The Fable of Us (14 page)

“I don’t think you could have changed her mind if you had.” I lifted my arm as high as it could go so Avalee could get to the zipper.

“Probably not. Charlotte’s always been competitive with you, Clara Belle, and sometimes she likes to take her shots whenever and however she can get them in. I’m sorry.” Mom shot me a small smile, continuing to pull on her pearls.

I tried not to act startled by my mom’s apology. I tried to pretend I was used to hearing them, but I wasn’t. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time she’d apologized to me for anything, forgetting the name of the city I lived in every time she asked me how I was doing included.

So I cleared my throat and mirrored her smile. “It’s okay. I think I’ll survive. It’s just utter and total public humiliation. Nothing I haven’t achieved a few times in my lifetime.”

Mom let go of her pearls and cleared her throat. “That reminds me, dear, now that we’re alone, I was hoping to talk to you about Boone . . .”

My neck stiffened. Of course the topic of public humiliation would remind her of her firstborn daughter dating the boy who’d grown up in the double-wide that everyone knew about for a number of reasons.

“I was hoping we’d talked the subject to death by now, after last night and this morning at breakfast.” I checked to see how Avalee was getting along with the zipper. Just thinking about talking about Boone with my mom was making me sweat. Sweat
more
.

“Yes, but with your father being the way he is, feeling the way he does . . . I was hoping we could discuss you two in a bit more civilized manner. Minus the testosterone.”

Avalee grumbled beneath my armpit, tugging at the zipper but making no progress.

“I don’t remember any of the conversations you and I have had about Boone being civilized, Mom.”

“They weren’t,” she replied, her expression as unapologetic as her tone. “But you were a girl then and living under our roof and under our responsibility. You’re a woman now and have proven yourself capable of making your own decisions.” She waved at me, like me standing in front of her looking like a peach pumpkin was proving her point.

I felt at a loss, again, for how to reply. Was my mom talking to me like an adult? Was she talking
to
me instead of
at
me? Was she saying I was capable and accomplished and had proven myself?

“What do you want to know?” I found myself replying. Years ago, I would have marched off in a huff and slammed my bedroom door. I supposed, looking back, they hadn’t been the only unreasonable ones.

“Why now?” she asked. “Why all of these years later are you two back together? Why after everything that happened . . . and with him just walking away from you like that . . .” She looked away, staring through the plate-glass windows lining the front of the shop. If eighteen years of experience hadn’t proven otherwise, I would have almost believed she was close to shedding a few tears. “I don’t want to see you get hurt again like that, Clara Belle. I don’t think I can stand to watch you go through that kind of pain again.”

Avalee stopped messing with my zipper long enough to exchange a look with me after glancing at my mom. I could tell she was just as thrown as I was.

Yeah, I remembered the pain—of course I remembered the tears and feeling like my heart was being shredded by a cheese grater in the months following Boone’s and my fallout—but I never would have guessed my mom had been affected by any of it.

She hadn’t given an indication otherwise. She hadn’t offered a shoulder to let me cry my eyes out on or even a random hug when she’d found me spread out on the porch steps, staring at the end of that long driveway, just waiting for my life to end or for it to start again.

“That won’t happen again. I know it,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t have to worry, Mom.”

“How can you be sure? He’s done it once. He can do it again.”

Avalee was back to pulling at the zipper, not so gently now.

“Not this time,” I said.

“Why not this time?” Mom lifted an eyebrow and waited for me.

I couldn’t exactly tell her I’d paid him to pose as my plus one so I wouldn’t have to be publicly shamed for showing up to a Southern wedding in my mid-twenties without a husband or a date, but that was a secret I was happy to keep between Boone and me for the rest of our lives. I supposed I could tell her that he was a changed person and we’d matured and had moved beyond teenage intensity, but I knew she wouldn’t be satisfied by any of those answers.

So I went with a different approach.

“He didn’t just hurt me. I hurt him too, Mom. Just as badly.”

She gave a little huff, like she doubted that very much. “You did nothing more hurtful than make a temporary omission. What he did . . . how he left you . . .” She threw up her hands and shook her head, unable to continue.

“That’s behind us now. We’ve moved on as best as two people with history can. I’m not asking you to like him, I’m not asking you to like the idea of us—I’m just asking you to be civil. That’s all. And it would be nice if you could sway Dad in that direction. Am I fool for thinking that’s possible?”

Mom dropped onto one of the upholstered stools scattered around the dressing room and folded her hands in her lap. “You’re probably a fool for hoping so, but I promise I will try. For you, Clara Belle. Only
you,
not for him. I don’t hold a scrap of civility in my make-up for that boy and I never will . . . but for you, because you asked, I will
try
. No guarantees.”

Avalee paused, looking up at me.

“I know,” I mouthed at her. “That’s progress, Mom. Serious progress. I’ll take it.”

She managed a smile but continued to squirm like she’d just found herself in a troublesome situation. Avalee gave another yank on the dress, so hard she wound up losing her balance and falling back a few steps.

“Easy there, killer,” I said. “Are you okay?”

Avalee’s face went a few shades lighter. “I’m okay.” She held out her hand to reveal something that looked an awful lot like a part of a zipper. A
broken
part of a zipper. “But I don’t think you are.”

“I
f I die from suffocation tonight, please, Avalee, I’m trusting you to do this—please don’t let them bury me in this thing. Please don’t let this be what I spend my eternity wearing,” I said as Avalee and I hung back from the other four in our group, who were already heading through the doors of The Half Shell restaurant on the pier.

After the long day we’d all spent together, even if it hadn’t been for the dress restricting my movements, I would have chosen to hang back. Eight hours with my mom, Charlotte, and evil twin cousins was enough to grate on my every last right-versus-wrong perception of premeditated murder. That Charlotte was still breathing after the day she’d spent shoveling shit in my direction was a true miracle.

