Shay and Emma exchanged one of those looks reserved for the closest of friends, like something out of Anne of Green Gables, like they knew what the other was thinking. They shared soft giggles, and Shay took Emma’s hand in her own, lacing their fingers together.
That friendship. I don’t know if it was jealousy or withdrawals, but my heart went all fluttery, and a bubble welled up in my throat. I wasn’t having it, whatever it was. I’m chalking it up to jealousy as it often ran in muddy rivers through my family. My mom was jealous of my dad’s doting upon Shay. My dad was jealous of men with adult children who hadn’t even set foot in a rehab facility. Shay was jealous of women who seemed to have it all together. As for me, I was jealous of happiness, closeness, sisterhoods, and lovers. My jealousy often triggered the spasms in my gut and sides, made me flushed, and caused my breath to run ragged, symptoms that were similar to the withdrawal effects. The thought of the one I’d loved with all my soul, Simon with another woman, a wife now, the two of them with a child, made me feel wretched, wasting away, like I was rotting inside.
I felt my hand being lifted from my lap, another wrapped around it, the fingers stroking. Shay was holding mine in her other. I looked at her, and she offered me a brief, tender smile just before turning back to Emma and snuggling against her friend.
“Shay, you need to keep your head up,” Mom said, eyeing her youngest in the compact mirror she was holding up. She’d been dabbing at the makeup forming beige grooves in the lines around her mouth. “You’ll make a mess of your hair, and I doubt anyone here will be able to properly set it the way you like it.”
Shay straightened, cleared her throat. If anything, Mom knew just how to pick on the things that made us ever so slightly insecure.
Mom then turned in her seat and gave me a once-over, her mouth tightening in disapproval. “I brought my Mason Pearson brush. I’ll let you use it. It should take care of that nest.”
“Mom, really,” Shay said with a puff of breath. I’ll hand it to my sister: she could always match disgust with disgust, mirroring our mother’s exact expression whenever something was so obviously impolitely expressed.
“No, none of that ‘Mom, really.’ That hairdresser did a dreadful job, curling Ansley’s hair like that. It should’ve been straightened as I’d requested.”
I couldn’t keep silent at that. “Don’t you just love it when people talk about you like you’re not even there?”
“I think Ansley’s hair is gorgeous. A touch of old Hollywood glamour. All she needs is some Revlon red and ta-da,” Delia purred. She’d been half-listening, half in that odd daydreamy state she sometimes has. Her gaze was off, directed somewhat at the road in front of her, somewhat at what was ensuing in the passenger seats.
“Ansley’s hair is perfectly fine, Mom,” said Shay. She had let go of my hand, but she was still gripping Emma’s. “You’re just upset things didn’t go your way for once. Sometimes, it just doesn’t though, and during my wedding, it certainly won’t.”
And that’s how and when Mom decided to grant Shay the old Boone family silent treatment for pretty much the remainder of the afternoon.
It’s such a shame the timing of it couldn’t have been worse. There are so many things they could’ve said or done tactfully, and everything would’ve been shrugged aside, no big deal, onward with the next problem. And they could’ve gotten along.
They could’ve gotten along.
#
Mom had chosen a German bakery and café in town that had huge picture windows holding panoramic views of the ruddy and green spackled hills that surrounded the area. There was a wide patio area where we could’ve eaten, but the heat was squeezing us into its steaming blanket. By then, everyone was famished, but Shay was anxious about all of us eating “such heavy German stuff” before the wedding festivities. Mom was at that point where she really had no interest in indulging Shay at all.
When it was fresh, the Boone silent treatment was at its worst. It would play out as if Shay was completely invisible to Mom, even when Shay was right there in the moment. Dad was even worse. He’d eat at the dinner table as if he were alone rather than surrounded by chatty women. He could easily tune everything out and made a show of getting up and walking to the other side of the table to reach for seconds of whatever was on the menu for dinner. He’d then bring the serving platter or dish back to his end of the table and plonk it down right in front of him, just out of arms’ reach for any of the rest of us eating. Whenever we asked him to pass the food, he just kept right on eating, and Mom would throw down her napkin, get up from her chair, and storm over to Dad’s side of the table, pick up the serving dish of whatever it was that had been requested by one of us, and then set it down in front of whomever wanted more of it, shooting Dad a stabbing glare as she did. A right-back-atcha moment that probably entertained anyone from the outside looking in, but to us, it was just another petty display that was, irritatingly, routine.
