Fake History

You wake up with your phone on your face.

You fell asleep mid-conversation, which is mortifying, and the last text on the screen is from Iris, sent at 1:14 a.m.: You're asleep. Noted. Goodnight.

You stare at it for a long time. You read last night's thread again from the top, the dry little jabs, the way she answered some things and dodged others, the way she seemed to be waiting for something from you without ever saying what. Then you put the phone face down on the mattress like it might bite you.

"Zero feelings," you tell the ceiling.

The ceiling does not believe you.

By ten you're back at the marble table in Tribeca with a legal pad, a box of pierogi from Mr. Szczepanski's bakery and Iris Laurent sitting across from you in a gray sweater, eyeing the box like it contains a live animal.

"Rule nine," you remind her.

"It's ten in the morning."

"Pierogi are a breakfast food in Greenpoint."

"That can't be true."

"Mr. Szczepanski says it's true, and he's eighty and has forearms like a sailor. Eat."

She takes one with two fingers. Bites. Chews. A long pause. "Potato and cheese," she says, almost accusingly.

"And?"

"And it's very good," she says, as if confessing to a crime, and takes another.

You hide your grin behind the legal pad. "Okay. Fake history. When did we meet?"

"March," Iris says immediately.

"Why March?"

"Because I started sleeping badly in March, and my mother noticed. If she asks, she'll think it was because of you." She doesn't look up from the pierogi. "It's efficient."

You write MARCH and underline it. "Where?"

"Somewhere I'd go. Not a bar. I don't go to bars."

"The flower market," you say. "On Twenty-Eighth Street. I go at five a.m. on Tuesdays for Ezekiel. Do you ever go?"

Iris looks at you strangely. "I go for the tuberose. When it's in season. Every Tuesday in spring."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Then that's it. We met at the flower market." You're writing fast now, the story falling into place the way a good seating chart does. "You were being rude to a man about his gardenias."

"I'm never rude about gardenias. Gardenias are perfect."

"Fine. You were being rude about his lilies."

"That's plausible," she admits. "Lilies are bullies."

"And I told you to be nice to him, because he gets up at three a.m. to bring flowers into the city, and you said—"

"'Who are you,'" Iris supplies, flat.

"And I said, 'Someone who's going to buy you a coffee so you stop yelling at Hector.'"

Iris is watching you now, chin on her hand, the pierogi forgotten. "And did I let you?"

"You did. You said the coffee was terrible. And then you asked for my number."

"Did I," she says softly.

Your pencil stops. The atelier is very quiet. Somewhere behind the glass organ, Billie is humming.

"It's a story," you say. "For your mom."

"I know what it's for." Iris sits back. The softness folds itself away. "It's good. My mother will hate how much she likes it. What else?"

You run through the rest like wedding logistics. Her favorite color: black, obviously. Yours: yellow. Her coffee: black, no sugar, she judges anyone who adds syrup. Yours: oat latte with vanilla, which she judges out loud. Her middle name: Bérénice, after her grandmother. Yours makes her actually laugh, a short, startled sound, and she apologizes immediately, and you throw a pierogi at her and she catches it.

"Allergies?"

"None. Yours?"

"Cats. And lying to nice people."

"That's not an allergy."

"It is for me. I break out in guilt hives."

"I'll make you an antihistamine," says Iris, completely seriously. "I have a chemistry degree."

"You have a chemistry degree?"

"Two." She brushes crumbs off her sweater. "Now. Clothes."

"What about clothes?"

Her gaze drops to your outfit, which is jeans and your lucky cardigan with the duck buttons. "Belle Rive is my grandmother's house. There will be lunch on the terrace, croquet if my mother is feeling aggressive, and a woman named Bérénice who once made a duchess change her shoes. I'll take you to my mother's stylist."

"Absolutely not."

"Then I'll send you a few things."

"Iris. Rule seven. No money."

"It's not money. It's linen."

"It's money shaped like linen."

You glare at each other across the marble. She has a terrible poker face for someone so cold. You can see the exact moment she decides she's going to lose and hates it.

"Compromise," you say. "I pick. You approve. I pay."

The compromise takes place at Second Act, a thrift store on Manhattan Avenue that smells like dust and lavender and has a cat named Duchess asleep on the register, which means you sneeze six times.

Iris Laurent stands in the middle of it like a panther in a petting zoo.

"People buy clothes here," she says.

"People buy amazing clothes here." You pull a dress off the rack. "This."

She looks. "No."

"This?"

"It's beige. You're not a beige person."

"What kind of person am I?"

She doesn't answer. Instead she walks to the back of the store, past the racks of denim and wedding dresses, and pulls something from a rack you didn't even see. A sundress, soft cotton, the pale yellow of lemon sorbet, with tiny white buttons down the front.

She holds it out without a word.

You take it into the dressing room, which is just a curtain on a rail. When you come out, Iris is leaning against a shelf of old hardcovers, arms folded, and she looks up, and she doesn't say anything at all.

Effie, who has been tagging along supposedly to help and actually to watch, makes a small noise behind a rack of coats.

"Well?" you ask.

Iris clears her throat. "It's acceptable."

"Acceptable?"

"It's yellow," she says, as though that explains something. "You said yellow."

The dress costs eighteen dollars. You pay for it yourself, and Iris stands beside you at the register glaring at Duchess the cat, who glares back, and as you're leaving she says, very quietly, so only you can hear, "You looked happy in it. That's all. That's what I meant."

On the sidewalk outside, Effie grabs your arm. "Zero feelings," she whispers. "Zero feelings, she says."

"Shut up."

"I would die for this. I would genuinely die."

Iris's car is waiting at the curb, black and gleaming. She opens the back door, then pauses. "Sunday. Nine. I'll pick you up."

"I can take the train to—"

"I'll pick you up, Ava," she says, and gets in, and is gone.

You're halfway up Manhattan Avenue with the yellow dress in a plastic bag when your phone rings. Coco Laurent. You answer with your planner voice.

"Hey, bride! Are we still thinking blush for the napkins or—"

"Is Iris with you?" Coco sounds breathless. "Please tell me she's with you."

"She just left. Why? What's wrong?"

"It's Mom." Coco takes a breath. "She just told me who else is coming to lunch on Sunday. Ava, she invited Anneliese Kroft."

"Who's Anneliese Kroft?"

The silence on the line goes on so long you check whether the call dropped.

"Oh, no," Coco whispers. "Iris didn't tell you."