ATHENA
I pause at the threshold of the living room, which has been transformed into an impromptu bridal salon.
Our normally calm space is now a whirlwind of activity and loud chatter.
The furniture has been pushed against the walls to make space for five ornate full-length mirrors arranged in a semicircle.
Portable styling stations festooned with white and pink ribbons, fresh flowers, and enough products to stock a small beauty supply store crowd every available surface.
The air is thick with competing scents of hairspray and perfume, and it’s making me nauseous.
A few bridesmaids in various states of preparation are sitting behind the stations, others are drinking champagne and animatedly talking, all dressed in matching pale pink dresses. Makeup artists and hair stylists flit between the women, wielding brushes and curling irons like weapons.
Demetria sits in the center on what can only be described as a makeshift throne—our grandmother’s antique Louis XV chair that normally resides in the formal living room, now decorated with fresh white roses.
She’s sipping something that’s supposed to look like champagne and laughing as a stylist arranges her dark curls into an intricate updo.
Her bridal gown hangs from a stand nearby, protected by a garment bag.
I haven’t slept. Not really. After last night’s confrontation, Ruby insisted on sleeping in the guest room—“to keep the peace,” she said.
I’d almost protested but knew she was right.
This house has enough tension without adding more fuel to the fire.
So instead of the comfort of her body against mine, I spent hours staring at the ceiling, replaying my mother’s words in my head.
Every creak of the old house made me wish I could sneak down the hall to Ruby’s room, but I stayed put, trapped in my childhood bed with my very adult frustrations.
I opened an email from Demetria with the table plan attached and my frustration mounted.
When I finally drifted off around dawn, my dreams were a jumble of memories—Elena, my father’s funeral, my casino opening, Ruby’s face the night we met. I woke disoriented and irritable, reaching for a body that wasn’t there.
And now, several hours and one too many family interactions later, I have to wear pink.
Soft pink, to be precise—a color I’ve actively avoided since childhood, when my mother dressed Demetria and me in matching outfits that made us look like twin scoops of strawberry ice cream.
All to ensure I don’t upstage Demetria, the allegedly virginal bride in white, whose pregnancy we’re all pretending not to notice.
The men are getting ready in the east wing of the house—Julian and his groomsmen safely segregated from all this feminine energy as tradition demands—while we navigate this absurd charade. The irony would be comical if it weren’t so infuriating.
I refused the billowing soft pink bridesmaid dress that would have made me look like an escapee from a 1980s prom night.
Instead, I brought my own pantsuit with a satin wrap jacket in the palest blush and matching pants—a compromise that honors the color scheme without compromising my dignity.
The outfit hangs in my closet upstairs, waiting, while I steel myself for the inevitable battle about hair and makeup.
My mother and Aunt Ana are already dressed and coiffed to perfection, looking like they’re attending a royal wedding. Mom’s wearing a powder-blue dress with an elaborate lace overlay, her hair swept up in a style that surely required an engineering degree to create.
She spots me hovering in the doorway and rushes over, her Chanel No. 5 arriving a split second before she does. Her face is a mask of forced cheerfulness, the kind she wears when she’s determined to maintain appearances despite whatever chaos might be unfolding beneath the surface.
“Athena! Finally. Where were you? Everyone is almost ready, and you haven’t even started.
” She surveys me with the critical eye that has made me second-guess my appearance since adolescence.
“They’re waiting to do your hair—we’ve saved you a place next to Ruby.
” She gestures toward where Ruby sits, a makeup artist applying something to her eyes.
I see her, and my heart does that ridiculous flutter that still catches me off guard.
Ruby looks relaxed, smiling at something the makeup artist has said.
She’s in her element here, comfortable in a way I never am around beauty rituals and feminine traditions.
She catches my eye and gives me a subtle wink.
“No, Mom,” I say, stepping farther into the chaos. “I’ve already done my hair, and I don’t need makeup. I prefer it simple.” The thought of sitting in that chair while some stranger tugs at my scalp and covers my face in products I never use makes my skin crawl.
My mother’s smile doesn’t falter, but her eyes narrow slightly, the way they always do when I’m not following her script.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The hairdressers are geniuses—they’ve worked with celebrities.
Your hair needs…” She makes a vague gesture toward my head, somehow implying with one hand movement that my entire appearance requires professional intervention. “And where’s your dress?”
“My hair is fine,” I insist, resisting the urge to touch it self-consciously. I own part of the Vegas Strip, but somehow, my mother still manages to make me feel like an awkward teenager. “I brought my own pantsuit. I’ll change and be ready in twenty minutes. I just came to get a coffee.”
“Pantsuit?” Her voice rises almost an octave, drawing the attention of several bridesmaids, who quickly pretend they weren’t eavesdropping. “But all the bridesmaids are wearing the same pink dresses! We ordered you one too.” She gestures to Demetria’s friends.
“I’m not a bridesmaid, I’m the maid of honor,” I reply, trying to keep my voice level despite the growing tension headache behind my eyes. “And my outfit is perfectly appropriate.”
My mother sighs, the sound heavy with disappointment. “At least let them do your makeup. Look at what they’ve done for Ruby.” She points across the room. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”
I turn toward Ruby again and smile. She’s wearing a deep-emerald dress, the color complementing her auburn hair and making her eyes seem even more vibrant.
The fabric drapes her body in a way that’s both elegant and sensual, revealing just enough skin to be alluring without crossing into inappropriate territory.
Her hair has been styled in loose waves, and her makeup brings out the delicate structure of her cheekbones and the fullness of her lips.
She looks up, catches me staring, and returns my smile—that private smile that’s reserved just for me, the one that makes the corners of her eyes crease slightly. Of course she looks beautiful. She’s breathtaking.
