by Anna Roberts
I don’t. Crispian hurries me inside, through the palatial entrance hall with its polar bear skin rugs and mounted panda heads. The floor is white marble and above me glitters a chandelier the size of my entire bedroom. I'm reminded of the passage in Tess when she first enters Alec's house and sees the sweeping staircase and the portrait of the first Mrs. D'Urberville.
"Don't tell my mother about the car crash either," says Crispian, as we float down the stairs into a vast, floodlit garden. "She's gonna find out about it soon enough and I hope I'm far away when she does."
The view is stunning. The huge lawn is dotted with billowy white tents with pale blue streamers. In each tent is a table set with silver and crystal. The white linen tablecloths sweep down to touch the petal-strewn grass. Each table holds a centrepiece of blue flowers and silver and blue balloons float above the scene.
"Oh how the other half live," says Kate, tottering up behind me. She straightens her crumpled skirt and picks gracelessly at her thong. "Somebody point me to the bar."
"Do you think they have coke?" asks Jesús, and she elbows him sharply in the ribs, jerking her head towards Crispian's guards.
"No doubt," says Kate, too loudly. "Heck, they probably even have Diet!"
She flashes a mad cheerleader's grin at the federal marshals and wobbles off on her stripper heels.
My eyes are moist behind my mask. I sniff loudly.
"Oh don't cry," groans Crispian. "Not now. This is supposed to be the best day of your life. I got you flowers, didn't I? And a ring?"
I sniff again. "I know. But I'm going to have to talk to people and you know I'm not good at that."
"Sure you are. Just talk about things that interest you. Like...um...things. Things you like. You like things, don't you? You can think of things, right?
"Books," I whisper. "I like books. And tea."
Wow. It's almost like you don't know the first goddamn thing about one another, isn't it?
- Can't you leave me alone for once?
In the centre of the terrace is a table piled with champagne cups. Above the pyramid of cups is a glittering ice sculpture of a swan in flight. It's exactly the kind of thing I wanted for my wedding and now it's over - I'm a married woman and there was no cake, no dress, no ice-sculpture or bouquet. I was never a bride. Not for more than ten minutes.
A tall, blonde figure moves up the steps towards us. She's wearing a blue mask trimmed with peacock feathers but I can tell from the obvious way that her blue-green taffeta dress hugs her figure that it's Helena Handbasket.
"Hello Crispian," she says, ignoring me. "Unusual mask."
"We are Anonymous. We are Legion," Crispian intones. "Expect us."
"How amusing," she says, with a silvery little laugh. "Is it 2008 in here or is it just me?" She glances from guard to guard. "I hope there's been no rough-housing, boys," she purrs. "I'm his defence attorney."
"On the contrary," says the shorter guard. "Actually we took the tag off because his foot was turning blue."
There's a steely note to Ms. Handbasket's voice. "And why was the tag that tight?"
"You tell me, lady. You oversaw it being attached, right? And the other night when there was the...incident."
"Yes, that," she says, with a little moue of distaste. "I take it you lovebirds are all reconciled now?"
She sweeps me a quick up and down glance and I can control myself no longer. "You'd better back off, bitch," I say. The words seem to have nothing to do with me but it's clearly my own voice speaking. Crap - do I really sound so Wisconsin?
"I'm sorry?" she murmurs.
"You know," I hiss. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Ms. Helena Handbasket. I was onto you from the start, you with your legs and breasts and blonde hair and...things. I know what you want."
"I doubt that you do, actually."
I throw my drink in her face. Unfortunately the glass is empty and by the time I've flagged down another waiter she's stepped out of throwing distance. "I'm sorry," she says. "But I think you may be batshit crazy."
"I am not crazy!" I shriek. "I know exactly what gold-digging blondes like you want. You wanna be the Alpha Barbie, don't you? You want to be Queen of the Universe and all of the little potato people who live in it!"
"Hanna..."
I elbow Crispian in the ribs and surge forward. "YOU WANT MY HUSBAND, YOU SKANK? COME AND FUCKING GET HIM!"
There are screams all around as I launch myself at Ms. Handbasket. I grab several handfuls of her golden hair and tip her ungraciously into a small floral display at the edge of the terrace. Somewhere I hear Kate yell "Place your bets - ladies and gentleman!"
