Reception Read online

  “No, I don’t think so. Bridal handbooks wouldn’t use the word ‘shit.’”

  “You’re absolutely right. I’m sure it stated ‘fecal matter’ though.”

  “That sounds much more believable, if slightly repetitious.”

  “I promise I’ll behave from here on out,” I said with my palm up in reverent oath. “On my honor, Princess Bitchface.”

  “I’ll hold you to it, Lady Dickdouche.”

  I wrinkled my nose at that one. “Dick douche? Do they really make those?”

  Shay feigned a look of absolute seriousness, her brow creased, her mouth in a pursed scowl. “Oh, I should think so, and I bet it’s dreadfully painful. According to what I read online, a dribble of vinegar and these skinny pipe cleaners are involved in the process.”

  “The Internet has answers for everything.”

  We shared a giggle. Our childish fun was short-lived though as Mom found us in the little hallway and beckoned for us to join her in the lobby, giving us both a disapproving look as she did. “What on earth are you two going on about?” she said as we came out from the hall into the bright lobby.

  I shrugged and gave Shay a knowing glance, practically daring her to follow my lead. “Personal plumbing matters,” I said, barely containing my grin.

  Shay burst out laughing, and Mom sighed at the two of us. “Ladies, settle-settle,” she said, shaking her head. “Delia has the car running out front. We don’t want to be late for our salon appointment.” She gave me a quick once-over, scrutinizing my face, my hair, as we made our way out through the lobby doors. “Ansley, I strongly suggest you have them straighten your hair…and have them keep it out of your face. And don’t roll your eyes at me. Grown women don’t do that in public. It’s unbecoming.”

  “I think she should keep it curly, Mom. It’s her natural look, and it works with the whole ensemble we’ve planned,” said Ansley, halting our group just as we reached Delia’s gleaming BMW SUV, quite possibly one of the cushiest cars I’d ever seen.

  Delia craned her swan’s neck out the window from her place behind the wheel, a wide, open smile stretching across her perfectly unlined face. “We can compromise on what to do with Ansley’s lovely hair when we get there, my darlings.”

  “Ansley can make decisions for herself, you know. She’s been doing that for the past twenty years. She even pays taxes on occasion,” I grumbled, just loudly enough for certain women in my company to hear.

  Shay opened the back passenger door on her side and squealed when she saw who was inside. Emma Holiday, Shay’s thoroughly girly best friend from college and Emma’s pouty six year-old son, Bryceson, were squished together in the second row, at the opposite end, leaving one seat open for Shay, while I was obviously to sit to the little back row that barely consisted of an extra two seats.

  Emma gave me a little wave, beaming. She was the kind of woman who laughs at everything, even if it’s not particularly funny or just entertaining. I think she was a work-from-home/stay-at-home mom sort, but I’m not entirely sure. She smiled at me as I hesitated to get in.

  “Bry-bear,” she said to her scowling little guy, “Hey, plummy plum, why don’t you sit in the back row behind Momma so that Shay’s big sister can sit with us. She won’t be able to fit back there in that tight spot like you can.”

  He crossed his arms and pretended not to have heard her, choosing to squint straight ahead and keep up with the pouting. His little feet kicked at Mom’s front passenger seat, and before Mom could say anything, Emma placed a firm hand on his knee, pressing him to stop. Kid was going to grow up to be a real gentleman. I guess that was to be expected when his one fatherly role model had up and left Emma when he was just four years old. It’s probably the only personal thing I really knew about Emma’s family, but the strain on Emma had been evident during the engagement party last year. She’d tried to hide it by laughing at everything as she usually did, but quite often, her laughter was obviously forced and automatic, like it had been drilled in her to keep up the charade. Shay—I’ll give it to her—she kept the comfort level high enough so that she was always there with Emma, filling her wine glass or rubbing her back. I was amazed she was able to keep the focus balanced so well that night. I remember her whispering things to Emma, the two of them sharing funny secrets, probably in-jokes from college, and I’d longed for something like that myself, a best friend, someone to share more than just family crap.

