Jull: переводы

→I look down at Snow White, struggling to find purchase on Ava’s vinyl mini. One of the cameras zooms in on Ava’s crotch. I switch my prayer to a different one…that she’s wearing panties.

→“What about clothes for dogs,” Ava says. “When DJ Tippycat’s divorce from that ho wife of his comes through, we want Snow White and Delilah to be in our wedding.”

→“I don’t see why not,” I say. One of the cameras comes in for a close-up. I am acutely conscious of the fact I haven’t powdered my nose all day, and that I am sweating copiously. I pray to God this show won’t ever get picked up by a major network. Or Bravo.

→“Whichever,” I say. I can’t quite believe she’s actually going for it. I’d been shocked she’d even taken my call, let alone agreed to meet with me. I hadn’t planned much beyond my initial pitch, not thinking I’d get further than that. “Either works, I think.”

→Ava doesn’t look remotely interested. She’s gazing through the enormous black lenses of her sunglasses at a tugboat chugging down the river in front of us. I glance over my shoulder at Chaz, who is waiting for me out of camera range. He refused to sign the waivers the film crew demanded in order for me to speak to Ava while she was on camera, so he has to wait out of the shot until I’m done. He doesn’t look too unhappy. He’s found a hot dog vendor and is munching away, enjoying one with everything, along with a cold soda, in the shade.

→“Ava.” It’s even harder than usual to get her full attention due to the fact that DJ Tippycat is still inside the dog run with his French bulldog puppy, and Ava’s gaze keeps straying toward him every five seconds. “Listen to me. You said you wanted to do something with your life. Remember? After you broke things off with Prince Aleksandros. You have to have meant something more than just another tired old reality show. Well, this is your chance. Not only to prove to the world that you’re more than just an bubbleheaded heiress, but to help out millions of brides who want to have a beautiful gown but can’t afford it.”

→“About going to Kleinfeld’s? Yeah. Hey, maybe that’s where you should get a job. That’s where everybody goes to get their wedding dresses. That’s where my sister went. Not that it helped. She still looked like me. In a wedding dress. Poor kid. She tried waxing and everything.”

→“No,” the bride says, sounding as if she’s pouting a little.

→Despite the fact that they are being sold in shops that are right next to fish markets or restaurant supply stores, the gown’s prices are right up there with those at Kleinfeld’s. I overhear two women in front of one window speaking in rapid Chinese while pointing at a particularly gorgeous gown, and while I can’t understand exactly what they’re saying, the meaning behind the words is clear: eight hundred dollars for the pretty white sheath with lace overlay is too much…especially for something any talented seamstress could make at home for a fraction of the price.

→I’m feeling much better about things—less disoriented, and actually caught up on the things I’ve missed, including phone messages, of which there weren’t too many, due to the holiday weekend—an hour later when Tiffany walks through the front door, takes one look at me, and goes, “Oh my God. You had sex this morning.”

→But from the way Sylvia and Marisol start staring, their mouths hanging open, when I walk in, I’m not sure we can handle much of anything, let alone retrofitting a size 12 I. Magnin cocktail dress to an 8.

→“What?” I demand, staring right back at them.

→They know. I don’t know how they know, but it’s obvious they do. I might as well be wearing a big scarlet letter A on my chest.

→Anyway, I’m not the first person into the shop. Sylvia and Marisol are already there, working on the lace-and-tulle I. Magnin & Co. 1950s cocktail-style number we’d gotten from a punky bride whose mother had worn it and who wanted to squeeze into it as well…only she was a size 12 and her mother had been a size 8. We’d assured her we could handle it.

→So I’m a little bit…frazzled…when I finally get downstairs to work. Frazzled in a good way. A highly relaxed, but still slightly disoriented and dazed way. It’s how I’ve been feeling since I first kissed Chaz…good, but almost as if I had gone ahead and started taking those pills Shari’s dad had given me, instead of flushing them down the toilet back at the Knight’s Inn, like I actually did. The world seems…different. Not better, not worse, just…different. Suddenly, things that used to bother me—men who wear baseball caps indoors, for instance—don’t bother me at all anymore. Fears that used to consume me—that I might end up shopping for vast amounts of cold medicine at my hometown grocery store on weekends like Kathy Pennebaker—no longer seem likely…in fact, they seem improbable. Instead of obsessively eating in one sitting the entire bag of cheese popcorn that I bought at the airport, I ate only a handful.

→And I didn’t even think about buying a Cinnabon.

→What girl wouldn’t have melted? And then jumped his bones (as soon as she was done with her eggs…I didn’t want them to get cold, after all)?

→I do, chewing my lower lip a little.

→“Lizzie.” Chaz looks me dead in the eye. “Why do you think it was you, out of all the people in your family, your grandmother connected with so well? You, and no one else? You were the only other person in your family who, like her, would never take no for an answer, and just did whatever the hell you wanted. Now raise your glass.”

→“Are you kidding?” Chaz says. “That’s what you’re best at. You take the road less traveled and turn it into gold every single time. Why do you think Luke’s still hanging on so tight when he’s half a world away? You’ve got the magic touch. And everyone knows it.”