something,” she says. “This is too much.”
“Give me a break,” I scoff. “They’re not much more than those ratty things.” I raise an eyebrow at her sneakers. Brett turns her toes inward as Marc lowers the lens, as though trying to conceal the incriminating label on the tongue. All it takes is one Google search to find out that our hopeful young striver paid five hundred dollars for a pair of gym shoes.
The saleswoman returns with the sandals in Brett’s size and reluctantly, she slips off her sneakers and buckles them on. Everything about her changes with those vampy four inches. It’s as though her appearance finally matches what I know about her. I cast about for some kind of veiled insult.
“Giving your upper appendages a break?” I comment, noticing her latest tattoo along the inseam of her foot, some word in another language, looks like Arabic. The ink is SPOKE red, of course.
Brett rolls her eyes. “For now, Mom.”
I blink, protectively, as though she has aimed a laser pointer at my eyes. Whether she meant to highlight our age difference or not, how dare she.
“You are one of the most generous people I know, Steph,” Brett rushes to say, hearing how the joke landed. “But I can’t accept. Putting your baby-making on hold to come to Morocco is more than enough of an engagement gift.”
I rummage around in my purse for my wallet. She is leaving with those shoes, if I have to stake them in her eyeballs. “My doctor said Zika isn’t even in Morocco right now. There’s really no sacrifice. Besides,” I find the steel-colored card I intend to use, “they’re bridal-looking. You’ll have plenty of events to wear them to in the near future.” I lock eyes with her. It feels like the moment in a wedding ceremony when the priest addresses the crowd: If anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.
“I still can’t believe you’re going to have a baby,” Brett says instead.
“I still can’t believe you’re getting married,” I reply without missing a beat. We smile out of formality, both of us holding our peace for now.
CHAPTER 12
* * *
Brett
“New Year’s Eve?” I vault a puddle in the street, barely clearing its littered shoreline. I’m feeling wildly precious in the shoes Steph bought me, which I’m only wearing because Arch asked so nicely. With the lace dress, she suggested. The last time Arch was in L.A. for work she brought me home a tea-stained, bell-shaped floral paneled caftan. It looks like something straight out of the Green Menace’s closet, but I must admit, it does look rather fetching on me. I think it would have paired cutely with my sneakers, but what’s that old sexist adage? Happy wife, happy life.
I need to say something here, which is that I didn’t set out to own a pair of five-hundred-dollar sneakers. I ended up with them by way of bad weather and distracted walking. I stepped into a puddle on my way to check out the construction at the Soho studio one morning, and I popped inside the first store I came across that featured sneakers in the window display. I didn’t even think to check the price—how much could a pair of sneakers cost?—and the salesgirl had been so sweet and helpful, with nothing but wonderful things to say about SPOKE. I wasn’t about to kill her commission when she rang me up, though I almost fainted when she announced the damage. You’ll wear them every day, she promised when she saw my face, and so to justify the splurge, I have, to the point that Arch has asked me to stash them in the hall closet so that they don’t stink up our bedroom.
The truth is, five-hundred-dollar sneakers are not a splurge for me anymore. I can’t afford to spend like that every day, but to occasionally treat myself and those I love to some big-ticket items without breaking a sweat? Yeah, I can do that. I am in a different tax bracket this season than I was in previous years, and I haven’t figured out how to square that with my role as the “low-income one.” I am proud of how far I’ve come, but I don’t want to alienate the women who relate to my former financial struggles. Unsurprisingly, my colleagues seem dead set on outing me before I am ready to address the discrepancy. They want to punish me for their own cowardice. Yes, I asked the network for more money and I got it, okay? That doesn’t prevent my castmates from stepping up and doing the same.
“I always pictured myself getting married outside,” Arch says, bearing down on the hand I’ve offered her and stepping off the curb like a praying mantis. She’s wearing high sandals too, only hers tie at the ankles with two furry pom-poms.
“We could do New Year’s Eve destination,” I say, looking both ways before crossing the street. “Anguilla?”
“It’s already going to be such a haul for my family.” Arch slips her thin body sideways between two parked cars. “Thank you.” She smiles at me winningly as I hold the door for her.
“We don’t have a reservation,” I tell the hostess at L’Artusi. “Anything at the bar?”
She hmmms, jamming a fist beneath her chin as she scans her tablet. “Actually, we just had a cancellation.” She punches various coordinates on the screen with her finger and locates two menus, pinning them under her arm. “I have a table open upstairs.”
My eyebrows practically fly off my forehead. No wait at L’Artusi on a Saturday night? Money!
Arch steps ahead of me, grabbing my hand and leading me through the restaurant. I pass a girl who drops her bread knife in recognition. “Brett!” she calls, waving drunkenly. “I love you!” Her friend seizes her hand, groaning, Oh my God, Meredith.
“Have a good night, Meredith.” I laugh over my shoulder, and Meredith rips her hand away and gets in her friend’s face as if to say, See? She liked it.
“What about a destination wedding at a midway point?” I shout over the Saturday-night racket, clomping up the stairs behind Arch. Pick up your feet, Brett, Mom used to complain as I shuffled into the kitchen, wondering what low-carb nightmare she was making for dinner that night. There are countable moments of silence between Arch’s steps. Another reason my mother probably would have preferred her to me.
At the top of the stairs, Arch pauses, waiting for me to catch up. My first reaction is that there is a glitch in the reservation system, because there are absolutely no tables available up here. There are no tables, period, only people standing around, champagne flutes resting at their hips. Then I see the cameras and Lisa, Arch’s parents, Kelly and Layla and Jen and Lauren and Vince and most staggeringly Jesse, and the collective congratulatory cry is the last piece of the puzzle.
“Arch!” I clasp my hands over my nose, tears springing to my eyes.
“Mom and Dad wanted to surprise you,” Arch says, laughing a little, but her eyes are misty too. “Oh my God, come here.” She grabs my wrist and tugs me into her chest. Everyone aws, and Arch’s parents approach us first, Lisa, Marc, and the rest of the camera crew steps behind.
“You are really surprised?” Arch’s mom asks, sweetly skeptical. Her smile makes me feel like a hot, hair-covered turd. I don’t deserve to have you or your daughter in my life, I think as I wrap my arms around her neck.