Bet Me

  “I like plain vanilla.”

  “—there’s no excitement there at all.”

  Min blinked. “I was at work. There’s never any excitement.”

  “I’m talking about men,” Nanette said. “You’re thirty-three. Your prime years are past you, and you’re wearing white cotton.”

  “I was at work” Min said, losing patience.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her mother shook out Min’s blouse, checked the label, saw it was silk, and looked partly mollified. “If you’re wearing white cotton lingerie, you’ll feel like white cotton, and you’ll act like white cotton, and white cotton cannot get a man, nor can it keep one. Always wear lace.”

  “You’d make a nice pimp,” Min said, and headed for the dressing room.

  “Minerva,” her mother said.

  “Well, I’m sorry.” Min stopped and turned around. “But honestly, Mother, this conversation is getting old. I’m not even sure I want to get married, and you’re critiquing my underwear because it’s not good enough bait. Can’t you—”

  Nanette lifted her chin, and her jawline became even more taut. “This is the kind of attitude that’s going to lose David.”

  Min took a deep breath. “About David . . .”

  “What?” Her mother’s body tensed beneath her size four Dana Buchman suit. “What about David?”

  Min smiled cheerfully. “We’re no longer seeing each other.”

  “Oh, Min,” Nanette wailed, clutching Min’s blouse to her bosom, the picture of despair in the middle of a lot of expensive gold and ivory décor.

  “He wasn’t right for me, Mother,” Min said.

  “Yes,” Nanette said, “but couldn’t you have kept him until after the wedding?”

  “Evidently not,” Min said. “Let’s cut to the chase. What do I have to do to keep you from mentioning his name ever again?”

  “Wear lace.”

  “That will get you off my back?”

  “For a while.”

  Min grinned at her and headed for the dressing room door. “You are a piece of work.”

  “So are you, darling,” Nanette said, surveying her eldest. “I’m very proud of you, you know. You have a blotch of makeup over your eye. What is that?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” Min closed the door behind her. She unzipped her skirt, let it fall to the gold carpet, and studied herself in the gold-framed mirror. “You’re not that bad,” she told herself, not convinced. “You just have to find a man who likes very healthy women.”

  She unclipped the long lavender skirt from the gold hanger and stepped into it, being careful not to rip the knife-pleated chiffon ruffle at the bottom, and sucked in her stomach to get it buttoned. Then she shrugged on the lavender chiffon blouse and buttoned the tiny buttons, stretching the fabric tightly across her bust so that her white bra showed at the corners of the low, squared bodice. She shook out the sleeves, and the chiffon fell over her hands in wide double ruffles that she would drag through everything at the reception. The blouse also erupted around her hips in more ruffles at the side. “Oh, yes,” she said. “More width at the hip. Can’t ever get enough of that.”

  Then she picked up the corset, a blue and lavender watercolor moire tied with lavender ribbons. The fabric had been so beautiful when Diana had chosen it six months before that Min had hired the seamstress to make a comforter for her bed with it, and she looked at the narrow corset now and thought, I’m going to have to wear the comforter. This is never going to fit. She took a deep breath and wrapped the corset around her. It shoved her breasts up to a dizzying height and then failed to meet in the middle by almost two inches. Carbs. She thought vicious thoughts about Cal Morrisey and Emilio’s bread. Then she tried to smooth out the extra foundation without showing the bruise and went out into the dressing room to face her mother.

  Instead, she found Diana, standing on the fitting platform in front of the huge, gold-framed mirror, flanked by her two lovely bridesmaids, the women Liza called Wet and Worse, while the Dixie Chicks played on Diana’s portable CD player.

  “ ‘Ready to Run,’ ” Min said to Diana. “And so not appropriate.”

  “Hmmm?” Diana said, staring into the mirror. “No, it’s Runaway Bride.”

  “Right,” Min said, remembering that Diana had decided to score her wedding to music from Julia Roberts’s movies. Well, at least it was a plan.

  “I loved that movie,” Susie said. She looked blond, bilious, miserable, and, well, wet in corseted green chiffon, the loser in the bridesmaid dress lottery.

