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“Well, if she’d gotten anywhere near the ceremony, she’d have had her hair torn out by Adele. Or Ally. I’m glad she was late. The last thing Carly deserves is to have her wedding ruined.”
“Do you think anyone else saw them?” she asks. “Aiden?”
“Doubt it. Aiden’s eyes didn’t leave his bride from the moment she walked toward him on that beach. But Dad did.”
My mother lets out a sardonic sigh. “Ah. The sudden cold shoulder. Makes sense now. Well, Whatever - we should get to the reception; I’m sure the photographer is looking for you for pictures.”
“Whatever?” I volley. “Your boyfriend and his daughter just came ‘this’ close to ruining your son’s wedding. That’s mighty fucking flippant of you, mother.”
She rears back. “Austin.”
I’m pissed and I’m not hiding it.
“Yeah, you heard me.”
She clasps her throat and stares for a minute. “Roger wouldn’t have allowed Sienna to do anything. And nothing happened, so I don’t know why you’re acting like this, especially after you just had a public fist fight in a hotel lobby during your brother’s wedding and ruined your face for photos.”
I shake my head and grab my belt from the dresser. I weave it through the beltloops of my pants.
“Look at your face, Austin. What on earth is going on with you and that girl?”
“It’s over. It was nothing.”
“There was something? Didn’t she work for you? That’s not like you, Austin.”
“Let it go, will you? That’s irrelevant and I don’t appreciate you deflecting from the issue at hand.”
“The issue?”
“Roger Greer. Sienna. You know what I mean, Mother.”
My face hurts, as does my pride, and it’s minutely helpful to lash out at my mother.
That guy Nathaniel? Not only did he have a lot of power behind his punches, he also doesn’t look like some loser arranged fiancé.
Meryl described him as a guy she grew up with, but hadn’t seen in years. In my head he was a nerdy little skinny dude that would have nothing on me in the looks department. Shitty of me to think that way but when you think arranged marriage, you don’t expect the guy to look like he could get a dozen girls with a snap of his fingers. And of course for her to run back to him, in my head it’s because of her family’s expectations of her, not because he’s in any way a catch.
He was well-dressed, was a good-looking guy. And the guy knows how to fight, unfortunately.
She told me they grew up like cousins because their parents were best friends, that their folks had talked as far back as she could remember about the guy being her future husband because of the family bond. She never felt anything romantic for him. She said he’d gotten a scholarship for some prestigious school in the U.K. and had been gone for the past few years. She hadn’t laid eyes on the guy in a couple years and told me she wanted to choose her husband herself but that she also didn’t want to disappoint her family who thought that the guy was perfect for her, that it’d bring two close families even closer.
Meryl is a couple years younger than me, seemed pretty naïve, but the way that guy looked at her, the way the guy looked – I don’t know if she told me the truth or what to think.
My mother and I are the only two in the elevator as we head to the banquet level.
“Roger’s keeping her away from the reception?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“He’d better,” I say. “I should warn Aid.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t. Roger has it under control. No point upsetting your brother over something that didn’t happen and that won’t happen. Let it go. Please.”
“Why’d he even come?”
“We decided to have a little getaway,” my mother says with a shrug. “He has a place in St. Maarten, so we’re going there tomorrow after the family brunch.”
My mother looks in the mirror over the buttons and smooths out her lips and separates eyelashes with the pinky nail of her perfectly manicured hand. She’s always one hundred per cent put together. But it’s a veneer. It’s fake.
“It’s obvious you spent the night with Roger last night,” I say.
She flinches.
I’m in a mood, clearly. I usually keep my opinions to myself when it comes to family drama, but for some reason I can’t find it in me to give a fuck right now.
My mother has been on the wagon for months, seems like she’s doing well after rehab, though still traumatized from the embarrassment of being ridiculed for slapping a cop with a rich-bitch response to being ordered to submit to a breathalyzer. That video still pops up on social media as a variety of memes.
She’s lucky she’s not in prison. She’s doing the rich-lady version of community service with charity work instead of being in the trenches picking up trash like other convicts. Why does she get to host a police foundation charity fashion show when anyone else in her position would have to scrub spray paint off the side of a building? She changed her hair and had more filler put in her face, but she still gets recognized for her five minutes of fame.
