Spicy Ever After

Chapter 1

Chapter One

HATTIE

When you really love something, you get to notice all the little details about it that most people miss.

I draw out the tail and rub its silkiness between my thumb and index finger and sigh.

Quality thread. Was there ever a love so pure?

Slotting the spool onto the horizontal pin first, I slip on the pin cap and weave the thread around the tension disk. Then I angle the thread tail through the eyehole of my 15J bobbin.

As quietly as possible, I press the little plastic disk down onto the bobbin winder and then notch it into position.

I flip the power switch on my Singer 7228 and get a little thrill when the needle buzzes awake and centers itself.

But this.

This is my favorite part.

The part when I press the foot pedal and the bobbin winder whirs to life. The hum of the machine touches everything. My desk. The floor. The pedal under my foot. My lips and fingertips.

The paprika thread blurs as it cycles up and down the spinning bobbin. I watch, mesmerized.

Time stops. And even better than that, my mind stops too.

As if—

“Hattie! Is that your sewing machine?!”

Mom is screeching.

Right outside my bedroom door.

My foot springs off the pedal.

I don’t answer. Answering isn’t required.

“Are you dressed yet? We’re leaving in FIVE MINUTES.”

I glance at my bedside clock and shake my head. We are leaving in fifteen minutes. Mom always lies about what time we’re leaving.

“Did you hear me? FIVE MINUTES.”

Is she serious? Of course, I heard her. The astronauts on the Space Station heard her.

Looking down at my body, I sigh again. But not the same way I sighed in ecstasy when I rolled the paprika Aurifil thread between my fingers.

I am wrapped up in my bamboo silk robe. Dressed, yes, but not in the scratchy, tulle skater dress with the cap sleeves that pinch my arm fat and the waist that could double as a tourniquet.

I open my mouth to answer Mom, but she’s yelling again.

“Did you hear me, Harriet? Are you dressed?”

Because yelling hurts worse to do it than to hear it, I get up and march to my shut and locked bedroom door, leaning close to the sill.

“Yes,” I state evenly. “I am dressed.”

“Well? Can I see how it looks?”

I frown. “It’s my robe. You know how it looks.”

“You’re still in your robe?!” Mom’s volume climbs. I take two steps back from the door. “Hattie, why aren’t you dressed?”

“I am. It’s just my r—”

“Harriet, I don’t have time for semantics. You know what I mean! Put on that dress. Right now.”

Without answering, I turn and glare at the vicious dress that is currently hanging from my bathroom door.

In my mind’s eye, I retrofit the dress with a wrap-front or an A-line or, if I’m dreaming, maybe even a tent-style design. I swap its silver sage color for garnet or violet. Something that won’t make me turn yellow.

And, of course, I replace the godforsaken tulle with voile.

“Hattie??”

“Hang on, Mom.”

“What?” she bellows.

But I ignore her, pluck the tie on my robe, let the garment pool at my feet, and sigh again. Naked except for my Chantomoo slippers, I turn and catch my reflection in the mirror.

I stop and stare.

My breasts are heavy. My stomach soft. My arms and legs and bottom are a study in geometry. Slopes and curves. Every inch of me is the color of risen dough.

I look delicious, I think, suddenly craving a yeast roll.

I sweep a handful of wavy hair over my shoulder, admiring the way the rich color stands out against my skin.

On second thought, maybe I’m craving a cinnamon roll.

I gently rake my fingers through my hair and let my waves slip between them until I hold onto just a few strands. I rub them between my thumb and index finger the way I did with the Aurifil thread.

“Golden toast. Cinnamon. Copper Brown,” I rattle off the shades on the Italian thread maker's color card that most closely match the strands between my fingers. “Why couldn’t Margaret have picked Copper Brown as one of her wedding colors?”

“What did you say?”

Mom’s bellow yanks me out of my color haze, and I bounce my gaze around the room.

Underwear. I need underwear.

“Hattie, open this door. We’re going to be late.”

I pluck a pair of boy shorts and a brushed cotton camisole from my dresser and shimmy into them.

“Harriet. Eloise. Mercier.” Mom cleaves off each of my names. I yank the dress off the hanger and squeeze my eyes shut before throwing it over my head.

It feels like pulling on a cheese grater.

IhateitIhateitIhateitIhateit, I silently chant, dragging it over my body.

When my arms are ensnared and my head emerges from the neck, I squint my eyes open. The reflection in the mirror looks nothing like a yummy yeast roll.

Nope. I now stare at a spooked turtle. One whose cozy shell just got swapped with a mattress coil. I turn my back on the poor reptile and shuffle to the door.

