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Maybe her weariness was why, when Bron called for lunch on the Wednesday after that terrible tasting party, Sienna signed out of her computer with a punch of her mouse and decided this would be a long lunch. Just because her mother had been cruel about the wedding didn’t mean she would give up her friendship with Bron.
They met at an exclusive café on Market Street, with booths that had seats she could relax into and where the patrons dressed elegantly in business suits and designer clothing.
All except Bron, who hadn’t received the message that the fiancée of the managing partner at Walker and Walker shouldn’t wear leggings and a blowsy shirt that could have come from any department store. But Sienna liked how down to earth Bron was. She hadn’t forgotten her roots in the secretarial pool, and she’d truly fallen for Sienna’s father.
Bron had already ordered a champagne cocktail for her even though Sienna shouldn’t drink at lunch. But what the heck. She lifted her glass. “Here’s to a lovely lunch.” They tapped flutes, Bron’s filled with sparkling apple juice.
The champagne wasn’t the best, but the cocktail was good. Before the baby, Bron stocked the cheapest champagne she could find, hiding it in the back of the pantry in the multimillion-dollar Atherton house. Sienna’s father would have popped all the tops and poured every bottle down the drain if he’d found them, but Bron claimed the cheaper the champagne, the better the champagne cocktail. They’d even taste-tested one evening when Dad was working late. Just as Bron said, the cheap stuff made the better cocktail.
That was another reason she enjoyed Bron. She knew what she liked, and she didn’t care if it was cheap. She even bragged that she’d found this or that adorable outfit at a consignment store or even a thrift shop. “You can’t go looking for something specific,” she always said, “because you’ll never find it. It’s while browsing that you come across incredible deals, some stuff still with the tags on it.”
Sienna had taken a few shopping trips herself and found some amazing buys.
Eventually her father would break Bron’s habits. He couldn’t have his wife appearing in second-hand clothing.
Their starters arrived, Bron having ordered them already, and they told the server to come back once they’d decided on their main course.
“Let me tell you right away why I asked you for lunch.” Bron licked the salt off her fingers after tasting the tempura shrimp.
“You’ve got me intrigued.” Sienna relished a crispy shrimp.
“Here it is. I want you in my wedding. I love all my other girlfriends. But I want you too.”
Sienna felt herself blush. “Thank you. I like you too.” They sounded like they had girl crushes on each other. “But I think my father is pretty set.”
“I’ve talked to him.” Bron snipped the tail off a shrimp, savored the meat, then added, “Don’t get mad, but I went to see your mom.”
Sienna couldn’t get a word out. She was stunned, even a little angry.
“I just wanted your mom to understand that we’re friends, and I want you in my wedding because you’re a special person and not because I wanted to stick it to the ex-wife.” Bron waved her hand. “Not that I said it exactly like that.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that.” Sienna didn’t want the wedding to turn into a big deal and set the tone of their relationship. As always, her mother said one thing to her, then another thing to her father. It had been going on for years, her mom letting Dad be the grunt.
“She never told your dad that she didn’t want you in the wedding.” Bron leaned in close. “And she doesn’t want me to rescind the invitation.” She touched Sienna’s hand. “She wants us to be friends. And she doesn’t think you’re choosing sides.”
“You have to understand my mother,” Sienna started to explain.
Bron rushed on, not letting her finish. “That’s what your dad always says, that she tells one thing to one person and another to someone else. I get that,” she said in an airy voice. “And that’s why I asked your dad about it too.”
Shock coursed through Sienna’s body. “What did he say?”
Bron sighed. “That he knows what she’s like, and he was making a preemptive strike. He was afraid she’d do something after we’d made all our plans when it would be so much harder to change everything.”
Sienna heard only one thing. “Are you saying my dad never talked to my mom? That he lied?”
Bron shook her head, her hair flying. “No, no, no. He didn’t lie.” She stressed the word. “He just…” She seemed to search for a more pleasant term. “He fabricated a story that was supposed to save us all in the end.”
“Isn’t fabricating,” Sienna said with deliberateness, “another word for lying?”
Bron shook her head again, then tucked her hair behind her ear. “It’s like little white lies that you tell to save someone else’s feelings. Don’t tell me you’ve never told a little white lie?”
Of course she had. Everybody did. You wanted to stay in and binge the last season of Game of Thrones instead of attending a party, so you sighed woefully and said you’d already made another date.
Bron went on. “He did it to save me. Because he didn’t want me to be hurt if you couldn’t be in the wedding later on down the road.”
Sienna cut to the chase. “Why are you telling me this?” She raised a hand, fingers spread to wave away all the other crap.
“I want you in my wedding. So I told your father that your mom was fine with it.”
