Rich and Pretty(25)

“So society page,” Lulu frowns. “The club. High WASP. Ridiculous.”

“We are not club people.” It wasn’t just Chelsea Terrace. Sarah’s been to see other venues—a woodsy old factory in Brooklyn, a tacky ballroom on the Upper West Side. Lack of space is the essential quality of life in the city. What space there is is expensive, and in high demand. None of those places is an option, not for next April, it seems. “At home?”

“You took your first steps in our bedroom,” says Lulu. “You can walk down the aisle here, too, only fitting, don’t we think? And save yourself the trouble of all this planning. It’s too much.”

The truth is it has occurred to Sarah, of course it has occurred to her, but she’s hesitated. She wants this to be their day, hers and Dan’s, not Lulu’s.

“It’s an idea, not a bad idea. I mean, venues are so expensive.”

“Just think, in the backyard, how pretty, and we can fit lots of people.”

“Two hundred, easily, definitely,” says Huck. “I know we’ve had two hundred.”

“I think we’ve had three hundred!” Lulu says.

“We are not having three hundred guests.” Sarah frowns.

“An intimate gathering, then?” Huck drums his fingers on the dining table. “We’ll have to really look at the list, make sure we don’t forget anyone important. Weren’t you going to get a planner or something? We need someone to oversee all this business.”

“Not two hundred, not one hundred, more like seventy.” Sarah’s done the count a few times now. Seventy is on the low end, but still where she’d like to aim. “And I’m working on the planner. I’m supposed to talk to her soon. Willa. The one Ellen recommended.”

Lulu purses her lips. She’s filling the cobalt blue pitcher from the little spout by the sink that dispenses filtered water. “Seventy.” She pauses. “Yes, Willa, she’s the one. Ellen spoke so highly of her, and Rachel’s wedding was so beautiful.”

“A fine number, anyway,” Huck interjects. Ever the diplomat. “A fine number.”

“I told you we want to do something small.” Sarah doesn’t want to argue the point. And she doesn’t want to bring up the obvious: that her parents are going to pay for this wedding, so they’re within their rights to want to have it at their house.

“But seventy, that’s minuscule. In my estimation. Much too small. I’m just saying.” The pitcher comes down on the table with a thud. “Have it with the butter, it’s the salty butter.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine this way,” Sarah says.

“You know, we still have half the bottle of that cabernet from the other night,” Lulu says.

“That was a good one.” Huck nods enthusiastically.

Lulu disappears up the stairs. Her father leans closer to Sarah. She sits at the head of the table, always has, since it was her high chair stationed there, decades ago. “Seventy people?”

“Maybe more. But small, Papa, intimate. It’s embarrassing.”

“What embarrassing? You’re getting married. A community rite. That’s what it is, you know. It’s not for you. It’s for—your people. Your mom and your papa.”

“You eloped,” she says. “You sidestepped this whole minefield.”

He puts his hands up in surrender. “I’m only saying what your mother is too sad to say. She wishes her parents had been there, when we got married. She likes that whole business, the aisle, the flowers, the music.”

Sarah nods. “Well, the flowers. The music. Everyone likes that stuff.” She doesn’t want to disappoint—she never has liked to disappoint.



Book club is every three weeks. A month was too long, by group consensus. You lost momentum. You didn’t want to get together, or you didn’t remember that you were supposed to or the nuances of the relationships in the group. Two weeks isn’t long enough to read a book, or it can’t be guaranteed. Three weeks is just about right. There’s a page limit on the books they’ll read. They’re on Didion now. It’s fine, but it’s irritating, somehow. Part of Sarah suspects people only like to read Joan Didion because she’s thin and glamorous, or was, anyway. The edition she’s reading has a prominent photo of the author on the cover, looking chic.

Sarah’s hosting tonight. It’s good timing. The cleaning lady comes alternate Wednesdays, so it’s only been a day, and the bathroom isn’t covered in errant blond hairs, which proliferate, surprising even her, and the stove gleams. Even the inside of the refrigerator is orderly, clean, everything lined up in order of descending height. The cleaning lady has a touch of the obsessive-compulsive. Sarah leaves the house with a list: wine (there’s always wine at book club), snacks savory and sweet (everyone will bring something, but her conscience won’t allow her to be caught unawares should everyone forget their obligations), flowers (you can’t have people into your house without buying flowers first, it’s like putting on lipstick before a meeting).

She’s read the Didion before: She went to college. Arrived there with dreams of reading books, smoking cigarettes, having sex, staying up into the night feverishly discussing something, anything, with someone, anyone. Lauren had gone into it with much the same expectation. They’d been on the same page about it. They’d chosen the college together.