6. Dahlia
6
DAHLIA
SIX WEEKS LATER
M y bedroom in my father’s house in D.C. looks straight out of a catalog—four-poster bed made up in white eyelet, a dark-wood wardrobe and dresser, a vanity by the window. The attached bathroom is luxurious beyond belief, with a marble countertop and gilded vintage mirror hanging above the sink, and a clawfoot soaking tub with an old-fashioned hand-held shower nozzle. Every time I come home, it’s always ready for me, meticulously cleaned and pristine. I have a few pieces of clothing that stay here, but I hung up and put my things away as soon as I flew in this morning, and now I’m standing in front of my bed, trying to decide between the two dresses that were delivered an hour ago. I’m going to wear one of them to the party tonight, and I can’t bring myself to pick.
I wish Evelyn were here. She’d choose one for me. Better yet, she’d make one for me, although it’ll still be some time before her boutique is up and running again. I look between the two dresses again, one a deep jeweled blue and the other a light lavender that’s probably too pastel for the season, and let out a sigh.
My father wants me dressed and downstairs for pre-party cocktails an hour before we leave for the party, and I’m sure I know why. He’s going to want to talk about Jude, about the proposal he wants me to accept, and I’m going to have to tell him no. That I’m not going to marry someone I don’t like just because it’s good for his political career.
It’s old-fashioned nonsense, although I’m definitely not going to use those exact words. But I have to hope that my mother will back me up, whatever he threatens. She’s not one to stand up to my father when he’s made up his mind about something, and she encouraged me the last time we spoke about this to go along with his plans. But surely she won’t let him cut me off, from my inheritance or the family. She wouldn’t let him go that far.
I tell myself that as I look down at the dresses again, pulling my pink silk robe around myself a little tighter as I go into the bathroom to start getting ready. My hot rollers are out on the countertop, my makeup bag sitting next to it, and I’m halfway through putting my long hair up in the rollers to set when I hear a soft knock at the bathroom door.
“Come in,” I call out, already knowing it’s my mother. She walks in, already dressed, wearing a modest black gown with cap sleeves and a small gold spray of sequins at the side of one waist, where the fabric is gathered to nip it in. Her hair, colored to a honey blonde that matches mine without a single grey showing, is cut into a bob that falls to her chin, neatly blown out. Her makeup is smooth, her monthly Botox and spa appointments keeping her complexion looking younger than she actually is, and I can tell she’s keeping up with her Pilates. Whatever it can’t tighten up, her plastic surgeon certainly will.
“You have an hour.” She looks at the gold watch on her wrist. “Your father isn’t going to be happy if you’re running late to meet us downstairs, Dahlia.”
“I know. I’ll be down in time.” I roll up another piece of my hair, looking at my mother in the mirror. “I know what he’s going to want to talk about, too.”
She meets my eyes, concern attempting to crinkle the skin at the corners of hers. “You’re not thinking of telling him no, Dahlia?”
My stomach drops. I’d been counting on her support, in the end. Without it?—
“I can’t .” I turn to look at her, half my hair still hanging around my shoulders. “I couldn’t stand Jude when we were kids. He was an annoying little prick?—”
“ Language ,” my mother snaps, even though we’re standing in my bathroom, just the two of us. I shake my head.
“I can’t marry him.”
“What’s wrong with him?” She takes a step back, looking at me narrowly. “He’s a perfectly fine match, Dahlia. Handsome, rich, well-connected. He has a good family. You’ll have perfectly lovely in-laws. Your children will get into the best private schools, have an early track into Georgetown. You’ll want for nothing. What else could you possibly ask for?” Her lips purse. “And don’t say love, like you’re a child.”
“Don’t you love my dad?” I fire it off at her, and she gives me the kind of patronizing look that only mothers have perfected.
“I have companionship with your father,” she says firmly. “Affection, and mutual respect. These are things that come with years of marriage, Dahlia, with facing life’s challenges together and supporting one another. They have nothing to do with fleeting passions or snap decisions. And there is no reason why you and Jude cannot have the same.”
