Chapter 8
Eight
Becca
“Remind me again, why are you letting your parents railroad you into a wedding that you do not want?”
Quincy is not beating around the bush.
Before my final fitting, I’m meeting up with Quincy at a new place in town, Hummingbird Bubble Tea.
Convenient excuse to avoid the usual Saturday morning mimosas. I didn’t want Quincy guessing about my news before I had the chance to tell her. If we’d done our usual thing at Magpie, she’d want to know why I was ordering a virgin cocktail.
I give her the short answer. “Guilt.”
The long version is this: as the youngest child of three siblings, I’m the only daughter.
My oldest brother, Michael, married someone that our parents approved of right away—the daughter of one of my mama’s sorority sisters.
Brother number two, James, has a live-in girlfriend, Layla, whom he hasn’t introduced to the family, and he works as a park ranger in the Outer Banks.
Quincy knows all this already, so when I say the word “guilt,” it carries a lot of information.
“Becca. You’re not responsible for your mom’s happiness.”
I sip my black raspberry tea and chew on one of the tapioca bubbles. I’ve never had bubble tea before, and I’m still deciding if I like it.
“My mom never got to help with a wedding, so of course I said she could help with mine.”
“Help,” Quincy emphasizes. “Help is very different from what is happening here.”
“It started out as help, and then it morphed into all this,” I say, waving my hand around to indicate everything.
Quincy sits back and eyes me while sipping her honeydew and lime concoction.
My parents’ acceptance of Nico was enough for me to agree to accept their help at first. Throughout high school, they did everything they could to keep us apart. But once he graduated and got a job, and I escaped high school without an unplanned pregnancy, they decided that was good enough.
“When your rich parents come along and hand you a credit card to spend on whatever you like for your wedding, we’ll see if you don’t take it,” I say.
She lifts an eyebrow. “And when that credit card starts to come with strings attached, I’ll be handing it right back.”
My best friend knows how the games are played. Quincy and I grew up in the same type of environment. Our mothers were sorority sisters who married doctors who bought houses next door to each other on the lake just outside of town.
“It wasn’t so bad at first,” I explain. “First, it was just a lot of input. Then, the input gradually became harmless requests. The requests became strong suggestions. And then, those suggestions became conditions. This all happened over the course of a year, and it was almost unnoticeable until now, when it’s all smacking me in the face. ”
Her fingers dab at the condensation on the outside of her plastic cup. “Sure, and all the while with both Nico and you working your asses off, you were grateful for the help. What are you going to do now?”
“Tell you something else to blow your mind,” I answer, biting my lip.
Quincy’s eyes widen. “Oh shit.”
I blow out a breath and rub my palms together. “Well, it’s like this. I’m pregnant.”
My best friend shrieks. “What!? How? When?”
I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one else is listening, especially now that Quincy has gone supersonic.
Seeing my discomfort, she leans forward and lowers her voice. Way, way, lower. “Sorry. You…I was not expecting…” Her eyes fill with tears.
“We took a test yesterday. You’re the first to know.”
Her jaw drops as I explain about the missed doses of birth control.
The gasp from her has me glancing around the room again. “That’s why you wanted to come here instead of getting mimosas!”
My shrug is followed by her whispering conspiratorially. “I’m going to be an auntie!”
Not by blood, but I’m happy to hear her say that. Nico was right. This baby is going to be so loved.
“Thank you,” I reply, my voice shaking. “That means so much to me, Quincy.”
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “Are you kidding? I’m trying not to scream about it.”
“I appreciate that. And the other reason I wanted to see you is this: I’m so tired, achy, and stressed that I don’t think I can make it through a whole day orchestrated by my mother.
Would you come with me to the dress fitting?
Nico will be there, too, but I really need as much moral support as I can get.
I’m going to put my foot down about the dress. ”
Quincy lets go of my hand and picks up her handbag. “Let’s go, Mama.”
The dress studio is a short hike through a lush backyard full of ornamental trees and flowers. A rocky herb garden there, a koi pond over there. And over near the carriage house, a welcoming fire pit.
