Because I’ve been a fool.
I can’t stop thinking about Alex. I can’t stop going over and over the feel of his lips on mine . . . and to be honest, his c**k inside me. I can’t stop picturing his beautiful face – the most beautiful face I have ever seen. And his smile. And the way his hair gets lighted up by the sunlight.
OK. I’ve got Alex withdrawal . . . bad. And I hardly even know him.
It’ll pass, I tell myself. I reach for a cupcake in desolation and make myself bite into it. It’s tasteless. Not because Deanna’s baking is bad, but I can’t seem to taste anything these days.
The doorbell rings but I’m too listless to get up. Deanna scampers up. I hear her opening the door and letting whoever it is in.
“Oh my God!” I hear her scream. “Liz, you’ve gotta come out and have a look at this!”
My heart leaps into my mouth.
I scramble to our tiny lounge. Standing at the doorway is a guy carrying the largest flower arrangement I have ever seen. I don’t think I even know the names of half the flowers on that monstrous thing.
“Can I come in?” the delivery boy says.
“Of course,” Deanna says. She seizes the album-sized card on the top.
“Are you Elizabeth Turner?” the delivery boy asks.
“No, but what’s it to you?”
“Because I’m supposed to deliver these flowers to Ms. Elizabeth Turner and make sure she reads that card.”
“Let me see that.” I snatch the card from Deanna.
It says:
‘Alexander Vassar requests the pleasure of Ms. Elizabeth Turner’s delightful company in what he deems an official date at 7 p.m tonight. He would be over a certain planetary satellite’s orbit if she says ‘yes’.”
“Alexander Vassar?” Deanna screeches. “The Alexander Vassar?”
The delivery boy sets the gargantuan flower arrangement down. He’s followed by another delivery boy carrying yet another huge bunch of flowers . . . and another . . . and another.
Deanna and I can only watch, amazed.
“How do you know Alexander Vassar?” Deanna squeaks.
“Um . . . it s a long story.”
Soon, our little lounge is filled with the redolent scent of blooms. The first delivery boy stands before me with the card.
“So, Ms. Turner, I . . . ah . . . need an answer to go back with.”
I eye him mutely. To say that I’m a little stunned would be to say the sky is marginally blue.
Deanna whirls to me. “Liz! I can’t believe you’re dragging on this any more than I can believe you held out on telling me. No wonder you were Googling him that day.” She swivels to the delivery boy. “She says ‘yes’. Now go before she changes her mind.”
“Hey,” I protest.
“What? I’m doing this for your own good. He’s Alexander Vassar, for crying out loud! It’s not every day you get asked to the ball by a handsome prince.”
“It’s not a ball he’s asking me to.”
“It’s what you make of it. So it’s a yes, and I won’t take no for an answer. Or else, if you don’t want to go on a date with him, I’ll take your place. Gladly.”
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
Deanna looks at me, deadpan. “You don’t mean that.”
No. She’s right. I don’t.
The delivery boy looks from one of us to the other. “So if it’s a ‘yes’, there’s more to come before you go on your date.”
More flowers?
I frown. “There is?”
8
In the next couple of hours, I am inundated with delivery girls and boys from various couturiers (“Alexander Vassar requests that this should be delivered to you”).
So I have got:
A gorgeous purple gown with a shining filigree net all over it.
A pair of purple Jimmy Choos.
A (gasp!) diamond and amethyst choker and matching earrings – on loan from Tiffany’s.
I know. It’s a bit much.
I know I’m not supposed to be accepting all this stuff from a man who is trying to get into my pants for some inexplicable reason – but I can’t help being bowled over by all this. I mean – I have never worn a diamond anything in my life. I have never worn Jimmy Choos either, and the only gown I ever had was to the prom, and I swear I looked like a curtain.
Deanna has officially fainted from all the excitement.
“Tell me, tell me how you met!” she insists.
Reluctantly, I tell her.
That’s how she fainted.
“You mean . . . you had sex with him in the men’s restroom? Isn’t that . . . wow, like . . . not you?”
This is why I don’t tell her stuff. She makes such a big deal out of everything.
I’m tempted not to wear any of the stuff Alex sent me . . . turn up in a T-shirt and jeans just to give him a message that he can’t buy me. But all the stuff is so gorgeous that I can’t help trying them on.
I look like a princess in the mirror. I swear – I look almost as good as Tatiana. Deanna has helped me do a makeover that goes with the dress – meaning my long hair is teased and put in curlers to achieve a wave. And my eyes are made up in smoky kohl, and my lips are rouged to go with those marvelous earrings.
“Oh wow,” Deanna says. She can’t take her eyes off me.
I know the feeling. I can’t take my eyes off me either. I’m not me. I’m some transplanted fashion model. And to think that I can look reasonably good with the right clothes and makeup. Whoever would have thought?
“So,” Deanna says, lounging on my bed, “are you going to sleep with him?”
“Of course not. I don’t want him to think that he can buy me stuff . . . and I’ll sleep with him. I’m not that sort of girl.”
“And yet you spread your legs for him when you only met him for twenty seconds.”
I gaze at her in the mirror in despair. She’s right, of course. Whatever possessed me to do what I did?
“I’m over it now. I won’t do it again.”
She pouts. “Well, if you don’t want to do it with him, may I have him?”
I laugh. “He’s not interested in me beyond that. I’m just a fling – something he thinks he wants . . . I don’t think I’ll see him anymore beyond tonight.”
Deanna points her pedicured toe.
“You know,” she says coyly, “you could play it out. Not give in tonight, if you can hold out.”
If I can hold out. I almost laugh again.