“Except that I don’t like him. I don’t respect him. How are companionship and affection supposed to come from that?”
With a sharp jolt, I remember that night six weeks ago. Alek—his hand in my hair, on my chin, his scarred body pressed against mine. The cab, the elevator, my bed. Fleeting passion . Snap decisions . That’s certainly one way to describe that night.
“There’s nothing wrong with Jude,” my mother repeats, and I press my lips together with frustration.
“Even if I don’t bring up the fact that I don’t love him, he’s not my type. And before you say there’s more to marriage than physical attraction, I also find him incredibly boring. I don’t want to be a politician’s wife. I’m glad you’re happy, but?—”
“What? You want to stay in your apartment in New York, and work at the museum?” Her mouth flattens. “You wouldn’t have to work if you came home and married him, Dahlia. Everything would be provided for you. You could stay home, just like I do. Make friends. Work on charity boards, take care of your house and your children. A slower, happier life, not the rat race of Manhattan?—”
“That’s not what I want ,” I interrupt her, frustration searing through me. It burns into my stomach, making me feel a wave of nausea. I’ve been feeling like this for days now, waves of it that I can only attribute to the stress leading up to this visit. For all that I’ve stuck to the plan of telling my father no when I came back home, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been literally sick with worry over how it would go, even throwing up in an airport bathroom this morning. And clearly, it was with good reason.
“If you want your father to keep supporting your lifestyle, you’ll agree to this,” my mother says crisply. “You can’t live off of our money for years, Dahlia, and then expect to never have to do anything for it.”
“I won’t have that lifestyle if I come home. So what’s the point? I’ll take care of myself.” I blow out a sharp breath. “I’m grateful for all of it, Mom. I always have been. But I don’t want to come home and be a lady who lunches, showing up to parties on Jude’s arm and corralling our children. I’m happy with my job. With my career . With my friends.”
My mother looks completely taken aback. She starts to speak, and then seems to think better of it, shaking her head as she glances down at her watch again. “I’m going to go downstairs, before this conversation makes you late for cocktails. We’ll talk more with your father when you come down.”
I start to speak, but she whisks out of the room before I can. And I stare after her as she goes, wondering how I misjudged my faith in her so completely.
I really thought she would back me up, if she knew marrying Jude would make me unhappy. But I didn’t count on just how happy my mother’s life makes her , and how unable she is to fathom any other life being a good one. To her, this marriage is rescuing me from a stressful, chaotic existence in New York. Bringing me home to a happier, safer, more comfortable life. And she can’t understand why I don’t feel that way.
Or she just won’t , because she can’t handle the conflict it would cause.
My throat tightens, my eyes suddenly hot, and a wave of loneliness sweeps through me. Will I always feel this way, if I give in? Trapped in a world that I don’t feel like I belong in, with a family that wants me to comply, not be happy? I love my parents, and this is a side of them that I never wanted to believe existed. A side where my own feelings don’t matter, as long as I do what they want.
Swallowing hard as the nausea ripples through me again, I refocus on my hair and makeup, glad to have something to do to keep my hands busy. When my hair is in thick, long curls around my face and shoulders and my makeup is light but perfect, I go back out to my room and pick up the sapphire blue dress, slipping it on as I look at the long mirror in my room.
It’s a gorgeous dress. The bodice is fitted, with a princess-style pointed v at the bottom of it where it turns into a slim skirt that skims over my hips and down in a straight line to brush just at my toes. The straps are more sapphire silk, off-the-shoulder, draping over my upper arms. It suits me perfectly, and I wish I could enjoy it more. I like parties, and I like dressing up, but this particular event comes with a dread that no amount of pampering or beautiful dresses or jewelry can shake.
I slip teardrop-shaped sapphire studs into my ears, hook a matching bracelet around my wrist, and slip my feet into a pair of nude Dior pumps before heading downstairs. I can hear my parents’ quiet voices in the small room off of the hall, the one that my mother uses as an informal living room.
