Page 37 of Lie With Me
“I have a meeting with the committee for the Preservation of the Monarch Butterfly, Weylan. You know I don’t like to be late for these things.”
“Why don’t we just order? Hopefully, she gets here soon. Tripp, that okay with you?” Pops asks.
Valentina’s words from last night come back to me, about her eating when she feels safe, and I know that this isn’t going to be one of those situations. Quickly, I message her again.
Where are you?
“Yeah, we can order, that’s fine.” Picking up the menu, I try to assume what she will want to eat while Mom waives our server over.
Mom and Pops order quickly, and when the man turns to me, I shake my head as I stare at the menu cluelessly. “I’ll take the French toast, she’ll have…I guess just bring her an egg white omelet and turkey bacon.”
“You guess? You’re engaged and don’t know what she’ll eat?” Mom snips.
Lenni’s name flashes across my screen, showing up as Viv as she finally responds to my messages.
Relax. I’m not THAT late. About to walk in.
“Do you order the exact same thing every timeyou eat, Mother? She’s walking in now.” No sooner than the words leave my mouth, Lenni appears around the corner, looking like a siren in a sea of flounder.
Breakfast at The Palm Court consists of hoity-toity families and women whose structured dresses and tightly pinned hairstyles screamI think I’m better than you. Cookie-cutter clones of my mother all swing their heads in Lenni’s direction as she weaves her way through the tables dressed in a pair of bright pink stilettos, distressed skinny jeans, and a top that looks like lingerie underneath an oversized black blazer. Her wavy hair is down and flipped to the side in a manner that looks like she just got done having sex, and I wish more than anything at this moment that I could parade her right back out to my town car so we can do precisely that.
Standing, I draw my parents’ attention to the woman walking toward us. “Glad you could make it,” I tell her before pressing my lips to hers and speaking lowly, “you’re in so much trouble.”
“I’m fifteen minutes late. What’s the big deal?” she whispers against my lips before pulling away. “Margo! Weylan! So nice to finally meet you!”
Lenni drops her purse in the empty chair that’s clearly meant for her, before rounding the table to pull my mother into a hug and then doing the same with pops. Mother seems affronted, but Pops beams at her as she sits beside me. “Nice to finally meet you, Valentina. When Tripp told us about the engagement,we could hardly believe he hadn’t brought you home yet.”
“Well, things moved kind of quickly between us, we’ll admit. We plan on having a long engagement, though, at least not worrying about the wedding until after Jackson and Ginny tie the knot,” she says as she loops her arm through mine and lays her head on my shoulder.
“That’s barely six weeks away. Surely you’ll wait longer than that to start planning?” Mother asks.
Before I can say anything, Lenni answers, “Oh, I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t need a big wedding. I’m thinking something small and intimate. Maybe just us, Jackson, and Ginny at the courthouse. Of course, you’re more than welcome to come if you’d like.”
I try to hide my smile at the look on my mom’s face as she reaches for the strand of pearls she’s wearing; her skin growing red as she struggles to keep her mouth shut at Lenni’s exclamation.
When she finally speaks, she says, “Well, at least let us throw you an engagement party. That’s the least you could do if you’re not going to have a wedding.”
The server chooses that moment to appear with our food, setting down my parents’ dishes before ours.
“Oh, baby, you got me French toast. Thank you!” Lenni gushes as she switches our plates.
Pops laughs as she asks the server to bring her amimosa. “Got yourself a handful here, don’t you, Son?”
“Oh, he has no idea. And, Margo, if you’d like to throw us an engagement party, we’d love that. Wouldn’t we, babe?” Lenni takes a large bite of my French toast as I stare down at the bland omelet I ordered her.
Picking up a piece of turkey bacon, I bite the end off and look up to find myself trapped in my mother’s steel gaze. She’s completely ignoring her frittata and watching Lenni’s and my interaction like a scientist observing a mouse in a maze.
“Yes, Mom. We would love that.” My arm winds around the back of Lenni’s chair as she happily eats her food and pulls Pops into a conversation about his work. It was never a question of whether or not she’d be able to charm him.
Fooling Mom, however, looks like it will be harder than I thought.
“Well, I think that went well.” Lenni sips her mimosa, relaxing in her chair after my parents leave.
“You call that well?”
“I told you, I wasn’t aiming for her to like me. I thought the no big wedding was genius, too. Nothing to get too involved in, you know? I couldn’t really read her, though. Like, she didn’t want us to plan a wedding but then was visibly distressed when I saidI didn’t want one. She’s gonna be tougher than I thought,” she voices my earlier thoughts.
Her attitude is different than it was when she left my place last night. She’s acting more flippant—colder toward our situation than she’s been. The entire morning, she made small talk with my parents cheerfully, but the moment they left, it was almost as if the mask she wore for them slipped off immediately.