“You have my word,” Avalee said, shaking her head for the billionth time that day . . . ever since she’d inadvertently ripped the pull of my zipper off when she’d been trying to lower it. “And can I just say, again, how sorry I am for what happened? If I’d known the zipper was a piece of crap, or that the shop didn’t have a seamstress on call today, or that there’d be no other way of getting you out of the dress save for a busted zipper, I would have just left it alone.” She kicked a small rock in our path, forgetting the open-toed sandals she had on. “I’m sorry. Again.”

I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “If you were Charlotte, I’d know you had ulterior motives for busting my zipper, but you’re Avalee, and I know Avalee Abbott doesn’t have a mean, vengeful bone in her body, so don’t worry. You’re forgiven.” I gave her hand another squeeze. “Again.”

“You know, you don’t have to stay in that thing until the seamstress gets to you tomorrow.” Avalee stopped me before we headed through the restaurant doors. “You can always rip it off and drop it into the ocean.” She lifted her chin toward the water. “I won’t tell.”

That option was beyond appealing, especially since I’d have to sleep in this neck-to-toe corset of a hot-mess, but I was making a point now, announcing my manifesto to the world, and more importantly, my sister.
Bring it, bitches. I’m not going down.
To the dress shop’s merit, they had called one of their seamstresses to bring her in for an “emergency,” but when I found out that meant she’d be pulled away from a day at the beach with her family, I said I could just wait until tomorrow when someone was scheduled to work. I didn’t like garnering special conditions because of my family’s name.

“Between you and me, I think the better way to piss Charlotte off is to smile and pretend like I’ve realized this dress and I were meant to be.” I pulled on the high neckline to let in a little fresh air.

The one upside to being trapped in my bridesmaid dress overnight was that I’d gotten to forgo the duo of waxing and body wraps my mom had booked for me. Instead, I’d spent the afternoon getting a hand-and-foot massage, followed by a relaxing facial. There’s a silver lining to every situation, being confined within
Cosmo’s
Top 100 Most Hideous Dresses Ever Devised included.

Avalee looked inside the restaurant, zeroing in on the back of our sister’s head. She grinned. “You are oh so very right. You work that dress tonight. Own it. The woman doesn’t let the dress wear her—she wears the fucking dress.”

I held out my arms as far as they would go and looked down at myself. A giant round peach minus the fuzz. “Yeah, something like that . . . I’m just not ripping it off to spite Charlotte.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That thing . . .”—Avalee thrust her hands at my dress—“I don’t care who you are or how many runways you’ve walked, there is no way that dress can be worn without overpowering the woman. Sorry, Clara Belle.”

“No problem. I agree. Nice pep talk though.” I went to open the door, needing to get yet another thing over with. Rip the bandage off had been the theme of my visit so far—and the theme of much of my life down here.

I wasn’t sure how many people would be at tonight’s shindig. I hadn’t asked. I knew my parents had rented out The Half Shell and hired a band and spent more on food and alcohol for this one meal than most couples spent on their actual wedding, but the guest count I wasn’t sure on. Judging by the number of Lexuses and Mercedes gleaming in the parking lot, I would guess at least a hundred.

One hundred people would get to bear witness to me tromping around the place, eating crab claws and looking like a peach-colored sea cucumber. I could only imagine the clips that would be posted to YouTube and go viral come tomorrow.

One hundred people would also get to see that my sister could try all she wanted, but I wouldn’t bow to her. They would see that I was made of stronger stuff than my family let on and there was more to the rich girl who’d once dated the poor boy than just her last name and trust fund.

After giving myself that pep talk, I pulled the door open.

“So,” Avalee said, going in first when I held the door open for her, “did Boone survive the day with the guys? When I checked in with Sterling, it sounded like things might have been a little rough for him.”

I followed her inside and let the door close. There. We were inside. Now all I had to do was mill about the room, waving and greeting a bunch of people while pretending I wasn’t dressed like Bozo the Clown’s mistress.

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him since this morning,” I answered.

“Really? You didn’t at least call to check in and see if he needed a rescue?” Avalee gave me a small shove. “That’s cold, Clara Belle. You can’t just throw a guy to Daddy and the rest of those guys, especially a guy named Boone Cavanaugh.”

I shrugged, though it probably wasn’t noticeable through the puffed sleeves of my dress. “Boone’s always been a sink-or-swim type of guy. I’m sure he made it through just fine.”

We caught sight of Sterling back by the bar with a couple of other guys. He smiled and waved Avalee over. She lifted her finger to give herself a moment.

Then she turned and gave me a curious look. “Now. It’s just you and me. Are you going to tell me what’s going on between you two? Or am I supposed to keep believing you two just randomly reconnected and one thing led to another?” She crossed her arms and gave me a look that suggested she saw through it all.

“If there’s anyone I could tell the whole story to, it would be you, but for now, I’d prefer to keep it under wraps.” When she opened her mouth to protest, I added, “Plus, your
fiancé
looks like he’s missed you and has that impatient come-hither look, and I don’t want to feel rushed explaining Boone and me to you, okay?”

She exhaled and rolled her fingers across her arm. “I’d pressure you a few more rounds if I didn’t already know that while you might have gotten Mama’s good looks, you sure got more than your fair share of bullheadedness from our daddy.”

Now it was me opening my mouth to object.

“And before you spend the rest of the night trying to convince me otherwise and demanding I take back what I just said, think about who else would do the exact same thing.” Avalee’s gaze didn’t so casually move through the crowd until she spotted our dad with a glass of bourbon in one hand, his other shaking the hands of a bunch of guests.