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“Including the historical mansion in your town, there’s my primary home in the Marina District in the San Francisco Bay, then there’s one in Vail, one in Bermuda, this one, one in Florence, another one in Versailles, and you get to choose the next one. I know you like New Zealand, but since I’ve never been, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
I could feel her watching me as I treaded water. “Stop showing off that you know me so well. Give me twenty-four hours, and I bet I will know you as well.”
“But why would you bother if you’re not going to say yes to the dress?”
“You knew I was going to say yes before you started all this, didn’t you?” Until she said it, I really hadn’t been sure, but her words made my heart skip a beat.
“Of course, I knew. We were made for each other.”
“So, when should we do it?” She sounded like she was making a business deal. Scared little girl!
“The sooner the better. You’ve already got a wedding planned, haven’t you? Only, I think we should go to New Zealand for our honeymoon since that is your favorite place.” She didn’t say anything, so I carried on.
“We’ll stay here the first night so you can spend time with your family before they go back home as you’d planned if that’s what you want.” Personally, I think she wanted her family here on the first day of her honeymoon because she wasn’t looking forward to being alone with the idiot who’d cheated on her. I don’t expect to have that problem.
ALYSSA
I can’t believe I’m actually talking about doing this; this is nuts. I had no intention of giving in to him, but Mom had gotten into my head. Simply put, since I was willing to marry someone I wasn’t in love with and was barely attracted to in the last year or so, what was wrong with marrying someone I had more of an interest in since the day we met?
My inner voice wanted me to take things slow and not put myself in a position to get hurt, but there was another part of me, the part that I had fought so hard to tame during my many years of meditation, that was screaming to do it.
He knew everything about me. That’s the one thing that keeps sticking out to me. He knew, and he wasn’t running scared. He knew, and there was no judgment from his end. He knew, and he still wanted to marry me. Yeah, with our genes, our kids ought to be a delightful bunch. Nuts!
ALYSSA
I’m through with his stalker ass, now that’s enough. After our evening swim I was directed to the bathroom in the master suite while he went off to another one somewhere in the house. It was then I noticed my favorite brand of shampoo and conditioner, the soap I love but can only afford three times a year because it’s so damn expensive. I was saving to buy a house in a couple of years without a mortgage, thank you very much.
But what sent me over the edge was the music that piped through the speakers ten seconds after I got into the shower. I know for a fact that there is no way his PI or whoever he’d set on my ass could have no way of knowing my favorite songs.
I washed my hair and tried to remember if I had ever filled out a survey or something giving away this information. He wasn’t back by the time I was done, so I sat at the vanity with the hair dryer and brush and set my phone down in front of me.
I hadn’t forgotten my little side hustle after all. Now, before I left home, I had canceled Helen’s and Mitzie’s plane tickets as well as having Mitzie arrested at the airport because of the warrants for her many traffic tickets. I’d also taken my Dad’s phone while he was preoccupied and blocked both of them while I was at it, so there was no way for them to get in touch.
Now, I wanted to see the aftermath, and for that, I opened their Ring app, which I still have access to because I was the one who set it up for Dad about a million years ago. I don’t think, in fact, I know; he doesn’t realize that I have access.
I had to go back hours to find her return home and the massive meltdown she had on screen while she tried to call Dad over and over again. I knew she had to be out of her mind right about now, so I went to the live stream after watching the worst of her freakouts, and she was still pacing back and forth in their living room, trying to get through to Dad in between cussing him out to whoever would listen on the other end of her phone.
Her biggest gripe, which I foresaw, was that Dad was alone with Mom and his kids, but mostly Mom, but after everything Mom had shared, I now understood her years of hatred. She had to threaten Dad to stay with her and it must gall her to know that he wanted to go back to Mom and us when he did.
I looked through the photos my brothers and I had taken with Mom and Dad throughout the afternoon once we landed here and got to work with a little photoshopping. By the time I was through, it looked as though Mom and Dad were standing with their hands around each other. Now, it was my body and Mom’s head, but since we’re about the same size and height, she’d never be able to tell.
Once my masterpiece was finished, I posted it to my social media, after blocking my entire family for reasons with the caption, look who became best friends again. Since I know both she and her daughter stalk my pages as if I have the answer to life, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she got the notification.
I watched her on the screen and almost fell off the stool laughing when she screamed and threw her phone across the room. I removed the picture immediately, of course, and unblocked my family after uploading the original. If she makes a comment, she’d be looking crazy.
She picked up the phone and made sure it was working, then stormed off out of view. She’s going to be even more pissed when she realizes that there’s no money in her joint account with Dad except for the twenty dollars I left her after severing her access to his accounts. My work was done for the night.
“Are you done?”
“Done what?” He walked into the bedroom after I got dressed and was ready to go. He just smirked at me and held out his hand, and like an idiot, I took it. “Done what?”
“With your shower, of course. I suppose you’d like to return to the resort. Your family will have a lot of questions. Since you’ve already got everything set up for Saturday, I guess there’s nothing left to do as far as the wedding.”
“Yeah, there is, your name is not Denny Sharpe.”
“Ah, you’re referring to the license, of course. Now ask yourself, why would I pay thousands of dollars for a dress and forget to take care of the most important detail?”
“You got a marriage license.”
