One
PRESENT DAY
That was never more apparent than when she held up the linen napkin and realized it was scalloped with what looked like lace.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered under her breath.
Angelique Fleury, Ofelia’s best friend, cast a sidelong look toward the napkin. “Problem?”
Ofelia had a lot of problems.
The music wasn’t loud, and yet it felt overbearing. A string quartet. How was that appropriate for a party that was supposed to be a celebration of love?
The food was all finger food, small appetizers, and crudité.
It was good but hardly filling. Where was the prime rib?
Where were the crab legs? This was not what Ofelia had talked about with her future mother-in-law, Madeline Sully, when the woman had broached the idea of throwing a pre-wedding party.
No, Madeline had wooed Ofelia with promises that she would choose all of the party accoutrements. That included the music and food.
Ofelia had asked for a DJ so people could dance and enjoy the party. Madeline had hemmed and hawed before ultimately agreeing.
Ofelia had asked for a carving station with multiple sides for food. She wanted people to get a full meal. She understood that seafood would be too difficult to eat at a park party, but there was nothing wrong with prime rib and a side of red beans and red skin potatoes.
She got none of it.
On top of that, Madeline had invited people that Ofelia didn’t know.
They were business associates of her husband, Zeke Sully, and if Ofelia wasn’t very much mistaken, there was a whole contingent of people from Ofelia’s mother’s social circle.
That is to say that Ofelia recognized a bunch of the faces, vaguely, but she couldn’t remember speaking to them more than a handful of times over the course of her entire life.
Marie Charles’ stamp was all over their faces, though.
“I have a few problems,” Ofelia gritted out.
Angelique angled her plate toward Ofelia. “The appetizers are tolerable.”
“Yes, tolerable,” Ofelia muttered. “That’s what I always wanted for my engagement party. Tolerable food.”
Angelique was a siren. That meant, on a normal day, she was the one losing her cool.
Sirens were notorious for having short tempers.
Long ago, when they’d first formed their friendship as children, Angelique and Ofelia agreed that only one of them could go off an emotional cliff at a time.
This was clearly Ofelia’s night, so Angelique was forcing herself to bite back her temper, even though she had a few choice words she wanted to say to Madeline Sully.
“We could leave,” Angelique suggested. “We could find a restaurant and get something good to eat. There are plenty of spots around the park that have amazing food.”
Ofelia considered it for a moment, then tossed the idea into the garbage … along with a lot of the appetizers, she noticed. Just because Madeline had taken over her party and ruined it, that didn’t mean Ofelia could be rude.
Okay, she could have been rude — it wasn’t as if these were her friends — but she knew she would never hear the end of it if she made a scene and walked out.
Heck, if she were quiet and slunk away, she would never hear the end of it.
And not just from Madeline. No, Ofelia’s mother would join in on the lambasting.
It would be a story that Ofelia’s future children would be able to recite on demand.
And her mother would demand it when she was feeling petty.
No, Ofelia knew that she had to hold it together. Somehow.
“What is that?” She eyed the lump of food on Angelique’s plate with distaste. She purposely hadn’t eaten before leaving for the party because she was excited about the prospect of a carving station.
“This, my friend, is a caviar brick.” Angelique smirked when Ofelia’s frown deepened. “I only took one, so I can say I ate a caviar brick. You know I’m all about the street cred.”
A chuckle escaped, and Ofelia was gratified to know she could still laugh. Then her scowl returned. “There’s no way that Madeline put anything on the menu that had the word ‘brick’ in it.”
“As in I’m going to crap a brick of fish eggs later?”
“I beg you to tell that joke in front of Madeline and her friends.”
“What joke? I’ve eaten three of them. They’re salty and gross and they’re sitting in my stomach like a literal brick. Yes, that’s right, my friend.” She knowingly bobbed her head. “It doesn’t just look like a brick, but it sits in your stomach like one, too.”
Ofelia was legitimately baffled. “If you don’t like it, why are you still eating it?”
“Are you kidding me? How many times do you get a chance for story inspiration that starts with ‘this one time I was eating a caviar brick’?”
Ofelia was determined to be a sourpuss — this party hadn’t gone how she hoped — but she burst out laughing. Angelique always knew how to lighten her mood. “What does it taste like?”
“A salty brick of poop.”
Marie, who just happened to be moving behind them at that moment, stopped in her tracks. “Angelique Ann Fleury,” she chided in an icy voice, one that Ofelia remembered from her childhood. “You do not say that word at an elegant party.”