  I’d always assumed Shay was my best friend, but it took me a good while to figure out that certainly wasn’t the case when she proudly proclaimed Emma had the title. Then, naturally, later on, I’d hoped Simon would’ve filled that spot for me.

  Oh, the foolish things we want to believe, the things we wish were true.

  It took a purple lollipop from Emma’s purse—“Prepped with doctor’s office bribes,” she said to me with a giggle—for Bryceson to agree to sit in the back. I slid in beside Shay, and we were off.

  Twenty minutes into the ride, I, somehow, may have had remnants of purple lollipop stuck in my hair.

  Fuck it, I thought, at least we were on our way to the salon.

  #

  I didn’t hear the argument happening there at the salon between Delia Card and my mother. As tempting as it was to push up the roaring dryer helmet in order to catch up with what exactly was going on, I stayed put, knowing perfectly well that whatever they were going on about wasn’t any of my business, and frankly, since I was already an obvious source of contention among my family members, I figured it would be best for me to stay the hell out of it.

  Judging by the expression on Shay’s face, her mouth tightening in a prim line, Shay wasn’t in the mood to intervene either. She kept turning her head this way and that, examining herself in the mirror. Her ballerina bun was perfectly centered and round on the back of her glossy head. Her own hairdresser for the day—undoubtedly at the highest level of the hierarchy, whatever that was—pinned loose strands carefully, also while examining every angle with a meticulous eye.

  Shay met my stare in the mirror. She rolled her eyes at me, emphasizing her annoyance. I hadn’t really noticed until then how tired she looked without makeup. It’s always been tiring with our own mom. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like having to juggle expectations of both her and another. Delia Card even went one step over the line of appearance obsession.

  I just didn’t understand why a woman like Delia—even a man like Rex Card—would place such importance on having a wedding at a “resort” that they clearly knew was falling into ruin. Sure, Shay had emphasized that it was a family friend’s business, and the Cards had wanted to keep it afloat. Still, since appearances were clearly what it was all about, everyone could’ve still been supportive of a close family friend and had just the wedding ceremony there for a single evening rather than over an entire weekend.

  My hairdresser bent in front of me, blocking my line of sight, barricading me from seeing the back-and-forth happening between my mom and Delia. “You doin’ okay there? Not too hot, is it? I can cool her down a little,” she said with a wide, toothy grin.

  There was coral lipstick on her front teeth, but I got the feeling I’d have to shout that fact of the matter at her, so I just stared at the stain, silently willing her to leave me alone and move out of my line of sight. She lifted the dryer and poked at my hair that had been set in giant curlers. Mom had wanted it straightened, but Delia had insisted curls, and Shay, too far along on the dark side, had agreed with Delia. At the time, I wasn’t remotely interested in either argument about my own damned hair. I’d tried to get some compromise underway between both sides, letting them know I could’ve just as easily gone with the beach waves trend that was slowly inching its mad way across the land of perpetually big hair, big makeup, big tits, big everything. However, Shay came to Delia’s defense—pinned curls—and that ended the matter much to Mom’s annoyance.

  Frankly, from what I’d seen well before everything, Mom was rapidly coming undone. Sh
e looked as if the weight of all things bridal had just knocked the last hints of youthful energy, which she once was known for, right out of her. Both she and Shay, actually, looked exhausted.

  Delia, on the other hand, despite the fillers and nips and tucks, seemed to grow younger with each new problem or dispute about Shay’s day. Was I crazy or did Delia look as if an entire decade had been removed from her complexion, which was glowing with health and vitality, such a stark contrast with my mother and sister’s ashy skin.

  Vitamin E, biotin, royal jelly, retinoids, hyaluronic acid, stem cells, something.

  “Gonna let that set for another five, okay? We’ll see what we have when it’s dried a bit. If it’s looking like it won’t set well, we can always straighten it like your momma wanted. It’ll be pretty either way,” said my hairdresser with a wink, and she pushed the dryer shell back down over my head but not before I caught a snippet of the argument between Delia and Mom.