My mother is already complaining. “Very strange to make paying customers tromp through the wilderness,” she says as we pass through the garden gate behind Iris’s Arts and Crafts-style house.
Nico makes appreciative noises as he looks around, the kind of noises that tell me he’s getting ideas. Maybe inspiration for a backyard we might have one day.
Quincy is a trooper. “It’s worth it. Iris is the best in town,” she says.
My mother, who came here for the previous fitting, still isn’t over how unorthodox this is.
It’s like she doesn’t even live in the town where she and Daddy raised me.
She lives by the lake and sort of…exists here.
Not really a part of it, though. Mama gets her groceries at big chain supermarkets in other, larger towns.
She shops for clothes in Raleigh and Charlotte.
She vacations at the Outer Banks, but still has never seen the state park where my brother James works.
Maybe it’s the hormones taking over and making me dramatic, but a lump starts to form in my throat. She doesn’t really know any of her adult children. Not in any meaningful way.
“Let’s just hope I got what I paid for,” she says.
Iris meets us outside, looking flushed and happy.
“Hi everyone! Come on inside,” she says, opening the windowed door to her studio.
Nico puts up his hands. “Oh, I don’t want to see the dress yet. I’m just here for moral support.”
Iris is already prepared for this. “Of course. You can let yourself into the kitchen right over there.” She gestures to the French doors at the back of the main house connected to the studio. “There’s sweet tea and cookies waiting. Make yourself at home.”
Iris’s boyfriend steps out of her studio, then, and a look passes between them.
“This is Oliver,” she says, shyly. He gives everyone a nod hello.
Oh, we know who he is. The whole town was talking about the man from Charlotte who rented her carriage house two months ago and just…never left.
Oliver kisses Iris on the temple and tells her he’ll be back later. I cut my eyes to Quincy, who fans herself as Oliver walks away.
“That man is hot, hot, hot,” Quincy whispers as we follow Iris into the studio.
“You need to go get yourself laid,” I whisper back.
Quincy snickers and Mama looks back at us like we’re up to no good.
Inside the studio, Iris offers us champagne. Mama graciously accepts and looks at me sideways when I turn it down.
“We already had too much at brunch this morning,” Quincy explains away.
The fitting room is in the corner of a roomy studio that’s not so much a dress shop as a workroom with mannequins, cutting tables, sewing machines, bolts of fabric lining the walls, and patterns laid out at several different stations.
I step into the one and only fitting room, and Iris follows me in with the ivory gown, leaving my Mama and Quincy perched on the chaise just outside.
Iris holds it in place while I disrobe down to my shape wear and then step into the dress.
The seamstress expertly helps me with the sleeves, adjusts the skirt, and then begins with the zipper, hidden under tiny silk buttons.
It’s gorgeous work, but it’s just not me.
I’m dreading breaking Iris’s heart over it.
“Come on, honey,” Mama calls out. “Let’s see the dress on you now that Iris has finished the final alterations.”
The zipper stops halfway.
“It’s… a little snug,” Iris murmurs, her forehead creasing in the mirror.
My heart races. “Is it?”
Iris tugs again. The zipper won’t budge.
I suck in my stomach, hold my breath, but it’s no use. “It doesn’t fit.”
I can’t be showing yet. It must be all the extra chips, cookies, ice cream…I’ve been craving a lot. Mostly from stress, more than a very new pregnancy.
Iris is calm as can be. “Maybe I measured wrong. Let me check.”
When she leaves the fitting room, my Mama stands in the doorway. “What’s this whispering I’m hearing that it doesn’t fit?”
Quincy stands behind her, trying to think of anything to say that might help. “It probably just needs to be let out. You know how people’s size can fluctuate.”
Mama turns on Quincy. “Iris already altered the seams! That’s why this is called a final fitting.”
“I-I don’t know what to say,” I stammer, heat prickling the back of my neck.
Quincy, who is giving me a look that says, “Now’s your chance, sister.”
