“What about you?” Sally asked her cautiously. There had been no flowers ordered for her. “Are you carrying a bouquet?” She hadn’t dared ask Heloise anything about the wedding until then. Now she seemed to be on board.
“I’m not in the wedding,” Heloise said quietly, looking a little sheepish.
“You’re not?” Sally looked surprised, and realized she had never discussed it with the bride. She didn’t ask Heloise why. She knew. And so did everyone in the hotel. Heloise had made no secret of how much she disapproved of the marriage since it was announced.
“My father asked me to be his witness, instead of a best man.” It was more of a European tradition, but she had never confirmed it to him, and he hadn’t pressed the point. He was just going to be grateful if she came to the wedding, without expecting more. And even that hadn’t been sure. She had threatened not to many times. She thought about it then as she looked at Sally, and they were old friends, since she’d been a child. “You’d better make a sprig of lily of the valley for me, and I’ll pin it to my dress.” It identified her with the groom, not the bride, and was what a best man would have worn in her place, or a small white rose, but she preferred lily of the valley, which had been her favorite flower all her life. She loved it when brides used it in their bouquets. Natalie was carrying white
Phalaenopsis
orchids, which she said would work well with her dress and were more sophisticated.
Heloise finished up the details with Sally then, and both of them were satisfied. They had tied up a lot of loose ends that Natalie had been unsure of, and Sally didn’t want to make the decisions for her. Now Heloise had it all in good control and had made excellent choices. She loved weddings and was great at details.
And then she went upstairs to their apartment. She was on her lunch break from the desk. Natalie had just walked in and was lying on the couch, looking sick.
“Are you okay?” Heloise asked solicitously, happy with the subtle improvements she and Sally had made to the wedding.
“No. I’m a wreck. Did you see Sally?” She looked panicked, as Heloise smiled.
“Everything is under control. Don’t even think about it now. Just coast from here to tomorrow. What are you wearing tonight?” Heloise hadn’t even thought about it yet herself. She had never gone shopping for the wedding since she wasn’t sure she would go.
“A blue satin dress,” Natalie answered. “The flowers on the tables are blue too.”
“I know. I just reviewed everything.” She smiled. “Do you want a cup of tea?”
Natalie nodded, looking anxious, and smiled gratefully when Heloise handed her a cup of Earl Grey a few minutes later. Heloise was like a different person now and Natalie was impressed. Hugues had been right. Heloise had calmed down.
“I think this is what mothers are for,” Natalie said, after sipping the tea, which seemed to help. “Although mine never was. I had one of those uptight Main Line mothers who acted like we were strangers and had never taken her clothes off long enough to have sex or give birth. She was ice cold.” Heloise smiled at the description and thought of her own with her rock star life. “My father died when I was twelve. She put me in boarding school then, and I hardly ever saw her again. She moved to Europe, and had me over for a couple of weeks a year with my brother, whom I never got to see either. And she died when I was in college. It was like going to a stranger’s funeral. I never really knew her, and she had no interest in knowing me. I barely knew my brother till I was out of college, and now we’re good friends. He’s ten years older than I am, so he was older when my father died, but our mother was a total mystery to both of us. She should never have had children, but did because it was the right thing to do. And as soon as my father died, she got rid of me, and my brother had already been in boarding school for years, and I hardly saw him when he was in college. I have no idea what her life was like after my father died. I always wondered if she had a boyfriend. I hope so for her sake. All we ever talked about were the weather and good manners, and she played a lot of bridge. I was never on her radar screen except for a few weeks a year. So she wouldn’t be helping me do this wedding either, if she were still alive. Thanks for talking to Sally,” she said to Heloise, who looked pensive and was smiling at her. She was touched by what Natalie had shared.
“My mom is pretty weird too. She’s married to a rock star, I guess Dad told you. He does a lot of drugs and has a lot of crazy people hanging around. She loves it. She left my dad for him when I was four, had two new kids pretty quickly, and I was history after that. It’s kind of the same deal as your mother. She acts like I’m someone else’s kid and talks to me like a stranger when I see her. I hate going there. I see her about once a year, if it’s convenient for her, which it never is. I feel like she divorced me when she divorced my dad.” What she said was honest, and Natalie could see that it was painful for her, by the look in her eyes.
