The Mother-in-Law(11)
“I think we can take that as an approval,” Rhonda says, thrilled. “And what do you think, Mum?”
Everyone looks at me.
All I can think is the whole thing is monstrously indulgent. The dress, the blush curtains, the Louis XV chairs. But what am I supposed to say?
“Doesn’t she look beautiful?” Rhonda prompts.
Lucy is a pretty girl, certainly, but I’ve come to realize that one of the most interesting things about her is her unusual style—the clashing prints; the pops of color; the sequins all over everything. Today, when she’d arrived at the bridal shop she’d been wearing an enormous, wide-brimmed straw hat and clogs. Clogs! It was a little over the top if you asked me, but you couldn’t deny the girl made a statement. In this dress, however, she looks utterly forgettable. A classic, generic bride.
“Well, I think it’s—”
“What do you think, Lucy?” Peter says, emerging from behind his handkerchief. “Do you love it?”
A cautious smile appears on Lucy’s face. “I do.”
At this, Rhonda takes off for the back room, returning with a veil that she affixes to Lucy’s head, and a plastic bouquet of roses for her to hold. It is such a sales strategy I find myself glaring at her. Not that there’s anything wrong with making a sale, of course, one needs to earn a living. But this feels untoward somehow, coercive.
Peter clears his throat. “Okay, Rhonda. What’s the damage?”
Rhonda goes to her computer and taps away for an unreasonable amount of time. Apparently, at bridal stores, providing a price is incredibly complicated. I turn and pretend to look at satin-covered wedding shoes. Peter is paying for the dress as well as the wedding, and has turned down every offer from us to pay half. Tom, predictably horrified, had practically begged him to reconsider until I convinced him Peter might find it insulting. Besides, Lucy and Ollie are planning a very low-key wedding, to my relief, so I’m confident that Peter should be able to stretch to it. That is, until I hear Rhonda whisper an amount that could purchase a brand-new family car.
The color drains from Peter’s face.
“Oh, God,” Lucy says. “Really?”
Rhonda nods earnestly. “Those are real Swarovski crystals. And it’s a ball gown, so there’s a lot of material.”
“I’ll try something else,” Lucy says immediately. “Something off the rack or a sample—”
I pick up a wedding magazine and focus on it intently. This is why mothers-in-law aren’t invited to this sort of thing. Peter will feel incredibly awkward with me here to witness and will feel backed into a corner. If Tom was here, he’d be on his feet, holding out the black Amex, forcing Rhonda to take it. My style would be to suggest to Lucy that there must be a perfectly nice dress that isn’t the same price as a down payment on a house.
I think of Amina, who I visited in her home earlier today. She arrived from Sudan three months ago, pregnant with twins, with three more children under the age of five. This morning I brought her a well-used double pram and she broke down in tears and asked Allah to bless me and my family. She was going to use it to push her youngest two kids to the supermarket, she said, because usually her two-and three-year-olds had to walk and their little legs got terribly tired. Some days, she told me, it took them an hour to make the one kilometer walk.
“This is the one you really want?” Peter says.
“Dad . . . are you sure? It’s a lot of money.”
“I’ve only got one daughter,” he says. “And you’re only a bride once.”
“Will you be wanting the veil as well?” Rhonda says, a vulture circling. “I just ask because this is the last one we have in stock. I can give you ten percent off,” she says, and begins tapping on her computer again. After a moment or two, she announces a price that makes my eyes water.
“No, I don’t need the veil,” Lucy says.
“But it really does cap off the look, doesn’t it, Mum?” Rhonda says, dragging me into her ugly plot. “And it’s a small price to pay, when it comes to giving your daughter the perfect wedding, am I right?”
Rhonda has taken on a new level of evil in my mind. Guilting a poor father into buying a veil he can ill afford. Encouraging me to join her side and gang up on the man. Insinuating that if he doesn’t buy the ludicrously overpriced piece of lace, it means he doesn’t love her or want to give his daughter the perfect wedding. If it were up to me, the woman would be taken out onto the street and horse-whipped.
“Frankly, I don’t think anyone outside the royal family would consider that amount a small price to pay,” I tell her. “It’s daylight robbery and you should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”
Peter and Lucy turn to stare at me, and Rhonda adopts the sullen, red-faced expression of a teenager who feels like the world is against her and nothing—none of it—is her fault.
“And one other thing,” I say, since I have everyone’s attention. “As I’ve pointed out several times, I’m not Lucy’s mother.” I fold my hands in my lap. “I’m her mother-in-law.”
5: LUCY
THE PRESENT . . .
“Would anyone like tea?” I ask.
No one responds but I head to the kitchen anyway to put the kettle on. My thoughts skitter about. Diana is dead. Intellectually I understand this, but somehow it doesn’t feel true. This peculiar, anesthetized feeling is familiar, it reminds me of the days following my own mother’s death when I walked around in a daze, oblivious to the day of the week and the time of the day. It wasn’t until days later that the pain hit—fast and hard, as if it had been loaded into a slingshot and fired at me. It was during my mother’s funeral that I’d finally broken under the weight of it, sobbing so hysterically my poor father had no idea what to do.