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“Will you marry me?”
    Blink. Pinch me.
    I blinked. I pinched myself. He was really here. Asking me to marry him.
    And as everyone hooted and hollered and clapped and cheered for the new year, I wrapped my arms around him and said, Yes, yes, yes!
    Three hours later, I was pacing the tiny bathroom in our apartment, chewing Tums. Chewing my fingernails. Chewing my lower lip.
    What the heck had happened?
    I bit off a piece of Santa’s other leg and flopped onto my stomach on the sofa.
    R-ring!
    I grabbed the phone, hungry for Noah’s voice. But it was Philippa Wills.
    “Okay, guess who I am,” Philippa said. She cleared her throat. “Does this look like a traditional dress to you, Philippa?” she said in a raspy voice. “Eloise, you may choose from this rack or that rack.”
    I laughed. “Snap, snap, people!”
    “I hate Astrid’s guts,” she said. “I didn’t know you lost your mom. I’m so sorry.”
    The thing about Philippa Wills was that she was more complicated than anyone would ever guess and she could be very kind. When she was kind, like now, I’d feel bad for dreaming she’d find a new Best Friend From Work.
    “You mean Acid,” I said.
    Philippa laughed. “We’re lucky our rings fit her definition of classic and modern. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be surprised if Astrid made us change them too.”
    I glanced down at the ring on my left hand.
    Twist On.
    Twist Off.
    “Your ring is so pretty!” she said. “It’s good the band is so thin, a thicker setting would have overpowered the diamond. What is that, a half-carat?”
    Find a new best friend from work, Philippa!
    “So, Eloise, why won’t your father and brother be able to come to the photo shoots?”
    Nosy. Nosy. Nosy!
    “My father lives really far away,” I said, but I had no idea if that was true. I had no idea where Theo Manfred lived. “And my brother is climbing Mount Everest.”
    I wasn’t sure why I’d said that. That wasn’t the kind of thing you could lie about and months later say, Oh, I thought he was.
    “Wow,” Philippa exclaimed. “That’s cool. My brothercouldn’t climb a hill. ” She laughed at her own joke. “Weston is Mr. Wall Street, earning millions.”
    Weston Wills. He sounded like a guy who earned millions.
    I was trying to think of my getaway. Cookies burning in the oven? Other line ringing? Someone at the door?
    “Omigod, Eloise, I just remembered why I called you in the first place—do you know if we have to type our wedding planning diary entry?”
    “Um, I would think so,” I said. Although Philippa did have perfect penmanship, of course.
    “Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Eloise. Bye!”
    I’d forgotten about the wedding planning diary.
    Your diary entry should focus on the poignancy of shopping for your bridal party without Mother. It’s a strong human-interest point for our readership. Yes, a theme of Mother’s unfulfilled dream—to see her little girl married.
    I glanced at the photo of my mother on my bedside table, my beautiful mother in her red peacoat.
    Be perky! Use exclamation points.
    I sat down at Noah’s desk and turned on his laptop, grateful to have something to think about other than my roiling stomach.
Dear Wedding Diary
    Today I went bridesmaid-dress shopping! My bridesmaids will be wearing the ugliest dress—if you can even call it a dress—that the world has ever seen! And the world will see it, because my bridal party has been photographed oohing and aahing over it in a national magazine!
    Then again, who really reads Wow Weddings!
    I felt much better.
     
    At 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, I woke up from a nightmare. Astrid O’Connor was my mother and she was taking me wedding-gown shopping in It’s Your Day, but it wasn’t It’s Your Day, it was Saks Fifth Avenue, my mother’s favorite department store.
    “Does that look like a classic dress to you, Eloise?” Astrid snapped as I ran to a live model wearing the Big Bird dress. “As Wow Weddings ’s Classic Bride, you must