Moonstruck In Manhattan

“You’ve got to be wrong, Chels,” Kate said starting to rise from the table. “The bouquet comes right after the garter.”

Chelsea grabbed her arm. “But it’s not the bouquet she’s going to toss. It’s the skirt.”

Her two friends stared at her, comprehension, surprise and finally amusement flickering across their faces.

“Not the man-magnet skirt?” Gwen asked.

“The one she picked up on that island during her cruise?”

“You got it,” Chelsea said. They’d all listened countless times to the story of how Torrie’s cruise ship, blown off course by a storm, had dropped anchor at a small out-of-the-way island, and how she’d found this little shop where an elderly seamstress had sold her a special skirt. According to the woman, each spring, the old ladies of the island gathered on a moonlit beach to spin the fibers of the lunua plant into thread. Any woman who wore a garment woven out of this thread that had been supposedly “kissed by moonlight” would draw men like a magnet. And one of those men would be her soul mate.

Privately, Chelsea had always wondered if those island women had been sitting on that beach smoking the fibers and spinning stories instead of thread. While the skirt was a great basic black that fit Torrie perfectly, none of them had ever been able to see anything special about the “fibers” or the “thread.” Still, Torrie swore by it, crediting the skirt with attracting men every time she put it on. And now she claimed it had brought her new husband to her.

“You’re putting us on,” Gwen said, glancing at the bride and groom. “She’s not going to toss the skirt. She doesn’t even have it up there with her.”

“She’s wearing it,” Chelsea said. As if on cue, Torrie began to hike up the yards of satin cascading from her waist. “She told me she wasn’t going to take it off until he said, ‘I do.’”

When the three of them pushed back their chairs and rose as one, Kate said, “This is not a very good testimonial to being single in the city. We’ve all got to be desperate to believe in a moon-kissed skirt!”

“I want to catch it,” Chelsea said.

Gwen and Kate turned to stare at her.

“You? We thought you’d sworn off men after Boyd the bum.”

Kate’s elbow cut Gwen short. “We’re not going to mention his name ever again. Remember? A low-life cad like that does not deserve one more minute of our time. And I think it’s great that you’re going to throw yourself back into the dating jungle, Chels. At least one of us should be out there.”

“Oh, but I’m not…I mean…,” Chelsea paused, touched by the concern she saw in her friends’ eyes. Truthfully, she didn’t want the skirt to attract men. She had entirely different plans for Torrie’s man-magnet skirt. But Kate and Gwen looked so happy for her…

“You go, girl.” Gwen said. “If she tosses it our way, we’ll swat it to you.”

“Love you,” Chelsea said, throwing her arms around them for a quick, three-way hug.

By the time they’d elbowed their way in front of the other single women who’d crowded onto the dance floor, Torrie’s wedding dress was back in place and she’d begun to swing the skirt over her head like a lasso.

As Chelsea watched it move in a circle, she thought she saw a silvery flash of light like the glitter of the moon on the rippling surface of the sea. Then suddenly, the skirt was sailing through the air. Leaping high, she snagged just the edge of the fabric between her fingers.

A cheer went up around her and a funny little tingle shot through her as she clutched the skirt close to her chest.

A special plant and the kiss of moonlight? Ridiculous. However, a skirt that supposedly acted like a magnet on men was just the kind of gimmick she needed to sell her next article to Metropolitan magazine.

Glancing down at it, she thought she caught just a glint of silver again, and an image filled her mind—she was sitting behind an editor’s desk at Metropolitan, pen in hand, writing a regular column.

That was her dream.

It was just her imagination that for a split second she’d seen a man in that chair with her.

1

“TAKE IT OFF. Take it all off!” Leaning over the top of the bar, Daryl shot Chelsea one of his five hundred-megawatt smiles.

She stared at her roommate as she pulled her coat more tightly around her. “Right here? In the middle of the restaurant?” She waved a hand toward the wall of windows separating them from a steady stream of pedestrian traffic. “With half of Manhattan looking on?”

“Sweetie, you said it couldn’t wait until I got off work.”

“It can’t,” Chelsea said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you here if it wasn’t an emergency. Couldn’t you take a break and we could go into one of the private dining rooms?”

Daryl rolled his eyes as he swiped a cloth over the top of the gleaming bar. His long dark hair was pulled back and fastened at the nape of his neck and small gold hoops hung from his ears. “Christmas is exactly a week away. And while I know that it’s not your favorite holiday, the rest of the world goes all out for it. The private dining rooms are booked solid. If you want my help with that skirt, you’re going to have to unveil it right here, right now, before the place gets really busy.”

