Meg Cabot - Queen Of Babble: In The Big City

Finding the right wedding gown for your special day isnt easy, but it shouldnt drive you to tears, either!

Even if you are planning a formal ceremony with a traditional long dress, there are many different styles of gowns to choose from.

The trick is to match the right gown to the right bride before she becomes a Bridezilla and thats where a wedding-gown specialist like myself comes in!

LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS

I open my eyes to see the morning sunlight slanting across the Renoir hanging above my bed, and for a few seconds, I dont know where I am.

Then I remember.

And my heart swells with giddy excitement. No, really.Giddy. Like, first-day-of-school-and-Ive-got-a-brand-new-designer-outfit-from-TJ Maxx giddy.

And not just because that Renoir hanging over my head? Its real. Although it is, and not a print, like I had in my dorm room. An actual original work, by the Impressionist master himself.

Which I couldnt actually believe at first. I mean, how often do you walk into someones bedroom and see an original Renoir hanging over the bed? Um, never. At least if youre me.

When Luke left the room, I stayed behind, pretending like I had to use the bathroom. But really I slipped off my espadrilles, climbed onto the bed, and gave that canvas a closer look.

And I was right. I could see the globs of paint Renoir used to build up the lace he so carefully detailed on the cuff of the little girls sleeve. And the stripes on the fur of the cat the little girl is holding? Raised blobby bits. Its a REAL Renoir, all right.

And its hanging over the bed Im waking up in the same bed thats currently bathed in sunlight from the tall windows to my left sunlight thats bouncing off the building across the street that building being the METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. The one in front of Central Park. On Fifth Avenue. In NEW YORK CITY.

Yes! I am waking up in NEW YORK CITY!!!! The Big Apple! The city that never sleeps (although I try to get at least eight hours a night, or my eyelids will get puffy, and Shari says I get cranky)!

But none of that is whats making me so giddy. The sunlight, the Renoir, the Met, Fifth Avenue, New York.None of that can compare to whats really got me excited something better than all of those things, and a new back-to-school outfit from TJ Maxx put together.

And its in the bed right next to me.

Just look how cute he is when hes sleeping! Manly cute, not kitten cute. Luke doesnt lie there with his mouth gaping wide with spit leaking out the side, like I do (I know I do this because my sisters told me. Also because I always wake up to a wet spot on my pillow). He manages to keep his lips together very nicely.

And his eyelashes look so long and curly. Why cant my eyelashes look like that? Its not fair. Im the girl, after all.Im the one who is supposed to have long curly eyelashes, not stubby short ones I have to use an eyelash curler Ive heated with a hair dryer and about seven layers of mascara on if I want to look like I have any eyelashes at all.

Okay, Ive got to stop. Stop obsessing over my boyfriends eyelashes. I need to get up. I cant lounge around in bed all day. Im in NEW YORK CITY!

And okay, I dont have a job. Or a place to live.

Because that Renoir? Yeah, it belongs to Lukes mother. As does the bed. Oh, and the apartment.

But she only bought it when she thought she and Lukes dad were splitting up. Which theyre not now. Thanks to me. So she said Luke could use it as long as necessary.

Lucky Luke. I wish MY mom had been planning on divorcing MY dad and bought a totally gorgeous apartment in New York City, right across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that she now only planned on using a few times a year for shopping trips in the city, or to attend the occasional ballet.

Okay, seriously. I have to get up now. How can I stay in beda king-sized bed, by the way, totally comfortable, with a big white fluffy goose-down-stuffed duvet over itwhen I have all of NEW YORK CITY right outside the door (well, down the elevator and outside the ornate marble lobby), just waiting to be explored by me?

And my boyfriend, of course.

It seems so weird to say that to even think it. Me and my boyfriend. My boyfriend.

Because for the first time in my life, its real! I have an honest-to-God boyfriend. One who actually considers me his girlfriend. He isnt gay and just using me as a cover so his Christian parents dont find out hes really going out with a guy named Antonio. He isnt just trying to get me to fall so deeply in love with him that when he springs the idea of doing a threesome with his ex, Ill say yes because Im so afraid hell break up with me otherwise. He isnt a compulsive gambler who knows I have a lot of money saved up and can bail him out if he gets too deeply in debt.

Not that any of those things have happened to me. More than once.

And Im not just imagining it, either. Luke and I are together. I cant say I wasnt a little scaredyou know, when I left France to go back to Ann Arborthat I might never hear from him again. If he hadnt really been that into me, and wanted to get rid of me, he had the perfect opportunity.

But he kept calling. First from France, and then from Houston, where he went to pack up all his stuff and get rid of his apartment and his car, and then from New York, when he arrived. He kept saying he couldnt wait to see me again. He kept telling me all the stuff he was planning on doing to me when he did see me again.

And then when I finally got here last week, he did themall those things hed said hed been going to.

I can barely believe it. I mean, that a guy I like as much as I like Luke actually likes me back, for a change. That what we have isnt just a summer fling. Because summers over, and its fall now (well, okay, almost), and were still together. Together in New York City, where hell be going to medical school, and Im going to get a job in the fashion industry, doing somethingwell, fashion-relatedand together, were going to make a go of it in the city that never sleeps!

Just as soon as I find a job. Oh, and an apartment.

But Im sure Shari and I will find a charming pied--terre to call home soon. And until we do, I have Lukes place to crash, and Shari can stay in the walk-up her boyfriend Chaz found last week in the East Village (he rightfully refused his parents invitation to move back into the house in which he grew upwhen he wasnt being shipped off to boarding schoolin Westchester, from which his father continues to commute to the city to work every morning).

And even though its not on the best block exactly, its not the worst place in the world, having the advantage of being close to NYU, where Chaz is getting his Ph.D., and cheap (a rent-controlled two-bedroom for only two grand a month. And okay, one of the bedrooms is an alcove. But still).

And okay, Sharis already witnessed a triple stabbing through the living room window. But whatever. It was a domestic dispute. The guy in the building across the courtyard stabbed his pregnant wife and mother-in-law. Its not like people in Manhattan go around getting stabbed by strangers every day.

And everyone turned out to be fine. Even the baby, who was delivered by the cops on the buildings front stoop when the wife went into early labor. Eight pounds, six ounces! And okay, his dad is locked up in a prison cell on Rikers Island. But still. Welcome to New York, little Julio!