  “I thought it was ridiculous,” dark-haired Karen, a.k.a. Worse, said, looking sophisticated and superior in corseted blue chiffon.

  Min waved her hand at Worse. “Scoot over so I can see my sister.”

  Worse moved, and Min got her first look at Diana. “Wow.”

  Diana looked like a fairy tale come to life in ivory chiffon and satin. Her dark curling hair fell from an artfully messy knot into pearl-strewn tendrils around her pale oval face and her neck rose gracefully above the perfect expanse of skin revealed by a very low, square-necked bodice identical to the one flashing Min’s white bra. Her neckline had chiffon ruffles cascading over the beaded ivory corset that cinched her slim waist, and more ruffles fell from her wrists and flowed out from under the corset, parting to reveal a straight skirt flounced with more ruffles along the side like panniers and ending in a knife-pleated border that touched the toes of her satin buckled pumps. She turned on the platform to look into the mirror and Min saw the bustle of gathered chiffon at the base of her spine that erupted in more and more ruffles and pleats until the back of the dress took on a life of its own, quivering when Diana moved.

  “What do you think?” Diana said, no expression at all on her face.

  I think you look like a sex-crazed princess on heroin, Min thought, but she said, “I think you look beautiful,” because that was true, too.

  “You look gorgeous,” Worse said, straightening Di’s skirt, which didn’t need straightening.

  “Uh huh,” Wet said. Min wanted to feel sorry for her—it couldn’t be easy watching your best friend marry your ex-boyfriend, especially when you looked like hell in green—but Wet was so spineless that it was hard to sympathize.

  “It wouldn’t do for a morning wedding,” Diana said, touching the ribbon bow at her breasts. “It wouldn’t work for evening, either. But my wedding is at dusk. That’s magic time. It changes everything.”

  “You look like magic,” Min said, hearing the same strain in Diana’s voice that she’d heard on her answering machine the night before. “Are you all right?”

  Diana turned back to the mirror. “You wouldn’t be caught dead in this, would you?”

  “If I looked like you, I might.”

  Worse surveyed Min from head to toe, taking in the bursting corset and white bra along the way. “It’s not Min’s style.”

  “You think?” Min said. “Because I was going to wear the corset to the office when this whole deal was done. Could I talk to my sister alone for a minute, please?”

  Worse raised her eyebrows, but Wet escaped into the dressing rooms gladly, and when Min folded her arms and stared, Worse gave up and left, too.

  “What’s going on?” Min asked Diana, as the Dixie Chicks finished and Martina McBride began to sing the impossibly chipper “I Love You.”

  “Nothing,” Diana said, watching herself in the mirror. “Well, the cake, we’re having problems with the cake, but everything else is perfect.”

  “Is it Greg?” Min said, thinking, I wouldn’t want to marry a wimp no matter how cute and rich he was. If she ever got married, it’d be to somebody with edge, somebody who’d be tricky and fast and interesting forever—

  “Greg is perfect,” Diana said, fluffing the ruffles that somehow made her hips looks slimmer.

  “Oh, good,” Min said. “What about the cake?”

  “The cake . . .” Diana cleared her throat. “The cake didn’t get ordered in time.”


  “I thought Greg knew this great baker,” Min said.

  “He does,” Diana said. “But he . . . forgot, and now it’s too late, so I have to find a new baker.”

  “Who can do a huge art cake for three weeks from now?”

  “It’s not Greg’s fault,” Diana said. “You know men. They’re not dependable on stuff like that. It was my fault for not checking.”

  “Not all men are undependable,” Min said. “I met a real beast last night, but he’d have gotten that cake.”

  “Well, Greg isn’t a beast,” Diana said. “I’d rather have a good man who forgets cakes than a beast who remembers them.”

  “Good point,” Min said. “Look, I’ll find you a cake. It’s the least I can do to make up for my screwups.”

  Diana gave up on her ruffles and turned around. “What’s wrong? You’re not a screwup. What’s the matter?”

