Jamie sauntered over to the office door and made sure it was locked. She then returned, completely removing her blouse and letting it drop on topof her sweater.
Deny me now, ma’am.
Chapter 27
If the actual wedding day was supposed to be the most exciting of Jamie’s life, then going shopping for her wedding dress should have been second.
Like most brides, Jamie had spent an insubordinate time looking at wedding dresses and dreaming of what kind she wanted. She had dog-eared everything there was to see, and with Etta’s generous budget, she knew that the sky was the limit as far as her dress was concerned. Neither designers nor tailoring was an issue when Jamie had a certain black card on file that carried the name Etta A. Coleman.
Anyone who was anyone, however, insisted that there was only one boutique to shop for a wedding dress in. Naturally, it was located in New York City, a quick jaunt in first class for Jamie and her small entourage. Convincing her mother to stay dressed, however, was a bigger ordeal than it ever should have been.
Besides her mother, Jamie was joined by Seena and Monique, the latter of whom assured her she was clear to fly.“What, do I look like I’m going to pop tomorrow? Please. More like three months from now. I’m just fat, dear.”
“That is the heaviest pregnancy I have ever seen,” Luna said, leaningacross the first-class aisle so she could whisper in her daughter’s ear. “That woman is going to need every herb I can think of to help her with the stretchmarks afterward.” When Monique slightly turned in her seat, ears red and lips pursing in annoyance, Luna continued, “Not that there’s anything wrong with stretchmarks. They’re positively beautiful. They’re like the roadmap of a woman’s life! See?” Just as the flight attendant walked by, Luna lifted her shirt, showing off the plethora of stretch marks she had amassed over the years. “This is the Jamie trail right here.”
“Please… please put your stomach away, Mom.”
Yet Luna refused to play by anyone’s rules, let alone her daughter’s. Once they were in the air, she and Seena gabbed loudly about homemade Mexican food and how one should take certain precautions to avoid meetings with the porcelain gods. Jamie put on her headphones so she wouldn’t have to hear about diarrhea, vomit, and “strange black stuff,” as Seena put it.“Never gonna eat Guatemalan food again… don’t care what my grandmother says…”
When that conversation died down, Luna moved to Monique, who spent most of her flight flipping through lifestyle magazines one minute and baby magazines the next. “So, when are you due? I recently attended the most beautiful water birth.”
Monique may have been the queen of propriety, but even she had to be tired of all the questions about her pregnancy by now.“Everyone has an opinion about it and what I’m doing, and all of those opinions suck,”she told Jamie a few days ago.
“I’m due in late July, unfortunately.” Monique flipped her magazine shut. “It’s supposed to be very hot this summer, so I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Oh! Those are the sun’s rays welcoming your baby into the world with warm arms!”
Monique sighed, picking up another magazine. “I’m sureit is. That’s very kind of it.”
“Have you picked out a name yet?”
“I’ve thought of a few, but nothing is settled yet.”
“Oh, it’s good to have a few on hand. Sometimes you think you’re settled on a name, but the moment that baby is put in your arms, you realize that you’ve got it all wrong. We were originally going to name Jamie Luna like I’m named these days, but her paleness was all wrong for the moon. Even as a newborn, she wasn’t that pink or red. You can always be surprised.”
Monique politely nodded before pulling her magazine up between her face and Jamie’s mother. Luna looked around anxiously before finally pouncing on her daughter for the remainder of the trip. Apparently, someone still couldn’t fly without the nerves taking over.
Luna was further alienated when they checked into a downtown penthouse suite for the weekend. Views of Central Park lay beneath the high-rise window when Jamie went to admire it.Amanda arranged this room for me.Granted, Etta told her to do it, but it was a nice gesture.
There were only three rooms since they had no idea Luna would be joining them until the last minute, so Jamie was forced into a room with her mother. This wouldn’t have been a terrible problem, except Luna insisted on sleeping naked – and her rubbery skin had a habit of rubbing against her daughter as Jamie tried to sleep in the air-conditioned room.
The next day, they piled into a rented Rolls-Royce and headed to the boutique for their appointment. It didn’t hit Jamie that she would hopefully be purchasing her wedding dress that day until she walked into the boutique and was immediately surrounded by some of the most beautifully crafted dresses she had ever seen in her life.
Mermaid dresses. Ball gowns. Empire waists. Trains as long as the street outside, and busts that let it all hang out or conservatively covered. Strapless. Sleeveless. Skirtless, if someone wanted to create their own DIY dress that would then be stitched by a master seamstress. Jamie looked at thenotes she brought with her and realized she didn’t know where to start. It didn’t help that her mother made sarcastic remarks about slave labor and Seena cried over anything that was beyond a grand. Which was everything but some pairs of gloves.
They were assisted by a woman named Charise, who took one look at Jamie and subtly suggested she might be interested in certain designers. She guessed this purely on Jamie’s look, for there was only so much a woman could learn from looking up Jamie’s identity online. As far as the internet was concerned, Jamie Joy was Etta Coleman’s lucky plaything who came from Nowheresville, USA. Suited her fine. Until moments like these, when she could use the expert advice of someone who knew her well. Because her friends and her mother were clueless about everything else. Well, except for maybe Monique, but she was confined to a couch with glasses of water since walking more than a few yards had her bemoaning the state of her feet.
What commenced was one of the most grueling afternoons of Jamie’s life.
She tried on at least twenty dresses. Some of them were fine to look at on her, but none of them screamedGet married in this!At first, Jamie brushed off the sinking feeling in her stomach as, well, that was life. She wouldn’t find the perfect dress on the first try. How could she? That never happened. She had endless wealth to dispense on whatever she wanted! She didn’t have to settle, even though the poufy princess gown making her look ten years younger would have been fine if these were the only dresses she had to choose from. Of course, Charise worked on commission, so she was determined to get Jamie to buy something. Yet at the end of the day, after twenty designer dresses had touched her body, the only thing Jamie could commit to was an elegant tiara that melded seamlessly into her tangle of hair. Her mother cried to see it, but none of the dresses on herdaughter’s body.
“Honestly, honey, as over the top as I think these nice dresses are… if I’m not moved, then you’re probably not moved either. I want to see you in your dress and bawl my eyes out.”
It was the only time that day Jamie agreed with her mother. She was not happy to walk out of the boutique without having found “the” dress – especially when there were only a few weeks left to find one – but she told herself that it was better than settling. Of course, Seena told her she was an idiot for not picking every single dress in there, and Monique suggested Jamie set up appointments all over the Eastern seaboard to find something suitable. This from the woman who had a dress picked out within two weeks of being officially engaged.
They returned home the next day, Jamie receiving a call from Etta that she would be staying in the penthouse that night and her fiancée should join. First, she had to make the customary stop by her office. So after seeing everyone else home, she went to the Thompson-Coleman building, only to be told by Natasha – who expressed her sympathies over the lack of the dress – that Etta was downstairs in the company gym.
Instead of waiting around the office for her fiancée to return or going straight to the penthouse to rest, Jamie left her things behind Natasha’s desk and rode down to the twenty-seventh floor, which was a dedicated health club for employees and investors.
