Chương 4
“I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize to me today.”
“I was awful.”
“You were in love. It is a condition with poor hearing.”
Despite herself, Elena laughed.
The sound broke strangely in the open air, half a laugh and half a sob. Isabel pulled her close, careful of the veil and the crystal belt. Elena rested her forehead on her mother’s shoulder.
For several seconds, she was eight years old again, feverish and ashamed because she had thrown up in Isabel’s bed.
Then she heard footsteps on gravel.
Adrian stopped a few yards away.
Isabel released Elena but did not move aside.
“Please,” he said. “Just let me take you home.”
“You don’t live there anymore,” Elena replied.
His face emptied.
The apartment in Los Angeles was leased in both names, but the words were not about paperwork.
“I can stay at the villa tonight.”
“You can stay here as long as you like.”
Luciana appeared behind him. “That is enough.”
She had removed nothing. The earrings remained, the bracelet remained, the copied gown remained. She carried herself as though composure could change what everyone had seen.
“Elena,” she said, “I understand that you are embarrassed.”
Isabel made a sound low in her throat.
Elena raised a hand, asking her mother to wait.
Luciana continued. “But this spectacle is hurting Adrian. Whatever disagreement you have with me, punishing him publicly is cruel.”
The sentence arrived with such confidence that Elena almost examined herself for guilt.
That had always been Luciana’s talent. She could take the bruise on another person’s body and describe how much it hurt her hand.
“You wore my wedding dress to my wedding,” Elena said.
“I wore my own gown.”
“You copied mine.”
“I was inspired by a photograph my son shared with me. Brides do not own satin.”
“This was planned as a business announcement.”
Luciana glanced at Adrian. “Pietro is ambitious.”
“Pietro had your photographs.”
“I did not approve that presentation.”
“But you approved the dress.”
Luciana’s chin lifted. “I paid for this wedding. I offered this property. I introduced you to half the clients who built your little company. I have done nothing but welcome you.”
Bell & Marín had existed for six years. Luciana had introduced Elena to three clients, two of whom had demanded discounts and one of whom still owed money.
“You did not welcome me,” Elena said. “You kept moving the doorway.”
Luciana’s expression shifted. For a moment something frightened appeared beneath the offense.
Then it was gone.
“You are emotional.”
“Yes.”
The agreement seemed to unsettle her.
Elena looked at Adrian. “Did you give Pietro permission to use my name?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him I would probably agree?”
Adrian rubbed his thumb against the empty ring box. “I said we could discuss it after the wedding.”
“That is not what I asked.”
He looked toward his mother.
The answer was there.
A black sedan turned into the gravel lane. Isabel stepped forward and opened the rear door before the driver could get out.
Adrian moved closer. “Elena, don’t make permanent decisions in the worst fifteen minutes of our lives.”
She looked at his hand.
He still held the ring box. The white rose boutonniere leaned crookedly from his lapel. Behind him, Luciana stood in Elena’s dress, waiting for him to come back.
“You made permanent decisions slowly,” Elena said. “You just let me find them all at once.”
She got into the car.
Isabel gathered the veil from the gravel, placed it across Elena’s lap, and joined her. As the sedan pulled away, Elena looked back once.
Adrian stood in the lane.
Luciana had taken his arm again.
The driver asked for the address.
Elena opened her mouth and realized she had nowhere she wanted to go.
The apartment contained Adrian’s clothes, Adrian’s books, Adrian’s coffee grinder that sounded like a lawn mower. Isabel’s house in Pasadena contained the bed Elena had slept in at seventeen and a guest bathroom with decorative towels no one was allowed to use.
“The studio,” Elena said.
Isabel turned. “Your work studio?”
“Yes.”
“You cannot sleep there.”
“There’s a sofa.”
“There is a sofa shaped like a punishment.”
“I’m not sleeping.”
Isabel studied her daughter’s face, then gave the driver the address.
Traffic thickened near the freeway. Elena sat in full bridal silk while commuters moved around them in dented sedans and delivery trucks. At a stoplight, a boy in the back seat of a minivan pointed at her. His mother glanced over, saw the veil, and smiled.
Elena turned toward the window before the woman could see her expression.
Her phone had been with Marisol during the ceremony. Isabel retrieved it from a beaded evening bag and held it out.
“You have many messages.”
“How many?”
“Enough to start a small religion.”
Elena took the phone.
There were missed calls from Adrian, Luciana, Marisol, Tessa Bell, three vendors, and two numbers she did not recognize. The family group chat had produced ninety-one messages. Someone had posted a photograph of Luciana beneath the arch. Someone else had asked whether the gowns were intentionally coordinated. Adrian’s cousin had replied, Please stop sharing pictures until we know what is happening.
A message from Tessa appeared at the top.
Call me before you talk to anyone. This is already online.
Elena opened a browser.
The first image she saw showed her holding Adrian’s phone, Luciana in ivory at his side. The photograph had been taken from behind the third row. Elena’s expression looked colder than she had felt. The caption read:
Bride confronts groom and matching-dress mother-in-law at luxury California wedding.
Below it, another account had posted the final moment.
Then she can have the wedding too.
The quotation already had quotation marks, a dramatic font, and fifty thousand views.
Elena locked the phone.
“People are fast,” Isabel said.
“They don’t even know what happened.”
“They rarely require that.”
May you like
“I don’t want to be a story.”
Isabel looked out at the lanes of traffic. “That choice may be gone.”
