Chapter 31
Diana
Don’t act so surprised, Didi.” My mother tosses her long brown hair behind her shoulder. “Did you think I would be a no-show at my own daughter’s wedding?”
Uh, yeah. After a decade and a half without seeing her in the flesh, I didn’t expect her to show up the one time I don’t want her around.
I should’ve known her daughter getting married would spark enough anger to bring her home.
To say my mother is unsupportive of the whole til-death-do-us-part thing would be an enormous understatement.
She doesn’t seem to know how phones work, either—if the last decade of my life is any indicator.
I don’t know what to do with her, and I don’t know how to respond. I smooth my hands down my dress. Ike clocks it, taking my hand, lacing our fingers together, and holding tight.
The captain of the Wentworth family baseball team is holding my hand.
My mother is here. Not only is she in the continental United States, she’s in Cape Georgeana.
So many impossible things are happening, I must be dreaming again.
Oh, you’re awake this time, Tom Selleck says. And your mother looks angry.
She does. Her eyes—a little more faded than I remember, with lines at the corners—are tight and seething. Her gaze darts between me, her parents, and Ike.
Luckily, my grandma is diplomatic. “May I have a hug from my daughter?” she asks carefully.
My mom barely restrains an eye roll. “Don’t be dramatic, Mother.”
“Is it dramatic to want a hug from my daughter after so many years?”
It’s the voice crack that does me in. Grandma’s voice can’t quite say the word daughter without breaking, but she fights to remain stoic. And now I’m angry, too. How dare my mom show up here after a decade and cop an attitude? She’s the one who left, and no one forced her to come back.
Sure, my grandmother insisted on mailing an invitation to her last known address, despite my reservations. Everyone knows Charlotte York’s opinions on marriage. Coming from my grandmother, the intentionally-worded invitation must’ve felt like a trans-Atlantic slap in the face:
Charles and Patricia York request the honor of your presence at a reception honoring the marriage of their granddaughter…
No mention of Charlotte York.
But what did my mom expect after so many years? Now I’m the one seething, and my eyes are hot. Wet. I blink a dozen or so times. I refuse to cry right now.
“You must be Diana’s mother.” Ike steps forward, extending his free hand. “I’m Ike.”
I’m grateful when he doesn’t unlace our fingers. I can’t do this without him. I’ve felt like I’m in the center ring of a circus all night. I was barely holding it together before my mother turned up, and now? Now I don’t know what I’m feeling. This is all so much.
My mother’s smile is catlike. “Charlotte York. Nice to meet you.” She takes his hand, and a stack of gold bracelets clink on her wrist. I know the brands of that jewelry: Van Cleef. Cartier. David Yurman.
At that moment, my mother’s unsettlingly predatory smile at my husband makes me realize that I don’t know her at all.
The woman whose faded ideas and opinions have been my north star for so long might be a stranger.
I hate that I know the brands of her jewelry, but I don’t know the woman wearing them.
So much for living the Mamma Mia life in some lighthouse in Greece, huh, Mom?
It looks like she traded in the bohemian dream she peddled to me for something that can afford a sixty-thousand dollar stack of jewelry.
Why have I let her be the voice in my head for so long?
I had a mental picture of my mother’s life that excused her absence.
Intercontinental travel isn’t cheap, and she’s been living in her own lighthouse, after all.
But I’m listening to her make small talk with Ike, and it turns out that she hasn’t been anywhere near Greece.
She’s been in California—Presidio Heights, to be exact.
And she assures Ike that the weather is gorgeous there.
Who is this woman?
Grandma leans in on my other side, but doesn’t say anything. She loops her arm through mine, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.
“You’re going to save a dance for me,” my mother warns Ike. “I need to know how all of this happened.”
Heaven forbid she pick up a phone and ask me about my life directly.
No, she’d rather fly here and grill my husband herself.
She wants to know how her daughter ended up marrying the man she used to complain about.
Well, she and Shelly could commiserate, I’m sure.
My stomach tightens at the thought of Shelly and my mother forming an alliance.
I really don’t want to be here. It’s been a while since I thought about my apartment. The funky smell of trash in the hallways, and the climb up the stairs with my laundry suddenly doesn’t sound so bad. But bailing in the middle of a reception to drive to New York would be poor form.
