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“Tempest, sweetheart,” she says when she sees me.
“Hey, Mom.”
She’s wiping her brows after what looks like a yoga session; she’s dressed in her athletic gear that’s mostly to show off her still tight curves and there’s a very hot yoga instructor trailing behind her. She gives him a flirty kind of smile — which gives me a little glimpse into what kind of body contorting she’s been doing — and waves him away as she approaches me. The guy gives me a once-over and for the second time tonight, I throw up in my mouth a little.
Maybe there was a time when my mother loved my father. But years of his betrayal has turned my mother into a feelingless and hardened woman who finds joy in materialistic things.
“I’d hug you but I’m all sweaty,” she says, her blonde hair and blue eyes shining under the chandelier.
“That’s okay. I’m fine.”
She looks at me for a few seconds, a smile lingering on her face. “Look how you’ve grown up.” Then, reaching out to touch my hair, “Although I keep telling you to go blonde. This dark color makes you look like a corpse sometimes.”
I keep smiling and politely remove her hand from my hair. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll look into it.”
She sighs. “But never mind. It’s not important.”
“You know what, I think I’m going to —”
“I wanted to talk to you about the luncheon everyone’s planning for next week,” she says, cutting me off.
“What luncheon?”
“At the club,” she clarifies, her eyes now on my dark maroon knit dress, perfect for fall. “In your honor.”
“Yeah, I’m —”
“Everyone’s so excited about your engagement,” she says. “No one ever thought that it would happen, you know. I never thought it would happen. What with your stupid books and crazy ideas. I thought you’d be one of those unmarried spinsters that everyone sends to live in France or Italy. But look at you now, soon to be a bride. It’s going to be wonderful.”
Yeah, I’m sure it will be wonderful.
But only for my mother and all these other women who want to wish me well.
Because it will give them a chance to gloat. A chance to say, we told you so.
Because they did. All my life.
They told me that my romance novels are bullshit. That I was crazy to believe in something like love. In something like family. That I was even crazier for wanting it, for wishing for it. Instead of wishing for better things, practical things like money or jewelry or vacations and parties.
And I’d roll my eyes at them.
I’d look down upon them. I’d tell them that I wasn’t like them. That I wanted something real in my life. I didn’t want to end up like them, screwing around on their spouses behind their backs, neglecting each other, neglecting their children.
I’d tell them that they’re the ones who are crazy, not me.
And that one day, I’d escape this meaningless existence.
I won’t now though, will I?
Not only because I’m getting married soon — to someone from my world — but also because they were right. All these people who called me crazy. There’s no such thing as love. There’s no such thing as escaping the existence that I was born into.
Not for me at least.
That’s why I’m so proud and thrilled that my brother got out of it. That he has all the things that I wished for myself and also for him. A loving family, and so I need to protect it with all that I am.
Although I will say that ever since I got engaged, I’ve been thinking about one aspect of my dream. Look, it’s a given that I’m never going to have the kind of love or family that I want. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have something to love and cherish.
A baby.
Right?
I can still have that.
Or at least that’s what I think. Until the moment I start seeing a baby with dark wavy hair and dark eyes, resembling someone I don’t want to think about.
But anyway, that still doesn’t mean that I want to be present for the gloating.
“You know what, Mom, I think I’m going to have to check my schedule for next week. But I’ll let you know, okay?”
Before she can say anything, I get out of there.
I escape like I escaped from my brother’s house.
But instead of going back to my apartment in town – something I rented with my grandfather’s trust which my dad can’t touch so I don’t have to live in this hellhole of a mansion – I go to a bar called The Horny Bard because I don’t feel like being alone right now. It’s a dingy sports bar with really tacky and neon-y red light reaching and covering every inch of this place. There’s loud bass-heavy music and lots of curses and verbal abuse flying around at the mounted TV screens, displaying a soccer game.
