I groan. I’d forgotten all about it.

“Oh God,” I say. “I think I’m going to have to postpone that.”

“No,” Magda says, smacking me lightly on top of the head. “You can’t do that! It’s important! You have to look your best for the big day. You can’t disappoint Cooper. Besides, we’re all coming, to see how the dress has turned out.”

I groan again, and reach for the drink Canavan has doctored. “Magda, no. It’s all the way uptown and I’m just not feeling up to riding the subway right now. I’m too, uh, beautiful—”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Canavan says disgustedly. He turns and whistles at a uniformed officer walking by. “You. Sullivan. C’mere.”

The officer hurries over. “Sir?”

“You got a patrol car, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Drive these two ladies uptown,” he says.

Officer Sullivan looks down at us in confusion. “Sir?”

“They’ve got a very important appointment,” Canavan explains tersely. “Use your lights and siren. They can’t be late.”

Sullivan looks even more confused. “I’m sorry, sir, which precinct am I taking them to uptown?”

“No precinct,” Canavan roars. “They’ve got a wedding-dress-fitting appointment. Now go!”

Which is how, forty-five minutes later, Magda and I find ourselves outside the boutique at which I bought my wedding dress, thanking Officer Sullivan and his partner, who both seem highly amused by the unusual mission.

“Next time I have an emergency,” Magda coos across the sidewalk, blowing them kisses, “I’m only calling you two!”

“You do that,” Officer Sullivan says, and smiles as he waves back. There are probably worse ways a police officer can spend a morning than transporting two blondes in the back of his cruiser.

Before I touch the door to the boutique, it’s yanked open, and Nicole Cartwright is standing there wearing a butter-yellow jumpsuit and a stricken expression on her face.

“Where have you been?” she demands. “You’re late.”

“Only a little late,” I say. “There was traffic by the Pan Am Building.”

“You couldn’t have called?” Nicole demands. “It never occurred to you that things might have gotten a little hectic here too?”

“At the bridal shop?” Magda looks at me, her drawn-on eyebrows raised. “What happened? Has someone had diarrhea in the sink like in that movie about the bridesmaids?”

“Oh my God, Huey, chill.” Jessica suddenly appears in the doorway, a glass of champagne in one hand and her cell phone in the other. “Quit blocking the doorway and let them in.”

“I’ve told you to stop calling me—”

The door is torn open from behind Jessica, and suddenly Cooper appears on crutches, his face dark with beard scruff, not to mention new purple bruises that are only now beginning to show.

“Where is she?” he demands, squinting in the sunlight. Then he sees me and, despite the obvious pain he’s in, begins to hobble toward me. “Don’t you ever—”

I have no idea what kind of threat he’s about to deliver, because I run toward him to wrap both arms around his neck and kiss him on the mouth, forgetting all about his bruised lips. He appears to forget about them too, and his cracked ribs as well, pulling me tight against his heart and filling me with the crisp clean Cooper-ish scent of him.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper, when he finally releases me—which he has to do, since he needs at least one arm to balance on his crutches. “You’re supposed to be home, resting.”

“You think I could stay in bed after hearing you shot someone?” he whispers back, his blue eyes looking a little moist. “And then went to try on wedding dresses? You crazy kook.”

“Just one wedding dress,” I say. “And you can’t see me in it. It’s bad luck.”

“I think we’ve had all the bad luck any two human beings are allowed in one lifetime. It’s time our luck changes for the better.”

I kiss him on the nose, the one part of his face that escaped his encounter with Ricardo. “Then don’t look at me in my dress until the big day.”

The one arm he’s kept around me tightens. “Deal. And don’t you shoot anyone else until the big day. Unless they deserve it, like I hear the kid today did.”

I squeeze him back. “Deal.”

“Wow, Heather, I love your hair like that,” Jessica says as Cooper and I enter the shop, reaching up to touch the French braid Magda’s given me. “That’s a good look for you. Anyway, don’t listen to Nicole, it’s not that big a deal.”

“What’s not that big a deal?” I ask. The owner of the shop, Lizzie Nichols, gives me a warm greeting, pours glasses of champagne for both Magda and me, then goes to make sure everything is ready in my dressing room, including the vintage wedding gown I’ve purchased from her, which she’s been busy adjusting to my exact measurements. I’m not too surprised to see that Hal has accompanied Cooper to the shop and has taken up residency on a pink fainting couch beside a shabby-chic ivory-colored coffee table, looking completely uncomfortable and out of place.

I am a little surprised to see that in a gingham fabric armchair not too far from him sits Sammy the Schnozz, looking much more at ease, scrolling through messages on his smartphone (being a pawnbroker is a full-time business, after all).

What surprises me even more is when I hear a delicate cough from behind me, and I turn around.

It’s my mother.

37

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

Lao Tzu

Really?” I ask in disbelief.

Because I haven’t been through enough in one day? I’ve had one resident reveal he’s put his and another resident’s lives at risk by entering into a marriage forbidden by his criminally despotic father.

I’ve had to shoot another resident because he took a student hostage at knifepoint.

And now this?

I’m ready to turn around and walk straight out of the shop, champagne glass still in hand, when my father, of all people, stops me by blocking the door with his body.

“Just listen to what your mother has to say, Heather.” His voice registers weary resignation.