  “I lost David, and I’m too fat for this corset thing,” Min said, holding up the ribbon ends.

  “You’re not fat,” Diana said, but she stepped down off the platform. “They probably sent the wrong size. Let me see.”

  Min untied the corset and handed it over and then watched as Diana flipped it inside out with expert hands.

  “What happened with David?” Diana said as she frowned at the tag.

  “I wouldn’t sleep with him so he left.”

  “What a dumbass.” Diana looked up, mystified. “You know, this is an eight, it should fit.”

  “In what universe?” Min said, outraged. “I wasn’t an eight at birth. Who ordered this thing?”

  “I did,” Nanette said from behind her. “I assumed you’d be losing weight for your sister’s wedding. You’re still on your diet, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Min said, biting the word off as she turned to face her mother. “But let’s be realistic here. You bought a blouse that fit.” She looked down to where the tiny buttons stood at attention as they crossed her bustline. “Sort of. Why not—”

  “You’ve had a year,” her mother said, clutching a lot of lace from the lingerie department. “I thought the corset could cinch you in if you missed your target by a few pounds, but you’ve had plenty of time to lose that weight.”

  Min took a deep breath and popped the button on her skirt. “Look, Mother, I am never going to be thin. I’m Norwegian. If you wanted a thin daughter, you should not have married a man whose female ancestors carried cows home from the pasture.”

  “You’re half Norwegian,” Nanette said, “which is no excuse at all because there are plenty of slim Nordic beauties. You’re just eating to rebel against me.”

  “Mother, sometimes it’s not about you,” Min snapped as she held her skirt together. “Sometimes it’s genetics.”

  “Not your loud voice, dear,” her mother said, and turned to Diana as she held up the corset. “We’ll just have to tie it tighter.”

  “Good idea,” Min said. “Then when I pass out at the altar, you can point out how slim and Nordic I am.”

  “Minerva, this is your sister’s wedding,” Nanette said. “You can sacrifice a little.”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Diana said, holding out her hands. “There’s time to have one made in Min’s size. Everything will be fine.”

  “Oh, good.” Min stepped up on the platform to look at herself in the trifold mirror. She looked like the blowsy barmaid who worked in the inn behind the castle, the one who’d trash-picked one of the princess’s castoffs. “This is so not me.”

  “It’s a great color for you, Min,” Diana said softly as she came to stand behind her on the platform, and Min leaned back so their shoulders touched.

  “You’re going to be the most amazing bride,” she told Diana. “People are going to gasp when they see you.”

  “You, too,” Diana said, and squeezed Min’s shoulder.

  Yeah, when my corset explodes and my breasts hit the minister.

  “What happened to your eye?” Diana said in Min’s ear, low enough so that Nanette couldn’t hear.

  “The beast hit me last night,” Min said, and then when Diana straightened she added, “I walked into his elbow. Not his fault.”

  “That’s the wrong bra for that dress,” Nanette said from behind them.

  “You’re not by any chance my stepmother, are you?” Min said to her mother’s reflection. “Because that would explain so much.”

  “Here, darling,” Nanette said and handed her five different colored lace bras. “Go in there and put one of these on and bring me that cotton thing. I’m going to burn it.”

  “What cotton thing?” Diana said.

  “I’m wearing a plain white bra,” Min told her as she stepped off the platform, her hands full of lace.

  Diana widened her eyes and looked prim. “Well, you’re going to hell.”

  “Diana,” Nanette said.

  “I know,” Min said as she headed for the dressing room. “That’s where all the best men are.”

  “Minerva,” Nanette said. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s Thursday,” Min said, over her shoulder. “I’m meeting Liza and Bonnie for dinner, and I don’t want to talk about my underwear anymore.” She stopped in the doorway to the dressing room. “Order the bigger corset—much bigger, Mother—and we’ll try this again when it comes in.”

  “No carbs,” her mother called after her as she went into the dressing room. “And no butter”

  “I know you stole me from my real parents,” Min called back. “They’d let me eat butter.” Then she shut the door behind her before Nanette could tell her to avoid sugar, too.