At the café, Mom took charge, making sure Shay was completely out of the conversation with the dirndl-clad, overly chipper server about the food there. Whenever Shay piped in with a question about a specialty, Mom talked over her question, asking the exact same thing Shay had asked, as if the inquiry had been entirely Mom’s own, confusing the server even more.
Had I not been engrossed in watching their little display, perhaps I would’ve been triggered by Something Not Quite Right, something off about the luncheon just like the brief pieces that were always there, right there in the moment. I realize now, too little too late, that I’ve been failing to be observant, even halfway reasonably cognizant of my surroundings and the people around me. It’s a mistake I won’t make again, or so I promise myself now, looking back on everything that’s happened. Even so, there’s always still a part of me, a nagging doubt, that keeps telling myself, it’s just the things I think I feel, the things think I see, the things I think are happening. In all, I can’t wholly trust my instincts anymore, so that promise to myself is even up in the air.
Anyway, the crusty mood between Shay and Mom was on the menu du jour for our ladies luncheon whether we’d ordered it or not, served on the side with our overly salted sauerbraten and spaetzle. Emma and I exchanged uncomfortable grimaces every so often, in-between bites, both at the food and at what was ensuing between our hostesses (and my family members). The food was making me feel sluggish and uncomfortably warm. My headache had also returned, pounding behind my eyes and down my neck. Shay and Delia had been wise in ordering a green salad and a slice of oniony flammkuchen, undoubtedly better on the stomach than the heavy meal Emma, Mom, and I had set upon ourselves.
Bryceson, oblivious to the tension, munched noisily on a mini-bratwurst wedged in golden, crisp brochen. Sometimes, kids had all the luck.
Emma burped and said, “I feel all tight like a sausage.”
“When embarking upon a new culinary adventure,” said Mom, “it’s always best to try out the specialties of the house. It would be rude otherwise.” I noticed she’d aimed that dig at Delia, but Delia was much more interested in Bryceson’s blissful chewing.
“Not if everyone’s going to be too bloated to fit in their dresses tonight,” Shay grumbled. She chased a last bite of the savory tart left on her plate with her fork, deliberately scraping it around the plate rather than stabbing it outright and eating it. She was testing Mom, and the best way to do that when at a restaurant was to play with your food like a petulant kid instead of eating it as an adult would.
Mom didn’t take the bait. Instead, she continued the cold shoulder routine she and Dad had trademarked. Like Delia, her focus honed in on the adorable antics of the actual five year old in our company.
“You enjoying that?” she prodded with a half smile. “It’s a lot like a gourmet hot dog. All natural ingredients, all probably not particularly good for you.”
Bryceson stopped his chewing long enough to scowl at Mom. “I’m not eating any candy, so it’s gonna be good for me. No sugar innit,” he
said punctuating it with one of those exasperated eye rolls only a surly five year-old could possibly get away with in my mother’s, never mind his mother’s, presence. He then tore into his brat with all the toothy ferocity of a cub, growling as he did.
My mother couldn’t contain her smile. She reached over to tousle his hair and then promptly patted it back down, sculpting it back into its careful mess, brushing it out of his eyes. Bryceson made a face at her and then nodded and kicked in time to the loud oompa-oompa beat of the Volksmusik playing over the cafe loudspeakers.
Having casually observed what was tightening at least half of us at the table, Delia found a door wide open, a virtual invitation to take over and ease the tension from us all, even her soon-to-be daughter-in-law who was fast becoming impatient with Mom’s treatment.
