Chapter Twenty-One #2
“This is too much, Pippa.”
“No, it’s not! This is your bachelorette party! We are doing this right. You only get married once.”
The baths, despite the smell, are actually quite relaxing. I find myself practically falling asleep even though I have clay clinging to every part of me, even the parts that the bathing suit should be covering.
Pippa’s excessively chattering to Devony and Katie Lyn, sort of ignoring me. My mother has been eerily silent. She hasn’t even acknowledged me yet. Which is rude and rather weird. I expected at least a hug hello or something.
“So, are you excited about the wedding?” Devony asks, but from her tone, I can tell she’s being sarcastic.
I’m just thankful we each have a separate tub to lie in. Though I kind of feel left out. Mallory and Poppy are discussing some book they both are currently reading, my mother is off in her own world, which leaves me Pippa and the two bitches to talk about the wedding.
“Nervous actually. I wasn’t expecting it to happen this fast. But Eddie doesn’t want to wait any longer.”
Katie Lyn snickers. “Of course he wants a fast wedding. That’s just the kind of guy Eddie is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She sinks a bit in her tub. “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just saying he seems to be really in love with you.”
Is she the one he slept with when we broke up?
Devony chimes in. “I want a big wedding. At least seven hundred guests. My father has some very rich friends, ones that always leave extravagant gifts. Pays to be the mayor’s only daughter.” She winks at me.
“I want a big wedding too,” Pippa agrees. “Everyone needs to be there. I want paparazzi clamoring to see inside.”
“You’re not that important, bitch,” I tease, only regretting it when all three of them look my way with the same disgusted look. If we were alone, she would’ve laughed at the joke.
My mother chooses this moment to put her two cents in. “I had a smaller wedding,” she admits. “Only about twenty people. It was great.”
Kaite Lyn rolls her eyes. “Small weddings are great for poor people.”
My mother quickly shuts down, barely looking my way. It’s the first time I’ve ever wanted to defend her.
“Hey, I get that you two make being a bitch your entire personality, but speak to my mother like that again, and I’ll get them to throw you out.”
“You can’t do that. We were invited by Pippa.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t invited by me. This is my wedding, not hers.”
I could feel their glares from my bath, and even thought I heard one mumble that it should be Pippa’s wedding not mine. But there’s clay in my ears, so everything’s muffled.
Mallory decides to intervene, “I always pictured I would have a big extravagant wedding, too. Maybe not as big as the ones you guys are planning, but one where my dad walks me down the aisle and there’s a whole church is full of guests staring at me like I am a queen or something.
My mom would be crying, using a Kleenex to blot her eyes, and my dad would have tears of his own as he hands me over to my future husband. ”
Mentioning her dad brings tears to my eyes. This is such a colossal moment in my life, and not having him here leaves me with an emptiness that can’t be filled. Now that he’s gone, a big wedding doesn’t mean as much to me. It just isn’t the same without him.
“Who’s walking you down the aisle?” Pippa questions.
“Nobody.”
Pippa shoots me a look of disapproval. “You can’t walk down the aisle by yourself.”
“Sure, I can. It doesn’t feel right for anyone else to walk me down with my dad being gone.” A silence falls over the room, and I swear I see a tear fall down my mother’s cheek that she quickly wipes away.
“Where are you going on your honeymoon?” Poppy asks, changing the subject. Only Pippa knows about the secret honeymoon I have planned. Well, her and Eddie.
“Actually, I booked us tickets to Italy.”
Poppy grins. “You’ve always wanted to go there.”
“I know. I’ve been saving up since Eddie asked me to marry him. Then I just booked us a full week there. It’s going to be amazing! I plan on visiting Tuscany and seeing my favorite sculpture, the Apennine Colossus in person.”
My mother shoots me another wounded look.
“That’s your dad’s favorite sculpture,” she says, emotion clogging her throat.
“I know,” I whisper. “That’s why I want to go.”
Another tear trickles down her face, disappearing again when she wipes it away.
“Eddie’s not gonna like that shit,” Pippa rejects. “He’s going to only want to eat Italian food and stay in to watch soccer or something. He’s going to be a fucking drag the whole time.
“Do you always have to talk shit about Eddie? You used to be friends.”
“Used to be. Once he started dating you, he wasn’t interested in being friends anymore.
