Chapter 50 #3
“What bus… I’m going to be your daughter-in-law, and you’re calling me your daughter’s training wheels!”
Anne had no idea she had become the straw that finally broke this camel’s back.
“Excuse me, but maybe you should give your daughter the benefit of a doubt when it comes to choosing the woman she wants to marry. I don’t know what kind of girls she was dating the last time you took any kind of vested interest in her life, but I’ve met a lot of her more recent exes, and they’re some of the smartest chicks you’ve ever met in your life! ”
Anne didn’t say anything, although her eyes furrowed and her cheeks froze in place. Jamie turned to leave, but thought of something else to say.
“It’s fine if you don’t like me, but you don’t get to make those kinds of judgments until you at least try to get to know me!
For fuck’s sake, everyone keeps treating me like I’m some sort of gold-digging child, when all I want to do is marry the brilliant woman I love!
Not that I think she got any of her brilliance from you, since God knows Etta never says anything nice about her childhood! ”
“Now hold on!” Anne was up, blanket flinging back and hair going wild. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I was not a bad mother! Who the hell are you to judge me, Missy!”
Missy? Missy?
“Wow.” Jamie didn’t know whether to laugh or chew this woman out. “Now I know why Etta never brought me down to meet you before. She conveniently forgot to tell me that on top of being an ass, you’re also condescending as hell.”
“Well, maybe I don’t take too kindly to having some girl I don’t even know come in here and tell me what’s what!”
“Some girl? That’s it. I’ve had it.” Jamie approached the bed as if her ass were suddenly lit on fire.
“I am not some girl. I am your daughter’s fiancée, and in six weeks I will be her wife!
I hate to break it to you, but I am not some fling she is having fun with until she settles down. I am the wild oats sown!”
“I… well…”
“Shut up!” Anne sat back in her bed again, although her face remained absolutely hell no.
“I take enough abuse as it is from the people she has to make money off of! I will not stand for it in my own family! Because, if you haven’t gotten the memo by now, Mrs. Coleman…
I am your family, and last I heard, you ain’t got much left! ”
Jamie knew she was burning this bridge before it was even built.
I don’t care. Holy shit, do I not care. Anne was not going to get away with brushing her off as Etta’s marriage training wheels.
She was the full two-wheels, made by an old company known for its high, long-lasting quality.
Etta would be riding her until she was dead!
There are so many meanings behind that. Jamie didn’t care.
It fit the kinky lifestyle that Anne Coleman would hopefully never know about, so help Jamie’s fragile ego.
“Take a good look at me right now, because even if you never bother to come see us, let alone come to our wedding, I want you to at least see what kind of woman your daughter has fallen in love with. So help me God, we might be having kids someday, so you better check out these genes right now!”
“Well…”
“Did you hear me? I’m not a fucking floozy. I’m your daughter’s fiancée, and I am going to be the mother of her children one day!”
Anne’s hard gaze told her to get out of her room, but at least she had finally shut up.
“You know what? At this rate, even if our marriage crumbles and she offers me a billion dollars to divorce her, I still won’t do it, just to spite you.”
“Get the hell out!”
Huffing, Jamie stormed out of the bedroom, too angry to face the rest of the dark bungalow. Nevertheless, she slammed the door behind her and left Anne to her misery.
Etta was leaning against the couch, drinking from the glass Jamie had left in the kitchen.
“Oh… shit.” No duh, they woke her up with that commotion. “I’m sorry about that.” Etta may not blush very often, but Jamie could make it up on her behalf. Like now, when she blushed so hard that Etta must have seen it even in the darkness.
Her figure moved languidly through the night. If she was angry, she didn’t let on. “Future mother of my children, huh?”
Jamie sighed. “Don’t ask me how that’s going to work, Signora Donna.”
Etta crawled back beneath the covers of the sofa bed before pulling back Jamie’s side. I’m allowed in after yelling at your mother, huh? No love lost, apparently. “Where did you learn to say that in Italian?”
Jamie got in bed, but only tentatively wrapped her arm across Etta’s chest. “I learned a lot of random things in Milan. Like how your ex-girlfriend probably didn’t want to marry you because she still had the hots for her old dorm roommate.”
Etta chuckled. “Now you’re deflecting from what happened in there by trying to make me think of… whatever.” Her hand stroked the spot between her ear and neck. Jamie was soon lulled into a sense of security she wasn’t sure was real… or false. “It’s almost working.”
“I’m sorry. Your mother must really hate me now.” Jamie was only a little sorry.
“Hate you? Oh, my sweet, sweet flower.” Etta rolled on top of her. “You’ve got it all wrong. She doesn’t yell at people like that unless she likes them. Because she only likes people that are worth arguing with.”
Jamie blustered in disbelief. “Likes me? Arguing? That was not arguing. That was…”
“My father used to trade verbal blows like that with her before he died.” Why in the world was Etta laughing over such a horrible thing?
“She used to say that she missed his ‘offbeat tone.’ I believed her, too. That woman isn’t happy unless someone is challenging her authority.
That’s why she hates the idea of having people wait on her and won’t let me hire more than the housekeeper. Says they aren’t worth her…”
Anne threw open the bedroom door and marched over to the sofa, nostrils flaring. “If I go to this wedding,” she began, checking the screech in her throat, “you better damn well promise me I’ll never have to go to any others!”
Etta made an OK sign and held it up to her mother. Jamie was too busy being frozen to her fiancée’s chest. “Not a problem. Like you, I am a one-spouse woman.”
“You better damn well be,” Anne mumbled, retreating to her room with a huff. “I ain’t got time for more than one wedding in a life.”
It all made sense. Everything made so much sense since coming to South Carolina.