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My best friend won’t even be there to help me choose a wedding dress. She won’t even knowwhyI’ve stopped talking to her, although I think she might suspect. The sudden isolation feels crushing, and I bite my lip, trying to stem the flood of tears. It’s utterly useless.
“Stop being such a child.” The irritation in my mother’s voice is clear. “You’ve managed to get yourselfpregnant, for god’s sake, so it’s time to grow up, Amalie.”
My stomach chooses that moment to revolt, the reminder crashing into me as I shove my chair back and rush from the dining room, ignoring my mother’s protests as I fling myself into the nearest bathroom.
If this keeps up, it won’t take long for David to figure out the truth, no matter what my mother says.
—
Not even shopping and picking out my wedding dress can lift my spirits, although I didn’t really expect that it would. My mother makes us a private appointment at a bridal salon, where I’m whisked into a dressing room and handed a satin robe while a sales associate brings a rack of dresses that have been pre-selected for me to choose from. There’s no browsing through the store, no chance for me to think about what I might want for myself. Instead, I sip nervously at the sparkling apple juice someone put into a champagne flute for me, cursing the fact that I can’t have any actual alcohol—and the fact that at my wedding reception, of all days, I won’t be able to either.
I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to get through it all sober.
There’s a fairly wide array of styles, although they’re all very modest. I end up choosing a dress with a full silk skirt and a lace-overlaid bodice, with three-quarters sleeves that end in the same fringed eyelash lace that is appliqued at the hem of the gown. The addition of a fingertip-length veil with the same style of lace perfects the bridal look, and my mother is pleased with it, which makes my day a little less miserable.
But looking in the mirror as the saleslady pins and tucks for alterations, I can’t fathom that I’m really going to be wearing this in two weeks—walking down the aisle to marryDavid. It all still feels like some strange dream that I’m going to wake from at any moment. I push my ring this way and that with my thumb, feeling the points of the diamonds under the pad of flesh, digging in just hard enough to hurt a little. I feel like I’m losing my mind.
None of this feels real. But it is.
My mother pays for the dress and sweeps me off to another store, choosing shoes and jewelry to go with it. I don’t have very many opinions about any of it, but that doesn’t really seem to matter—my mother does, and I don’t think mine would have been heard, anyway. She picks sapphire and pearl earrings, telling me that they’ll match her strand of pearls that she’ll give me to wear—something borrowed and blue—and goes back and forth endlessly over just how high of a heel I ought to wear walking down the aisle.
Privately, I hope that they’re high enough that I might trip while dancing, and break my neck. That seems like it might be the best outcome for all of us.
I might be miserable, but my mother makes no secret of the fact that she’s having one of the best days she’s had in a long time. She might not have liked my father very much, but she’s always loved the trappings and traditions of the mafia life, and this lets her fancy herself exactly what she would like to be—an important woman outfitting her daughter as she’s sent off to a marriage alliance.
My mother truly was born several centuries too late.
Even stopping for lunch isn’t much of a reprieve. As if to add insult to injury, we go to one of my favorite small bistros in the city, but I end up ordering the blandest thing I can think of on the menu—a strawberry and goat cheese salad with chicken and dressing on the side—since I have no idea when my meal will decide to come back up to say hello. After lunch, all I can think of for the remainder of the shopping trip is how best to keep my nausea in check. I’ve sipped more ginger ale over the past week than I ever wanted to—and I suspect that after this, I’ll never want to taste it again.
The two weeks before David comes to collect me drag by. Without class, without Claire or any other diversion except my mother’s endless lectures on how to behave myself around David’s family and which mafia families in Boston I should know the names of, I almost start to look forward to the wedding. At least then, I’ll have something to occupy my attention, even if it’s notgood.
Part of my time is spent wondering which version of David I’ll get when he comes to collect me, and I find out the minute he walks through the door. Peevishly, I chose to wear all black for this trip—black cigarette slacks and a black silk sleeveless blouse, with simple diamond studs and a diamond solitaire necklace I was given for my eighteenth birthday. I’m waiting in the formal living room with my mother when he walks in, and I see his gaze flick to the engagement ring on my left hand, as if to make certain I’m still wearing it.
His face is cold and impassive as he looks at my mother. “Is she ready to go?” he asks bluntly, and I’m instantly seething.
“I’mrightfucking here,” I spit out, starting to stand up, and my mother grabs my elbow in that same pinching grip, yanking me back down onto the couch.
“Language,” she hisses, and I almost burst out laughing, thinking of some of the things that David managed to pry from my lips while he drove me mad with pleasure in Ibiza—things that would make my mother’s head explode if she ever heard me say them.
“You can ask me questions, you know.” I ignore her, still glaring at David. “Or is that one of the mafia customs for Boston that I’m supposed to learn? Do all questions between husbands and wives go through a third party?”
I’m being sarcastic, but the way he continues to ignore me almost makes me wonder. “Are her things ready?” he asks. “Most of her luggage should be shipped to the mansion, but a few bags can go on the plane. I can only imagine how much there must be.”
The derogatory way he says it, as if I’m the most spoiled creature in existence, makes me want to slap him.
“I’ve already arranged to ship most of her things,” my mother says calmly. “Her other bags are by the door. Amalie, are you ready?”
I’m almost shaking, I’m so angry. Her tone is dismissive, as if she’s finally deigning to speak to me, and I wonder what would happen if I flat-out refused to go along with any of this, if I put my foot down and said no.
At least a small part of me knows that it’s my own cowardice that keeps me from doing it, because I have no idea what my life would look like if that happened. I would be alone, without resources, and I’ve never had to be on my own like that. Claire wouldn’t help me—I believe she’s a good friend, and she has genuine affection for me, but she has her own status and wealth. If I fell that far, she wouldn’t reach out a hand to pick me back up.
My future is terrifying no matter what I choose—but at least with this, I know what to expect.
I stand up slowly, and this time, my mother doesn’t yank me back down. “I’m ready,” I say calmly, even though inwardly I’m on the verge of panic, and David motions to the door.
“Let’s go, then.”
He doesn’t say a word to me as the driver loads my bags into the back of the black town car waiting outside. I wonder if I might get some small show of affection from my mother—a hug, a kiss on the cheek,something—but she only grabs my wrist before I can step away, pulling me closer for a moment as she speaks in a low voice.
