“My sister,” I said.
“Your sister?” He held his smile. “I don’t understand.”
“Cassie was always the sensible one. I just thought about what she would do.”
“Sensible?” He shook his head. “I know your father said she was intelligent and always concerned about the family, but after what you said she did to you, I’m not sure I’d conclude she was sensible.”
I didn’t reply. I turned my back on him and put my glass on the bar.
“Well, none of that really matters now. I guess I’ll go up, too,” he said. “Lucille left a list a mile long for me to follow up on tomorrow while they’re away.” He came up to me and put his arms around my waist. Then he kissed me on the back of the neck. “Going up?”
“Not yet,” I said, still not turning around. “But don’t worry about me. You go on. You need your rest if you want to keep up with her.”
He laughed and let go of me. “She does have endless energy. Half the time, she forgets to eat lunch. Okay, but you get some rest, too. Emotional events wear you down.”
I turned to him, and he kissed me good night.
“Everything’s going to be great now. You’ll see,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
I watched him leave, and then I looked at Cassie, who had been standing off to the right the whole time.
She was smiling.
“Everything will be great now,” she said. “But he has no idea why.”
Family Planning
SOMETIMES DURING THE weeks that followed, I wondered if I had really gotten the better of Lucille. Perhaps Cassie hadn’t given me the right advice, after all. Like a swimmer caught in a current, Lucille realized it was wiser to swim with it than against it. Only by swimming faster than the current could she maintain her precious control.
Because I had implied that I might agree to a big wedding, she immediately began to plan it. Soon, there wasn’t a dinner at home that didn’t include some brochure, some new wedding idea, or some new design she had discovered for an altar. She agreed that it wasn’t necessary for our wedding to be as big as hers and Daddy’s, but there were at least five hundred people who should be invited.
“Five hundred people is not outrageous,” she said before I could object.
“No, it’s not,” Daddy agreed.
I didn’t object, and that soon led to a listing and discussion of names, almost all of whom I had no knowledge of. They were, in Lucille’s terms, “the core of our business relationships.”
Ethan had already given her his list of relatives and some friends from home he’d like to see invited. But that was only twenty names. I had no close girlfriends to ask to be my bridesmaids. Lucille’s solution was to suggest that I have some of the company’s most important young female employees.
“They’ll all be honored, and it will enhance the wedding to have a half-dozen or so,” she said. Of course, Daddy agreed.
Most of the time, I simply listened to the discussion without commenting. However, one night after dinner, I asked Ethan to do me a favor regarding our wedding.
“Anything,” he said. “What?”
“Ask my uncle Perry to be your best man.”
“Really?” He held his smile. He wasn’t stupid. He knew what I was doing. I was showing Lucille just how wrong she had been to replace Uncle Perry with Senator Brice. “He’s not really my best friend. I was thinking of George Samuels from back home. George and I were very close in high school and never lost touch with each other. You’ll like George.”
“Uncle Perry is my best friend,” I said. “In time, he’ll become yours as well, but if he’s mine now, he’s yours now, too.”
He nodded, seeing how firmly I wanted this. “Okay. I’ll ask him.”
“Thank you.”
“We’ll have to settle on a date, then,” he warned.
“That’s fine. You decide,” I said.