“Did you fake that faint?” Mrs. Richmond demanded. “Are you calling off the wedding?”
I stood up a little straighter. “That’s something maybe Pearce and I should discuss in private.”
But Mrs. Richmond wasn’t interested in my suggestions. Ever, but especially now. “I heard from Mrs. Allen that a hobo told you to faint at the altar.”
At that, Cooper raised his hand. “Hobo present,” he said.
“He’s not ahobo,” I said, giving Cooper a look. “He’s just in a fashion crisis.”
Mrs. Richmond looked back and forth between us. “What is going on, Josephine?”
A fair question.
I turned to Pearce. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m calling off the wedding.”
“You can’t call off the wedding!” Mrs. Richmond said, like I’d been speaking to her.
“Mom,” Pearce said. “It’s fine.” Then he looked straight at me and said, “She can’t even play tennis.”
Next, the phone in his pocket buzzed. And he took it out to check it—with a significant air ofWe’re done here.
But no way was Mrs. Richmond letting me off that easy. This was her only son. She’d spent months of her life planning this thing. She’d invited her entire mah-jongg group.
This was personal.
And if I was going to humiliate her, she was going to humiliate me right back.
She started talking so fast, it took us all a minute to catch up.
“I never liked you,” she said. “When Pearce told me you’d strong-armed him into marrying you, I told him right then it was a mistake. I said, ‘What self-respecting man wants to marry alady mathematician?’ He told me you work figures on a chalkboard—forfun. You have a favorite brand of chalk.”
“All math people have a favorite brand of chalk,” I said.
She was undeterred. “You don’t know anything about fashion. I had to hog-wrestle you into that pair of heels. You showed up at that charity luncheon with wet hair!Wet hair!My friends shunned me for weeks. I begged and pleaded with Pearce. I said, ‘You can’t marry a woman whodrives a Honda.’ I warned him that his children would be”—she dropped her voice—“nerds.” Then she steeled her shoulders. “But he felt so sorry for you—you’d been chasing him so long. He’d missed the chance to break up with you, and now he felt obligated. He proposed out of pity, and this is how you thank him?”
I wondered if I was supposed to answer that question.
Just as she concluded with, “You’renot calling off the wedding—we’recalling off the wedding!”
Ah. Guess not.
Mrs. Richmond turned to my mother. “And we won’t be paying foranything related to this clown show.” Then she turned back to me. “And I want my dress back.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s stuck.”
“Take it off. Right now.”
“The zipper’s broken,” I tried to explain. “I literally can’t.”
I was about to offer to have it dry-cleaned and repaired and brought to her later—but I guess she was really spoiling for a fight, because the next thing she said was:
“You are not walking out of here inmywedding dress, you flat-footed bluestocking.”
To my left, Cooper started laughing.
I frowned at him, likeShut up.
He clamped down into a serious face—but then he broke.
