Reunion Girls (2 page)

Joaquin winked. "You could add me to the guest list. No one would know."

"Actually," Lara began, unable to resist the opening, "I might be doing a birthday party for the Kometani twins. Maybe I could snag you an invitation." She leveled a ray-gun gaze. "Do you know them?"

A mischievous smile curled on to his lips. "I do. In fact, I've already had the pleasure of giving them a very special gift."

Lara pursed her lips. An image of Joaquin with Mio and Mako Kometani flashed into her mind. It was disgusting . . . it was titillating. She banished the thought. Without warning, she stopped dancing. "I should get back to my date."

Joaquin shot a glance over her shoulder. "He's busy hitting on one of the waiters."

Lara didn't bother turning around. She knew he was telling the truth.

Joaquin moved in to continue the dance.

Lara took a step backward.

He gestured to Dean Paul, who was dancing with one of his nieces, a precious young girl no older than six and utterly entranced by her charismatic uncle. "I've been watching you watching him all night," Joaquin said.

Lara opened her mouth to protest.

Joaquin pressed a finger to her lips, hushing her. "I could make you forget him. So good that the melancholy would never come back."

Lara didn't know which was worse—the things he said or the fact that she was still attracted to him. His offer triggered a surge of desire that filled her with a moment of self-loathing. But in the end, she maintained her dignity. "This dance is over, Mr. Cruz."

She spun around, leaving him there as the band went from funky to funkier on an extended instrumental break.

Finn intercepted her right away. "What did he say?"

Lara hesitated. No way could she repeat it. “Sade wrote a song about him. Let's just leave it at that." She regarded her friend with a wry smile. "What happened to your flavor of the night?"

Finn groaned. "He wanted me to buy him drugs. Which I'm not above, mind you. But he seemed to need them a little too much. You have to be careful. I have a friend who was held at knifepoint by a pickup until he surrendered his ATM code."

"I wish you would meet a nice man and settle into a normal relationship."

Finn rolled his eyes. “Is there such a thing?”

Lara watched Dean Paul kiss his niece on both cheeks and usher her back to one of the kids' tables.

Suddenly, his gaze met hers. The smile that followed almost ripped her apart. He made a beeline for her, stopping to pump Finn's hand before kissing her lightly on the lips. "You look gorgeous. I can't believe you're here. I wasn't sure that you'd come."

"Don't be silly, I would never miss this," Lara lied. In the last month, she'd made at least a hundred silent vows not to show up. "I'm so happy for you. Aspen seems like a . . . lovely girl."

"She is," Dean Paul agreed. "People think they know her from watching
Survivor,
but they don't." He glanced down at the elegant white gold band around his ring finger, then held up his hand for show-and-tell. "Can you believe I did this?"

Lara laughed a little. "It's official."

Dean Paul really looked at her. "Did you ever think that this would be us?"

All the time.
"Maybe . . . a million years ago."
Before you dumped me for one of my best friends. And even after that.

"This is wild, isn't it?" He shook his head. "I always thought I would show up at your wedding before mine. Are you seeing anyone special?"

Lara wondered if Dean Paul realized how cruel it was to ask that question in this setting—he, just married; she, on the arm of an openly gay society boy. "No, not even someone special-
ish
," she answered bravely, unwilling to compound the misery of the moment by lying. Besides, her personal psychic, Karen Keener, had recently counseled her about the importance of truth, about how one lie can do so much to undo what you're ultimately working toward. Granted, she had lied moments ago regarding her feelings about this wedding, her feelings for him. But that was simply self-preservation.
 

Dean Paul smiled. “Well, not for long. Not in a dress like that."

Lara felt a blushing heat rush to her cheeks. She could barely stand to look at him. His bow tie was history, the first three buttons of his shirt undone, offering just a peek of his tanned, smooth, defined chest. He had always maintained the athletic build of an Olympic swimmer. Standing there, she fought the battle of trying to act naturally and trying to drink him in at the same time. Dean Paul was a time-capsule moment. Robert Redford in
The Way We Were.
Ryan O'Neal in
Love Story.
Shiny. Golden. Romantic. Heart stopping.