  Chapter Four

  When Cal got home from work, he flipped on the white overhead light, kicked off his shoes, and went into the white galley kitchen behind the white breakfast bar to pour himself a Glenlivet. Even as he poured, Elvis Costello blared out in the next apartment, reverberating “She” through the wall.

  “Oh, Christ,” Cal said, and put his glass on his forehead. Shanna’s rocky romance must have crashed. He tossed back the drink and went to pound on her door.

  When Shanna opened the door, her pretty face was tear-stained under her tangled mop of soft kinky hair. “Hi, Cal,” she said and sniffed. “Come on in.”

  He followed her into the Technicolor version of his apartment, wincing until she’d turned Elvis down to a reasonable volume. “Tell me about it.”

  “It was awful,” she said, going to her bright red bookcase and moving aside a madly colored tiki god doll to get the bottle of Glenlivet she kept for him.

  “I just had one,” he said, warding her off.

  “I thought this was it.” Shanna put the tiki back and changed course to the big old couch she’d covered with a purple Indian bedspread. “I thought it was forever.”

  “You always think it’s forever.” Cal sat down beside her and put his arm around her. “Who was it this time? I lost track.”

  “Megan,” Shanna said, her face crumpling again.

  “Right.” Cal put his feet on the ancient trunk she used for a coffee table. “Megan the bitch. You know, maybe you should try dating for fun instead. Or take a break, that’s what I—”

  “Megan was fun,” Shanna said.

  “Megan was a humorless pain in the ass,” Cal said. “Why you always fall for women who make you feel guilty is beyond me. That kind makes me run.”

  Shanna looked at him with watery contempt. “All kinds make you run.”

  “This is not about me,” Cal said as Elvis finished with a last big, “She!” and began again; Shanna had put him on replay. “You have to get a new breakup song.”

  “I love this song,” Shanna said.

  “I used to like it,” Cal said. “But that was many months ago before you bashed me over the head with it every time your latest disaster left. You’re ruining Elvis Costello.”

  “Nobody can ruin Elvis. Elvis is a god,” Shanna said.

  “Isn’t Megan the one who hated Elvis?” Cal said.

  “No
, that was Anne,” Shanna said. “Although Megan wasn’t a fan, either.”

  “Well, there it is,” Cal said. “Play Elvis on the first date, and if she doesn’t like him, get rid of her before you get attached.”

  “Is that what you do?” Shanna let her head fall back on his arm. “Is that how you go through all those women unscathed?”

  “This is not about me,” Cal said. “This is about you. Stop dating people you think you should like and spend time with somebody who’s fun to be with.”

  “There are people like that?” Shanna said.

  “They all are in the beginning,” Cal said, and then remembered Min. “Well, except for the woman I had dinner with last night. She was pretty much a pain in the butt from the start.”

  “Of course you picked up a woman last night.” Shanna rolled her head to look at him. “They could drop you in the middle of a guys’ locker room and you’d come out with a woman. How do you do it?”

  Cal grinned at her. “My natural charm.” He could almost see the actuary rolling her eyes as he said it.

  Shanna rolled her head away. “And the sad thing is, that’s true. I have no natural charm.”

  “Yes, you do,” Cal said. “You just don’t use it.”

  Shanna looked back at him. “I do?”

  “When you’re not worried about impressing some snobby twit, you’re great,” Cal said. “You’re smart and funny and a good time.”

  “I am?”

  “I hang out with you, don’t I?”

  “Well, yeah, but you’re just being nice.”

  “I’m not nice,” Cal said. “I’m selfish as all hell. And since you’ve made it clear you’ll never sleep with me, I must be spending time with you because you’re fun, right? Not counting these wet Elvis nights.”

  “Right,” Shanna said, brightening some.

  “Well, my standards of fun are very high,” Cal said. “So you must be great. You just date the biggest bitches I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Oh, and the women you date are all sweethearts.” Shanna got up and moved away from him.

  “This is not about me,” Cal said. “The reason you keep crashing and burning is that you have no confidence and you keep picking women who like that about you.”