  Delia softly said, “Patricia, you know I wouldn’t want anything less that the very best for Shay on her day, so you must allow me to cover the bridesmaid and Maid of Honor’s expenses, too. I recommended this place, and I know it’s a bit over the budget you’d set.”

  As soon as the dryer went back down, the roar of it once again preventing me from hearing a thing, I saw Mom go red-faced and stiff all over. She said something to Delia in response, but judging from Delia’s quizzical expression, whatever it was Mom had said, it had been too low for Delia to hear. I suppose I ought to have been able to fill-in-the-blank with whatever it was Mom had said, but Mom’s normal, acidic bite-backs had been subdued since we’d pulled up to the resort last night. In fact, she looked hurt when she said whatever it was she’d said to Delia. Her eyes grew watery, and her forehead creased. It was the same look she had on whenever Dad sided with Shay about whatever it was Mom had disagreed with. Not only did her facial expression change, her posture did, too. Most tend to sag and wither when rejected, but Mom’s posture tightens. Instead of curling inward, she goes into dancer stance. Her neck tugs with the tension, like a marionette, causing her back to lift and straighten.

  Delia took a step back from Mom. Her hands made birdlike movements, fluttering as she tried to soothe Mom, ease her down. But Mom had already taken out her wallet from her giant purse (“One must always be prepared with supplies,” she often said to us girls whenever she saw us with our little clutches and chain purses).

  She then said, quite loudly and surprisingly clearly, enough that even I could hear her, “This is a wedding, isn’t it? They’re my daughters, Delia, and adhering to some sense of tradition is fundamental to our family and my daughters’ upbringing. Understand?”

  Shay met my reflection again in the mirror. She offered me a tired smile, and I knew then she’d approved of Mom’s decision and her words. As I’d mentioned once before, I’m sure, when it came to shopping—and hair salon expenses do count as “shopping” among the Boone ladies—Mom and Shay were often on each other’s side, and there was no way Mom would back down when it came down to it.

  Delia, essentially, would have to go fuck herself.

  But Mom would never say something so crass now, would she?

  SIX

  Everyone was quiet during the trip to our “ladies’ luncheon,” something that Mom insisted upon despite Shay and Delia’s press to get us all back to the resort.

  “They’ve put out lunch there, Mom. Nate just texted. They’ve got roast beef for sandwiches, lots of salad choices, that iced tea you liked...” said Shay, giving me a quick side jab, not just a signal to agree with her, but also a reminder that when crammed in together in tight passenger seats, there’s still always room to poke one’s sibling in the ribs.

  Emma oooh’ed at the mention of iced tea. “I don’t know how they did it, but I swear it tastes just like Momma’s sun tea we used to have in the summer, sitting out there on the porch swing, swatting lovebugs floating around.”

  “Emma, how is it you manage to make everything sound delightfully romantic?” said Delia, punctuating it with a tinkly chime of a laugh.

  Emma chuckled. “Practice. Gotta see the beauty in everything. That’s what we’re trying to teach Bryceson right now. Hopefully, it sticks. Right, Bry-bear?”

  Bryceson answered with a grunt and a sharp kick to the back of my seat. That kid.

  “It’s a wonderful lesson. Something we’d, regretfully, been too busy to impart upon Nathan,” Delia said with a sigh. “One of the many reasons why I find the new motherhood trends so inspired. Such love and commitment shown. Very humbling.”

  Oh, it was so tempting, the idea of responding to Delia’s lamenting about her lack of essential parenting. I held my tongue to the point where I was on the verge of chomping down on its meat. The throbbing headache I’d had only just started to simmer down. I’d come to expect that it would always pop up during the worst possible moments, especially during a family event. Reliable. Predictable. I wasn’t wrong. Alas, I’d already downed 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen, and I wasn’t about to take more. Over the counter painkillers were even advertised as being just as dangerous when taken in actual pain-killing dosages (Hint: 800 milligrams isn’t nearly enough to knock out what I was continuously going through. Instead, it just turned what was a sharp, jabbing pain behind my eyes to a sore thrumming).