Something inside me snaps, and all the tension from last night, all the pretense, all the years of half-truths and strategic omissions—they collapse at once.
“What do you want me to say, Mom?” My voice comes out louder than intended, cutting through the cheerful chatter.
“I don’t get it. Yes, Ruby looks beautiful.
” The room falls silent as every head turns toward me, conversations dying mid-sentence.
Demetria’s eyes widen, her hand frozen with a champagne flute halfway to her lips.
“To me, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, but that’s not what you want to hear, is it? ”
My mother’s face goes slack with shock, and her eyes widen as she takes a half-step backward, bumping into a makeup table and sending a collection of brushes scattering.
Even the hired photographers have stopped clicking, their cameras lowering slowly as they register the unfolding drama.
I take a deep breath, feeling light-headed with a strange mix of terror and relief. The secret I’ve guarded for so long is out there now, impossible to take back. I lower my voice with effort, trying to regain some control, but the words keep spilling out.
“So you can save yourself the effort of seating me next to your friend’s single son at dinner,” I continue, meeting my mother’s stunned gaze.
“I’m only interested in Ruby.” The words feel both foreign and completely natural on my tongue.
“And you know it, don’t you? You just pretend you don’t.
Just like you pretend your adult daughter is still a virgin. ”
I gesture toward Demetria, who’s instinctively placed a hand over her slightly rounded abdomen, her eyes darting between me and our mother like she’s watching a tennis match where the ball might explode at any moment.
“And in a few days, we’ll all celebrate that she got pregnant on her wedding night,” I continue, unable to stop now that I’ve started. “Why all the pretending, Mom? What decade are we living in?”
My mother’s face has drained of color. She opens her mouth, but no sound emerges, perhaps for the first time in her life rendered completely speechless.
Her hands flutter uselessly at her sides before she clasps them together tightly, her knuckles turning white with the pressure.
Behind her, Demetria stares at me. Her stylist has frozen with a section of hair held aloft.
“I’m not saying anything that people here don’t already know,” I continue.
“Literally everyone in this room knows Demetria is pregnant, and we’re all pretending otherwise.
The way we’re all pretending I’m not gay.
” I look around at the silent audience, meeting several pairs of averted eyes.
“It doesn’t make sense, Mom. It’s got to stop. ”
No one seems to know what to do. The makeup artists exchange glances, silently communicating about whether they should continue working or flee the scene.
Demetria’s bridesmaids studiously examine their manicures, their shoes, the ceiling—looking anywhere but at the family drama unfolding before them.
Only Aunt Ana seems completely unfazed, taking a long sip of her champagne like she’s watching a particularly entertaining episode of her favorite soap opera.
My mother’s eyes fill with tears. Not the dramatic kind she’s prone to when she wants to make a point—those strategic tears she deploys to win arguments or extract promises—but genuine, shocked tears that make her makeup begin to run in dark rivulets down her cheeks.
She looks smaller suddenly, more fragile than I can ever remember seeing her.
The formidable matriarch who has ruled our family with absolute authority since my father’s death seems to diminish before my eyes, her shoulders slumping under the weight of the truths she can no longer deny.
“How dare you,” she whispers, but there’s no heat in it. Just hurt and perhaps the realization that her constructed version of reality has just crumbled beyond repair. “Today of all days.”
“I’m sorry for the timing,” I say, and I mean it. Some part of me knows I should have found a more private moment for this confrontation, that dropping this bomb in a room full of witnesses on Demetria’s wedding day is not my finest moment. “But I’m not sorry for the truth.”
Ruby gets up and crosses the room to stand beside me. Her hand finds mine without hesitation.
“Mrs. Stavros,” she begins. “I love your daughter. That’s the simple truth of it.”
The words hit me with unexpected force. We’ve said them to each other in private, whispered them in the dark, but hearing her declare it so openly, in front of my family and strangers alike… It’s intense.
Ruby takes a deep breath, her expression softening.
“When my wife died, my mother said something to me I’ll never forget.
She told me she was worried about me—that she always thought Claire would be the one to make sure I was okay, and Claire wasn’t there anymore.
” Her voice trembles slightly, but she steadies it.
“My mother worried because that’s what mothers do, isn’t it?
They want to know their children are okay when they’re not nearby to check on them. ”
My mother stares at Ruby, caught off guard by this unexpected turn in the conversation.
“I can promise you, Mrs. Stavros,” Ruby continues, squeezing my hand, “that I will take care of Athena. I will be by her side through good times and bad. I will take that worry off your shoulders.” She pauses, her gaze unwavering.
“Isn’t that what every mother wants? To know their child is loved and cared for? ”
My mother’s gaze drops to our joined hands, lingering on our interlaced fingers, then rises to meet Ruby’s eyes again. Something passes between them—a silent communication I can’t quite decipher. Then, to my astonishment, she nods once, slowly, a gesture of acknowledgment if not quite acceptance.
I wait for her to say something. I think she’s trying, but no words come out.
Demetria rises from her chair, her expression carrying the particular exasperation that only siblings can inspire—the look that says I could kill you right now, but I also understand why you did it.
“All right, everyone,” she says to the room at large, clapping her hands together in a gesture so reminiscent of our mother that it would be funny under different circumstances.
“The show is over. I’m getting married in four hours, and I’d like my hair to be symmetrical.
So let’s all get on with it, shall we? I’m not pregnant and my sister is not gay.
” She grins at her audience, then points to me.
“And my sister needs some waterproof mascara. Don’t argue with me, Athena. I’m the bride.”
The room erupts into nervous laughter, a collective release of held breath.
Demetria returns to her chair, settling back while she shoots me a smile.
Her hand still rests protectively over her belly—but openly now, without shame, the way it should have been all along.
Only when I touch my cheeks do I realize I’ve been crying.