Meg Cabot - Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

“Oh.” I lay my head back down. “Instead of taking classes in your post-baccalaureate program?”

But no sooner have I laid my head down than Luke sits up, jiggling my head to the pillow.

“It’s a really fantastic offer,” he says excitedly. “Considering it’s for only three months. It’s about half a year’s salary of what I used to be making. It’s really generous of him.”

“Wow,” I say, trying to plump my pillow up so it’s as comfy as his arm was. “That is generous.”

“Not that it won’t be a lot of work,” Luke says. “I mean, it will be. Seventeen-, eighteen-hour days, most likely. But it’s a fantastic opportunity. And, of course, I can use the family apartment.”

“Neat,” I say. Luke’s lucky his family happens to have all these places to live just randomly sitting around empty all over the world. Apartments in New York City and Paris, a house in Houston, a château in the south of France…

“And I can make up the classes I’d miss,” Luke says, “in the fall. It’ll just be another semester tacked on to what I’ve already got ahead of me.”

“Oh,” I say.

“And the best part,” Luke says, leaning over to drape one of those tanned, muscular arms across my waist, “is that you can come with me.”

I blink at him. “What?”

“Yeah,” Luke says, giving me a squeeze. “I’ve thought it all through. You can come with me, to Paris. It’ll be much easier to coordinate the wedding at Château Mirac from there than it would be from here… ”

“Um,” I say. I can’t believe he’s serious. “I can’t just take the summer off and go to Paris, Luke.”

“Sure you can,” Luke says. Apparently, he thinks I’m the one who’s kidding. “They’ll give you time off from the shop. They’ll have to. You’re getting married!”

“Yeah,” I say. “Time off meaning two weeks… three, maybe. But not the whole summer.”

“Lizzie.” Luke looks disappointed in me. “Don’t you know anything about the business world? Don’t let the Henris tell you how much vacation time you get. You tell them. If they really want to keep you, they’ll let you take off as much time as you want.”

“Luke,” I say, trying to figure out how I can put this without offending him. “I don’t want to take the whole summer off. And I definitely don’t want to spend it with you in Paris.”

But no sooner are the words out of my mouth than I realize that I’ve done it again. Put my foot in my mouth, I mean. God, no matter how hard I try to be tactful, I just never seem to be able to say the right thing around this guy.

“Th-that didn’t come out the right way,” I stammer.

Fortunately, Luke is chuckling.

“I guess I never have to worry about your not being honest with me,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I hurry to say. “What I meant was—”

“You don’t want to spend the summer in Paris,” he says. “And you don’t have to apologize. I understand. You love your job, and you want to be here for it. That’s okay. The thing is, Gerald’s offer is really too good for me to turn down. Especially with the wedding to pay for. Look, it’s all right. We can do the long-distance thing. We’re already going to be doing the separate-apartment thing”—he gives me a mischievous smile, because I’d already warned him, before I’d said yes to his proposal, that I wouldn’t be moving back in with him until after the wedding; it just seems like the wisest thing to do, under the circumstances—“so I guess living in separate countries for a couple of months over the summer shouldn’t be that big a deal.”

I chew my lower lip. Am I insane? I probably am. I’ve got this amazing guy who’s finally proposed to me, and in the past hour I’ve turned down an invitation not only to move back in with him but also to spend a summer in Paris with him.

“He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to hitch his wagon to a star. He still thinks he’s the star. And you can’t have two stars in one relationship. Somebody has to be willing to be the wagon… at least some of the time.”

Oh! I can’t believe it! Even a session of hot and heavy makeup sex didn’t succeed in exorcising Chaz’s voice from my head! What am I going to have to do to get that guy out of there?

“Come on,” I say, reaching for my cell phone. “Let’s call people and tell them now.”

Luke looks amused. “Oh, now you want to call your family?”

You’d better believe it. Anything to make the voice of Chaz stop talking inside my head.

“Come on,” I say, dialing. “It’ll be fun. I’ll call my parents first. Because I’m the bride, so you have to do what I say. Hello, Mom?”

“No,” a childish voice says. “It’s me, Maggie.”

“Oh, Maggie,” I say to my niece. “Hi, it’s your aunt Lizzie. Could you put your grandma on the phone, please?”

“Okay,” Maggie says, and I hear the phone thunk to the floor as she goes off in search of my mother. I can hear the voices of my sisters and their husbands in the background as they enjoy my parents’ traditional Nichols Family New Year’s Day Brunch. Although “enjoy” might be a strong word. Maybe “endure” is more like it. I can hear my sister Rose’s husband, Angelo, bleating something about how he no longer eats eggs because of the hormones in them, and my sister firing back that maybe he could use more hormones… especially in bed.

“Who’s this?” Gran picks up the phone and barks.

“Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Gran. Hi. It’s me, Lizzie. I was just trying to reach Mom—”

“She’s busy,” Gran says. Whoever was assigned to make sure she imbibes only nonalcoholic beer has apparently failed in his or her mission. Gran is, as always, three sheets to the wind. “Somebody’s gotta feed this crew. God forbid one of your sisters should offer to host one of these things and dirty up her house someday.”

“Huh,” I say, giving Luke a sunny smile to show him everything is going swimmingly. “Well, I’ve got some news. Maybe you could let everyone know.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gran says. “You’re knocked up. Lizzie, I told you. Always use a rubber. I know the boys don’t like them, but it’s like I always say: no rubber, no way.”

“Uh,” I say. “No, Gran, that’s not it. Luke and I are engaged.”

“Luke?” Gran sounds like she’s choking on whatever drink she’s just knocked back. “That no-good-nik? What did you go and agree to marry him for? I thought you booted that loser to the curb before Christmas.”

I cough and give Luke another reassuring smile.

“Are they excited?” he mouths.

I give him a thumbs-up.

“Um, I did, Gran,” I say. “But now we’re engaged. Can you get Mom, please?”

“No, I am not going to get your mother,” Gran says. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favor, Lizzie. She did an aquaerobics class and a scrapbooking class at the Y yesterday, plus all the shopping for this brunch, with no help whatsoever from those sisters of yours. This news could kill her.”

“Gran.” I smile at Luke again. “If you don’t put Mom on the phone, I’m going to call her on her cell and tell her you’ve been hitting the cooking sherry. And don’t try to deny it. Because I can tell.”

“You ingrate,” Gran snarls. “What do you want to go and get engaged for anyway, Lizzie? Husbands don’t do anything but cramp your style. Believe me, I was saddled with one for fifty-five years. I would know. Get out now, while you still can.”

“Gran,” I warn.

“I’m getting her,” Gran says. I hear her shuffling off.

I can’t help noticing that Luke isn’t smiling anymore. I say, “It’s okay. Gran’s just a little tipsy.”

Luke looks at his watch. “It’s noon.”