“That must hurt,” Natalie said sympathetically. It was the first time they had spoken to each other like human beings, and they shared an unexpected bond. The Crazy Mothers Club, as Natalie called it to her friends. Or maybe it should have been called the Lousy Mothers Club. There seemed to be a lot of those in the world. And they inflicted scars on every child they touched. Natalie had invested years in therapy to get over hers.
“It does hurt,” Heloise admitted to her, and, more important, to herself.
“I used to cry for weeks after I saw mine,” Natalie confessed. “It’s horrible to say, but it was easier for me after she died. She couldn’t disappoint me anymore. It’s worse when they’re alive and don’t want to see you, or do and act like they don’t remember who you are. I hated that.”
“I hate seeing mine too,” Heloise said. It was a relief to talk about it and admit the truth. She didn’t like talking about it with her father. Just hearing Miriam’s name upset him, and she felt disloyal to her mother when she told him how bad it was, so she rarely did. “It always hurts. And I always feel like the forgotten person when I’m there. Like I’m a houseguest or a stranger or someone she never knew. I don’t know how she could just walk away like that, but she did. She’s not so great with her other two kids either, they’re both brats,” she said with a smile.
“It’s all about who she is as a person,” Natalie explained to her, “not about something you did wrong or don’t have. It took me years to understand it, but people like that don’t have anything to give. To anyone. It’s only about them.”
“Yeah,” Heloise said as though a lightbulb had gone on while they were talking. Natalie understood it perfectly.
“I’ve always been afraid to have kids because I was afraid I’d be like her. And I don’t want to do to anyone what she did to me,” Natalie said honestly.
“I feel that way too,” Heloise said softly. “My dad was great, but it’s weird having only one parent when the other one is out there somewhere and doesn’t want you. I hated explaining that to my friends, although for a while they were impressed because of Greg. But he’s a jerk.”
“At least you had your dad,” Natalie reminded her, and Heloise nodded. And now she had to share him with her. But it didn’t seem quite so bad now. She could see why her father loved her. She was honest, sincere, and caring, and she tried hard. And Heloise also realized that Natalie had never lost her temper once in the past six months, no matter how badly Heloise behaved. It said something about her. “I hardly ever saw my father, and he was even colder than my mother,” Natalie added. “I think they both hated kids.”
“My dad is great,” Heloise confirmed. The two women looked at each other for a long moment and exchanged a smile.
“Thank you for helping me with the wedding. I’m really scared,” Natalie confessed. It made her seem so young and vulnerable that Heloise felt sorry for her. She didn’t seem like an ominous opponent anymore, just a lonely woman of very human scale who had mean parents and was grateful to have found Hugues. It was something Heloise could cope with, and not the Mata Hari she had feared.
“The wedding will be fine,” Heloise reassured her. “I promise. And if anything happens, I’ll take care of it.” And she was fully capable of doing so, with or without Sally’s help. She felt a bond with Natalie now after what they had shared. “You just relax and have fun. It’s your special day.”
“I had no idea weddings were so complicated and stressful to organize when I planned this. I’ve been in way over my head,” she admitted with a grin. “I never planned to have one, so I don’t know anything about all the details.”
“Weddings are not that hard,” Heloise said easily. “Decorating is much harder, and you’re great at that. This is just a lot of silly details. I love my apartment, by the way. You did a great job. All my friends are jealous of me.” She smiled, and Natalie looked pleased. They were getting a lot of housekeeping done that afternoon, throwing out the garbage, opening the shades, and letting the sunlight in.
“It was fun to do.” She got off the couch then and looked better than she had before. She would have liked to hug Heloise but didn’t want to overstep any boundaries. They had come far in the last two hours, and they both knew it. And she didn’t want to spoil it now by rushing Heloise or crowding her.
“I’ve got to go back to work. See you at the dinner tonight,” Heloise said as she put her uniform jacket back on and her shoes. “And remember, all you have to do is look pretty and have fun. Leave the rest to us. You don’t need to be scared, or worry about a thing.”