” She air quotes the word friends while shooting a look at her two cronies, both of them rolling their eyes in unison.
I think that’s the only facial expression they know.
There’s a vicious bitterness in her tone; one I feel the bite of all the way over here.
“Well, I’m sorry he pushed you away, Pippa. That wasn’t my intention. I’ve always been supportive of your friendship.”
“Speaking of which. I overheard you having a heated conversation with him the other night. What was that all about?” she prods.
“He admitted to fucking another girl the night we broke up.”
“Did he? Did he say who it was?”
“I didn’t care. We were broken up.”
Another fucking eye roll.
“Why are you asking?”
She paints on a smile, one mirroring Everette’s and Tula’s. “Oh, I just wondered if it was Jinafer again? That’s all.”
The thought of it being Jinafer makes my skin crawl. “I don’t think he’s that stupid.”
“He’s pretty fucking dumb,” Poppy agrees. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“He’s an asshole, Amber. I’m just sad you can’t see it yet,” Pippa states, smiling deviously just as a bell chimes, and in walks Tula.
“Time’s up. Please make your way to the eucalyptus showers.”
It takes me a full five minutes just to get out of the clay. The second we are out, it hardens to my body, making it impossible to walk. Mallory and Poppy joke about being clay monsters while making growling sounds as they waddle across the room.
Pippa has completely stopped talking, and her two friends decided that they didn’t want to hang out anymore and ditch us completely. Now it’s just the five of us. My mother still barely speaking to me.
Pippa shut down immediately after talking about Eddie. It makes me wonder if she knows more than she’s letting on? Does she know who he slept with that night? I feel like she would tell me if she did. Then again, she has been acting strangely bitchy lately.
Shrugging it off, I slosh my way up to the shower, embracing the strong eucalyptus smell like I’m bathing in God’s water.
The clay shucks off my body in thick clumps, disappearing down the drain.
I feel cleaner. It’s almost therapeutic in a way.
Under the spray, my thoughts wander to Eddie, and how I’ll feel being Mrs. Eddie Frazier.
Will he come home to me every night, plant a big kiss on my lips, and then whisk me off to the bedroom to have his way with me?
Our new experiments in the bedroom have me craving him like a drug.
I can’t wait to be his forever, and for him to call me his every day.
“Earth to, Amber. Did you hear anything I just said?” Pippa questions, snapping her fingers in front of my face, waking me up from the Eddie trance I was in.
“No, sorry. I was thinking about Eddie.”
“I said we have to get to the massage parlor, otherwise we will lose our time.” Reluctantly, I remove myself from the water, and grab my robe, enjoying how the fluffy fabric feels against my freshly washed skin.
“Did you get clay in your girly bits? I think I am still plucking some out of mine,” my mother asks, making a fool of herself as she marches across the room. I laugh as she reaches up under her robe and nonchalantly picks a major wedge from her crack.
“Your mom can be so embarrassing sometimes,” Pippa whispers before plastering on another fake smile. “We didn’t need to know that, Mrs. Collins.”
My mother’s oblivious to Pippa’s insult. She’s too busy shaking the last bits of clay out of her vagina.
“Be nice, Pippa. You’re the one who invited her.”
“I know. I know. Sorry for that. She’s barely said two words to you.”
Shrugging, I reluctantly defend her by saying, “It is what it is. We haven’t had the greatest relationship since my dad died.
So, she’s probably keeping her distance for a reason.
” Changing the subject completely, I add, “You know I thought the bath was going to be gross, but it was rather relaxing. Thank you. And the showers... muah, chef’s kiss.
” I pretend to do that chef kiss thing with my hands.
Pippa beams with pride. “I thought I might have to pull you out of that shower kicking and screaming with how lost in thought you were.
Tula suddenly appears in front of us. “This way. Follow me.” She leads us down a dimly lit hallway, with a series of doors that have erotic moans coming from behind them.
We all giggle as she leads us to the last two doors, and pushes me and Poppy in one, and Mallory and Pippa in the other.
“They are all yours, boys.” Two men dressed in black scrubs stand by a table lit with candles.
In the background, seductive yet soothing music plays on a cassette player. Yeah, they still exist, apparently.
“Did we enter a brothel?” Poppy whispers, causing both of us to giggle.