by Heather Gean
Monica narrowed her eyes at me. “There isn’t much I can do about permanent ink except cover it up. I’ll have to get the make-up artist to pay special attention to those because they are an eyesore and will not be shown on the wedding day.”
“Or you could just cut off my hands at the wrists,” I added.
“I have had it with your smug remarks, Rainy. You’ll regret that you’ve crossed me when the reporters get riled up again. You need me on your side.” She was so close that I wanted to spit in her face.
“Actually, if you cover up the tattoos the cover-up is likely to stain the dress,” Dee chimed in. “It could also be very en vogue for a bride to have tattoos. It makes her edgy. People like for public figures to seem realistic… flawed, if you will. It’s very in.”
Monica tightened her jaw to the point of snapping. “If flawed is in then she should be the most famous woman in print by December.” She exited with steps heavy enough to warrant a cloud of smoke trailing behind them.
Dee looked slightly miffed that her dress hadn’t received more attention. She repositioned the train again. “Of course, you’ll have to let us take some pictures for our advertisements,” she said.
“Of course,” I repeated flatly. I looked across to where Ashley still stood by the door. He hadn’t moved at all. I shrugged at him and motioned to the dress. “Any thoughts?”
“No wonder you hate me,” he said. He sighed before slipping out.
Once I was in normal clothes again, I sought him out. It didn’t take long to find him. He had a tendency to hide out where he could stretch out on the bed and stare aimlessly at the ceiling; it was something we shared. I didn’t bother knocking, just cracked the door enough to stick my head in.
“I’m on my way out. I just wanted to let you know,” I said. He grunted something inaudible at me. “What?” I opened the door the rest of the way and propped against the frame. He groaned and sat up angrily.
“We aren’t going to get the appeal,” he said. “They keep processing it and processing it. We’re too much of a risk. It’s high profile. They won’t admit they made a mistake.”
“So we’ll just go with our other plan,” I said. He groaned again as he fell back to the bed. “You can’t back out on it now because whether you go through with it or not I will.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand? You aren’t the only one in the spotlight. My dad is freaking the hell out over whether the decision I make will affect his reelection. Take a risk, Ashley. What’s the worst that could happen? Your dad kicks you out of the company? You practically run that company. You have enough experience to go anywhere else you want and make the same kind of money. It’s not like he’s really going to choose Van over you.”
“You did.”
“I never chose you. The government chose you for me. I mean, c’mon, if they hadn’t sent me along would you ever have chosen me? I was right in front of you and you still didn’t want me, and that’s fine. It’s normal. It would be weird if you did love me just because they told you to.” He didn’t say anything, just lay there with his chest rising and falling and his eyes trained on the ceiling. “And I don’t hate you. You wouldn’t be half bad if you would stop trying to live up to the family legacy. FYI, your family is full of jerks. Do you really want to be one of them?” His vow of silence was unbroken, but I felt that I had made my point. “Are you still in for the plan?”
“I don’t go back on business. A deal is a deal,” he said. I closed the door behind me. That’s all I really needed to know.
~*~
At Thanksgiving, all anyone wanted to talk about was the wedding. Extended family was busy asking me rhetorical questions like “don’t you just love Ashley Schroeder” and “isn’t it exciting.” Everyone had received an invitation, including tons of family members that I hadn’t even put on my list; Monica must’ve hunted them down. All of the women huddled around me, pushing for details. I avoided them as best I could, but leaving one group and one room meant encountering another. When someone finally noticed that I wasn’t wearing an engagement ring, I simply told them that it was being resized and disappeared to the kitchen.
My mother and grandmother hurried about amongst steaming casserole dishes and boiling pots on the stove. I stepped up to the oven to inspect the green beans cooking, but before I could pick up something to stir them with, my mother nudged me out of the way. “You should be entertaining the guests, Rainy.”
“Can’t I help cook?” She ignored me, slipping pot-holders onto her hands and grabbing something out of the oven. My grandmother quickly slid something else into its place. I lowered my voice. “They’re rude. Talking about the wedding. Prying about Ashley. I don’t want to talk about the damn wedding.”
“Rainy, watch your language,” my grandmother said. She tossed a pan, the contents of which she’d just emptied into a serving dish, into the sink and moved on to another task.
“I could wash dishes.”
“It’s polite to ask a bride about her wedding and her fiancé. What’s rude is you hiding out in here.”
I crossed the kitchen and leaned against a section of cabinets that appeared to be out of the way. “But I don’t want to talk about the wedding, momma. I don’t even want there to be a wedding!”
My mother turned sharply on her heels, drawing close to me in a couple of angry steps. Her index finger jutted out towards my face. “You listen to me, Rainy Clarke, nobody needs to hear anything about your cold feet!” She removed her hand from in front of my face, but anger still radiated from her. Another casserole dish in hand, she moved towards my section of the cabinets. “Excuse me, but you’re in the way.”
