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“What if your grandma doesn’t like me?” I moan, ready by anticipation to be rejected as the fraud I am.
“You’re female and you’re marrying me, so she loves you already!” he says. “But if you can down a whiskey sour in one gulp, she’ll respect you even more.”
Faces walk by us, some amused, some friendly, and all of them very curious about me. Harvey wastes no time with them and takes me straight to a table by the pool. It’s under a parasol and looks like a haven under the bright mid-day sun.
Three generations of women are seated underneath — grandmother, mother, and daughter together for a whole day of gossip.
I recognize each from their photos I saw yesterday. His mom stands up and rushes toward Harvey. She looks just slightly out of middle age, but her way of walking, her voice, and everything else about her tells me she is a couple of decades older than she looks.
She comes straight to me, and I freeze in place, looking at Harvey and waiting for him to rescue me.
But the rescue never comes.
“Oh, Harvey; she’s beautiful!” His mom wraps her arms around my neck, so tight I can’t breathe. “Why didn’t you bring her here sooner?”
“Life got in the way, mom…” Harvey approaches her for a kiss, but she does not let go of me. “Elsa, this is Lorna, my mom. Mom, this is Elsa!”
“Pleased to meet you, Elsa,” Lorna is all smiles and loving squeezes, and I feel bad for fooling her like this. “Now come you two; come sit with us!”
Lorna animatedly guides us to the table, where Harvey greets first his sister and then his grandma.
His sister is a tall woman, strong and powerful who looks just like Harvey. The second is a sweet old lady with a head full of snow-white hair, and a sly expression on her face as she holds her drink and looks at me.
“Elsa, this is Kiera, my twin sister, and the one getting married. And this is Rose, my grandma.”
“She’s too pretty for you, Harvey,” the old lady says to my face. “Switch her for another; she’ll give you too much trouble!”
Grandma Rose begins to cackle, and she is quickly followed by the other women at the table. Right after it, she brings me close, kisses me on the cheek, and says, “Welcome to the family, hun.”
And as I take my seat beside Harvey, and he holds my hand in his, I realize this has barely started and has already gone too far.
Chapter Ten
HARVEY
“So,whataretheboys doing tonight?” One of my aunts asks, barging into the living room where all the men, looking fine and dandy, are reunited and getting ready for the night’s program.
“Just a bar, Margot.” My uncle Tom whisks her off her feet to kiss her. “We’ll be safe and sound at home before 2 AM.”
“You better be!” Aunt Margot slaps him gently on the shoulder and lets him go.
“And where are the girls going?” Uncle Tom retorts, hands on his hips.
“Jennie made us a reservation at a southern food place in town,” she says.
“Careful,” I say, looking intently at the sports newscast on TV. “You’re not going to fit in your dresses for tomorrow!”
“Oh, stop it, Harvey!” Aunt Margot waves me off and readies herself to leave.
Michael comes walking downstairs. He’s my sister Kiera’s fiancé, her soon-to-be husband, and I used to not like him all that much. But the guy grew on me with time, and now I couldn’t ask for anyone better for my sister.
“Okay, I’m here!” he says. “Let’s go?”
“Let’s!” My father says. He’s more excited than anyone to party a little tonight because mom never lets him go out. Not even my eighteen-year-old cousin James is more excited about a strip club than him.
“Just let me say goodbye to Elsa. Have you met her?” I ask Michael.
“Upstairs,” he points up. “Kiera is parading around in her wedding dress; she didn’t even let me in to say goodbye…”
