Blooming All Over by Judith Arnold Page A

arch“—you never can predict what she’ll do. She’ll go deaf for a moment, then snap out of it and decide we should have the reception at Elaine’s, because the same outfit that supplies Bloom’s with salt and pepper also supplies Elaine’s.”
    “Really?” Ron seemed to find this strangely fascinating.
    “It’s probably the same outfit that supplies every food service company in the city with salt and pepper. The thing is, who cares? Grandma Ida gets hung up on mishegas like that.” Julia sighed, half from frustration and half from pleasure as Ron wrapped his hand around the back of her ankle, along her Achilles tendon, and rubbed. God, that felt good.
    “So don’t invite Grandma Ida.”
    “She’ll be pissed. And hurt.”
    “Big fucking deal.” Ron let his hand drop and rolled onto his back. “You worry too much,” he addressed the ceiling.
    She knew he was exasperated with her—but, as he himself would put it, big fucking deal. He might not care where their wedding was held or who catered it, but he wasn’t the president of a major food emporium with its own catering department. He was the business columnist at Gotham magazine, where unless you were a local celebrity of some sort, no one cared where you got married or what your guests ate at the reception.
    “And my brother. What are we going to do about him?”
    “Adam?” Ron shrugged. “Why do we have to do anything about him?”
    “Mom says he wanders around the apartment in a daze. She said he keeps saying he’s got to call Tash,but she’s overheard him on the phone talking to someone named Elyse.”
    “Your mother is eavesdropping on his phone calls? Jesus.” Ron rolled his eyes again.
    “So who’s Elyse?”
    “Am I supposed to know?”
    “Adam’s going to want to join us for dinner because Lyndon will be making real food. My mother always makes low-calorie stuff, salads with fat-free dressing, fish fried in Pam.”
    “Tell Lyndon to fix a plate for Adam to eat in the kitchen. This is not a crisis, Julia.”
    It was a crisis. She figured her wedding to Ron would be the only one she ever had, and she wanted it to be perfect. She wanted everyone to get along and no one to be petty or selfish or overly demanding. She wanted to look beautiful, and she wanted Susie, her maid of honor, to be happy, and she wanted a pretty gown that didn’t cost as much as a Learjet, and she wanted Bloom’s to cater the reception. Right now many of the key members of the wedding were not getting along, most of them were innately petty, selfish and demanding, she had an incipient pimple in the crease next to her left nostril—although she suspected that by the time she and Ron booked a place for their wedding they’d be lucky to get a date a year from now, and the pimple would probably be gone by then. She had a brooding, melancholy sister and the few gowns she’d looked at so far, while not as expensive as a Learjet, carried price tags that made her think of all the starving children in the world and left her paralyzed with guilt. And her mother was still whining about having a reception at the Plaza because her brother had hosted his son’s bar mitzvah there.
    “Maybe we should elope,” she said dolefully.
    “Fine with me.”
    “Just take the subway down to City Hall, sign some papers and be done with it.” She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the fantasy.
    “We could even bring some bagels from the store with us and eat them afterward. That way you could say Bloom’s catered the reception.”
    She scowled. “You’re making fun of me.”
    “You won’t let me make love with you. This is the best alternative I can come up with.”
    “I will let you make love with me,” she retorted. “Just not now, while I’m busy worrying.”
    He reached up, clamped a hand onto her shoulder and pulled her down against him. As worried as she was, she couldn’t help nestling into him, resting her head on his chest and extending her legs along