Suddenly, I can see it all so clearly. I need to cancel the wedding, not just because of the gown, but because our little family has to come first. We need time to plan.
We need to work more overtime while we still can, before our spare hours are taken up by dance recitals, soccer practices, and kindergarten field trips.
At the same time, I need less stress. We need to ease into this new life. And we need to do everything on our terms. No one else’s.
Iris returns with the measurements she took from the last fitting, and reports that these are the correct ones.
“I’ve gained weight, Mama. But I have a backup plan.”
“I’ll say we do,” Mama says. “I have these pills that I took right before my wedding. I think they’ve been banned in the US, but I can get some, I’m sure…”
I make eye contact with my best friend, and I find my strength.
What do they call this? Serendipity? This baby might not be far enough along to be the cause of me going up a size, not yet, but I’m definitely not going to get any smaller.
“Mama. I’m not going to be losing any weight.”
Mama takes a step back. “I don’t understand.” She whirls toward the seamstress. “There must be something you can do.”
Iris shakes her head. “I’m afraid the seams are already at their limit. The fabric can’t take another alteration.”
“Mom, please—I have a backup plan, but it’s going to have to wait.”
Mama’s voice sharpens. “A backup plan? How convenient. After all I’ve gone through to help you with this wedding…”
“You think any of this is convenient?” I shout. “I don’t think being pregnant as a newlywed is convenient!”
Iris quietly backs out, giving us a moment.
“Oh, okay. We’re doing this right now,” I hear Quincy say, pouring herself a refill from the bottle of champagne chilling on the chaise side table.
The unzipped dress hangs heavy on me, with its crystals, pearls and embellishments. The lace against my skin feels like restraints, and not in a fun way.
Mary Patricia Payne-Wright does not splutter. I do believe today is a first. “You…you’re…you’re not…p-pregnant?” She says that last word with eyes squeezed together, as if she herself is about to give birth.
“Yes, Mama. You’re going to be a grandma.”
“I already am a grandma,” she says flatly. Fair enough. Yes, my oldest brother, the golden child, already has four perfect children. “And now you’ll have someone else to love.”
Mama shakes her head. “I told you not to move in with your boyfriend. This is exactly what I was worried about. But your father said, ‘Mary Pat, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar,’ and I listened to him, and I let you move out, and I held my breath.”
Quincy and I exchange glances, telegraphing to each other. Yep. It’s the Mary Pat Wright Show now. It’s all about her.
As my Mama’s little rant continues, I take a seat next to Quincy on the chaise. She rubs my lower back, which is sweet, though it’s far too early in my pregnancy for me to have pain and discomfort there. Still, I’ll take it.
“…and I was so relieved when you got engaged because I thought, well, Nico isn’t my first choice, but at least we can get her to the altar and nobody will ask too many questions about the two of you living together.”
“Bet you really want a drink about now,” Quincy murmurs, leaning into me.
“Yep.”
“How long is this going to go on?”
“’Til she tuckers herself out, I guess.”
Iris appears then with the dress. The one that I bought. She hangs it on the hook inside the dressing room.
“No rush,” she murmurs. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Something about Iris’s steady presence stops my Mama in the middle of her tirade.
Calmly, I say, “Mama, I haven’t had a single say in anything that matters to me.
Yet you call me at work to ask about flowers and string quartets.
None of what I say actually registers with you.
I don’t think you understand that, and I don’t care about a church wedding or a country club reception.
I don’t care about champagne roses. All I want is a few close friends, and this dress.
This one thing I picked out the day after Nico proposed.
It’s what I want, Mama. Can you just keep an open mind and see what you think when I try it on? ”
“Rebecca Louise…”
“No, Mama. I’m an adult. I have been for a while. This is partially my fault for not setting a boundary early on. As soon as everything came into focus, that the financial help was coming with strings attached, I should have pulled the plug. But I have this other dress. I just want you to see…”
I could be wrong, but I think I see the fight drain from my Mama’s face.
“Let’s see the dress.”