Mine Are Spectacular! (32 page)
Kirk graciously starts the ceremony, then calls on Skylar who comes forward and recites a poem she wrote. It happens to be about this great land America, and for a moment I can't figure out why she's reading it. Then I remember. She composed it for a class assignment last month and one poem a year is enough to ask from any teenager. Besides, she got an A on it.
Dylan steps forward nervously, holding the rings. Kirk leads us through the vows and Bradford and I slip the gold bands on each other's fingers and say our I do's.
“Is that all?” asks Dylan when he sees Bradford and me kissing.
“No, that's not all,” says Kirk, smiling at us. “The ceremony is over. But everything else is just beginning.”
“Here's to new beginnings,” says Kate, popping the cork on a champagne bottle. She comes over and gives a kiss to the bride and groom. And one to the minister.
We head into the dining room which is bursting with enough food for a week's worth of shows on the Food Network. And maybe that's where it came from, because Ken Chablis is standing at the table looking proud.
“I told everyone at the network to invent a Chocolate Surprise for your wedding,” he says delightedly.
And they've done it. The table is laden with chicken in chocolate sauce, chocolate-chip stuffed potatoes and sandwiches of bread-and-chocolate. As for the desserts, I may be out of a job soon, because it looks like Ken's staff have come up with more disgusting chocolate desserts than I ever could have imagined.
“Wow,” says Dylan. “I love getting married.”
Me, too, I think. Skylar is piling Dylan's plate with food and I don't worry about his getting dizzy from all that chocolateâbecause all of us are already flying high. I look around the room at Berni and Kate, at new friends and old. Bradford comes over and takes me in his arms. Everyone around us is talking, but I don't hear most of it because I'm too busy thinking how lucky I am. Louis Armstrong is right. It's a wonderful world.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Between them, authors J
ANICE
K
APLAN
and L
YNN
S
CHNURNBERGER
have published eight books, including their previous collaboration, the hit novel,
The Botox Diaries.
They've written hundreds of articles for just about every major magazine in America and have appeared regularly on television shows including
Today, Oprah,
and
Good Morning America.
Kaplan has been the executive producer of prime-time television specials for FOX, ABC, VH1 and other networks and was formerly deputy editor at
TV Guide
magazine. Schnurnberger is the author of
Let There Be Clothes: 40,000 Years of Fashion
and the founder of the nonprofit mentoring organization Foster Pride. The authors live in neighboring towns in Westchester County, New York, with their husbands and children.
Also by Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger
THE BOTOX DIARIES
Mine Are Spectacular!
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. References to actual events, locations or well-known personalities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance of the fictional characters to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaplan, Janice.
Mine are spectacular!: a novel / Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger.
p. cm.
1. Female friendshipâFiction. 2. Divorced mothersâFiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)âFiction. 4. Pregnant womenâFiction. 5. Suburban lifeâFiction. I. Schnurnberger, Lynn Edelman. II. Title.
PS3561. A5593M56 2005
813â².54âdc22 2004062799
eISBN: 978-0-345-48444-4
v3.0