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Chapter 6
“Are you even listening to me?” my mother asked on the phone, sounding indignant.
Did she want honesty here? I wasn’t sure. I munched on a French fry at the gastro pub Bella had chosen for lunch. Which didn’t make sense because after choosing a restaurant specializing in contemporary versions of classic fried foods, she had ordered a salad. It defied logic. I had ordered fish and chips. “I was listening,” I told my mother. I just wasn’t particularly interested in what she was saying, which was an example of my maid of honor skills.
Bella was in the restroom for the third time. I wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing, but I was fairly certain she was going in there to cry. I had followed her the first time but she had screamed at me to leave her alone, so I was taking her advice.
“Why is your sister so upset?” she asked. “She sent me a text that she hates her life.”
“Ask her.” I wasn’t trying to be belligerent or unhelpful but I had no idea what was wrong with Bella. “Her dress fit perfectly, Mom. She looked amazing.” She had. Yet something in that fitting room had upset her and she wasn’t letting it go, whatever it was.
“I’m so angry with your father,” Mom said, her voice filled with fury. “I should be there instead of this damn trip to Nice. Why did we have to go to France two weeks before the wedding? It’s idiotic.”
I had no answers to that either. But I knew exactly how to deal with my mother. She was no mystery. She just wanted me to agree with her. “I know,” I said, filling my voice with sympathy.
Generally speaking, my father did do idiotic things when it came to us, his family. He was a man who had achieved great heights of success, mostly because he was able to compartmentalize and because he always deemed his needs the first priority in any given situation. He had wanted to spend his birthday in France, so by God, he was going to France, even though it upset my mother and left me in charge of wedding prep with Bella. Which was a joke.
Fortunately, Bella and my mother had hired the world’s most efficient and pretentious wedding planner. “I’m going to call Lucinda,” I added, the thought just occurring to me. “Bella will confide in her.” Lucinda was in her forties and had retired from a career as a buyer for a high-end home goods store to rusticate in a small town with her infant child and her ancient husband. She had been bored almost immediately and had launched a new business venture, planning high-end weddings, specializing in unique settings, groundbreaking receptions, and stylized collaborations, whatever the hell any of that meant. It was just what it said on her website.
Her Instagram feed was filled with pictures of her child in baby couture, and weddings so spectacular they looked fake. Like build-a-blowout. Take something from every glamorous event in the last year and cram all the elements together.
Bella’s wedding was going to have Lucinda touches such as Bella arriving via sailboat, “deconstructed” bouquets, a caviar bar, and a so-called silent after-hours lounge party until 4 a.m., with headphones provided for guests to continue dancing past the noise ordinance. It all made me want to giggle, just a little, but to Mom and Bella and Lucinda, this was serious shit.
“That’s a great idea, Sophie. And come to think of it, frankly, she should have been there today. What on earth are we paying her for?”
To coordinate a million moving parts. “Maybe she was busy.” I was glad she hadn’t been there. She would never have allowed me to leave. Lucinda was scary. And if I hadn’t left I wasn’t sure Cain would have invited me over again. I was savvy enough to know that he had been really put out by his brother’s comments about him.
Mom made a sound of disdain. “Let me know what she says and tell Bella to call me or I’m going to just worry.”
I wasn’t sure how I had wound up the middleman, but it wasn’t a position I enjoyed. “Okay,” I said obediently.
“What are you girls doing tonight?”
“I’m going to a friend’s house,” I said, because it’s just not in my nature to lie. I snagged another fry, wishing my mother would hang up. I really was starting to worry about Bella now. The waiter had refilled our water glasses and glanced at Bella’s empty seat in confusion.
“What? You have a friend?” She sounded both shocked and delighted.
That made me roll my eyes. “I have friends, Mom.” I did. Unlike the majority of my childhood. My father had always told me I would meet like-minded people at college and he had been right about that. Grade school had been a different story. Just because everyone I was in class with was the child of wealthy parents didn’t mean they were intelligent. I had struggled to relate.
“Of course you do,” she said soothingly, like she didn’t believe me for one second. “What’s her name? Is she from Boston?”
“His name is Cain and he’s local.” I got a sick sense of pleasure from shocking her with that statement. Not only did she think I had no friends, she was also certain I couldn’t grab the attention of a guy.
For a second she said nothing. “Wait, is this a love interest?”
If love interest meant sex partner, sure. “He’s just someone I like to hang out with.”
“What does local mean?”
“It means he lives here year-round.”
“No one does that except staff.”
If she wasn’t so offensive, it might almost be funny. But it was offensive. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said just to be annoying.
“Well, what does he do?”
I shouldn’t have mentioned Cain at all. I realized my error. She was going to dig and pry, and her probing questions would ruin the privacy, the intimacy, of my time with Cain. I should have kept him my secret. “He’s a lobster fisherman.”
