Love on the Rocks (with Salt) (2 page)

“
Just water for me please,” says
Sarah.

“
Yes, water would be lovely,”
replies JoAnne.

I place two waters on the coffee
table between our seats, pour Gabriella a cup of coffee without
asking, and take a water bottle for myself.

“
Before I hear
about how you envision your dream dress or see any photographs you
might have, Sarah, I want to hear about
you
to get a sense of who you are.
Tell me about your love story with…”

“
Sean.” Sarah beams, relaxing her
shoulders and setting the manila envelope she’s clutching down on
the table.

“
Sarah and Sean, how sweet. Tell
me, how did you two meet?” Gabriella asks, sipping her
coffee.

“
They met at a bar,” JoAnne says
with a pinched expression, folding her arms across her
chest.

“
Mom!”
Sarah screeches. “Please!”

Oh, a Momzilla. Fantastic. With my
luck her vision of the dress will be the exact opposite of her
daughter’s. My job will be figuring out whose wedding this is—the
mom’s or the bride’s.

“
It was at
karaoke night,” Sarah continues. “I got up to sing
Spiderwebs
by No Doubt
and Sean sent me a drink with a note saying I belonged on American
Idol. Then he called me up to sing a duet with him. It was so
hokey, but we’ve been together ever since. He proposed later at the
same bar.”

“
Without asking your father and me
for your hand first,” Momzilla says, not quite under her
breath.

“
Mom! We’re thirty years old, and
I haven’t lived under your roof since high school. It’s 2007, not
1907!”

“
You may not have lived under my
roof for the last twelve years, but who supported you in college
and grad school? And who’s paying for this wedding? Oh sure, you
expect me to foot the bill, but a little common courtesy toward
tradition is too much to ask for?”

Gabriella raises a well-plucked
eyebrow at me and suppresses a smirk. I think she secretly takes
pleasure in the drama. Or she would, if she took pleasure in
anything.

“
What do you think Gabriella’s
like in bed?” Kim once asked me over happy hour
cocktails.

I crinkled my nose. “Ugh. I don’t
know what’s worse. Envisioning her on top of Nathan or Nathan on
top of her.” Gabriella is tall, five-ten, but she can’t weigh more
than one hundred and ten pounds. Nathan is six-four and has to be
pushing three hundred. “He’d crush her, and I can’t see how she
could possibly straddle him.”

“
Maybe they do it doggy style.”
She winked.

I pretended to stick my finger
down my throat and vomit. “That’s gross. Now you’ve taken it too
far. You, my friend, are drunk.”

“
I just wonder
if she even enjoys it,” Kim said, suddenly serious. “She walks
around with that bitch face all the time. It makes me wonder if she
enjoys
anything
.”

“
Power and money. That’s what she
enjoys.”

“
Maybe she has a stripper pole.
You know, keeps it under the bed and clicks it into a slot in the
ceiling when Nathan wants a show.” Kim pantomimed clicking an
imaginary pole into the ceiling.

“
You have to stop,” I said,
throwing a chip at her. “If you say one more word about this I
really am going to vomit.”

I smile at the memory and watch
Gabriella expertly take control of the situation. “What an adorable
story. You should consider singing that duet at your reception.
Your friends and family will love it. Now,” she says, steering the
conversation back to the task at hand, “I see you have an envelope.
Did you bring some pictures of designs you like?”

“
Oh yes,” Sarah says, reaching for
the envelope.

If I had to place a bet, I’d say she pulls out
a picture of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, but she surprises me and
pulls out a few pictures from a bridal magazine.

“
Oh, yes.” Gabriella coos,
flipping through the pages. “Very pretty, very pretty. Take a look,
Laney,” she says handing me the pages.

Sarah likes dresses with a lot of
lace and very full skirts. Gabriella’s least favorite design. Not
that it should matter to her, but she prefers simple, understated
elegance, and I have to admit this is one place we agree. But if
the bride wants lace and full skirts, she’ll get lace and a full
skirt.

“
Tell me exactly, if you can
Sarah, what it is that speaks to you about these
designs.”

I hand the pages back to
Sarah, and as she points out what she likes about each dress, I
“take notes.” She’s actually quite good with her descriptions. So
many brides pull out a paparazzi photo of the latest hot celebrity
and say, “I want to look like this.”
Yeah,
me too!

“
Excuse me,” Momzilla says
suddenly, “what is your assistant doing?”

Gabriella and I exchange a look.
This is how we always do it; we’ve never been called out before.
“I’m just taking notes for Gabriella to refer to when she’s
creating Sarah’s gown,” I say, hoping I don’t piss off Gabriella by
speaking.

“
I hope so. I’m paying for a dress
designed by Gabriella!”

“
And that is certainly what you
shall get,” Gabriella assures her. “But if you’d feel more
comfortable, I can have Laney leave the room.”

She glares at me, and not knowing
what else to do, I stand up. This should be interesting. While the
dress is by no means designed on-the-spot—some dresses take months
to design—the initial sketch is key.

Perhaps Momzilla catches on, or
maybe she just needed to show her authority, but she backs down and
says, “No, that’s fine. She can stay. I just want to be sure I’ll
get what I’m paying for.”

“
I can assure you, JoAnne, that
you most certainly will,” Gabriella says, motioning for me to sit
down. She turns back to Sarah and JoAnne. “Now, Sarah, where were
we?”

“
Two margaritas on the rocks and a
Corona,” the cocktail waitress says, handing us our
drinks.

“
Why didn’t you get a cosmo
instead?” Amanda asks me.