When I step inside, pushing the heavy wooden door open, I immediately smell the powdery rose scent of the potpourri that my mother keeps in glass bowls all over the house. She’s sitting on one of the floral couches in the middle of the room with a martini in her hand, a thick rug between it and the couch opposite, a heavy wood coffee table atop the rug. There’s tables along the walls in various spots, with pictures and antiques atop them, and art hanging in heavy gilded frames on the walls. My father is standing next to the fireplace with a drink in his hand too, something clear.
He turns as I walk in, and his expression is pinched. My mother already told him about my reluctance, then.
“Dahlia.” His voice is heavy with disappointment, and I feel my stomach clench. I’ve never handled disappointing my father well. I’ve always tried for his approval, all my life, with my grades in school, excelling at sports back then, in whatever extracurriculars I was signed up for. I always wanted him to be proud of me, and although he claimed he pushed me harder for my own good, it always just made me feel as if I wasn’t good enough .
Becoming a curator at the Met, at my age, is an accomplishment. I thought he would be proud of me for that, for my good grades at Columbia, for my hard work in climbing the ladder of my career—and he seemed to be, all these years until right now. But it seems like that doesn’t matter, in the end, when he’s decided that he needs me to do something else for him instead.
“You know I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t best for the family,” he intones, lifting the cut crystal glass in his hand to his lips.
“Marrying Jude.” I say it flatly, ignoring the bar cart and all of the fixings sitting atop it for a variety of cocktails. Normally I’d make myself a dry martini or a gin and tonic, but I want to be clear headed for this conversation. For tonight, because I have no doubt that it’s going to be a difficult night to get through.
“Precisely. But your mother tells me that you’re—considering not complying with what I’ve asked of you.”
That’s putting it mildly. I bite my lip, sinking onto the edge of the couch closest to him. I give him an intriguing look, silently begging him to remember that I’m his daughter first. That I’m a person, his child, not just a chess piece to be moved across a board like everyone else in his world. “I like my life the way it is, Daddy,” I say softly. “I worked hard for my position at the Met. This is my dream. I thought you understood that. I don’t want to give it up just to come home and marry someone that I don’t even like?—”
That last was the wrong thing to say. Any empathy in my father’s face vanishes, his expression shuttering as his face goes cold and hard.
“There’s nothing wrong with Jude,” he says flatly. “He’s from a good family, and has excellent connections. You will want for nothing. You will have access to every part of D.C.’s upper social circle. Your children will want for nothing. And our family will have new and better possibilities. I might run for President, with the inroads that this will open for us. Imagine that? You as the First Daughter. Your husband as my Vice President, even. And a path to the White House for him, eventually?—”
“That’s your dream,” I interrupt, my throat tightening. “His, I suppose, too, if he’s going along with all of this. Not mine. None of this is my dream. I don’t even know if I want children!”
My mother tsks in the background. “Of course you do. Every woman wants children.”
I bite back a scathing remark, knowing it won’t help. “I worked hard for my life,” I repeat. “I don’t want any of this. I can’t do it.”
“Everything you have is because of me.” My father’s voice is colder now than I’ve ever heard it before. “I paid for the tuition that bought you that degree. My connections helped you land that job at the Met?—”
My face burns at that. “You got me the interview,” I concede. “But I worked hard to move up as quickly as I have. It’s not all just money and connections?—”
He continues on as if I haven’t even spoken. “I will help pay for your apartment. Your allowance. Your flights home and back. Your credit card is paid in full every month and I don’t even bother to look at the charges. All that goes away, Dahlia, if you refuse?—”
“So what?” I challenge, my own anger starting to burn too hot to keep my voice low and my words measured any longer. “I’ll lose all of that if I come back and marry him, anyway. My job, my apartment, my friends, my life in New York. I might as well tell you no, and try to stay and make it on my own?—”
My father snorts. “You won’t be able to afford a life in New York. There’s no chance of that, Dahlia. You will fail, and when you do?” He shrugs. “There will be no home for you to come back to any longer.”
