“Well, he doesn’t know whoIam, because he’s an asshole, but I’m guessing he’d be able to pick me out in a lineup at this point. He’d probably try to murder me with the power of his mind and a laser glare.”
“He looks like he’d give hot glare.” James’s voice had taken on a dreamy quality that made Arielle consider poisoning his coffee.
“Do I need heterosexual coworkers? Because I thought we straights made all the bad calls, but the two of you really have terrible taste. Except Jackie,” Ari amended, because Naima’s wife was legitimately awesome. “But this—this is pathetic. He’s a humorless twerp, and he’s probably been married since he was, like, eighteen, and now has eight babies. Not hot.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Naima said with an eyebrow waggle.
“Methinks the lady would rather edit another chapter of ‘The Ghost of Christmas Pleasure’ than discuss Judah Klein for another minute.” She turned pointedly back to the screen to check how many writers had actually hit their deadlines that weekend and was both pleased and relieved to see chapters from the vast majority in the publication queue.
Thankfully, her coworkers took the hint and got to work on their own chapters. Their schedules required impossibly quick turnarounds more often than not, and while the overtime pay was good when needed, the increasingly frantic and passive-aggressive messages that came down from on high at missed deadlines were rarely worth it. For the next two hours, Ari read through the new work, wrote up editorial notes, approved a new cover, left some thoughts on the brainstorming document for the book they hoped would be their summer blockbuster, and walked a writer through the process of submitting their payment paperwork. By the time she came up for air, she needed another coffee more than she needed oxygen.
“I’ll get the next round,” James volunteered, and Ari was only too happy to let him go rather than step back into the madhouse. Even at eleven in the morning, Café Expresso simply did not live up to its name.
“Bless you both.” Naima’s long fingers, stacked with gold rings, rubbed at her temples. “If I have to read one more of these chapters without additional caffeine, I’m going to lose it.” She looked up at Ari. “Distract me. How was the wedding? What number bridesmaiding was this for the year?”
“The wedding was beautiful.” She didn’t feel like getting into the mixed-bag feelings of seeing her best friends pair up for good. “And this was the first. I have an old friend’s coming up at the end of October, and my cousin Aleah’s right before New Year’s. All I can say is we better hit every fucking KPI target imaginable,because if I don’t get a bonus, I’m gonna get bankrupted by bridesmaid dresses and shower gifts, and that is averyboring way to go.”
“Any dresses you’ll be able to wear again, at least?”
“Not unless floor-length baby-blue satin has suddenly become acceptable anywherebuta wedding. Yeah, don’t think I’ll be wearing that again.”
Naima shuddered. “Doesanyonelook good in that?”
“Bella’s sister Lily would look good in a dress made of dirty diapers. She put the rest of us to shame.” Ari was willing to betshecould’ve stomped on Judah Klein’s foot wearing concrete boots and he wouldn’t have said boo. As if Ari needed another reminder that she was the biggest bridesmaid by two dress sizes.
“Psh, she’s no Arielle Becker.”
Arielle unlocked her phone, scrolled through her photos from the night before, and held up a picture of Lily.
“Oh, damn.”
Ari snorted and put her phone back down. “Exactly.”
“Well, I stand by that you are hot as hell, and someday soon, you’re gonna be the one picking out hideous bridesmaid dresses,” Naima said affectionately.
“I assure you,” said Ari, “I know I’m hot as hell, but I’m not doing this to my friends or myself. There are no contenders for Mr. Arielle Becker in the entire Tri-State area, and I will not be crossing borders to find myself a ball and chain, thank you very much. I am perfectly happy with single life.” And she was, in theory; it was everyone else leaving heralonein single life that was the problem.
“You say that now…”
Ari just rolled her eyes and got back to work. Coupled people always seemed to think that coupling was the only route to happiness, and it was annoying as fuck. “Just wait until you meet the right guy,” her older sister Dana was fond of saying, and it drove Ari mad, and not just because the irony of her sister talking about “the right guy” when her own boyfriend was atotal dickbag was through the roof. Why did she have to “wait”? Why should she center her life around this stupid hunt when she could just live it?
And yeah, maybe there was a “right guy” out there—something sheseriouslydoubted after her many years of meeting all the wrong ones—but what if she never became “the right girl”? So many people coupled up just because everyone else was doing it, but Ari thought it was a terrible reason to get married, to subject herself to a life of sharing space with someone who’d think she was too messy, too childish for “playing with blocks” (she still seethed when she thought about that one), too wild, too unserious (okay, that one was actually Dana), and any of the other commentary that’d been levied at her over the years. They weren’t always delivered as criticism; the guy who said she was too wild for himdefinitelymeant it as a compliment. But they grated all the same, as if she should be changing herself for some nebulous future she wasn’t sure she wanted in the first place.
Anyway, Liana wasn’t sporting a ringyet. Sure, she had a guy, but she was still there for Ari in every way that mattered. As long as that stayed true, Ari would be fine. And when, someday down the line, it wasn’t? She’d figure it out, the way she always had.
But one thing was set in stone: Arielle Becker had no plans to settle.
“I still think this is super weird,” Liana said as she watched Arielle shimmy into the Spanx she’d be wearing under a cranberry bridesmaid dress for the next eight hours. “Have you and Lauren even talked since she asked you to be a bridesmaid?” Ari opened her mouth to respond, but Liana cut her off. “Outside of wedding stuff?”
“You already know the answer to that.” Ari sighed as she checked the time on her phone. She had forty-five minutes to get downtownto the fancy venue where Lauren Weiler and Harvey Katz were getting married in front of six hundred of their nearest and dearest. While Liana was spot-on that a girl she’d barely spoken to since high school should not have asked her to be a bridesmaid, Ari didn’t exactly know how to say no—especially when the thing she’dreallywanted to ask was “Why?”
It turned out the “why” was because her fiancé had twelve groomsmen, and Lauren refused to show up with any fewer. Unfortunately, her sparkling personality didn’t exactly lend itself to maintaining friendships, so she’d had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, starting with her old high school besties.
“Doesn’t it feel weird to have the same role at this girl’s wedding that you had at Bella’s?” Liana asked, watching Arielle toss noisemakers and glittery streamers into a bag. “Like, could they be any more different?”
“Why is this so distressing to you? I’m the one getting all dolled up for a girl who told me my own hair isn’t ‘formal enough’ for her big day and that my cartilage piercings are ‘distracting.’”
“I know, I just…” Liana caught her eye in the mirror, then looked away as another text lit up Arielle’s phone.
