Page 42 of Our Big White Lie
I nodded, wringing my hands in front of me. “We just… We both feel weird, you know? Inviting people to our wedding and basically saying ‘you better show up with a gift’? I know it’s tradition, but it just… doesn’t feel right.”
“I see.” Her eyes lost focus as if she was trying to process that.
“And I mean,” I went on, “Tori and I have pretty much everything we need. The only things we could even think of asking for are things we can buy for ourselves, or things that arewaytoo expensive to ask other people to give us.”
Mom nodded as I spoke. Then she was quiet for a moment, possibly processing everything. I held my breath, sure she was going to tell me this was a crushing disappointment or some unforeseen faux pas. I glanced at Tori, and the creases in her forehead echoed my worries.
Finally, she said, “That’s certainly fair. And we can add some text to the invitations about that.” She paused. “Can I ask for one small exception, though?”
“What exception?”
She studied me, then took a breath. “I know your generation isn’t big on things like fancy dishes, but one of my favorite memories of planning my wedding was picking our china patterns with Grandma.” She touched my arm. “Will you girls atleast let your dad and me buy you a set of china? It’ll be whatever pattern you want, but I’d really love to do that.”
My throat tightened, though I wasn’t sure why. “You really want to?”
“I do, yes.” She smiled and squeezed my arm. “It can be anything you two like, but my china set was one of the gifts I cherished the most from your grandma.”
I turned to Tori. She shrugged and nodded, so I nodded too. “Okay. Yeah, we that would be fine. I’ve never even looked at china patterns, so I have no idea what I’d like or what Tori likes, but…” Another nod. “We can do that.”
Mom’s face lit up. “Wonderful. I’m sure we’ll find something perfect that you’ll both love!”
I didn’t care one way or another about china or any kind of dishes. But knowing it would make my mom happy—well, what could I say?
Now I was excited about it too.
“They actually expect people toeatoff this pattern?” Tori made a hilariously grossed-out face as she peered at some plates on display. “It looks like someone already ate off it and didn’t bother to wash it.”
Mom and I laughed. Tori wasn’t wrong—the plates had a bunch of colorful smears glazed on that, now that she mentioned it, resembled food stains.
“They really do come up with some weird stuff.” I scowled at another pattern that was probably meant to be some kind of abstract modern art aesthetic. Too many colors going in too many directions.
“You should’ve seen it thirty years ago when I was looking,” Mom mused. “There were plenty of lovely, delicate designs, but some were…” She made a face. “And that’s not even getting into the monstrosities people came up with in the Seventies.”
“Can’t we say that about pretty much any aesthetic choice from that era?” Tori asked dryly. “All that… orange. And brown. Andavocado.” She wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. “Who hurt those people?”
Mom giggled. “It didn’t get much better in the Eighties. There’s a reason I grew up with an aversion to floral prints.”
“Oh God.” I chafed my arms and shuddered. “Grandma’s couch…”
Tori cocked a brow. “That bad?”
“Uh-huh. It was one of those stereotypical flowery things. And they were like, dark red flowers—it looked like a crime scene.”
Mom laughed. “Oh it did not!”
“It did too!” I protested. “If the cops had ever come looking for a body in there, they’d have been trying to take blood samples from the couch cushions. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Uh.” A voice behind us turned us all around, and a very puzzled salesman peered at us. “Can… Can I help you ladies?” His expression begged us not to need his help and to let him run screaming away from whatever this was.
I had to fight a laugh as I said, “We’re good. Just, um… reminiscing about 1980s upholstery.”
Instantly, his horror vanished in favor of understanding, and he nodded slowly. “Oh Lord, those couches!” He touched his chest and rolled his eyes. “My grandma’s was one of the yellow flowered ones, and she smoked for sixty years, so it wasyellow.”
“Oh my God, eww!” Tori made an adorably disgusted face. “That’s so gross!”
“Tell me about it.” He grimaced. “I swear the smell of that couch haunts my dreams.”
All of us shuddered in solidarity. My parents had told me stories about the smoky furniture and tobacco-stained walls of years gone by, and I was just glad I’d missed that whole era. Yuck.