  My bag suddenly vibrated loudly in my lap. The thing had been partially charged on the bedside table in my room when I stupidly realized then that sockets came in pairs, and my bedside table lamp was working just fine. It’s another symptom, I think, that sudden lack of common sense and resourcefulness that was once a part of me. I used to always be able to come up with a quick, simple solution. Now, though, I just give up easily, exhausted at the thought of having to think of something useful right then and there.

  Once I found my phone in the depths of my bag, Shay was already in nosy-sister mode, peering at the thing when I unlocked the screen. I used the side of my body to push against her, signaling her to mind her own business, causing her to lean into a giggly Emma.

  Shay just pushed back, smirking at the phone in my hand. “Who’s Leon, and why is he asking about the wedding?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Who’s worried? He’s on your phone, and you’re obviously on a first-name basis with him,” said Shay.

  “He’s just a friend,” I said as I sent him a quick text back, letting him know everything was fine, and then I pushed the cell down deep into my bag.

  “Just a friend-friend or a boyfriend friend?” pressed Emma, giggling.

  There was an exaggerated sigh from the back seat. “There isn’t any boyfriend friends! That’s not real! You can’t have boyfriend friends!” Bryceson shouted.

  Both Shay and Emma burst out laughing. “ ‘Aren’t,’ plummy plum. ‘There aren’t any boyfriend-friends,’” said Emma in-between snorty giggles.

  “I know, Mom. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Bry-bear, you need to be as sweet as the honey you like.”

  Shay nodded at the phone. “So? Leon?”

  “For goodness’ sake, Shay. He’s her therapist,” Mom snapped.

  Shay was finally quiet for a moment before she asked, “How appropriate is it for a therapist to text his patients like that, outside of office hours?”

  “Mind your own business, Shay,” I mumbled, half-hoping she heard me, half-hoping she didn’t.

  “If you’re gonna be rudely texting your therapist about what’s happening at my wedding, it becomes my business, Ans.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Patient confidentiality,” I said. “Look that up. It’s a thing.” Right then, my headache had blossomed into something much bigger, its branches seeking every other nerve ending in my head, neck, back, and limbs.

  “Patient confidentiality goes out the window when you’re texting right in front of me like a rude-ass bitch,” said Shay, and then she gasped and cupped a hand over her mouth.

  I heard Mom loud
ly suck in her breath, signaling her exhaustion and expected disapproval.

  Shay gave Emma a sheepish look, whispering to her an “I’m sorry.”

  “Mom, she said two bad words! She should get wall time when we get back to the hotel.”

  Emma waved off Shay’s apology, shaking her head. She was trying hard not to laugh. “Bry-bry, adults are grown-up enough to be naughty sometimes,” she said. “When you start paying Mommy rent and helping her with the bills, you can say all the bad words you want.”

  “But what about school, Mom?”

  “What about it, plummy plum?”

  “If I help pay bills, can you tell Miss Hanley I can say bad words at school, too? We can tell her I’m being reponsible.”

  “Re-spon-si-ble,” corrected Emma. “Responsible. Say it again, Bry.”

  “Reponsible!”

  “Just remember, plucky ducky,” said Emma, “bad words are for grownups. You can tell Miss Hanley anything you want to once you help Momma with the electric bill at least.”

  Delia burst out a husky chortle. “If you can pay utilities during summertime, little one, you can pay for anything.”

  “I can pay anything, aaaaaaaand I won’t have wall time anymore!”

  “What’s ‘wall time’?” whispered Shay.

  “That’s when you do something bad, and you face the wall and stay there until Momma says you can play in your room. One time, I was in wall time for seventeen thousand hours,” Bryceson lamented with an exaggerated sigh.

  Shay laughed. “I’m sure it felt like it was seventeen thousand hours, Bry-bry.”

  “It really was seventeen thousand hours. It was that long. I counted them forever.”

  “It’s the only thing that’s seemed to do the trick,” whispered Emma, low enough so Bryceson would have to strain to hear her. “My perfect little con artist usually gets away with murder.”

  “I get away with murder,” Bryceson quietly concurred from the back seat.