"I don't want your nerdy fucking husband," pants Ms. Handbasket, aiming several ineffectual kicks at my shins.
"Then get out of our lives!" I screech. She tries to pry my fingers out of her hair; I sink my teeth into her wrist.
"OH, YOU WANT IT DIRTY DO YOU BITCH?" she screams, and the next thing I know she's let go of my hands and reached down to yank off her shoe. I loose my grip on her hair and tumble backwards into the champagne glasses, and the next thing I know she's flying towards me with the viciously pointed heel of a Jimmy Choo pointed directly at my face.
There is a commotion behind me and strong hands grab me and pull me upright. Oh. I guess those federal marshals were good for something.
Helena is on her hands and knees, a shoe clutched in one hand, her teeth clenched. "Right," she storms, getting to her feet with as much dignity as she can muster with teethmarks in her wrist, her hair falling in straggles and one breast threatening to escape from her dress. She points a bony finger at Crispian. "I will be pressing charges," she spits. "And you can find yourself another goddamn attorney."
Kate hurries over. "What?" she moans. "Over already? Damn it, Hanna - I had money on you."
"Wait," says Crispian. "Helena - don't go. Please!"
I spin on my heel and slap his face. "I knew it! I knew there was something going on!"
"Hanna, there's nothing going on! What the fuck has gotten into you?"
"My guess is meth," says Claudia, sashaying through the trail of destruction left in Ms. Handbasket's wake. "Or maybe crack." She picks a couple of chunks of broken glass out of my shoulder. "Ironic really - all the time he spent thinking his birth mother was a crack whore and he ends up with one."
"Hello Mother."
Claudia kisses the air two inches from each of Crispian's ears. "Hello darling. Take off that silly mask. How on earth do you expect to eat supper with that thing on?"
"I'm Anonymous."
"Oh, if only you were." She brushes powdered glass out of my now tangled curls; it's like being set upon by a gorilla. "Do you always attack perfectly good defence attorneys?"
"Only if they're blonde," I mutter.
She blinks. "That's interesting. A colleague of mine mentioned Meyer-Swan Syndrome just last week. I thought it was just another pop psych addition they were trying to squirrel into the DSM, but I didn't realise I had a textbook case right under my nose." She looks me up and down. "Deep seated hostility towards blondes, lasting resentment despite having left high school years ago, shallow attachments to intellectual props, personality of a sock..."
"That's our Hanna," says Kate, cheerfully.
I start to cry - deep, wet, wracking sobs dredged up from the core of my being. It's not even my party but I'll cry if I want to, damn it. I wanted a white dress and an ice sculpture and a beautiful lacy veil and pair of silver shoes and I wanted Ms. Helena fucking Handbasket to be on Mars or anywhere but here on the day I got married. "This is the worst day of my life," I wail.
Kate grabs my arm. "Come on. Let's find you a drink." Crispian goes to follow but she glares at him. "Not you," she scowls. "I can do without Pinky and Perky here eavesdropping on my conversation." She catches the eye of the taller guard and for once has the decency to blush. "Not that you're not very lovely, guys, but you know how it goes. Girl stuff."
"Is this actual girl-stuff or the kind where you drag me
away to get drunk?" I ask, as we navigate the crowds. "Oh God. People are staring, Kate."
"Well, you are kinda bleeding in numerous places. What the fuck is wrong with you, you freak?"
She yanks me past a tray of appetisers and somehow manages to grab herself a handful while retaining her grip on me. “You have got to try these things,” she says. “They’re amazing - like little cheesy shells filled with hummus.”
“Actually I think you’ll find it’s pronounced ‘cam-oo’,” I murmur, but she’s not listening.
We find the bar. Kate orders us each a margarita with a triple tequila chaser. "This isn't what I imagined my wedding day to be like," I sob.
"So what? It's just another one of life's little disappointments, dude. Like Santa. And the Easter bunny. Or Jesus and all the Saints and just about everything they told at me Our Lady of Perpetual Premenstrual Syndrome." She sprinkles salt on her wrist and takes a slice of lime between thumb and forefinger. "You got it? Lick, drink, bite."
