Page 50 of Best Woman
“I wasn’t going to,” she says from behind me. “You’re not. You shouldn’t be.”
She’s right, but it doesn’t feel good to hear her say it. Her saying it makes it real. The idea that she witnessed my utter humiliation burns inside me like kerosene.
“It’s fine,” I say. My hands are clenched tight enough that my nails, the nails my mother paid to have painted, might break the skin. “I just need a minute to cool off.”
Hands settle on my arms, light enough that it’s clear Kim is afraid to spook me. “Julia,” she says, soft and firm. “It’s not fine. It doesn’t have tobefine.”
It does, though, because I can’t make this about me. There’s no space in this wedding for me to have a meltdown, to cause a scene. Storming out here was bad enough. There’s nothing else to do but pull myself together, walk back inside, smile like nothing happened, and bury this down in the unmarked grave inside me. It will haunt me forever, but there are enough restless ghosts there that at least this one won’t be lonely.
I lock the tomb of myself tight and turn around to face Kim. Her brows are knit in concern, her mouth drawn down into a frown. I want to collapse into her, fall apart, and let her pick up the pieces. I will never, ever let myself.
“It’s fine,” I say again, firmer this time. “It sucks, it really fucking sucks, but it is what it is. I just needed a minute, but it’s OK. Let’s go back inside, I don’t want to make a whole thing out of it.”
“Maybe youshouldmake a thing out of it,” says Kim. “Or not, it’s your family, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But Jesus, don’t go back in there. Let’s go for a walk or something so you can cool down for a bit.”
Shaking my head, I shrug off her hands. “No, that would only make things worse. I can’t make this worse, this is my brother’swedding.”
“I mean, things are already pretty fucking bad, sweetheart.” A tiny, shriveled part of me thrills at the endearment. “If you go back now, isn’t that just teaching them that what just happened is OK?”
Yes. “No. It’s just…what I have to do.” I have to prove them wrong, prove that my mother admitting to everyone we know, plus a legion of country club waiters, that she’ll never see meas a woman doesn’t devastate me, doesn’t mean she’sright. It’s the same reason I can’t snipe at a customer service agent when they call me sir on the phone or be rude to a waiter when they tell me the men’s room is on the right. The bigger deal I make of it, the more I draw attention to the very dissonance they’re pointing out.
But those are things I can shrug off, they’re simply a fundamental part of my daily reality. This is seismic, this is my world altering. Or rather, this is a truth long hidden finally come to light: I am not my mother’s daughter. I never was and I never will be. That is my new reality.
I wish I didn’t care. But I do.
“Julia.” She’s almost pleading. “Baby.”
“I’ll see you back inside,” I say, lifting my psychic shovel and preparing to bury the sad, pitying look in her eyes.
“Don’t do this,” she says, wrapping a hand around my wrist to stop me from walking away. “Don’t let them make you small.”
“Jules.” With perfect timing, Aiden chooses that exact moment to appear before us. “Are you OK?”
“Of course she isn’t,” Kim snaps. He looks taken aback but tries to draw me into a hug. I shake him off, too overstimulated as it is, but Kim catches my flinch and her eyes narrow. She faces Aiden down, bristling with anger.
“Maybe if you’d been more supportive, something like this wouldn’t have happened. You clearly set the tone in your family.”
No. Fuck. Not this, not now. Anything but this.
“What are you talking about?” He’s so confused.
“Let’s not do this, please,” I beg.
“No, Julia, I can’t keep my mouth shut after that.” All theempathy and compassion I’ve been nurturing are hardening; I can see the culmination of every lie I’ve told Kim. “I know about how badly you’ve treated her,” Kim said, “and it makes me sick.”
“Jules,whatis she talking about?”
“Please, Kim, I didn’t—”
“She told me how you’ve never really accepted her, that you thought her womanhood was some phase. That you only made her best woman out of obligation. You could have been the one person in your family who stood up for her, and maybe what happened tonight never would have happened.”
She may as well have slapped him. No, I realize as he turns to me with horror on his face.Imay as well have slapped him.
“Stop it, Kim,” I say. She reaches toward me, but I flinch away, bracing myself.
“I’m just trying to—”
“I lied,” I gasp, feeling winded. “It wasn’t true. Aiden has never been anything but good to me. He always wanted me in the wedding.”
