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Lying to kids, now, Nat? Super cool. I was suddenly seized with a hint of self-loathing.
Becca was around the same age as Addison, Jim and Avery Mitchell’s daughter. I was instantly drawn to Addison, and Becca was no different. They were such sweet, smart girls, and they would probably get along famously if I were ever able to get them in the same room.
This train of thought isn’t helping things.
Fucking hell. I needed to get ahold of myself. I wasn’t a goddamn playdate organizer. It was time to focus on the task at hand instead of getting all squishy inside at the thought of two potential besties.
The squeeze of fingers on my hand caught my attention, and I looked up into my fake husband’s eyes. Spencer’s face was sympathetic, and I knew he understood exactly what I felt.
He knew everything that would come out of my mouth to this family would be some form of a lie because my being here was based on a lie. Well, at least his look proved to me that if it was a fucked-up thing I was doing, at least I wasn’t doing it alone. He was going to have to go along with me.
Partners in crime, at least, and that shit wasn’t a lie.
As I turned my attention to the delicacies before me, replacing my guilt with food, I felt an icy glare cutting into me. I didn’t need to look to know that it came from Mommy Dearest.
I ate and tried to ignore the evil demon sitting next to Spencer, but I failed. So, as any self-respecting troublemaker would, I had to steal glances in the direction of the living portal to hell. And every time my eyes did pass over her plate, I noticed that she’d barely made a dent in her food, hardly eating any of the risotto or salad that she’d selected. Instead, she seemed to take great pleasure in cutting a single stalk of asparagus into tiny pieces, eating it a morsel at a time, and glancing at everyone else’s plate judgmentally.
Satan’s concubine sure seems to like mutilating white asparagus, I thought, not enjoying the dark vibes coming from her.
“How nice it must be,” Heidi spoke when there was a soft lull in the conversation, “not to have a care for the food you’re eating. Aren’t American women fearful of what they eat before special events? Shouldn’t you be worried if you eat all that, you won’t fit into the dress you brought for the wedding?”
This fucking bitch.
Everyone at the table grew quiet, looking from Heidi to me. Sloane particularly seemed eager to hear what I had to say in response to her mother, and Becca looked down at her plate with an unsure expression that devastated me.
I held Heidi’s gaze, scooped up a large forkful of risotto, and put it into my mouth, clearly relishing the taste of it.
“I don’t know about the other three-hundred-million Americans,” I said once I’d swallowed, “but I certainly would never plan on coming to the land of pasta and wine so I could watch what I eat.”
“Well,” she said, maintaining her smile even as it soured, “I can’t imagine my son will be pleased if you wind up putting on all that extra weight. Spencer has always enjoyed a woman with good self-control. Strange that he would marry one with none at all.”
I grinned and dabbed the corners of my mouth with my napkin after Spencer spoke up.
“Natalia knows she’s a cut above any other woman of my acquaintance. She could be five-hundred pounds, and I’d find myself lost in her—”
“Oh, well, at five hundred pounds, you’d definitely be lost in her,” Heidi said, laughing at her joke while the rest of the table sat in mortification.
I stopped and looked at Becca. “Earmuffs, kid,” I instructed while showing her that I needed her to cover her ears. She did, and I looked back at Heidi. “Allow me to cut straight through this bullshit,” I said, putting a hand on Spencer’s arm, stopping him from even thinking about trying to stop me from responding to his swamp monster of a mother. “First, I don’t require any man’s approval of my appearance to feel good about myself, and Spencer is no exception. Second, if—and honey, that is a strong if—I were to become five hundred pounds due to my eating habits, I can tell you without hesitation that I would be the single most fabulous, glamorous five-hundred-pound bombshell you’ve ever seen. And while I’m sure you have no sympathy for people who struggle with their weight—”
“I don’t,” she interjected.
“You don’t say?” I said sarcastically. “Well, I have great compassion for them. People all over the world—even places other than America, if you can believe that—struggle with their weight. It can be an uphill battle for one’s entire life. But luckily, those people aren’t waiting around for sympathy from people like you.”
“Well, I think you’re blowing this out of proportion. All I said was that you won’t fit into your dress if you keep eating like this.”
“No, that’s not at all what is going on here,” I said. “You intended to intimidate me, and you used the one thing most women tend to be insecure about, their weight. Sadly, though, you picked the wrong fight with the wrong woman. If there is one thing that I have a deficit of, it’s insecurity.” Spencer’s mother shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but as you’d expect from the devil’s handmaid, she never broke eye contact with me. It was obvious the woman wasn’t used to people countering anything she said, but it was equally clear that she wasn’t the type to back down. “I don’t entertain bullies and people who are so miserable in their lives that they work to make everyone else miserable. I think it’s rude, and I think you’re rude.”
“Spencer. Your wife—”
“Yeah,” he smirked at me and shrugged, “I probably should’ve told you. My wife doesn’t take to insults too well.”
“No, I don’t take to them. And while you have a lot of backhanded remarks about America, it happens to be my home, and I think it’s pretty great. So, if you wouldn’t mind backing yourself off my American ass for a minute and letting me finish this delicious meal, I’d appreciate it.”
Sloane snorted a laugh into her wine glass as her mother petulantly resumed pushing around the food on her plate, and Nonna arched her eyebrow smugly as she looked in Heidi’s direction. It seemed she enjoyed watching Heidi squirm, and my guess was that wasn’t a common sight.
Nonna leaned forward and broke the silence by asking if I had any siblings, and everyone seemed to relax and continue eating without worrying if someone was going to chuck a wine glass across the table. I was happy that Nonna wasn’t offended by what I’d said. I was a lot of things, but I had respect for my elders (the ones who deserved it), and she seemed like the type of Italian grandmother I didn’t want to cross.
However, I didn’t care if I went off-course with Heidi. I was appalled by everyone—including Spencer—for allowing her to get away with such distasteful, petty behavior. She wasn’t fucking God. She was an unpleasant and miserable bitch, and I wouldn’t smile and take shit from her or anyone. I wasn’t programmed that way, and I hoped Spencer knew that because if he didn’t, he was sure as shit about to find out.