Those words land like a blow. Even my mother gasps softly, although she quickly covers the sound by dropping another sugar cube into her old fashioned. The clink of it against the glass is loud in the sudden silence that follows.
My father smiles grimly as he sees it sink in. “I have never asked anything of you, Dahlia. I’ve given you everything you could want. As your father, I have provided. Now, I’m asking you, as my daughter, to do what is needed for your family. And if you don’t love your family enough to do so, then we will no longer be here for you when you need us.” He sets his glass down, ticking off every statement on his fingers as he continues to speak. “Your credit card will be cut off. There will be no more deposits. You will not be allowed to come home. If you show up, Alfred will be instructed to turn you away. You will be removed from the will. You may think that your mother will not go along with this, but she will.”
The finality in his voice, coupled with the conversation that I had with my mother earlier, makes me believe him. It’s clear that she loves her life too much to risk it, even for me. And going against my father is difficult. That much is obvious to me in this moment, as I waver on the edge of telling him yes despite everything in me screaming no , simply because I still crave his approval.
Just like I have since I was a child—and like I probably always will, even if I’m cut out of his and the rest of my family’s life.
“Daddy—”
“I won’t budge on this.” His voice is firm, and I find myself scrambling to think of some way to make this palatable.
“What about the Smithsonian?” I venture. “If I agreed to marry Jude, and came home, then would you consider helping me get a position at the National Portrait Gallery, maybe? Or one of the other art museums?—”
“That would be up to Jude. But I don’t imagine he’ll like the idea of his wife working.” My father chuckles, a good-old- boy sound deep in his throat that makes me momentarily hate him like I never have before. Like the thought of a politician’s wife working is a hilarious inside joke between men. “I certainly wouldn’t. And there’s plenty for you to do without a traditional job. Just ask your mother. Charity boards, special-interest groups you can work with?—”
Just like that, I know my answer. Whatever hardship comes from refusing my father, I can’t do this. I can’t throw away everything I love for a life of misery.
“I—”
He cuts me off before I can speak, and I wonder if he can see the mulish set of my jaw, the stubborn look in my eyes, and knows what I’m going to say before I can so much as barely open my mouth. “I didn’t plan to announce the proposal tonight, Dahlia. You’ll go to the party and talk to Jude. Get to know him again, after all these years. I planned to announce your engagement at the end of the weekend, at a more private dinner, with our families and a few select guests. You can have some time to think things over.”
The way he says it suggests that I’d be an idiot to do anything other than go along with what he’s telling me to do. And from his perspective, I can see how that’s true. What substitute is a life that I love, friends and the fulfillment of everything I’ve built, compared to money, status, and my family?
The potential loss of my family is the only thing that makes the instant no die on my lips. That makes me nod instead, agreeing to go to the party tonight like I’m supposed to. Even as hurt as I am by them right now, the thought of losing my family forever, of being completely cut off from them, is difficult to reconcile. Even if it means giving up everything that makes me happy.
There has to be some other way out of this. The words keep circling through my head, over and over, as I reach for the glass pitcher of water and pour some into a crystal glass. As much as I want a drink, I don’t think I could stomach alcohol right now. My stomach is roiling again, nausea rushing through me in dizzying waves, and I take a slow breath in through my nose and out through my mouth to try and quell it. The last thing I need right now is to vomit on my mother’s expensive rug. The way my father is talking right now, he’d probably send me the bill.
“Alright,” I agree, taking a shaky sip of the water. After all, I reason to myself, I’m already dressed. There’s no harm in going to the party, if my father doesn’t plan to announce an engagement tonight. Maybe I can find some reason that my father will listen to as to why I can’t marry Jude. Maybe Jude will dislike being around me so much that he’ll call the marriage off. It’s all me rationalizing, I know that, but it’s the best I can do right now.
It’s just a party. Even as I tell myself that, though, I know it’s more than that. The rest of my life is going to pivot on the decision I make this weekend.
I thought I knew what I was going to do when I came home. But that was when I thought at least one parent would back me up, in the end.
Now I have no idea.