"Do you ever run into Babe or Gabby?" He asked this with wide-eyed, sincere, innocent interest.

Lara stood firm as the memory slammed into her. Back in college, Dean Paul's self-absorption had been epic in its magnitude. Apparently, nothing had changed. Babe had been the friend he dumped Lara for. Gabrielle had been the friend he dumped Babe for. But he probably remembered it all quite differently.

"I occasionally see Babe at an event," Lara began, "but she's so busy we never really talk. As for Gabrielle . . . well, I rarely find myself immersed in the hip-hop scene."

Dean Paul nodded, barely listening as he tracked the room with a circular gaze. "I invited both of them."

Suddenly, Aspen crashed the scene. She iced down Lara with a go-to-hell glare and looped a possessive arm through Dean Paul's. "Do you mind if I steal my husband back? There's someone I want him to meet."

Lara splayed open her arms. "There's nothing to steal. He's yours legally. Congratulations."

"I think there's a single groomsman around here somewhere," Aspen said. "Maybe you can latch on to him." And then she pulled Dean Paul toward a gaggle of what looked to be older relatives from Florida.

Rita Coolidge began crooning the opening verse of "We're All Alone."

It was too much. Lara embarked upon a seek-and-destroy champagne mission. She needed another glass. And maybe another one after that. Payback might be brutal, but even the worst hangover had to feel better than this. She stopped a passing waiter and helped herself to two flutes, downing the first glass immediately.

Lara cased the surroundings. That's when she saw Babe Mancini.

Men were ogling. Women were scowling.

She was a rock-chick fantasy, her long legs sheathed in a skintight, handcrafted pair of art-deco leather pants. Lara knew the trousers were by Elise Overland. The Norwegian designer's clients included Lenny Kravitz and Shakira. Her low-end price tag was easily two thousand dollars. Babe's look was polished off with a midriff-baring sleeveless top, a studded Chanel cuff bracelet, and black leather pointed-toe pumps with kitten heels. Her hair was cropped dangerously short, the kind of style that only truly beautiful women can get away with.

From across the room, Babe made eye contact with Lara.

Right after that, Lara sent the second champagne down the hatch. She was going to need it.

The It Parade

by Jinx Wiatt

Fill in the Blanks

That sexy cable news hothead was recently seen and heard in the Church Lounge of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, claiming he had the chance to be a "plus one" at the Hamptons wedding that has everyone's tongue wagging. You see, the dreamy motormouth is currently locking lips with one of the groom's exes. But he would rather "have a colonoscopy than show up at that circus for Ken doll and
Girls Gone Wild Barbie." Ouch. Tell us how you really feel.

Babe

SHE WAS A WOMAN WITH a great ass. As good—if not better—than Kylie Minogue's. And she knew it.

Babe Mancini caught the evil glare of a fat lady spooning up the lobster bisque. And on this week's episode of
The Overweight and the Hostile . . .
whatever. She was sick of the dirty looks. Get a treadmill. Get over it.

Nobody knew how hard she worked to look like this. First, there were the Mesotherapy sessions, homeopathic treatments where a cellulite-fighting formula is injected (very painfully) four millimeters deep into the skin to break down fat cells.

And then there were the punishing sessions with at the Madison Square Club on Fifth Avenue. Platypus walks, toe squats, reverse-prone scissor kicks, rumo lunges, and frog jumps.

At the end of the day, a great ass will kick your ass.

Babe grimaced. And, of course, women like Lara Ward were around to remind her how unfair the world could be. Did Lara exercise to the point of nausea? Did she make it a daily practice to force down an ounce of water for every pound of body weight? Did she withstand 105-degree temperatures in a Hot Yoga class three days a week?

Hell no. Lara's perfect figure was the result of nothing more than an enviable gene pool. She was the kind of tall and slender girl that designers went mad over. In fact, she was their precise sample size, which gave her the benefit of seasonal giveaways and discreet loaners. Case in point—that drop-dead-gorgeous icicle dress. Babe had salivated over the Michael Kors number, eventually coming to her senses when she saw the fifteen-thousand-dollar price tag. But Lara in all her glorious Twiggyness could just borrow the frock like a cup of sugar. What a bitch.