After being exiled from the kitchen, I crept out onto the porch, which was known as male territory before and after Thanksgiving dinner. The wool sweater and aggravation I wore kept me warm so the chill in the air was not a deterrent. My dad and a few of my uncles sat around near the swing discussing dry rot and termites and other household problems. At home, my dad liked to keep things laid back, so the last thing he would bring up would be politics or big fancy weddings. I propped myself against the railing and went unnoticed, besides a few simple nod-of-the-head acknowledgments, and appreciated that something other than me was finally the topic of conversation.
I had remained unbothered for at least fifteen minutes when one of my aunts stuck her head out the front door to announce that dinner would be starting soon. It was a not-so-subtle hint that they all needed to come into the house, and they all took it. As everyone was shuffling towards the door, I caught my dad by the arm. I waited for the others to go inside before explaining why I had detained him.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“I have to tell you something that I think might make you upset.” He looked concerned, but I realized that hadn’t been the best way to start off a conversation with a parent. A million horrible things were probably racing through his mind. “I don’t want to marry Ashley. I know that you know I filed an appeal, but it never went through. I just wanted to let you know that I won’t marry him whether the match is removed from my record or not.”
My dad stiffened up like he was wearing his business suit instead of his jeans and flannel. I stood in front of him like the little girl who’d just confessed to breaking the valued family heirloom. I hoped he’d have pity on me, sympathy even, and I gave my best attempt to look wide-eyed and helpless. “I’d rather not talk about this right now, Rainy.”
“You’ve been not talking about it for months. You and momma have taken some sort of vow of silence like I’ll just change my mind.”
“We were hoping you’d do the right thing.”
“Marrying Ashley is the right thing?”
“Maybe not, but it’s damn sure the responsible thing. You obviously haven’t thought any of this through, Rainy. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to yourself?”
“You mean what I’m doing to your image?”
His face reddened as he stood squarely in front of the door. “You shouldn’t have applied for marriage if you weren’t ready for the consequences.”
“How can you say that to me? I’m your daughter! Does my happiness not matter to you at all?”
“Of course it does, Rainy, but you’re just being melodramatic. Do you realize what sort of position you’ve put me in? I have to defend your rebellious and anti-government actions to the public, and I’m willing to do it. Don’t tell me I don’t care about you.”
“If you cared much at all you’d support me. I don’t want to be with that jerk for the rest of my life. I don’t even want to be with him for five minutes at a time. I hate him. What’s so wrong with that?”
My eyes were filling up with tears at that point, and my dad couldn’t look me in the eye. “If you need to skip dinner, I’ll be happy to tell everyone you weren’t feeling well.”
The realization that my father was kicking me out of Thanksgiving dinner stung in my chest, eyes, and throat until I nearly doubled over from the pain. I fought to stand perfectly still, to stare at him until he came to his senses and started being the good father I’d always known he was. I waited without blinking, almost without breathing; I waited for my father to accept me again. Instead he slipped inside to join in the prayer and commence eating with the members of his family he approved of. I got into my car, wiping the wetness from my cheeks with the backs of my hands, and tried to figure out if there was any place I could go for dinner where the people would be thankful I’d joined them.
~*~
As I stood over the sink and scrubbed tofu turkey and vegetable remnants off of the stack of plates from dinner, Sasha dried the ones I’d already finished washing. She’d been rambling on about LUCC and how that almost every major city in the United States had its own five-person action committee at that point. She said something about an email she’d received and some rally in California with high news coverage. A few people had gotten arrested. I missed all the details. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in what she had to say, or that scrubbing vegetarian meat products off of dishes required that much attention, but mostly that I hadn’t recovered from the sting of rejection.
“Isn’t that amazing? Twelve-thousand new members? Are you listening?” The vacant stare I gave her provoked a soft smile from her. “I’m sorry. You don’t wanna talk about this.”
“Oh, Sasha, it isn’t that. God, I’m sorry. I’m thrilled about the work you guys have done. I wish I could do more, really.”
Sasha swirled the dishtowel around on a plate before placing it in the cabinet above her head. “You do plenty. You should be proud of yourself.”
“I wish my parents were proud of me.”
“I wish mine were proud of me, too. I guess we’re an entirely different generation with an entirely different mindset.” Before picking up another dish, Sasha absently rubbed a hand over her newly convex midsection. I fought off the urge to touch her stomach since my hands were covered in suds, but I smiled at her instead.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sasha.”
Her mouth curved up at the sides, and her whole face glowed with happiness. “You wouldn’t be full from too much tofurkey, that’s for sure.”
Chapter 19
I needed to get away for a weekend, and that’s exactly what I had planned to do with the rest of my Thanksgiving break. I had three more days until the museum reopened, and I didn’t want to spend it in the city. A lot of extended family was still hanging around my parents’ and grandparents’ houses, which meant a lot of unwanted questions about the wedding and the engagement, so that wasn’t an option for me. Sitting around my apartment alone all weekend wasn’t appealing either. After a quick call to Van, it hadn’t taken long to conjure up an adventure. I was packing my bag for a short road trip, and we were headed to New Orleans where Dante and the Damned were playing the House of Blues. As I sorted through the clothes in my closet to figure out which outfits I would bring along, the giant wedding dress bag got in my way. Even though it made me feel as if I was a bottle of emotions that had just been shaken up, I unzipped it to admire the original dress I had bought before I realized that my wedding and my fiancé wouldn’t be what I expected. It was still beautiful, even though I would never wear it. It was pretty and, unlike the high fashion dress Dee had created for me, looked less like it was made for a trophy wife. I could actually imagine getting married in the dress in my closet more than the dress for the Clarke-Schroeder mandate.
