The Longest Night

Beth met her eyes in the mirror; she actually appeared to be thinking about it. “No,” she answered at last.

They were alone in the church dressing room, two hours to the ceremony, and Cassandra was ensuring that one of her best friends was going to look beautiful.

She settled in to work. “Tell me why no one ever believes me.”

First she dug into her makeup case and pulled out her secret weapon. Seaweed mask. “You’re going to turn green, but don’t worry. It’ll exfoliate the skin and cleanse the pores, or exfoliate the pores and cleanse the skin. Not quite sure, but exfoliation and cleansing are definitely involved. You’ll love it.”

“After all that exfoliating and cleansing, I will return back to a normal skin color, right? What if I get some icky rash or something?”

“Trust me.”

Beth sighed. “All right. Do your worst.”

Cassandra spread the goo over Beth’s face, covering the crucial areas in the T-zone. Then, while the mask was settling, she brought out her bag of cucumber slices and placed them on Beth’s eyes. “This is to get rid of wrinkles. I buy cucumbers by the dozen.”

Behind the cucumbers and seaweed, Beth laughed. “And here we thought it was for something else.”

“Honey, there’s no need for vegetables when able-bodied men are as close as the nearest speed dial.”

While Beth was sitting in the chair, cucumbers on the eyes, face turning a healthy shade of green, Cassandra took out the extra two slices of cucumber and sat in the chair next to Beth. Just this morning she had noticed two new lines at the corner of her eyes. She didn’t know if early onset of crow’s feet ran in her family, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

From the chapel area she could hear the pianist and the soloist practicing, some beautiful aria sung in a foreign language. Beth was going all-out for this wedding. Chicago would never see anything like this one again.

However, now the bride-to-be sat in the chair, quiet. Too quiet.

“Getting nervous?” Cassandra asked.

“Mmm, hmm.”

“You shouldn’t be. You’re going to have the life you’ve dreamed up.”

Beth worked her lips free of the mask. “No flowers or vacation on isolated beach.”

Sometimes Beth didn’t realize what she had. “He would if you asked him to.”

“No fun.”

“Wandering into the land of second thoughts?”

A smile cracked in the mask. “None.”

“That’s my girl.”

There had been four bachelorettes at one time—four college friends, approaching thirty. They were single, they were happy, so they’d sworn to stay single forever. The Bachelorette Pact.

Cassandra frowned, which made for more wrinkles. She didn’t frown often, but nobody was watching right now. Two bachelorettes were married, one was hours away from walking down the aisle.

And then there was one.

Cassandra “Eternally Single” Ward.

Not that she was complaining. Much. Jessica had married Adam, who was as big a competitor as she was, not that there was anything wrong with that. Mickey had married Dominic, an undercover cop who mingled with the dregs of Chicago society, and who needed that? Now Beth was marrying Spencer, a prize-winning journalist who, despite his love for Beth, still needed to learn some manners.

Her friends could have them all, because as far as Cassandra was concerned, the perfect man was nothing but a figment.

In the business of gems you had to spot the imperfections and cleave and saw and polish until all the flaws were gone. It was great for diamonds, but hell on men.

“You get married?” Beth said, struggling to talk through the quick-drying mask.

Cassandra shook her head, her nose filling with the scent of cucumber. “Never.”

“You were go marry Benedict.”

“I was young, impulsive…and stupid,” said Cassandra.

Benedict O’Malley had taught her many things, most important among them, you can never escape who you are. She thought Benedict had seen something more than her body when he looked at her. Yeah, right. Cassandra was cheesecake—every man’s favorite fantasy, so over the past eight years she’d perfected the fantasy into a fine art.

“Can’t sex forever.”

Insidious thoughts of falling boobs and lengthening crow’s-feet crept into her mind, but today she was not going to feel sorry for herself. “Can, too,” she answered, ripping the cucumbers from her eyes.

Beth shook her head.

It was a conversation they’d replayed many times. No one believed that Cassandra enjoyed her life. No one believed that a woman could indulge in sexual dalliances strictly for the pursuit of pleasure without any messy emotional complication. Yeah, well, no one knew what they were missing. No worries, no panicking about relationships torpedoing. No thank you, sex was strictly physical.

Cassandra practiced her own set of rules when it came to sex. Rule No. 1: no promises. That way she stayed disappointment-free. Rule No. 2: no option on exclusivity. If a man wanted an exclusive, he was shown the door. No man was worth that kind of loyalty. Rule No. 3: certain sexual behaviors were required, certain ones were allowed and certain ones were verboten. No threesomes, no dressing up in weird costumes and no bondage. Never bondage. Rule No. 4: a man must be factory inspected for disease. A piece of paper from the lab made it so much easier to keep things physical. And last, but most important, was Rule No. 5: no sex without Mr. Safety in place.

“I gonna fine you man,” said Beth.

“Your mask is tightening up nicely. Just a few more seconds,” answered Cassandra.

“You can hide.”

“Time’s up.”

She warmed up a washcloth and began to wipe away the remains of the mask. Eventually, Beth emerged looking just as fresh-faced and glowing as normal, no crow’s-feet, no laugh lines. By all rights, Cassandra should have hated her, but she didn’t. Go figure.

“Now we’re going to start with the base. Something pale for your complexion, but not cakey. Can’t have you looking like the creature from the wax lagoon.” She dug into her makeup box and brought out Powdered Bisque.

Beth sat still while Cassandra sponged on the base. But she knew that wouldn’t last forever. And sure enough, Cassandra was right. “Spencer doesn’t know many guys. There’s Noah, but well, we already know that won’t work out.”

Cassandra stopped in midsponge. Just a moment, not enough for anyone to notice. She didn’t want Beth to notice the telltale shaking in her hands. Steady, steady, steady. “Spare me from the Jimmy Stewart types.” The Jimmy Stewart types who had already shot her down once.

“I’m going to talk to Jess and she’ll talk to Adam. All those corporate types are connected, they know a lot of guys.”

“Yeah, but they’re all unemployed.”

Adam was a reformed operational efficiency expert. He had been known as the “Ax-Man,” before Jessica had turned him around.