Page 59 of The Spice Play

Chapter 25

Nelly

With my head against the steering wheel, I sat in my idling truck, the hum of the engine music to my ears after I’d had thelifteror whatever it was called replaced. I’d paid a ridiculous amount for a full tune-up, using almost every bit of money from Sebastian that I’d put aside to fix it. I didn’t care that it cost more than it was worth.

But sitting here, outside the white mansion an hour from Atlanta, amongst the quiet of the South with the Spanish moss blowing in the breeze and the sun setting over the base of the Blue Ridge mountains, I felt sick to my stomach.

Why had I agreed to come to this?

I should have brought Rosie. I should have broughtanyoneinstead of showing up alone when I’d asked for a plus one. But there was no one in my truck but me, and I’d have to either go in there and put on a brave face, or drive all the way back with the knowledge that Morris and Ruby would be snickering about my failure to show up on their wedding night.

I had to tell myself it would be fine. Worst case, I could pass out a handful of business cards to any parents with little ones running around, even if the idea of taking on a new kid made my chest hurt far more than it should.

At least I felt like a million dollars in my dress.

Deep purple satin slid against my skin as I dropped down from the truck, falling in rippling waves around my feet the moment my heels met the cement. It clung in all the right spots, hugging my hips, my waist, my breasts, with a long slit up the thigh for movement and a hint of afuck youto Morris. I’d gone easy with my hair, curled it just enough to give it body but left it long and loose around my shoulders and down my back.

I just had to not vomit down the front of the dress, and I’d be fine.

Men and women exited their cars around me, some of them familiar faces and others ones I’d never seen in my life. I tried not to let it get to me that Morris’ grandparents didn’t even wave in my direction, but the lingering glance his grandmother gave me that turned into the hint of a scowl set me even further on edge than I’d anticipated.

Clutching my purse and popping a ginger chew to calm my nausea, I made my way through the sea of cars toward the mansion, my heart beating out of my chest and my feet just barely balancing in my heels.

The man at the door held a clipboard in his left hand and a pen in the other, a stark contrast to the tuxedo that covered his thin frame. I listened as a handful of people in front of me rattled off their names and used the dead time to take in the greenery and the willow trees, the way they framed the house almost like a fence with their wide limbs and hanging moss. Mom had always told me not to touch them because bugs would burrow beneath my skin, but itlooked so tempting now — or maybe I was just that desperate to do anything other than this.

“Name?”

“Penelope Moreno,” I said. “Or Nelly. Not sure what they put me down as.”

His pen moved down the paper, scanning the page for my name, and for a horrifying second, I worried that they’d purposely left my name off to drag me all the way here just for the humiliation — but then he ticked a box and nodded, and someone just inside the doors holding a small gift bag ushered me forward, thrusting the bag into my hand.

The halls of the mansion were decorated to the nines with walls and walls of baby’s breath and deep blue drapery. I almost fully stopped in the middle of the walkway as I took it all in.

The music, the decorations, the styling… it was all wrong. All of it.

Ruby was one of those girls who had been planning her wedding from the time she popped out of the womb. She had binders full of ideas, each one slightly different than the last, but there had been themes from the beginning that had never changed. Things that were non-negotiables. Things that she didn’t want, and things that were a must.

She hated baby’s breath. The stench of it made her nauseous to the point of me making sure I never had any around when she was over, but it was everywhere here, lining the hallways and capping the end of every seat along the aisle.

She wanted deep, natural greens for her wedding, but blues and burgundies littered the space instead.

She’d wanted a pianist at the ceremony, but from the looks of the room, there was a harpist set up and no piano in sight.

And the more I thought about it, the more it came back to me. She’d gone far enough to have picked out a venue far before she’d even met Morris, and this place was nothing like it. She’d wanted historic, and this was a new building. She’d wanted the beach, and this was the mountains. She’d wanted cocktails, but all I could see were cans and bottles of beer and glasses of wine.

These weren’t her choices. These were things Morris had floated by me when we’d started wedding planning.

A part of me almost felt sorry for her. How much of this had she been able to decide on? How much had she let him decide for her? How much did he insist on controlling every aspect of this just like he’d controlled me?

A twinge of guilt hit me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs as I picked up a glass of red wine from a tray. I’d introduced them. I’d set her on this path. And as horrible as all of it had been, as much as she’d betrayed me, no one truly deserved to have to deal with that.

But she’d made her choices. She was feistier than me. If she was choosing to let Morris walk all over her, then that was what she wanted.

I hovered by the doors that led into the ceremony space. No one else was sitting down yet, and if I wanted to not stick out like a sore thumb, staying standing and off to the side was my best bet. But I knew it was only a matter of time before someone recognized me, before someone wanted to speak to me, before?—

“You came?”

That voice sent a chill down my spine.

---