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I try to catch my breath, having run from the sidewalk through the enormous halls of the Palace Hotel, to the giantballroom where Mom’s hosting today’s event. “Sorry, Mom. Lost track of time.”
She beams but I can see in her eyes she really wants to strangle me. I get that from her a lot, we’re so different from one another.
I don’t like attention. She craves the spotlight.
I am late a lot. She’s always early.
I’m neat and she’s a slob. No word of a lie, when I was growing up,Iwas the one who had to tellherto clean her room.
With Mom at my elbow, she maneuvers us both through the crowd, smiling, nodding, and shaking hands with all her friends who, I am sure, are thinking of nothing but the debacle that was my thwarted wedding only a few months ago.
“Hold your head up, honey,” Mom whispers into my ear. “Don’t give these people anything else to talk about.”
Yeah, right. Like I can actually stop the flow of gossip that exploded in all nooks and crannies of San Francisco when I did the unthinkable—left my fiancé, one of the city’s ‘most eligible bachelors,’ at the altar.
The follow up stories were epic.Spoiled heiress leaves good guy at the altar.
That sort of thing.
Maybe if I’d done it with more dignity, I might not have provided the same level of fodder for the city’s magpies, but who am I kidding? What’s juicier than wedding drama?
Especially when the bride swats the groom upside the head with a bouquet, then tosses it to the ‘other woman,’ who catches it like she’s waiting for it. The cherry on top, which sealed my fate as the topic of conversation for months to follow, was calling her acunty bitchbefore leaving the congregation in total silence.
Actually, I screamed it.
It felt good for about sixty seconds, then I fell to pieces in the limo that I demanded drive me home.
Navigating the room, I hold my head up just like Mom suggests, and I’m glad I’m wearing the sassy but sexy Betsey Johnson dress she gave me for the occasion. In her words, there’s no better revenge than looking good. I always thought it was living well, but then my mother and I have different perspectives.
I take the last empty seat at a table of my mother’s friends. They stare at me with sympathy, and Mom hustles off for the stage, where she’s about to do what she does best—make the case that the forgotten and overlooked Cable Car Museum is worthy of both her dedication and the large donations everyone in the audience is sure to make.
I pick up my auction paddle, which cleverly has a history of the Cable Car Museum on one side and a list of auction items on the other. I glance over at the table where the donated items are on display and set my sights on a huge spa-type basket, full of soaps and candles and loofas, and instantly know what I’m going to bid on.
Scented candles are my jam. Can’t get enough of them.
“You still hiding out in the guest house?” Mom’s BFF Fran Bender whispers in my ear.
No fucking privacy. None at all.
“Hi, Mrs. Bender. Yes, I’m still staying up in Sonoma. It’s been a good break for me,” I say, turning my attention to Mom at the podium, hopefully signaling a strongI don’t want to talk.
She doesn’t take the hint. “I don’t blame you, honey. After what you’ve been through?—”
She drones on, stage whispering so everyone at the table will credit her with comforting me ‘at this difficult time,’ as so many of Mom’s friends have put it.
I smile at her because, one, I have to be polite no matter what sort of stupid things my mother’s friends say, and two, because Ifigure she really is well-intentioned. At least, that’s what I want to believe.
The fast-talking auctioneer is soliciting bids for a night at the ballet—or is it the opera?—when something out of the corner of my eye distracts me.
Then I hear it buzz next to my ear.
A bug. A flying bug. I hate bugs.
I wave my hand to scare off whatever it is to make sure it doesn’t enter my ear canal and lay a hundred eggs for its little babies. The bug is not deterred, so I pick up my paddle to use as a swatter. My first swing is unsuccessful, but I’m pretty sure my second one meets the offending pest. I look around to see whether I smashed it or not, and it buzzes above my head once again.
Fucker.
I reach up and this time make contact, auction paddle vs. fly. Victory! Its little black body tumbles out of the sky and right into Mrs. Bender’s water glass.