“Well, I don’t know about you, my lovelies, but I’ve had such a wonderful time with you all,” said Delia. “Delightful company, delectable food, and with such lovely creatures all around me. I couldn’t be more at home.” She was looking at me when she said it, and I’ll admit, it made me feel flushed all over. No matter what I thought of her, no matter what I think of her even now, she has always had the uncanny ability to soften the room and everyone in it. She could charm a wing off a butterfly, a stinger off a scorpion, the blood right out of a tick. All of those terrible analogies and then some. Delia was It.
Mom couldn’t stand that fact either, naturally.
“And how would you know it’s ‘delectable’? You’ve hardly had a bite of your lunch, Delia,” Mom said with a soft chortle.
Bryceson was quick on the draw to say with a smirk, “Shay didn’t eat her food, either, Missus Boone. If you don’t empty your plate, you won’t get ice cream floats, and you can’t go tubing onna river when you’re done with your wedding stuff. Don’t you wanna go tubing?”
Emma laughed and pulled Bryceson against her. He squirmed in her arms, trying to break free of her firm embrace. “Bry-bear, do you remember what I said about paying bills?” Emma murmured into his hair, and then she kissed the top of his head.
Bryceson slumped against her. “I can use bad words if I help pay bills. But I didn’t say any bad words,” said Bryceson as worked to stifle a yawn.
“You can also have all the ice cream floats you want, and before you eat those ice cream floats, you can go tubing as long as you’d like,” Emma continued. “Momma’s friends don’t have to eat their food if they’re not hungry, and I don’t think they’re all that hungry, Bry-bry. Wedding days get everyone all flustered and feeling funny in the tum-tum.”
“I was hungry, so I ate everything on my plate!” Bryceson announced loudly enough so that the rest of the café patrons looked in our direction.
“And did you find it delicious, darling?” Delia asked him with a twinkle. It was the first and last time I saw her being playful with a kid. She never struck me as being the jokey type, and I remember wondering how she’d been with Nathan, how it was growing up in that family. There was something sticky and potent about her relationship with her son, something there that just didn’t sit right.
Now, though, I think I can only imagine how it was. It was undeniably nothing like what I’d thought then.
Bryceson shot Delia a scowl. “No, I didn’t. It didn’t taste nothing like a hot dog.”
“That’s a double negative, Bry-bry. Double negatives mean the opposite of what you really want to say. Instead, you say, ‘It did not taste like a hot dog,’” corrected Emma as she dipped the corner of her napkin in her glass of water and then dabbed the sides of Bryceson’s mouth with it, wiping away the yellow stain before it started paying rent.
“It did NOT taste nothing like a hot dog.”
“Not exactly, but that’s okay. We can work on that,” murmured Emma as she kept trying to keep Bryceson’s hands down as they seemed to be everywhere as he was attempting to keep her from cleaning his face. “And you need to stop that right now, sir, because Momma’s trying to clean your face.”
The server was then back at the table with the check, which she handed promptly to Mom as she was the one who kept wiggling her fingers in the direction of the tab in the waitress’ hand.
“You ladies find everything all right?” asked the server, who was eyeing Delia’s plate. “Not much of an appetite today?”
Shay beamed up at her. “Oh, no, it was all delicious. I just have to get into a wedding gown this evening, so—”
“Well, my goodness! Congratulations on the happy day,” said the server, offering a lopsided version of Shay’s smile back at her. No matter how hard others try, they can never quite match it. “Been there, too,” she said with a nod. “You know that brioche craze that’s been goin’ on everywhere? That French bread’s kinda sweet-tastin’? I had me a five-for-five brioche French toast platter at the Pancake House right before my nuptials. Comes with eggs, grits, hash browns, bacon, all the fixins. You know what I’m talkin’ about? Well, we had t’get some safety pins for my dress, and after that, there ain’t nothin’ worse than attemptin’ to pin a dress that was originally fitted just right, especially around them titties of mine. Always a curse.”
I bit my tongue to keep from laughing, and I saw Mom turn a lovely shade of beet. Delia seemed to be paying only the slightest bit of attention, that flat, empty stare of hers honed in on Bryceson and his squirming self. All he wanted to do was get out of there, and I couldn’t say I blamed him one bit.
