“That’s one hundred eighty thousand dollars for just the cake,” I said.
She laughed. “Well, one thing I never expected to hear from you was a comment on the cost of anything. Bravo. That shows you do have a bit of a head for business, but your father and I intend to be married only this one time more, Semantha. It’s a wedding for a lifetime,” she said. She pointed to the cake. “What I was thinking of doing is having the Heaven-stone Store emblem on top of this cake in jade like that or maybe silver. The Heaven-stone Stores are so much of who your father is, and I will be so much of who he is now, too. When you marry someone, you marry all of him, all that is important to him. What do you think?” she asked, nodding at the cake. “Should I have that one made for us?”
“I guess that would be nice.”
“Oh, it will be more than just nice. It’ll be the piéce de résistance, Semantha. Can’t you just imagine the guests circling and admiring it, taking pictures?” She laughed. “It will be the most expensive dessert most of them have ever had. This will be a wedding no one will forget. We’re having a twenty-six-piece orchestra. Your father is having a two-thousand-square-foot dance floor built, with multicolored lighting strung above it. We’ll have tents with tables all decorated according to the theme of love and union, and we’re going to provide the guests with a memento they will cherish and not just put into some box to forget. I have lots of ideas for that. We’ll be going to the wedding planners after the dress designer to work on that and see his suggestions for the menu. Of course, we’ve hired not just a wedding photographer but also a professional movie director to film the entire event.
“Regarding the menu, here’s what I was thinking.” She turned fully around to me. I smiled to myself. She was like a little girl turned loose in a toy store and told not to worry about any costs.
“There’ll be caviar and champagne, of course, a variety of at least three special soups, lobster in cream sauce with chopped truffles, as well as beef and pork filets and chartreuse of pheasant. Of course, there’ll be sherbet to cleanse the palate between courses, a wide variety of red and white wines, any possible liquor, and very expensive port for after dinner. I’m getting advice about the wine from a famous French sommelier. I think it’s important to provide a good variety at a wedding like this, especially with such a big guest list, don’t you?”
I nodded, but I saw she wanted a more enthusiastic reaction.
“Isn’t this exciting?”
“Yes,” I said, widening my eyes. “It’s very exciting, Lucille. I can’t imagine any wedding grander, except maybe the wedding of a king or a queen.”
She laughed at my obvious attempt to match her enthusiasm.
“I’m sorry. I’m overwhelming you with my passion. You must feel like you’re under a waterfall or being swept along in a great tidal wave.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, trying not to sound unhappy about it, but the more she talked about how she and Daddy were going to become one, the more left out I felt.
“Just try to ignore me when I get this carried away.” She squeezed my hand. And then she exclaimed, “Oh, it’s so wonderful to have you with me for all of this!”
She leaned over and hugged me, and I thought, Shut up, Cassie. None of your sarcasm and meanness. I’d love to be as happy as Lucille. Would I ever be? Maybe sharing Daddy and Lucille’s joy was as close as I would ever come, and if Lucille was willing to let me share, then maybe she wasn’t as bad as I had first thought.
Despite my fears about my losing interest and being dragged about, there was little or no time to be bored when I was with Lucille. We spent hours at the dress designer’s showroom. She had me try on the maid of honor gown immediately and told the tailor to make mine fit absolutely perfectly. I thought none of his suggested alterations would ever satisfy her. This was too tight; that was too loose. Why was she spending so much time on me? She answered that for me by telling me that any imperfection or mistake would reflect on her. “But,” she added, “I want this to be just as perfect for you as well. You’ll be in so many wedding photographs, memories forever.”
Finally, after one more adjustment, she gave him her approval. After that, we went to lunch at a French restaurant to explore some other possible choices for the wedding menu. She did most of the talking, describing all of the places she had been in the world, especially the famous restaurants in London and Paris and Rome, and some of the sumptuous meals she had experienced. I couldn’t imagine anyone having a more glamorous life, and most of that even before she was my age. Why had she been so blessed? She saw the envy in my face, and I immediately felt guilty for having a face that Cassie said was so easy to read that it should be in a library.
“Don’t be discouraged,” Lucille said, reaching for my hand. “You’ll do all these things someday, too, Semantha. I know you will. I’ll make sure you will,” she added, pressing her lips together and nodding.
“What does she mean by that?” Cassie whispered. “Make sure? Whose life is this, anyway?”
I didn’t ask. As soon as we were finished with lunch, Lucille marched us down the street to her beauty salon to get her hairdresser to study me and come up with a more attractive style. She ran through some pictures and then pointed to one and asked what I thought. It surprised me at first, because I would have thought it was more daring, sexier, than what she would like. When I agreed, she scheduled my appointment.
“Don’t mess this up,” she warned him. “What’s done to her is done to me.”
He looked sufficiently terrified.
Moments later, we were rushing to the wedding planner’s office to review suggestions for the menu and wedding mementos. She settled on Waterford flutes, which would be almost as expensive as the wedding cake. My mind was reeling with the costs, despite what she had said about this being a one-and-only second wedding for both of them. She wanted to think more about the menu, so she didn’t agree to as much as a single hors d’oeuvre.
After that, she surprised me by taking me to her favorite jeweler, where she had a graduation present waiting for me. I was speechless when the saleswoman brought it out to show me. She unwrapped the wax paper and placed it on the counter. All I could do was stare for a moment. My throat closed up, and my eyes burned with tears.
Lucille had obviously gotten Daddy to find her one of my better baby pictures with Mother holding me. She’d had it put in a solid gold oval frame that was connected to a solid gold base with the words A mother’s love can never end inscribed on it.
“Is it all right?” she asked me when I didn’t respond.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Lucille.”
“Good.”
When I turned to her, the tears began streaming down my cheeks.
“Oh, dear,” she said to the saleswoman. Then she hugged me and held me and whispered, “She’s passed her love on to me to give to you, and that is exactly what I intend to do. It’s a big responsibility, but I accept it openly and willingly forever and ever.”
I said nothing. Cassie was groaning and moaning in the back of my head, but I kept her from invading my thoughts. I wasn’t often strong enough these days to keep her words boxed up. I held on to Lucille, and then I let go and waited off to the side while the saleswoman put my gift in its box. I held it in my arms and followed Lucille back to the limousine.