Babe approached Lara and her walker-cum-date with thinly veiled disdain. "Nice dress." The compliment came spitting out of her mouth like the sour grapes it was.

Lara's smile was thin. For a Rhode Island girl, she played the cool Upper East Side act like a veteran. "Thank you. I love your pants."

"Really? They killed the entire credit line on a Visa. Did you sink fifteen grand into that dress?"

Lara managed a guilty little smile. "Not exactly. Michael Kors is a friend. I did a birthday party for his assistant. He was an angel to let me borrow it."

"There you are!"

Those three words greeted Babe wherever she went. She turned to face the source—a facelift-fresh actress who was currently stinking up the Broadway stage in a clunky turn in
Cabaret.

"Will you take our picture?
Please
." She draped herself over her young, virile, blandly handsome, nightclub-promoting husband, both of them mugging for the camera Babe didn't have.

"I'm not working tonight," Babe explained. "
212
got scooped.
InStyle
has the exclusive."

"But we always look so good in your pictures," the actress whined.

Babe shrugged helplessly. "Sorry." Most of the time she hated her job. Being a social-scene photographer for
212
, a glossy weekly dedicated to high-profile Manhattanites, meant being nice to her subjects. In fact, actually liking them went a long way toward success.

The actress and the sleazy husband (her fourth) left in a funk, presumably in search of the official photographer. After all, if it wasn't documented and published—somewhere besides Instagram—that they were at the biggest wedding of the year, then why had they spent the day dressing up and coughed up a small fortune for the helicopter charter? The husband's jeweled hand (thumb, index, and pinky rings) planted itself on the actress's lipo-sculpted rear end.

At that moment, Babe surreptitiously brushed back a tendril of hair, pretended to adjust her Chanel cuff bracelet, and snapped the image.

Click
.

The sound was ever so faint. She could barely make it out over Rita Coolidge and the band. But the first shot was in the tiny bowel of the itty-bitty camera. Granted, the resolution would be mediocre. What else could she expect from an over-the-counter spy gadget? At the end of the day, though, it would serve its purpose.

The Lockharts' decision to grant
InStyle
an exclusive had infuriated the celebrity magazine brigade.
People, Us, Star
—each and every editor was so ravenous for guerilla shots of the goings-on that good or bad didn't apply. Any photo would do.

Her covert act sent a little tingle up Babe's spine. It was thrilling. She felt just like
Jane
Bond
.
The reception shots would net her a nice sum. And the images from the ceremony would be worth a bundle. Poor Dean Paul and Aspen. So controlling in how their nuptials would be presented to the fawning public.
 
They had even banned guests from bringing in cell phones.
 
Only to be foiled by a rogue guest. Ah, the taste of subterfuge. How sweet. While the
InStyle
editors waxed lyrical over their
official
photographs, the highest-bidding weekly rag would be rushing to press with Babe's secret-cam chronicles.
 

"I almost didn't recognize you without your camera. There's actually a real person behind the lens. Imagine that."

Finn was talking. Babe was ignoring. She scanned the area in search of another money shot.

Kaching!

Blushing bride at two o'clock, eating a salmon wrap with her eyes rolled back. Unflattering as hell. Translation: Worth a fortune. The weeklies loved pictures of celebrities looking ugly, clumsy, and idiotic. Spreads like that made readers feel better about themselves.

Babe took in a quick breath. Another brush of the hair. A turn of the wrist. A slight bracelet adjustment.

Click
.

She turned her attention back to Finn, giving him an annoyed look. The gay social buck drove her crazy. All she remembered him doing in college was buzzing around campus on his Vespa, hosting parties at his expensive apartment, and piling friends into his BMW for the hour-long ride to Club Nicole in Boston. These days, he seemed to do even less. "Have you ever thought about getting a job?"

For a fleeting moment, Finn had the look of a man under attack. "I work," he insisted with a defensive sniff. "I'm a writer."

Babe snorted. "Let me guess... screenplays."

Firm's eyes went wide. "How did you know?"

"Because books require too much attention. Even models can dabble in screenplays that go nowhere."

Finn stiffened. "Just because you never made it as an art photographer and got stuck doing candids on the party beat doesn't give you the right to judge me."