Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I knew that my wedding to Radimir was fake. But it couldn’t hurt to take a look...right?
I edged nervously inside, down a hallway...and emerged into a huge, warm ballroom lit with fairy lights.
I looked around, stunned. It was a wedding paradise!
There were caterers offering free canapes. There were entire stalls devoted to stationery and others to tableware. One big area was given over to wedding cars, everything from a vintage Rolls Royce and a 1950s Cadillac to modern limos and supercars. A string quartet was playing in the corner and wedding bands were offering up headphones so you could audition them. There was a guy who’d carve you an ice sculpture of the two of you for your wedding table and a woman with a guitar who’d write you a song about how you met.
Someone offered me a glass of Prosecco and I wandered deeper. There were photographers and videographers. There were wedding dresses—so many wedding dresses! —and bridesmaid’s dresses and groom and usher’s suits and even mini-suits in case you wanted your dog to be the ring bearer. There were at least twenty different wedding cakes to try, and cupcakes and chocolate fountains and travel companies selling honeymoon packages…
At first, I just wandered around, stunned. But then someone gave me a free tote bag and once I had a place to put things, I thought I might as well take a pamphlet for this gorgeous country mansion that was offering itself as a wedding venue. And that kind of broke the seal and suddenly I was trying cake samples and wedding bands and having in-depth conversations about stationery. That wedding fantasy I’d had ever since I was a kid started to come alive as I painted in every detail.
Then the lead guitarist of the band I was talking to asked, “Do you know what you’d like for the first dance? Most people pick the first song they ever danced to, or the song that was playing when they met.”
I’d been buzzing and glowing, somewhere up near the ceiling. It felt like he’d grabbed my ankle and slammed me down to the floor, leaving my stomach behind. We don’t have a song, I screamed at myself. Because it’s just a fake wedding you fucking, fucking idiot. It’s just to get a marriage certificate, it’ll be in a courthouse with Radimir’s brothers there to make sure I don’t escape—
“I’m sorry, I made a mistake,” I mumbled to the guitarist, and turned and tried to run out of there. But the aisles were blocked by happy, excited brides and now I could feel the tears prickling at my eyes, my vision swimming with them, and I tried desperately not to blink. As I threaded my way through the crowd, my chest started to tremble and now people could see, and they were all looking at me in sympathy and that made it a thousand times worse—
As I plunged into the freezing night, a big, heaving sob broke through and I doubled over and just howled, grabbing onto a railing for support. How could I be so utterly, pathetically stupid? How could I forget what this really was? It was snowing again but the cold wasn’t enough to cool my face: my tears burned my eyes and made scorching rivers down my cheeks. I cried for all the years to come, trapped in a loveless marriage to a monster. And I cried because now I’d never have it for real: I’d never know what it was to be loved by someone so much that they want to spend their life with you.
People were looking. I used the cotton tote bag to wipe my eyes and then I marched off through the snow, trying and failing to make my face an impassive mask, like one of the Russian wives.
When I got back to the penthouse, I stuffed the tote bag and all the pamphlets I’d collected into a drawer and slammed it shut.
26
BRONWYN
I hadn’t had the nightmare for three nights. I’d been hoping that meant I’d finally shaken it off and left it to die in Baba’s apartment. But that night, as I lay sleeping in the penthouse, it caught up with me.
It was a beautiful Fall day and the trees outside our house had formed a rustling, gold-and-scarlet canopy overhead. Already, the sidewalk was ankle deep and just the whump of me slamming the door of Baba’s Volvo made another few leaves drift down.
The drapes were still closed, even though it was past nine. “We’re a little early,” muttered Baba. “They may still be asleep.” It was Sunday and dad did like his Sunday morning lie-ins, sprawled on his back, shaking the house with his snores. She ruffled my hair. “Want to go to the park for a little while?”
I grimaced. “I need the bathroom.” Then I thought of something and grinned. “Give me your key, I’ll sneak up and surprise them.”