I follow her directions. It's appalling. The raw alcohol fumes of the spirit flood my sinuses and bring fresh tears to my eyes, but when I bite down on the lime slice it's kind of better, sort of like the soothing calm that spreads over you when you realise that the agonising dental procedure you've been enduring for the past half hour is finally over.
"Good?"
"No. Terrible." I pour out another line of salt. "Didn't you ever imagine your wedding day?"
Kate gasps through another shot of tequila for a moment and then drops the sucked-dry lime into an ashtray. "Sure I did. I was gonna have a dress of purest virgin white and my cousin Josie was gonna hold up a big-ass neon sign saying LIAR. And then everyone was gonna get really fucking drunk and fight one another."
"You fantasised about people getting drunk and fighting at your wedding?"
"Nah. Not fantasised. More expected. Like I say, I'm a realist. And Irish."
Jesús comes up to the bar.
“Where the hell have you been?” says Kate. “You missed all the fun.”
“Fun?” I snort.
“Well, the violence. And drinking. Same thing.”
Jesús shakes his head. “I made the mistake of telling people what I did for a living.”
“What? Porn?”
He nods and takes a large gulp of Kate’s margarita. “Yeah. Turns out when you tell people you write erotica they’re like ‘Oh, so you must be really open minded and you must totally want to hear in horrible detail about my deeply personal sexual experiences – but don’t put them in a story will you?’”
“Eesh,” says Kate.
“Yeah. All of this said with more nudges and winks than a fucking Monty Python bit. You see that woman over there in the hot pink satin? She’s into anal, and buttplugs. The bald guy with her – age-play.”
“Age-play?” asks Kate.
“He dresses up like a baby and poops in adult diapers while his wife plays Mommy.”
“Well, that’s...um...”
“...best kept between consenting adults in motherfucking private?”
“I was gonna say gross, but yeah – that also works.” Kate waves to the bartender.
“When do we get dinner around here, anyway?”
"You can feel hunger like two seconds after thinking of adult babies?" says Jesús. "You're a better man than I, Gunga Din. I am never eating chocolate pudding again. Or marshmallows."
I decide not to ask. Three tequilas and a margarita has left me feeling, if not exactly good then at least cushioned enough to get through the rest of the evening. Kate orders more drinks and snags a menu from the bartender.
Lightly poached quails eggs with hand-squeezed beluga caviar, served on a bed of wilted baby spinach and tickled with pink Himalayan salt.
~
Shark fin soup.
~
Aphrodisiac ginger and ginseng sorbet, softly titillated with a sprinkle of ground tiger penis.
~
Special foie gras harvested from only the fattest cirrhotic geese, served with lightly distressed potatoes and gently bothered by a sweet caramelised onion coulis.
~
Roasted peaches tenderly drenched in rich, salty caramel sauce, served with Madagascan vanilla ice cream roughly studded with chocolate covered panda bacon bits.
"Shit," says Kate. "Now I've lost my appetite. Is there a vegetarian option?"
Jesús reads over her shoulder and pulls a face. "Oh my God. What's this shindig in aid of, anyway?"
"Well, I'm guessing it's not PETA," says Kate. "I've never seen so many dead things in one place since Mitt Romney last ran for president."
Crispian wanders over, flanked by his guards. "Goddamit, Hanna, are you drinking again? You know it's not fair when I'm not allowed to."
"That's not my fault," I say. "You were the one who stole all those TV shows and tried to get my English Professor deported."
"Shit, dude," says Kate, looking impressed. "It's on."
"Hanna, every couple has problems, but it doesn't help when at the first sign of trouble you dive to the bottom of a frigging bottle. If I'd wanted to marry my mom..."
"Oh, there's a lady over there you can speak to about that..." begins Jesús, pointing to the large lady in pink. Kate shushes him.
"...I don't need another mom, Hanna. I have two as it is - the drunk and the crack-whore..."
Like Bloody Mary, Claudia appears behind him, champagne glass in hand. She taps him on the shoulder with a French-tipped claw. "There you are," she says. "I was hoping to find you. There's someone I'd like you to meet."