Ofelia cringed. “She dusted off the middle name,” she murmured to her friend. “You’re in trouble now.”
Angelique might have been determined to keep from melting down — Ofelia had that honor tonight — but that didn’t mean she was going to let Marie railroad her.
She was used to how Marie Charles operated, both before and after her divorce.
Weirdly, as different as Marie was when she and Ofelia were kids, Angelique preferred that version of the woman to the one who had emerged like an evil phoenix from the ashes of her tattered first marriage.
“That’s not my middle name,” Angelique replied evenly.
Ofelia managed — just barely — to keep her eyebrows from colliding. Angelique’s middle name was definitely Ann. She knew because they’d made jokes about her initials being AAF and how it would be so much better if they were AAH, so it would sound out the noise a scream would make.
Marie blinked. Then she blinked again. “I’m positive your middle name is Ann,” she said finally.
“No, ma’am.” Angelique was as solemn as a nun on Easter Sunday. “It’s Yomama.”
“You mean Yoanna? Maybe that’s where I got the Ann part.” Marie was legitimately troubled.
“No, Yomama,” Angelique replied, refusing to catch Ofelia’s gaze. She knew they would burst out laughing if they looked at one another. “My mother’s middle name is Jemima. Make sure you call her that when you see her next. Her nose is out of joint because nobody remembers her middle name.”
Marie was many things, but she wasn’t an outright idiot. Angelique had taken it a step too far. “Young lady, don’t say the P-word at an upscale party.”
Angelique was about to start unleashing P-words that would have made Marie want to burrow into a hole and die, so Ofelia slapped her hand over her friend’s mouth to silence her.
“She won’t say it again, Mother,” Ofelia promised. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Marie didn’t look convinced. “This is your party, Ofelia. Why are you hiding over here in the corner like a spinster at a high school dance?”
“Why would a spinster be at a high school dance?” Angelique asked before Ofelia could respond. “Is this a Mary Kay Letourneau situation or something else I’m not aware of?”
“You’ve been funny enough for one night, Angelique.” Marie gave her a severe look. “It’s time to put on your adulting hat.”
“It’s at the cleaners,” Angelique replied, not missing a beat. She was just getting started, Ofelia knew, and it was too late to rein in her best friend. She wasn’t even certain she wanted to make the attempt. “Where’s the carving station, while we’re exchanging pleasantries?”
Marie looked baffled. “Excuse me?” She acted as if Angelique was speaking a foreign language.
“Ofelia was promised a carving station,” Angelique pressed. “She was promised stuffed mushrooms and a DJ. She was promised cupcakes, not … whatever that is.” She offered up a vague gesture of what looked to Ofelia like chocolate mousse in a crystal cup.
“That is the finest Mousseline au Chocolat in the world,” Marie shot back.
“Speaking of things that look like poop,” Ofelia muttered under her breath.
Angelique snorted, which only served to set Marie off.
“Don’t you start,” she warned her only daughter, extending a finger. “This party is for you, and you’re acting like a petulant child.”
Was that true? Ofelia was ashamed to say it was. She should have been grateful even if things hadn’t gone her way. She wasn’t paying for the party. This was something Madeline was doing for her. Before she could respond, however, Angelique took control.
“Oh, don’t gaslight her,” Angelique snapped. “She doesn’t know half the people here. You and Madeline set this up for yourselves, not for her. This is all about the two of you flexing. It should be about Ofelia and Zach, but it’s not. It’s about you.”
“I don’t think I like your attitude, Angelique,” Marie said snippily.
Angelique shrugged. “Weird, because I’m just getting started.”
ACROSS THE PARTY, ZACHARIAS “Zach” Sully kept shooting his fiancée, his almost wife, worried looks.
It hadn’t escaped his attention that Ofelia had immediately retreated when she got a gander at the party.
He’d been mostly okay with it despite how overblown it was when he thought Ofelia had signed off on all of the details.
He’d realized relatively quickly that not only was none of this Ofelia’s idea, but she’d been promised something completely different.
“I’m mad,” he snapped at his mother, who he’d dragged off to a corner of the park to whisper-yell at her without anybody overhearing.
Of course, a contingent of panther shifters from Baton Rouge was in attendance, and they would hear — they had that shifter super hearing going for them — but that couldn’t be helped.