“
You can’t get a cosmo at the
Sagebrush,” I tell her. I should’ve never confessed to her that as
much as I love margaritas, they still remind me of Andy. Even now,
more than a year later. I look at the dance floor, and the memory
rushes back even before my first sip.

Amanda and Alison had been on the
dance floor—twins are always popular at a bar. They aren’t
identical, but the resemblance is striking—and so are
they.

“
A margarita on the rocks with
salt,” the bartender said in perfect English handing me my
drink.

“
You know you’re supposed to stay
away from the ice here. A beer might be a safer bet,” said a voice
behind me.

“
I like to live dangerously,” I
said turning around. “I like that in a woman,” he said, extending
his hand. “I’m Andy.”

“
Laney.” He held on a beat too
long. A nice beat.

He looked like an East Coast
preppie. Cute, but not gorgeous. He had dark hair and light blue
eyes, which is always a killer combination, but his nose had
clearly been broken, possibly even twice, and his mouth was maybe a
little bit too small. But there was definitely something about him.
That indescribable
thing
,
and
I felt myself immediately intrigued, drawn to him. It sounds
cliché, but when we shook hands it was like an electric current
went right through me.

“
Been here long?” he
asked.

“
First night.”

“
You didn’t come with your
boyfriend, did you?”

I laughed. “No boyfriend. I’m with
the two gorgeous blonds on the dance floor.”

“
Twins?” he asked, raising an
eyebrow.

“
Fraternal,” I confirmed, taking
my first sip of salty deliciousness. “But still always popular with
the bar crowd. Or any crowd.”

“
I like redheads.”

I should have been completely
turned off by his boldness, but for some reason I felt the
opposite: completely turned on.

“
Do you?” I flirted.

“
I do.” He took a swig of his
beer, and I remember wondering what his mouth would feel like on
me.

“
Who are
you
here with?” I asked
him.

“
College buddies. We just finished
our MBA program.”

“
Congratulations. From
where?”

“
Stanford,” he answered with a shy
grin and took another swig.

Stanford? Holy shit!
“Here’s to a bright future,” I said, raising my
glass.

“
To a bright future.” He clinked
my glass and winked.

“
Laney.
Laney!
” Amanda nudges my
elbow, pulling me out of my daydream. “That guy is totally checking
you out,” she says tilting her head toward a group at the back of
the patio.

I find that hard to believe. When
I’m with Amanda and Kim, I’m never the one getting checked out. The
curse of having beautiful friends.

Amanda is a classic beauty and
stands out in any crowd even when she isn’t with her twin sister.
She has hair so blond it’s practically platinum (and annoyingly
natural) that is most often worn in a low sleek ponytail, baby-blue
eyes, a slightly upturned nose and is rarely without her signature
bright red lipstick.

Kim is petite, Hawaiian and exotic looking
with dark hair halfway down her back.

Me? Thinnish, but definitely
not skinny. Small boobs. Big butt. Strawberry-blond hair
(annoyingly
not
natural) and eyes more yellow than green. I do have great
lips. But unlike Amanda I almost never wear lipstick and when I do
it never seems to stay on for more than five
minutes.

“
Amanda’s right. The one in the
green polo shirt,” Kim says before taking a sip of her
beer.

I look across the bar to a
group of people and see him. He has thick blond hair and piercing
blue eyes. Typical California golden boy looks. And they’re right,
he’s looking at me.
Why?
Do I have something in my teeth? Is something
hanging out of my nose? Is my dress even more see-through than I
thought? Not that it matters.

“
He’s cute, but I think he’s with
the girl in the blue dress. You know, the one draped across his
shoulder, whispering in his ear.”

“
She might think she’s with him,
but he’s definitely not with her,” Kim says.

“
What do you mean? She’s all over
him.”

“
No, Kim’s right,” Amanda says,
wiping the salt from the rim of her glass. Every time she asks for
no salt and they bring her salt, but she never complains, just
wipes it off with a napkin. I always wonder how I could transfer
the salt from her glass to my own to make it even saltier. Probably
best that I can’t, as I’m sure to wake up bloated and two pounds
heavier as it is.

“
Look at his body language. He’s
leaning away from her. There is no way he’s into her.”

He catches me watching them and
smiles. I smile back, then look away, suddenly feeling shy. I take
a sip of my margarita, pushing away the first sip memory and
licking the salt off my lips.

I look back up. He says something,
and the crowd around him starts laughing. The blue dress girl
throws her head back with such force I’m worried she might give
herself whiplash. His eyes crinkle when he laughs, and I notice he
has dimples. I’m a sucker for dimples. He looks my way again, and I
look away. A bar game of cat and mouse.

“
Do you think one of the
motorcycles is his?” Kim asks.

“
He doesn’t seem like the biker
type,” Amanda answers. “Plus he’s not wearing boots. He looks more
like he ended up here on his way home from the beach.”

“
I don’t know,” I say. “He looks a
little too clean cut to be a biker or a surfer. He probably comes
to the Sagebrush on Sundays to meet drunk girls.”

The Sagebrush Cantina, located in
Calabasas, the westernmost end of the San Fernando Valley, is a Los
Angeles institution. While Friday and Saturday nights are
definitely crowded, Sunday is by far their busiest day. Year-round
near-perfect weather, outdoor seating for what seems like a
thousand people, and its location between the beach and The Valley
make it a popular destination for bikers, surfers, college kids,
suburbanites and everyone in between. The band starts playing
during Sunday brunch and plays well into the night.

“
Hey, Kim,” Amanda says, “I need
to use the ladies room. Come with me so I don’t have to stand in
that long line alone.”

“
Hold down the
fort for us, Laney. And do
not
let this table go.”