While I’m thinking about my dinky bed in the city, my mother wanders toward a table full of York cousins, and the tightness in my gut eases.
Ike moves closer, dropping my hand to curl his arm around my back. “Don’t run,” he murmurs.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” I add a manufactured laugh.
He chuckles like he knows better. “So, that’s your mom, huh?”
“She matches the description, anyway.” I shrug. “I didn’t think she’d show up.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
I sift through memories. It’s hard to nail down a date.
Her visits grew less frequent as I got older and more attached to my grandparents.
She knew I was in capable hands, but still.
Didn’t she want to see me? As I became an adult, even the phone calls tapered off.
Then nothing. “It’s been… I was a teenager, I think?
” Why am I embarrassed to admit this? My mother should feel this, not me, right?
Painful thoughts pelt me like a tiny, invisible hailstorm: I'm easy to walk away from. I’m not wanted. I’m difficult to love. Oh, and I’m also a witch. I wonder if my mom has heard that one.
“Geez,” Ike mutters like he read my mind. His arm tightens around me.
In the corner of my eye, Shelly’s face snaps in my direction.
Her eyebrows are furrowed. Grandma is twisting her hands together as she watches her daughter filter through the crowd.
Our reception line has dwindled to us, my grandma, and Ike’s mom.
Any guests straggling in at this point can find me in the buffet line. I need food in my stomach.
Ike reads my mind. “I’m ready for some food, how about you?”
“So ready.”
A while later, Ike and I are seated at a round table, thoroughly overdoing it on the food.
I’m so glad I talked my grandma into the squash ravioli.
I must’ve known I would need the comfort of pasta on a night like this.
The heat lamps and dripping taper candles are helping, too—as well as the fact that my mother has kept her distance.
I’ve kept an eye on her, and so has Ike. His parents and my grandparents are seated on either side of us like sentinels. I don’t know how they know I need them, but they seem to know. They’ve hovered around me all night.
I stab my last, pillowy ravioli with my fork and wonder if I can make another trip through the buffet line before the dancing starts.
My grandmother insisted there would be dancing tonight.
Ike agreed quickly, picturing something less formal that what my grandma envisioned, I’m sure.
I bet the man does a mean Hokey Pokey, but I have no doubt that the DJ my grandmother hired has a bunch of waltzes queued up.
My grandma warned us that we’d have a traditional first dance.
I agreed to it because… Ike. When I poo-pooed the idea initially, his face fell.
I’m learning I can’t say no to his sad eyes.
So I’ll dance in front of a tent full of people and make a fool out of myself—anything to stave off the sad eyes.
And it’s almost time. I swallow my ravioli while I watch my mother pretend to laugh at something her cousin Lili says.
“You look gorgeous tonight, Diana,” a woman’s voice says behind me. It’s Louise and Boone, the former looking harried, and the latter looking like the harrier. “Sorry we’re late,” she says, out of breath.
“Don’t sweat it.” Ike stands to hug Louise. “We’re glad you made it. But what about me? How do I look?” he jokes, tugging his lapels and straightening his black tie.
I stand beside him, offering Boone a smile and hugging Louise.
I want to answer Ike’s question for Louise.
You look almost edible, I want to say. The man knows how to wear a tux.
His dark hair is tamed and parted, and his trim beard combined with the tux makes his jawline impossible to look away from.
I take his hand, weaving our fingers together.
Louise rolls her eyes. “You know how you look.”
“Yeah, I do.” He smooths his lapels, all false arrogance. “I almost look as good as this guy.” He gestures to Boone. “Look at you, buddy. You got the tie and everything. Wow.”
Boone isn’t happy about the bright red tie, that much is obvious. He’s tugging on the knot like it’s a sea creature clawing at his throat.
“Yeah, that’s why we were late.” Louise’s frazzled expression says it all. “And also why we probably won’t last—”
“I’ve just been informed that it’s time for the happy couple to have their first dance.” The DJ cuts off Louise with the dreaded announcement. The opening notes of a swingy jazz song play, and I don’t recognize it at first. “Come on out here, Ike and Diana.”