Shay giggled in polite sympathy as was normally expected from a bride out on a ladies’ lunch, but I knew perfectly well she was dying to burst out laughing as much as I was. “Oh, it’s not that area I’m worried about,” she said to the server. “As you can plainly see, I’ve much more corpulent matter around the waistline, my upper arms, my jelly belly. I owe all this to fine alcohol and movie theater candy.”
“Girl, you’re ’bout as slender as a Slim Jim. What you frettin’ over?”
“Now we don’t want to interrupt her while she’s working. She has a lot of customers at the moment, and it does her no good to hijack her time while she’s on the clock,” said Mom, obviously to Shay but without the directness. She was looking directly at me when she said it, signaling me to cut in.
But I didn’t care to stop it. I needed a laugh. It’s been one of those weekends where everyone seemed lacking in a sense of humor. God knows, it was needed then, and we could do with some now.
The server waved a hand about. “Naw, it’s all good. Frida just come in, so she can take up the slack. It’s fine. Today’s all about bridin’ an’ weddings, ain’t that right?” she said with a grin directed at Shay.
“And a good set of Spanx to flatten everything down, titties, bellies, and all that.” I answered, directing it at Shay, specifically, but like Mom, I knew how to play the Boone games, so I kept my attention sharply focused on Mom whose eyes grew wide.
Shay, Emma, and the server seemed to find that uproariously funny. As much as Shay and Emma tried to stifle their laughter, keeping it as ladylike as they possibly could, it didn’t work. The two of them shrieked at the exact same time, pointing at each other when they did and then cough-chortling around their own glee.
Bryceson, not one to be left out of anything the grownups found hilarious, chuckled and nodded enthusiastically. “Titties and bellies and all that!” he shouted, his little fist pumping in the air.
Naturally, that only added to the hilarity, causing everyone, apart from Mom and a dazed Delia, to laugh until the tears came, sides were hurting, and eye makeup went all gloppy. Shay dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her napkin as Emma puttered, easing her cackling little guy down so that he could dig around into her bag she’d set on the floor near her feet. Mom looked at me, her lips tightening, forming her disapproval, but what else was new? I knew the game. It was safer to turn to me to blame anyway, even if she was still ignoring Shay. Anyhow, Shay wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. She was still coming down from her momentary happy high, motioning for Emma
to clean around her eyes. Emma got the signal, reaching down into her bag and digging out a compact mirror.
As Shay calmed herself down and Emma got the black gunk out of the corner of her eyes, Mom folded in some cash with the tab and handed it to the giggly server with a clenched grimace as if she was constipated; it was her automatic go-to look of disgust when she didn’t know the person she was having to deal with.
The server caught Mom’s eye and loudly cleared her throat and straightened her stance. “I’ll be back with the change, ma’am,” she said, patting a thank-you signal on the check fold.
“No change.”
Our server softened. “Well, much appreciated. Hope you ladies have a wonderful afternoon, and many happy returns on your wedding day, sweetheart,” she said, aiming that last bit at Shay, who smiled at her. The server nodded curiously at Delia and Shay’s barely touched lunch. “You two want a to-go box?”
Shay waved it off. “I’m fine. I don’t think I’m going to be able to eat anything else until I get this day over and done with.”
“Gotcha, Mrs. Bride. How about you, honey? You still workin’ on that, or do you want to take that home with ya?” said the server, her eye on Delia.
But Delia was off in her own world, wherever that was, entranced with Bryceson and his rummaging through his mother’s bag. Her eyes had gone dark and glassy, and she swallowed something back rather forcefully, like she’d taken in some air and found it too hard in the throat. Her fingers had curled so tightly around the handles of her purse that her knuckles had gone white and knobby. I don’t even think she was even aware that we were watching her.
“Delia,” said Mom, “do you want to finish your meal, or should we have it put in a doggie bag for you?”
It was right then when Delia broke out of her strange spell; it was as if she’d woken up and realized where she was and whom she was with. At the time, I chalked it up to the fact she hadn’t been particularly interested in eating anything, and a lack of nutrients could make anyone go funny, but really. What kind of person doesn’t get the joke and join in on the fun? Well, besides Mom and her ever-obvious Boone cold shoulder.
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