Tearing her gaze away from Daryl, Chelsea glanced quickly around the trendy eating spot. At eleven-forty-five in the morning, the bar was still empty. In the main dining room, a few of the tables were already filled, and the maître d’ was seating a couple at a nearby table.

“Chels,” Daryl prompted. “It’s not like I’m asking you to strip. Just take off your coat. Isn’t it time that you gave that man-magnet skirt a little test drive?”

Still, Chelsea didn’t remove her coat. As ridiculous as it might be, the whole idea of wearing the skirt in public made her a little nervous. It had hung in her closet for three weeks, ever since she’d gotten home from the wedding. She hadn’t even tried it on until this morning when she’d gotten the phone call from Metropolitan magazine. The editor had asked her to wear the skirt when she came in to sign the contract.

Could a “lucky” skirt help a single girl attract men in Manhattan?

That was the question that had sold not one, but three articles. Now it had a bubble of panic growing in her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure what bothered her most—the slim possibility that the skirt might actually work or the more certain probability that it wouldn’t.

“What’s up, Chels?” Ramón asked, wiping his hands meticulously on a towel as he hurried toward them. “I’m in the middle of creating a soufflé, but I got the message that there’s some kind of emergency.”

“Chelsea has a skirt problem,” Daryl explained.

“A skirt problem!” Ramón—her cousin who had sworn her to secrecy about the fact that he had been born Raymond—narrowed his eyes and glared at her. Standing at six feet three inches and weighing in at over two hundred pounds, he looked as though he’d be more comfortable wearing shoulder pads and a football jersey. But Ramón was perfectly at home in a chef’s hat and apron. His four years in the marines allowed him to run his kitchen like a well-oiled military machine. “You dragged me away from my soufflé to solve a skirt problem?”

“Calm down. I need you to take my place behind the bar so that I can work a little fashion magic,” Daryl explained. “You know what a fanatic our friend Pierre is.”

Ramón glanced at his watch. “I can give you sixty seconds. No more.”

Winking at Chelsea, Daryl exchanged places with Ramón. “You may be able to run your kitchen like a boot camp, but we artists can’t be rushed.”

Chelsea bit down on the inside of her cheek to prevent a grin. In spite of the fact that they were total opposites and reminded her of Neil Simon’s odd couple, Daryl and Ramón were the best of friends. She’d met Daryl while waitressing at a tiny Italian restaurant in the village. Ramón had fixed her up with the job when she’d first arrived in Manhattan.

Ramón had been a line cook and Daryl had been bartending part-time while taking classes at the fashion institute. Soon, the three of them had begun spending most of their free time together, talking about their dreams of making it big in New York. Six months ago, each bearing scars from their battles in the Manhattan dating scene, they’d moved into an apartment together and formed a “singles club.” For the length of time that it took them to establish themselves in their chosen careers, they’d each sworn to steer clear of any serious relationships. If they even went out on a date, they had to pay a twenty-dollar fine.

“Okay. Off with the coat!” Daryl said, snapping his fingers. “And stand over there by the windows so that I can get the full effect.”

Chelsea shot one more glance around the dining room. Besides the man and woman seated a short distance from the entrance to the bar, there was a group of four women just arriving at the maître d’s desk. It wouldn’t be long before the restaurant was filled, so it was now or never.

If only she didn’t feel so torn about the skirt. In spite of what she’d let Gwen and Kate believe, the last thing she wanted in her life right now was a man. She hadn’t been able to forget that strange feeling that had run through her when she’d caught the skirt—nor the image of that man sitting in the chair with her.

“Fifty seconds and counting,” Ramón said.

Drawing in a deep breath, Chelsea pulled off her coat and tossed it on a bar stool. When she glanced down at the skirt, her stomach plummeted. It looked just as bad as it had in the mirror that morning, sagging at her waist and falling well below her knees. A man magnet, it wasn’t! Men were much more likely to take one look and run in the opposite direction. That was not going to give her the three articles she’d promised to deliver to Metropolitan.

“It’s too big,” Ramón announced. “And you now have forty seconds.”

“Stop making me feel like I’m on Cape Canaveral,” Daryl said as he circled Chelsea. “I think if I just nip it in at the waist and shorten it about six inches…”