The Coat Room

The coat room of the Laurent townhouse is bigger than your apartment.

It smells like cashmere and cedar and very old money, and Iris Laurent has just shut the door behind both of you with her shoulder, like a spy in a movie.

"What," you say, "was that?"

"An emergency." She lets go of your hand. Then she looks at her palm, which is sticky with champagne from your wrist, and wipes it on a mink coat without a flicker of guilt. "I apologize. Not for the mink. The mink deserves it."

"You told your mother I'm your girlfriend."

"Yes."

"I'm the wedding planner."

"I'm aware. You've been on the floor three times tonight. I counted." She folds her arms. In the low light of the coat room her eyes are almost silver. "My mother has introduced me to six women since the soup course. One of them asked me what my sign was. I told her 'Do Not Disturb.' She laughed. I wasn't joking."

Despite everything, you snort.

Iris's gaze snaps to your mouth. Something flickers there and vanishes. "I need her to stop," she says. "For three months. Until Coco's wedding is over. Then I'll stage a dignified breakup and she can return to her hobby."

"Matchmaking."

"Hunting."

You stare at her. "So grab someone else. One of your friends."

"My friends are all married or chemists. Usually both." She tilts her head. "And my mother knows all of them. She doesn't know you. She already likes you. You caught the tower."

"You said it was going to fall."

"It was. That's not the point." She takes a breath, and for the first time she looks less like a marble statue and more like a person who hasn't slept. "Seven events. The family calendar between now and the wedding has seven things on it that I'm required to attend. Lunch at Belle Rive. The bridal shower. The Maison Laurent summer launch. The bachelorette weekend. My mother's charity ball. The rehearsal dinner. The wedding. You come to them as my date. You smile. You hold my hand when necessary. My mother stops throwing women at me. Coco gets a peaceful summer."

"And what do I get?"

"Whatever you want." She says it simply, like it's obvious. "Name a number."

Your face goes hot. "I don't want your money."

"Everyone wants money."

"I want to do my job." You step closer, finger raised, and she doesn't step back. "Listen to me. I have one rule, Ms. Laurent. One. I never, ever become the story at a client's event. The planner is invisible. The planner is the reason the napkins are folded and the cake shows up and nobody notices she exists. I don't date the guests. I don't date the family. I definitely don't fake-date the family in front of two hundred people and a senator."

"Technically he's a former senator."

"Iris."

She goes still at her own name in your mouth. Just for a second.

"I'm sorry," you say, softer. "Really. Your mom sounds exhausting. But no. I'll tell her it was a joke. She'll laugh. We'll move on."

You open the coat room door and walk out before she can answer, and before you can think too hard about how good she smelled up close.

It takes you four minutes to find Honora Laurent.

It takes her four seconds to find you first.

"There you are," she says warmly, appearing at your elbow by the staircase. She slips her arm through yours as though you've known each other for years. Her perfume is something soft and powdery, like violets left in a drawer. "Walk with me, dear."

She guides you up the stairs, away from the party, into a small library lined with green silk. Then she closes the door. The noise of the party drops to a hum.

"Mrs. Laurent," you start. "About what Iris said—"

"My daughter," says Honora pleasantly, "has never once in her life introduced me to anyone. Not in ten years. Not a girlfriend, not a friend, not a cat. So you'll understand that I'm curious."

"Of course, but—"

"I'm also not a fool." She smiles. It doesn't reach her eyes, which are the same pale green as Iris's, just colder. "I've built a perfume house on my nose, my dear. I can smell a top note from across a ballroom. And I can smell a lie."

Your mouth goes dry.

"So I'll say this once, gently, because I like you." Honora smooths an invisible crease from your sleeve. "If this is a little performance to keep me out of my daughter's love life, I'll find out. And I don't employ people who lie to me. Not my lawyers. Not my chef. And certainly not the woman planning my youngest daughter's wedding."

The library is very quiet.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me?" Honora asks.

You think about Bluebird. About the overheating laptop and the bakery downstairs and the landlord who calls you kochanie and also threatens to evict you every quarter. About Coco hugging you like a golden retriever. About how this wedding, this one wedding, could book you for the next five years.

If you tell the truth now, you're the planner who lied to Honora Laurent's face at the engagement party. You're done. Not just this job. Every job on this side of the river.

"No," you hear yourself say. "Nothing to tell."

"Wonderful, Ava." Honora pats your arm. "Sunday, then. Ten o'clock. Iris knows the way."

She opens the door, and the party swallows her.

You stand alone in the green library for a full minute, breathing like you've run up the stairs.

"Okay," you whisper. "Okay. Okay okay okay."

Effie finds you on the landing. "So," she says. "Are you a lesbian heiress's girlfriend now? Because I need to know how to update the spreadsheet."

"I'm already a lesbian, Effie."

"I know, Ava, that column's been filled in since 2021. I mean the other part."

You grab her shoulders. "Honora knows. Or she suspects. And if I tell her it was fake, she fires us for lying."

Effie's face goes through several stages of grief. "Oh. Oh, that's bad."

"Yes."

"That's deliciously bad."

"Effie."

"Sorry. Professional face." She rearranges her expression. "So what do we do?"

You already know.

You find Iris Laurent on the front stoop of the townhouse, alone, under the yellow glow of the iron lamps. She's sitting on the top step in her perfect black suit with her elbows on her knees, holding her untouched glass of water, looking out at East 70th Street like it personally disappointed her.

She doesn't turn when the door opens. "If you've come to tell me you told her, I already know," she says. "I'll handle it. You won't lose the job. I'll make sure of—"

"I didn't tell her, Iris."

Now she turns.

In the lamplight, with the city glowing behind her and her face unguarded for half a second, she looks younger. Uncertain. It's devastating.

You sit down on the step beside her, rented dress and all, and pluck the pencil from behind your ear. You hold out your hand.

"Napkin," you say.

She stares at you. "What?"

"Give me a napkin. You stole like six from the bar, I saw you."

Slowly, Iris reaches into her jacket pocket and produces a white cocktail napkin with the Laurent crest on it. You smooth it flat against your knee.

"Fine," you say. "I'll do it. Seven events." You click the pencil. "But I have rules."

For the first time all night, Iris Laurent almost smiles.