“Thank you.” Natalie smiled and looked touched, and a minute later Heloise left to go back to the front desk. Five minutes after that Hugues walked into the apartment and had missed Heloise completely.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised to see Natalie there at that hour, looking a little dazed.
“Trying to catch my breath,” she said honestly. “I just had a really nice talk with Heloise,” she reported, and looked happy about it.
“What about?” He looked surprised and pleased as he sat down on the couch with his future wife. He loved the idea that she was going to be his wife and could hardly wait.
“Our mothers. Mine wasn’t such a sweetheart either. I told her about it. And she talked about hers. Different look and lifestyle, but same kind of people. Narcissists. Women who should never have had kids.” Hugues agreed. He had been making up for it ever since, and he was sure her other two children would turn out to be disasters, or on drugs like their father. “It was nice talking to her. She’s a really sweet kid. She’s helping me with the wedding,” Natalie said gratefully. “She was wonderful to me.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she said it. It was a huge relief. The past six months of being the object of Heloise’s hatred had been hard. She had gone back to her therapist about it.
“I’m glad she came around,” Hugues said, looking relieved too, and then he leaned over and kissed his bride. “You look gorgeous, by the way. What are you doing now?” he asked as he took off his jacket.
“Nothing. Why? I was going to have a nap before tonight. And I’m having a massage at five.”
“Perfect. My three o’clock just canceled. I have a haircut at six. And I need a nap too.” He looked at her mischievously, and she grinned. And they rushed into the bedroom like children. The Do Not Disturb was already on the door. Their clothes were off within seconds, and he slid into bed with her and they made love like two wild happy kids. And she loved knowing that in one more day she would be his forever.
Chapter 19
THE REHEARSAL DINNER went off without a hitch, and Natalie looked lovely. She wore a short ice-blue-satin strapless dress with the diamond earrings Hugues had given her as a wedding present, which looked spectacular with her ring, and her mother’s string of pearls.
Heloise found a simple black cocktail dress in her closet and was sorry now that she hadn’t gone shopping, but it was Natalie’s night anyway, not hers. And she liked Natalie’s brother and wife, who was hobbling around in a cast with her broken ankle, and she liked both their boys. The younger was seventeen and just finishing high school and going to Princeton in the fall, and the older, Brad, was at Columbia Law School, twenty-five years old, and a strikingly handsome young man. They were seated at separate tables so they didn’t get much opportunity to talk, but Heloise remembered that he was seated at her table the following day at the wedding, and he had looked somewhat intrigued by her.
Both Natalie’s brother and Hugues made speeches, and her sister-in-law read a clever poem she had written about the bride and groom that came to the conclusion that they were the perfect couple, and instead of hating it as Heloise would have before, knowing what she did about her now, and her lonely childhood, she was touched and thought the poem was sweet and funny. And it was obvious that Natalie enjoyed it. She was loving every minute of all the festivities around the wedding, and afterward she went upstairs to sleep in the separate room where her wedding gown was, because she didn’t want to see Hugues from the rehearsal dinner till the wedding. He kissed her outside the suite, and then went upstairs to his own apartment, and Heloise went with him.
“Nervous, Papa?” she asked him as they walked into the apartment together. Normally, she would have liked it, but for the first time, it felt strange not to have Natalie around, and she almost missed her, after their exchange that afternoon.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he admitted. “It’s a big step for anyone, even an old man like me.” He had never in a million years expected to marry again, and now he was.
“You’re not an old man, Papa.” He looked young and handsome to her.
“Will you be my best man tomorrow?” he asked her, and she nodded. He really wanted her to be, and he was grateful that she was warming up to Natalie at last.
“Of course.” She still hadn’t figured out what to wear, but she had remembered a dress that she had worn to a New Year’s Eve party three years before. It was short and kind of a pale dusty gold. It looked serious and dressy, wasn’t too low cut, and it had a short bolero jacket that she could wear during the ceremony, and the dress underneath was strapless, which would be sexier when the dancing got going. She was planning to pull it out later and try it on.