Page 122 of Dial F for Finance

Bennett:

Of course. They’re welcome. I’ll have Vicky handle the tickets today.

Also—did you get a picture of Layla’s dress? She’s keeping it a secret but I’m somehow supposed to match my tie.

Me:

Nice try. She’s got your tie picked out. You’ll see her dress when she chooses to show it to you.

Bennett:

There was a time when being your boss trumped girl code. But I get it . . .

I send him a gif of Eeyore looking sad and he adds a laughing reaction to it.

Bennett:

Being married suits you, Jenna.

Me:

You too, boss

I put the phone away and wait for a lull, which with Miranda means I have to wait at least ten minutes for her to inhale.

“So,” I say. “The Gala. You’re coming.”

Miranda blinks. “Coming? To the livestream? Obviously. I have snacks planned. There’s going to be a grading system⁠—”

“To the actual gala. My old seat at Bennett’s table is yours if you want it. There’s one for your husband too, so he can watch you pose for pictures on the actual red carpet, in an actual gown, while an actual babysitter deals with the screaming.” I shrug like it’s logistics, because it is logistics, and logistics is the one language I’ve always been fluent in. “You’ve spent all morning dressing everyone else. Seems only right you get to⁠—”

I don’t get to finish the sentence.

Miranda screams. So loud the fitter drops her pins and Layla knocks over a shoe display—and then she’s on me, arms locked around my neck, kissing my cheek over and over, rapid-fire, like a machine that produces only affection and cannot be turned off.

“Thank you thank you thank you, bestie!”

“I am not your bestie,” I say, with as much dignity as a woman being kissed seven times by another grown woman in a boutique can produce.

Miranda pulls back just far enough to grin at me, mascara already compromised, holding my face in both hands like Ma does, like Helena does, like apparently every woman who has ever decided I belong to her does.

“You’re so funny, bestie,” she says.

I roll my eyes. “Just go and pick your dress.”

By one o’clock we’re installed in our corner booth at Lockwood, six women in various states of pinned and measured, and Layla is ordering the wine flight “for the table” because supposedly none of us has anything important to do besides drink this weekend.

“And the cheese board,” she tells the server. “And she’ll have the martini⁠—”

“Actually,” I say, “I’ll do the flight too.”

The table goes still. Five faces swivel toward me in disbelief.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing,” Nora says, but her face says everything.

“Nothing at all,” Serena adds, already smirking into the menu.