The Wedding Veil(90)

A tap on my passenger-side window made me jump. I smiled, unlocked the door, and Babs slid in, wearing a tailored yellow pantsuit, her hair freshly combed. “You ready?”

I nodded. Then I told her what I had been thinking. “You know, Babs, I would never blame any of my life decisions on my parents. But there’s a small part of me that thinks maybe that’s why Hayes and that can’t-live-with-you, can’t-live-without-you thing was so appealing for so long. It was what I knew. And it was exciting.”

She nodded. “It makes your heart race, all right. But I have to think it also makes for a difficult life.”

“Are we going to tell Mom? About the veil looking like Cornelia’s?”

Babs pursed her lips. “We know now that Mother couldn’t have gotten it from the Vanderbilts.”

For some reason, I still wasn’t convinced. Or maybe I was just looking for a reason to break free of the thing. “Well, maybe it would be nice to see it anyway.”

We walked slowly up the brick walk. “Was Miles excited to have you back?”

She tried not to, but she smiled. “This day is about you, Jules. We’ll worry about all that later.”

That was a big yes.

When I opened the front door, my dad was walking through the dim foyer in a pair of khakis and a polo, golf bag strapped to his back.

“Jules!” he said, engulfing me in a hug. “Isn’t this a great surprise?”

“Surprise?” I asked as Mom appeared and hugged me and then Babs.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you she was coming?” Mom said. “It must have slipped my mind.”

Things definitely weren’t going well if she hadn’t told Dad I was coming. I turned and raised my eyebrows at her. “Dad, do you have time to sit down for a second before you leave? There’s something I want to talk to you and Mom about.”

He looked down at his watch. “Want me to cancel my tee time? I certainly would have had I known you were coming.” There was a sharpness at the end of his sentence as he glared at Mom.

“No,” I said quickly. “This will only take a minute.” Thirty seconds in and I was already trying to soothe, to fix. Maybe that’s who I was. A fixer. But now, I realized proudly, I was fixing myself.

We all followed Mom into the formal living room off to the left, which felt wrong because no one ever sat in there. She looked thinner than usual, and I wondered if that was from the stress of my calling off the wedding. I felt guiltier, if that was even possible.

The living room still had the same pink and green drapes with the swooping valances that had been the height of sophistication when I was a kid, and which now desperately needed to be replaced. The worn velvet on what had been my great-grandmother’s chair was still soft, but I could feel every spring underneath me. As if I wasn’t uncomfortable enough.

“I just wanted to apologize,” I said.

“There’s no need—” Dad started.

But Mom cut him off. “Actually, there really is.”

I nodded. “I wanted to apologize for running off the way I did, for ruining the wedding, and for wasting all the money I know you worked so hard to save for that day.” It made me a little sick to think about all the food and the band and the rentals and the flowers that we didn’t use. Mom and I had tried to keep the number of guests down and make substitutions for lower-priced choices when we could, but any way you sliced it, it was an expensive day. And, looking around, I knew that money could have been used for some much-needed improvements around here.

“It was a lot of money,” Mom said.

“I don’t know how, but I promise I’ll pay you back.”

“Honey,” Dad interjected, “I don’t care what it cost. There is no price too large to pay for your daughter’s happiness.”

I still felt ashamed. I wanted to say more, but it felt like he had brought an end to the conversation.

“Thank you for saying that,” I said finally.

“I agree with your father,” Babs said. “An unhappy marriage makes for a long life.”

On that note, Dad stood up, kissed me quickly, kissed Babs, and was gone.

“Play well!” I called after him while noticing that he didn’t kiss Mom.

“Well,” Mom said, “let’s put that ugliness behind us and go get some lunch. Where do you want to go?”

Babs and I shared a glance.

Mom sighed. “What now? What else could possibly go wrong?” She was in a mood.

“Can we see the wedding veil?” I asked sheepishly, just as a voice called, “Hello! I’m here!” and the storm door slammed.

“Hi, Aunt Alice!” I called.

Mom didn’t say a word. She just crossed her arms. “I knew it. I knew that we would be right back here, you wanting to marry Hayes and having to start this whole ridiculous thing over again.” She sighed again. “You could have said so before your father left for the golf course.”

Alice stood in the doorway, purse on her arm, and beamed. “The wedding is back on?”

“Meredith, calm down,” Babs said. “You too, Alice. She just wants to see the veil; she isn’t getting back together with Hayes.”

“I just have this weird feeling,” I began, taking a breath, “that our wedding veil is actually the long-lost Vanderbilt veil.”