Chapter 6 The Wedding
10 years ago
Rain
I am standing here at the front of a church. My mom is standing up there with Derek. She’s dressed in a frilly white wedding gown, and he’s in a tux. I’m in a frilly fancy dress with a basket of flower petals in my hand, as I’m the flower girl. I see Zoey sitting in a chair in the front row throwing dirty looks at her father as she adjusts her couture gown.
Sade is in a tux and he’s standing up with his dad right behind his best man, a friend from work apparently. My mom has one of her work friends who is her maid of honor and standing beside her. So, I guess it’s all really happening, and this whole big change is smacking me in the face.
We moved into the mansion a couple of days ago. When I arrived with my mom, she gushed over everything, and I felt like a fish out of water. I was afraid to touch stuff in case it broke or something.
Derek took me to a room that he said they’d fixed up for me, and I thanked him. When he opened the door I almost puked. It’s pink, it’s frilly, and it’s very girly. There’s no way he asked my mom about this. I look to the side and I see her eyes get huge, so yeah, she knows what I think of this monstrosity. She gives me a look that says please don’t say anything.
I smile a plastic polite smile and say it’s great, and thank him again. Then he and my mom rush off to get her settled in the master bedroom with Derek. I step in and put my bag down on the floor next to the bed. I look at that frilly pink and white lace thing that is a bedspread or something, and internally groan.
The bed is white wood aside from the hideous bedding, and there are two matching nightstands as it’s a big bed, probably a queen. So, that will be a change from the small twin I am used to. There’s a white dresser, a white desk, and it has a pink laptop on it. I’m very thankful for the computer so I can overlook the pink on that, although I still internally cringe. There are two other doors, and I go check them out. One is a huge closet that is like the size of my old room, and the other is my very own bathroom. In here at least, there is just white tile and marble, nothing frilly and pink, so that’s cool. I’m extremely excited to have my own bathroom.
In the closet are hanging several uniforms for school. Derek got me all registered and my uniforms were delivered yesterday from what he’d told my mom. I would need to get my class schedule and locker information on the first day. I would be going with Zoey and Sade, and the driver would be shuffling us back and forth. So, no more bus riding for me, I honestly can say I will not miss that.
I am, however, not really looking forward to the whole private school thing. If Zoey is anything to go by, I most definitely will not fit in there. She hasn’t really made it a secret that she considered my mom and me gutter trash, and she frequently calls my mother a gold digger. I know Derek has reprimanded her some, but it seems the longer I am around them the dynamic between Derek and his kids isn’t very good. He doesn’t really parent them it seems. I might be wrong, but it seems like they all kind of go their own way. There are dinners in the evening, and there’s a staff that cooks. We have all been there but there’s not much conversation aside from Derek and my mom. They seem to talk to each other and kind of forget we are here.
That’s totally new for me. With my mom and me being the only ones in our family for so long, it feels weird to have her be focused on someone else, and her basically shutting me out. I hope this is just because it’s new and exciting for her, but we’ll go back to that comfortable mother daughter relationship we’ve always had before.
I watch as they exchange rings and vows, then they kiss, and suddenly the ceremony is over. My mom is now officially Suzanne Russo, so now, for the first time, she and I don’t have the same last name. That strikes me as weird suddenly.
I feel eyes on me and look up. Sade is focused on me again, and I look away quickly. He’s always watching me, like I’m under a microscope and he’s trying to dissect me or something. It’s extremely unsettling. I hope now that I am officially his stepsister, he’ll back off, and I won’t seem like such an oddity to him or whatever.
After we all walk back down the aisle, I watch my mom get all misty-eyed, and she’s smiling like a loon at Derek. We all get ushered outside to an area already set up for about a million photographs. One of them is just us 3 kids. They put Sade in the middle and have him put his arms around our middles. When he touches me it’s like I get this weird buzzing sensation along my skin and I shiver. He looks down at me and doesn’t look away until the photographer asks us to look towards the camera.
Then we’re driven to the reception that’s happening in some fancy hotel. We’re in one car and my mom and Derek are in the limo in front of us. When we get there, there are a few more pictures. There’s a fancy sit-down dinner, then the whole dance thing, and a cutting of this gigantic cake my mom picked out. It all seems so extravagant after the life we’ve lived. Maybe I should understand more that she’s had it tough trying to take care of us all on her own, and now, she’s cutting loose a little since the purse strings aren’t so tight. I just wish I weren’t one of those things she was cutting loose.
Then, all day, no matter where I go, no matter what I do, Sade is always there, always watching me. He doesn’t look away.