Page 6 of Hell Bent
“Nope. Let’s check out.” I headed toward the front of the store.
“In other words,” she said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She quickened her pace to dart ahead of me before we reached the checkstand.
“Why would I be paying?” I decided I should point out. “She’s your friend, not mine.”
“Oh.” She paused in the act of setting her phone against the checkout screen as I started tossing items onto the belt. “Because you’re the kind of guy who thinks he’ll impress a woman by insulting her choices and insisting on paying for everything?”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m not the one who’s a princess.” The clerk didn’t even look up, just kept scanning. I guess you heard everything in the big city. “And why would I care if I impress you? I don’t know you. How about this: I’m giving you the benefit of my disinterested observations.” She gave me a thoroughly disgusted look, and I had to laugh. “Yeah, probably not. Never mind. I drop you off, you tell yourself that you like weenie guys and I don’t know what I’m talking about, and you go on and live your princessy life.”
“He is not,” she said, taking the bag from the clerk and heading for the door, “a weenie guy. And my life is not princessy. How about if I give youmydisinterested observation? You act all easygoing, but it’s just that. An act. Because you’ve got way,waytoo much testosterone.”
“You can’t have too much testosterone.” There was Tanya’scar, loitering in a yellow zone, and I opened the back door and offered my hand again. Fifty-fifty whether she took it.
She took it, and, yeah, I had enough testosterone. “You tell yourself that,” she said sweetly. “See how it works for you.”
3
A PARTIAL PARURE
Alix
Three weeks later. The sixteenth of December. And, oh, yeah. My wedding day.
You’re thinking that I ran off with Sebastian, Mr. Plaid-and-Tough, back there on that cold night? Of course not. However annoyed I’d been with Ned, I’m not a cheater. I’d said thanks, I’d said goodbye, and I’d got out of the Uber. Yes, he’d asked for my number, and no, I hadn’t given it to him, or taken his. I didn’t even know his last name. I was a little proud of that.
OK, I’d been tempted, but succumbing to temptation is so often a bad idea. Anyway, I own my choices, and I’d chosen this path. It made perfect sense. School, job, marriage, life. You have to grow up sometime, and I come from a long line of disciplined, get-it-done women. I may have had a bit of a rebellious streak when I’d been younger, but this was the New Me. Resistant to temptation.
One of those disciplined women, my mother, was saying, “Oh, you’re absolutely perfect. Now if we can just keep you that way until the ceremony.”
“You sound like you expect me to go find a mud puddle,” I said, standing up from the chair as the hairdresser packed up her tools.
“Yousound like that’s beyond the bounds of possibility,” my mother said a little tartly, then added to the five other women sitting around the hotel suite, “Now, you ladies have—” She checked her small diamond-encrusted watch. “A full hour to dress before the van comes for you and the groomsmen. That’s one o’clock sharp, down in the lobby. I’m sure we all remember that, right? Now, you’ve all given your numbers to Emily, the wedding coordinator? Good. You’ll want to get dressed toward the end, say around a quarter to one, so you can stay standing until the last minute and don’t crease those dresses. Mind that you’re ready on time, but until then, you can relax. As long as you don’t chew off all your lipstick. Or leave the suite. We want everybody in their place where we can find them. That’s how the day goes smoothly.”
“I’ve got no problem relaxing,” my friend Madison said. My maid of honor, and the only attendant who’d been absolutely my choice. “Not with three more bottles of champagne keeping us company.”
“All but this one,” my mother said smoothly, whisking it off the bar cart andnotpatting her own freshly done hair with the other hand, because my mother did not touch her hair or her face once they were set. It looked common, she’d always told me, and did nothing but mess you up or, worse, transfer bacteria to your face, where it could cause acne. She always said “bacteria” and “acne” like they were dirty words.
See? Objectively amusing, like so many things in life. I wondered why more people didn’t walk around laughing. “Remember, ladies,” she added, “mimosas are your friend.Lightmimosas. Everybody’s walking a straight line down that aisle.”
“You’re no fun,” Madison said, and I laughed. At whichmy mother immediately told me, “Don’t laugh so hard. You’ll smear your eyeliner. Right, time to prepare.”
Down the hall to my parents’ suite, then, my mother going ahead with the swipe card, and me catching the door in an unfamiliarly peach-tinted hand. The nails were fake, of course. There are so many things you can’t do with long fingernails, but my mother had insisted that I “think of the photo of your two hands slicing the cake, or the one they’ll surely take of your hands entwined, with your rings on. That’s such a classic, lovely shot. I asked for black and white versions as well as full color, did I tell you? So much more beautiful. But you’ll still see those nails, and you’ll be mortified if your hand looks like …”
“Like it normally does?” I’d asked. “Mom?—”
“Mother,” she’d corrected. “Get them taken off during the honeymoon if you like. One day, is that too much to ask? You can stand to have beautiful nails for one day. Though I’m going to say right here, even though you know I try not to interfere—once you’re out of college and going to work for good, you’ll need a professional appearance, and a manicure’s part of that.”
I’d thought,maybe for you,but I hadn’t said it. I’d given in, because fighting is stupid if you don’t have to, right? I was the one who’d wanted to get married, itwasone day, and contrary to popular opinion, I had no expectations of it beingmyone day. This wedding was being put on for my parents all the way. Possibly Ned’s, too, but we won’t examine that too hard, since my mother hadn’t consulted them much. I didn’t know how to do “getting married,” and as we’ve seen, she so clearly did, even though she’d only done it once. Who knew there were so many rules? You write the person’s name on theinnerenvelope of the wedding invitation, and then there’s theouterenvelope, where you write their nameandtheir address. Preferablywith calligraphy. Aarrgh. Who cares? Why not just do a group text?
Domestic partnership, that was the ticket. Did California have domestic partnership? Was it too late to check?
Yes.
Inside the room, my mother said, “I’ll get dressed first, then help you with your jewelry. Wewillwait until the last minute for your dress. A modern Grace Kelly, that’s how you’re going to look. As you should.”
The dress was hanging from a closet door, long and white and … well, boring. It wasn’t one of those sheath dresses that actually flaunts your figure. It was too modest for that despite being sleeveless, and at this moment, I was regretting disengaging so much. At least it was better than the other one she’d liked. That had been Balenciaga, and she’d found it at Nieman-Marcus. It had been called “Upcycled Tablecloth Dress,” and they weren’t kidding. It looked exactly like you’d decided to cover your bathing suit with your mom’s lace Thanksgiving tablecloth. This one might be boring, but at least it wasn’t a tablecloth. Still …
Too late now. This was the dress, and this was the hour.