“Sorry, Lou,” Ike grins, tugging my hand. “I have to dance with this beautiful woman.” He winks at me.
Louise nods. “Twist your arm.”
He pulls me into his side. “Twist my arm,” he murmurs only for me, leading me to the center of the dancefloor.
Oh man. I know this song. I might stuff Ike into the lobster cooler for this.
I told him he could pick our phony First Dance song because I was trying really hard not to care about this sham of an evening.
So, I guess I was asking for it. Ike chose “Witchcraft” by Frank Sinatra, the handsome little butthead.
Ike is the butthead, not Frank Sinatra. Well, maybe Frank is.
I've never met the man. Geesh, I'm flustered.
“Do you know how to dance to this?” I hiss without moving my mouth because I am freaking out.
We didn’t practice. Of course we didn’t.
I figured he’d pick some 90s George Straight song, and we'd sway in a circle for three minutes.
Instead, he chose a slow fox trot, and my whole extended family is watching.
Ike holds our right hands out to our side at eye level and positions himself off-set the way I remember from when my grandma made me learn.
“Do I know how to dance to this?” he repeats my words under his breath with a scoff. “Watch and learn, cute girl,” he murmurs. He wraps his other hand around my back, snapping me into place against his chest.
I gasp. “This is a little close for a fox trot, don’t you think?” I whisper, looking up at him.
He leads me through the slow-slow-quick-quick steps flawlessly, but a little more intimately than I remember from my mandatory dance lessons. “This isn't exactly how your grandma taught me, no.”
“My grandma…” I let my unformed question trail off. My grandma taught Ike the fox trot?
“I wanted to surprise you, so she gave me a few lessons.” His voice is a low rumble that I feel down to my toes. “She made me promise to tell you the song choice was all mine—like I would let anyone else take credit for this stroke of absolute genius.”
I want to laugh, but I can hardly breathe. I'm trying to picture my grandma teaching Ike to dance, and the mental image is too sweet to be real. “You're serious?” I breathe out.
He nods. “Can you believe this song?”
“No, I mean about my grandma. Where? When?” This man has no free hours in the day.
“We met at your grandparents’ place a few times.” He shrugs as he leads me around the floor.
This is too much. He turns me under his arm, spinning me back toward him and pulling me against his chest. So close. I know he didn't learn that move from Grandma.
When he turns me around the floor, I catch something in my periphery that pops our satiny Frank Sinatra bubble. My mom and Shelly are sitting at a table, obviously in the middle of a heated discussion.
I want back in the bubble, so I block them out. “Ike, I—”
“Listen, Di—”
We talk over each other, then we both chuckle. “You go ahead,” I tell him.
Before he speaks again, his dark eyes find mine in the dim lighting. The fact that he can focus on anything but the fox trot is impressive, but he looks like he has something serious to say. His jaw tightens. “I don’t want to scare you.”
My eyebrows draw together. That wasn’t what I expected him to say. What could this man say that would scare me? A half dozen possibilities come to mind, each one more devastating than the last. Curse my overactive imagination.
I sigh. “Just say it.” Put me out of my misery.
“I’m afraid if I tell you what I’ve been planning to say right now, you’ll push me away. I just want you to know what I’m thinking. That’s it. No pressure. Just clear communication.”
His thumb drags across my shoulder blade back and forth while he speaks, reminding me of the night of my lobster rescue. Is Ike about to boil me alive?
“Okay,” I say the word like a question. “You know, you’re only making me more nervous.
Out with it, Ike.” It doesn’t help that I’ve spotted Stevie and Marlow over his shoulder, whispering to each other.
Stevie looks smug. Marlow is anticipating something.
And I wonder if they’re in on whatever this is.
“Do Marlow and Stevie know you’re doing this? ”
“I might’ve talked to Stevie about it, just to feel it out.”
My stomach drops. Does he want to change the terms of our agreement? Has he finally realized my family is too much, and he’s done with the act? I mean, the poor man is wearing a tux and doing the fox trot. “Okay. Enough stalling. Speak.”
His Adam’s apple bobs. He clears his throat. “I’m falling for you, Diana.” His jaw tightens. His eyes are so intense. So serious. “I want this to be real.”