Crispian shakes his head and laughs, his voice once again weirdly disembodied by the mask. "It's too late, Mother. We've already sealed the deal." He grabs my hand and holds it aloft, displaying the diamond. "While you were preparing for your precious charity ball, I called a minister to the apartment, and witnesses! I'm married, Mother! You can't get me any more!"
Kate makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a squeak. "You've made a huge mistake," she whispers in my ear.
Claudia sighs. "That's very interesting, darling, but I don't think you're going to want to marry this person. In fact, if you did it would be illegal."
She steps aside and makes way for a dark haired woman of maybe forty, but it's hard to tell since her fair skin is so clear and smooth. She has large blue eyes framed by a small silver mask, which she removes to reveal tears glimmering on the ends of her lashes. She's slight and otherworldly and for some reason she seems strangely familiar.
"Hello Crispian," she says. "My name's Ella. I'm your birth mother."
"Huh. Ella, Bella," mutters Claudia, thinking aloud. "Maybe that's where I was getting it from. You do look kind of similar..."
Crispian looks from me to the crack whore and back. Then back again.
"Wow," says Kate. "Motherfu..."
Chapter Seventeen
...As The Sphinx Said To Oedipus
Kate's foul-mouthed comment is cut off by Crispian's howl of anguish. "Why? Why are you doing this to me, Mother?" He falls to his knees on the lawn, gasping behind the Anonymous mask.
"I'm not doing anything to you," says Claudia. "I'm just tired of you pretending your formative years were like something out of a misery memoir, not to mention calling your birth mother a crack whore all the time. Do you have any idea how disrespectful that is?"
"Maybe this was a bad idea," murmurs Ella. She gives me a quick, furtive once-over. "Oh dear. Is it that..."
"Obvious?" finishes Kate. "Oh hell yeah. You look more like Hanna than her mom does. Guess there's something in this whole genetic sexual attraction thing, huh?"
Crispian is howling at my feet. This is really not how I planned my wedding day. "Can I get some more tequila?" I whisper.
"Mommy," wails Crispian. "MOMMY! WHY DIDN'T YOU LOVE ME, MOMMY?"
"Excuse me," says Claudia, hauling him to his feet. "He's never much use to anyone when he's hungry. It's all right, darling - dinner will be served soon."
"
I'm not eating that! I read the menu - there's spinach. I won't eat spinach. You know that."
Kate shakes her head. "Hanna, you know when your mom did that regression thing on him? She did remember to like, un-regress him, right?"
"Yes," I say. "He's fine. He's always like this when you try to make him eat greens."
Jesús throws his hands up. "That's it, man. I'm out. This relationship is officially too fucked-up."
"Heh. Yeah. We are very dysfunctional."
"It's nothing to be proud of, dude."
"Nonsense," I say, steering my husband to our place setting. "A little dysfunction demonstrates depth."
I hear Jesús say "Any more depth and he's gonna need a diving bell to hit that," but I ignore him. In spite of everything I feel strangely serene.
You mean 'drunk'?
- No. I'm handling it. Just like I've handled everything else about him.
What? The casual sexism, the white collar crime, the mommy issues, the My Little Pony porn, the kidnapping, the stalking and the hideous possibility that at some point he may have got down and Julio-Claudian with his very own sister...
-...adopted sister.
That doesn't make it any less messed up. On the other hand, if you can forgive him all of those ghastly traits then maybe in a sick way you've almost earned him.
- Of course I have. We've triumphed over adversity together.
Triumphed over reality, more like. So when are you going to tell him about last night?
- That's it. You've gone too far. I'm not talking to you any more.
I hum loudly to drown her out. Dinner is served. The food is exquisite. We're sat at a table with Crispian's grandparents and they keep asking me the same four questions over and over again;
1. Did you come on the bus?
2. Are you one of Claudia's kids?
3. Has he shown you those dirty pictures of horses yet?
4. Don't you think he should be locked up?
It's very annoying, but at least I don't have to sit near bitch-troll Helena or worse, Alicia, who looks like a blood pudding in a black satin dress that emphasises every bulge. She's wearing a cat mask and for once in her deranged life is allowed to miaow at people and have them laugh good-naturedly - well, at least the first couple of times.