“Harriet? I’m warning y—”

Mom jumps back when I swing the door open. She flattens a startled hand against her chest. “Oh, thank heaven—Wait—Did you forget your bra?”

“No.”

I one hundred percent did not forget my bra. I never had any intention of putting one on.

Bras are worse than tulle, and that’s saying something.

Mom sags with disappointment, so heavily that even the peplum ruffle of her jacket droops. “Hattie, honey, we’ve talked about this.”

She’s not yelling anymore, thank God. Honestly, she just looks tired. I know this is my fault. Whenever mom looks tired, 47 times out of 50, it’s my fault.

But this time, I’m hoping she’s too tired to have The Boob Talk.

She’s not.

“Hattie—” Mom’s voice turns pleading as she winces. “You are too… well-endowed to go without a bra. You know this.”

Does she know that her neck turns red every time she says well-endowed?

“I go without a bra all the time, Mom,” I drone.

“Yes, but—” Mom smooths down the front of her suit jacket. Her own boobs have the restraint and decorum to fit into B cups. She has Honor Roll boobs.

My D’s will never make the grade.

Mom lifts her chin in the air. “Just because you do doesn’t mean you should. It’s not the right… look.”

I roll my eyes. “You can’t even see my nipples.”

Mom pinches the bridge of her nose. “Please don’t say nipples,” she whispers, sounding exhausted.

“You can’t see my nipples. I have on a camisole, and this tulle might as well be chainmail,” I tick off each reason Why. I. Am. Not. Putting. On. A. Bra.

She’s already heard my objections to the cut of the dress, the fabric, and the color. But because Margaret picked it out, it’s not really fair of me to enumerate those again for Mom.

Besides, it’s clear that defeat already weighs her down. “Fine. Fine.” She waves a hand. “Your grandmother will need to say the rosary, but I suppose Margaret and her friends won’t care.”

My sister definitely will not care that I ditched the bra.

What her friends think? Why would that matter? They’re not my friends.

I’m not sure why Grandma Eloise is going to the bridesmaid luncheon, but I know better than to ask. My mom is really good at getting things her way, but my dad’s mom is way better.

We arrive at The French Press fifteen minutes early, but my grandmother is already there. That’s a bad sign. What’s worse are the high ceilings in this place. The acoustics in here are brutal, and I didn’t bring my Loops.

Grandma Eloise rises from the balloon-festooned table to greet us. Grandma Eloise smiles like a shark.

I know. Sharks don’t smile. They just open their jaws to show rows of teeth. Grandma Eloise doesn’t have extra rows of teeth, just flawless, bleach-white ones. The corners of her mouth don’t lift when she greets us.

“Hillary, don’t you look lovely. And Harriet…” Her gaze sweeps me, her eyes bugging out when she scans my unbound bust. “My, my…”

“You can’t see my nipples,” I announce.

Grandma Eloise staggers back and Mom coughs before gripping my elbow, and it’s only then I remember that she asked me not to say nipples.

My face heats though it makes no sense why the word nipples makes Mom and Grandma Eloise look like they’ve swallowed rocks. Everyone has nipples. Women. Men. Even babies have nipples.

It’s the mammalian calling card, right?

I shrug, glancing down at the front of my dress.

“I might as well be a monotreme.” I look back at the two of them, and they’re making the face I’ve learned means more explanation is needed.

“Monotremes don’t have—” I stop myself before saying the word and instead gesture with my two index fingers towards my breasts with swirling motions.

Grandma Eloise’s lips pale. “Hillary, what is she—”

“Hattie, honey, why don’t you sit d—”

“I’m just trying to explain that monotremes are mammals that don’t have nip—” I gulp, catching myself just in time. “They still have mammary glands, you see. It’s just that their milk dribbles out onto their fur and their babies just lick it off—”

Mom yanks out a chair from the long table. The motion makes a terrible, echoing screech, and I cover my ears with both hands.

Thank God I’m not wearing a bra because raising my arms like this would be even more uncomfortable.

I read Mom’s lips when she tells me to have a seat.

I sit but have to stand up again almost immediately because Margaret arrives with her best friend, Camille, and then Merrick’s mom Ms. Alicia, and Merrick’s sister Brianna, and then Margaret’s friend Lacey, and then our little cousin Cecelie, who is going to be the flower girl, and so on until all twelve places at the long table are full.

I sit down and stand up thirteen times, and every time, I am hugged. And every time I get hugged, the cap sleeves choke my arms and tulle scrapes against a different part of my body. My chin. My cheek. My boobs with their invisible nipples. My thighs.

By the time the server takes our lunch orders, the restaurant has gone from noisy and echoing to deafening and inescapable. Like a gun range housed in an oil drum.