The doorbell followed by Ringo’s frantic welcome barking interrupted my thoughts. I figured it was Van, and I realized that I was still a few outfits away from being packed. I zipped the dress bag and moved it further back in the closet, hidden behind some long coats, and then rushed to answer the door. It was the first time I had seen Van in a few weeks, and he had trimmed his mane of hair since then and was clean-shaven. As he pulled me into a hug, I noticed he was wearing a nice button-down shirt, which was actually ironed, along with a loosened tie with a retro pattern on it. “What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“I wanted to look nice for you,” he said with a laugh. I snuggled against him and breathed in deeply, excited about finally being able to touch him again. “And I had to leave last night after Thanksgiving dinner to drive here.”
“Aww, you poor thing! You must be exhausted,” I said sympathetically. I tugged on his tie to pull him into a quick kiss then ushered him inside and closed the door behind him. Ringo inspected him with a few sniffs and licks and contentedly retreated to the bedroom. Sasha would be over to pick him up shortly. “You want some coffee before we leave?”
“Do we have time?”
“I’m not exactly packed yet,” I admitted. He smiled and headed toward the kitchen to make the coffee himself.
“Women,” he said teasingly. “What all could you possibly need to pack?” he called to me from the kitchen.
“Toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo… things I hope you packed,” I teased back.
He laughed loudly. “Keep hoping,” he joked.
“And clothes,” I added practically.
He appeared in the doorway to my bedroom as I threw things into my bag. He folded his arms over his chest and watched me with a small smile. “I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t pack any clothes. It would make things more interesting.” I smiled through the blush on my cheeks and gave him a look. “It’s fine. We aren’t in a hurry,” he added with more seriousness.
Van meandered around my room as I folded some jeans. “I checked out a LUCC meeting in New York the other night,” he said as he collapsed onto the bed beside my bag. He put his hands comfortably behind his head and looked up at me. “It was really amazing. You wouldn’t believe how many people were there. Everybody is so involved and ready to take action. You could lead an entire revolution.” I half-smiled as I put the jeans neatly into my bag. “I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks,” I said softly. I didn’t feel like I should get all the credit, or any really, but it made me feel good to be involved somehow.
“I forgot you wanted to get away from everything this weekend, and I’m talking about LUCC,” he said apologetically as he sat up.
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s a little difficult to realize that my program has turned into such a huge thing. It’s… hard to wrap my head around.” I grabbed a few pairs of underwear from my dresser drawer and opened my bag wider to find a good place to put them in.
Van stood up and kissed my forehead. “You need to come to terms with the fact that you’re incredible because you’re the only one who hasn’t,” he said encouragingly. He dropped another quick kiss on my nose. “And don’t pack the underwear.” I playfully hit him in the stomach before shooing him back towards the kitchen and dramatically sticking the underwear into my bag.
Our trip was underway as soon as the coffee was poured into thermoses, and I agreed to drive for a while since he had been driving all night. We found a good
rock station, and within minutes on the interstate had a Wayne’s World moment with “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Though we were in a small, older model hatchback Honda instead of in the refurbished police car, Van had a CB radio sitting on the dashboard, which also provided a lot of entertainment. I was no longer going by the alias Mississippi Queen but had switched to Sunny, Van’s nickname for me, which was the name I insisted I be called all weekend to keep my identity as secret as our trip. I couldn’t even go to the grocery store anymore without someone realizing that I was the face on all the magazines, and I figured going to the House of Blues wouldn’t be any different. The trusty red wig was in my purse, ready for any pit stops along the way where I might be recognized as Ashley Schroeder’s cheating fiancée.
“What would you do if you could do anything?” I asked Van. His seat was slightly reclined and one of his feet was propped against the dashboard. He took a swig of his coffee and gave me a confused look.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“If you had no obligations or anything, where would you be and what would you be doing?” It was a place my mind had wandered during our drive.
“Well, I don’t have any obligations, and I’m here in a car with you driving to New Orleans.”
“No, I mean your life. There isn’t anything you would change?”
“I live exactly how I want to live: I wake up everyday in the bed on the floor in my apartment, I get breakfast down the street where the crazy old Jewish couple argues over details to any random story they tell me, I paint or I sculpt or I sit by the window and just watch the City. I fix things. If I wanted to change something then I would change it. It’s not that complicated for me.” He gave me a prolonged glance that I caught out of the corner of my vision. “Why, is there something you would change?”
“A few things.” My eyes remained focused just over my hands on the steering wheel.
“Like what?”
“The whole Ashley thing. It has taken over my life. I shouldn’t have to wear a wig when I go out in public.”